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!

Journal Reflection 2: The Blogosphere

Having attempted to blog several times before in my life, I found using Blogger familiar and direct for this activity. Though I could waste hours and hours manipulating my background colors, font sizes, and side bar links, this kind of "wasted" time is so much more rewarding than the migraine-inducing frustration I experienced with my wikipage. Blogs can be so much more streamlined and seem to have fewer glitches than the UMB wikispace. I also like linking this journal/blog to the wiki because it is refreshing for the eyes to move to a new page and format, even though both are very clean and easy to look at (I hope).

I think the overwhelming aspect of using blogs in the classroom is the amount of preparation a teacher needs in order for the project to be a success. As Knobel and Lankshear mention in "Weblog Worlds" there are many, many failed classroom blogs(p. 88). Scanning though the examples they cite it is clear that though teachers may have good intentions implimenting technology literacy practices in the classroom, they are unaware or unable to do the necessary establishing work in order for the sites to be successful platforms for discourse. What does a student learn by posting their "notes" from the reading? How do we create inquiry-based projects that will have exponential inertia once the discussion opens up?

The hurdle that concerns me the most is the idea that as a future ELA teacher, I must be concerned with my students' literacies in and out of the classroom. It is a fair assumption that most students are familiar with computers and are at least comfortable with a few aspects of the internet (Facebook, blogs, chatrooms). But as a teacher, I worry about cultivating their academic technology literacy. I want students to be able to "code switch" between how they interact in their personal online chats to their discussions held on the classroom blog or wiki. Transitioning away from out-of-school online interactions into a world of academic online writing and communication is certainly a new literacy. Starting out with the rules of the 'net, in addition to being the invisible "Big Brother" of the site are a start, but isn't it our job as teachers to also foster the use of academic language in writing? The blog format can be so informal and I'm afraid students may enter the site with this notion of blogs in mind. It seems like a lot of work on the teacher's part to ensure a smooth experience. And even then,without authentic student engagement (see: "helloooooooooooooooooooo...(89).") the online community will fall flat. And then what? Do we motivate our students with heavy-handed grading on blog dialogues? If it is utter mutiny then there is so much time and learning lost.

Yet we find hope in Kajder's words as she mentions in her concluding thoughts about online communities in chapter 8 of The Tech-Savvy English Classroom: "we need to believe that through the investment of our thoughts, our time, and our work, we'll come out on the other end with something greater (115)." And I believe this concept is the greater purpose and motivation of teaching itself.

The new angle of applied technologies and internet-based communities is another great tool for the teacher tool box, but the process of acclimating oneself to it is similar to the way in which we adjust to all of our curriculum development. At least as a pre-service MA student, I am often caught up by the amount of prior knowledge (in terms of education) that I lack. But practice in the field, as with our activities with new online tools and forums, will yeild better understanding and eventually, one hopes, mastery in application!


Thanks for reading!

Journal Reflection 1: The Wikispace

I’ll start by saying that I really enjoyed the hands-on wikispace assignment. I have little experience with website construction, but I found the format to be, overall, very user friendly. I especially took pleasure in being creative with my imbedded links. When I wrote about my interests in a very broad way I tried to use the links to creatively expound upon the text. Thus, “movies” links to an Internet Movie Database (IMDB.com) page that specifically profiles actor and filmmaker John Cassavettes, which should clue a viewer into the specifics of my interests. I appreciated being able to use the links like this because it allowed me to convey more information with less text, hopefully allowing me to keep my design minimal and the content concise.

My most profound frustration during this process was working with the java/html “word processor” style bar. Maybe there are limitations on the wiki that make background colors, in conjunction with multiple imbedded links and photographs, a shortcut to glitch-hell? I spent hours and hours on this assignment—which wouldn’t be so annoying if the final product truly reflected my “vision.” A touch of perfectionism kept me on the site, trying to work through the inconsistency of how each “save” loaded. I still am unable to have the page I built directly connect with the Student Profiles link set up for me. Though the creative aspect of the project was very exciting, the tools provided by the wiki were more limited than they appeared to be in my experience, and that's just disappointing. Hopefully, though this course, I might figure out what I'm doing incorrectly (or be vindicated as the java/html is revealed to be a glitchy over-loaded nightmare!) and then I may be finally happy with the end result.

What to Expect

Hi Everyone,

I'll be posting my journal reflections here from now on. Don't worry, they'll be linked up with my wikipage!

Cheers,

Lauren