Netiquette from the Future!

"As a note for travellers: Before planning your trip to another country, make sure you apply for a Geolocation Visa in order to surf from internet cafes within that country. Alternatively, you can also jump into your cybersuit and just enjoy the other country through Google Street View 3D Plus Touch. Google Street View 3D Plus Touch will only show you those things from the other country which are legal in your location, so it’s a great, risk-free and streamlined experience to get to know other exciting cultures." ("How to Access the Internet (a guide from 2025)")


I know this guide to internet access (from 2025...) is kind of a silly take on netiquette, but maybe it could be used in part to humorously introduce this code to a class. It made me think of the young adult novel, Feed, written by M.T. Anderson (another Boston local!). This book is a futuristic tale of adolescent love and self-discovery. Apparently, the average future teenager thinks "the moon sucks," and everyone is wired with a brian-feed that constantly streams advertisements, shows, music, and fashion every day



I think this book, maybe paired with a web-based assignment or greater task could be implemented well. Has anyone seen this book used in a classroom? It seems a great fit!

Journal Reflection 5: Multimodal Literacy, Web Design and Reading the Web

Ok, ok, I selfishly reviewed a site with a specific purpose in mind. Photonhead.comis a great resource if you're looking to buy a camera! This site condenses the essential facets of buying and operating...And since I’m considering buying a new camera I carefully viewed the Buying Guide and found it’s depth of information very helpful.



The design is as concise as the information presented with well-aligned and hierarchical embedded text links. Teaching, like web design, is very much about the delivery. The most satisfying part of our job is that we possess total control over the quality of our direct instruction. By taking some of the practical suggestions mentioned in the Williams and Tollett chapter, paired with the pedagogy of delivery mentioned in Garr Reynolds’ PresentationZen chapter, we have a means of meaningfully accessing the web and our classrooms in a way that promotes the active learning we strive for. Simple ideas ring with absolute clarity, they concisely convey the most precise points of any pedagogic ideal. To consider Reynolds’ conceptualizations like design, story, and empathy is to know what good teaching looks like. Of course Williams and Tollett, as well as Reynolds, focus their attention on fabulous web design and artistic framing, they approach their content areas with the seriousness and delicacy as a teacher might, or should, possess.


I know this blog, Reason #613, doesn’t fully represent my application of this understanding—I don’t have the time to devote to the minutia of web design! But approach is everything. The way we present our knowledge, ideas, and persona are conveyed in a multitude of ways. Digital literacies are real and need to be tapped by teachers and students alike.

Journal Reflection 4: Student Research and the Web

Thinking theoretically about the use of WebQuests in the content-area classroom,
I can see its value and its many implications. It seems a natural fit for a unit that teaches proper research methods and techniques as well as functioning as a creative platform that is student-directed (Oh, and teacher guided, too). I've been practicing...I'm building a "quest" on Elie Wiesel's Night, exploring characters, point of view, and making connections
with historical and historical fictional texts.

My first reaction was that it was a lot of work required to even get the quest up and running! I'm one to get lost in the minor detail work of animated boarder backgrounds but there's simply no time for these indulgences. The structure of the Quests often facilitates the process, however, laying the lesson out with clearly defined "tasks," "processes," and "checkpoints" to consider. I'm glad I've started this project now since I might try to use it in the Fall and I do not want to rush the process! Time-consuming, perhaps, but worth it to be able to try WebQuests in the classroom. Even as a minor station of a learning carousel quests help students effectively synthesize their understanding of the content materials and builds self-efficacy
in the classroom. It's worth a try!

"The Chaos" in the Classroom

"Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard,Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it’s written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe."

This is an opening excerpt from "The Chaos" a poem composed by Gerard Nolst Trenité in the early 1920s. This is a tongue twister even for native speakers and it highlights the oddities of the English spoken language. There are absolutely potential mnemonic devices to be built off of this piece. I was thinking of ways to incorporate technology with this piece and I think building an interactive site that features linked auditory pronunciations would be a good tool for ELLs to practice with. Even with digital literacies it is important to stress the phonemic/phonetic value of our language as a key to student use and understanding. Here is a site that has recorded the poem and offered timestamps on the challenging words to help readers follow along, but I prefer to use pop-up links or something more embedded in the text.

Journal Reflection 3: Google Docs in the Classroom

So I must firstly say I appreciated the link posted on our class Google doc. Reading the Tara Seale's guest post on the Official Google Docs blog was very illuminating in terms of getting a "visual" on what using Google docs in a classroom would look like. The comment thread also linked me up to another interesting blog, Educational Technology and Life, which featured author Dr. Mark Wagner's post on COPPA or the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (1998) and CIPA, the Children's Internet Protection Act (in progress). Both acts stipulate the rule and regulations of children's internet use--COPPA technically relating to schools and student usage. I found this insight into the laws that pertain to technology use in education to be a reminder that as teachers we must be careful monitors of the content our students access in our classroom.


That said, I found that my experience with Google docs to be enjoyable and familiar. In terms of their use in the classroom, I can see it's potential. Tara Seale's posted examples from her classes show that Google docs is great for sharing work as well as practicing the writing process--both individually and collaboratively (though by design it's all collaborative!).


I see some comparison with Google docs and Wikispaces in terms of what Lundin describes as “transparency (439)." Yet in terms of teacher monitoring, Wikispaces are immense fields of information. Each History page yields pages of reading material. Because of Google docs' "real time" editability the single draft is usually clearer and easier to scan. It's simplicity give me the opportunity to go paperless in the classroom while Wikispaces seems like more bulk. Maybe that sounds lazy. I do think Wikispaces are ideal platforms for student creativity. An online classroom Zine that posts photography, short stories, essay, poetry, etcetera, would be great fun and a great opportunity for collaboration. It may be a challenge for all students to access a Google account, however, and this prediction may make me consider some of the other sites with an educational agenda or background.

Summer Reading List: Proust and the Squid

I was recently turned on to a podcast called Brain Science Podcast, hosted by Dr. Ginger Campbell, M.D. of the University of Alabama Medicine, in Birmingham, AL.

I was particularly struck by episode 29 (PDF transcript) in which Dr. Campbell interviews Dr. Maryanne Wolf, author of Proust and the Squid and the Director of The Center of Reading and Language at Tufts University (Woo! A local lady!). In the interview they discuss Dr. Wolf's work, which includes neurocognitive research into the Dyslexic brain and the ways in which children learn to read.

Dr. Wolf also discusses her concern with the growing trend of digital literacy in conjunction with the dramatic decrease in critical literacy amongst adolescents. Her arguments are pointed and very heartfelt. Her dedication to children with dyslexia is certainly inspiring. Dr. Campbell also dedicated episode 24 (PDF transcript) to Dr. Wolf's book, which is certainly on my summer reading list this year!

Take a listen! And a Look!

I'll be following this blog:

My newest, most favorite blog in education, American Indians in Children's Literature covers a much wider spectrum of multicultural and socio-political issues in education than the name implies. Debbie Reese, associate professor at the University of Illinois, Urbana, gives us critical perspectives on indigineous people in a variety of texts and contexts. Her blog is a great resource for alternative texts and social events, so keep familiar with the sight if you want to stay current!