Monday, April 30, 2007

Media/Communication Course

Chapter 2 of Hobbs

Hobbs' research was conducted at Concord High School, where, during the 2002-2003 school year, the majority of students performed above average on standardized tests (21). During that same year, the drop-out rate declined, and two thirds of the class were going on to higher education while the other one third of the class was pursuing the military after high school (21). This school was a great selection because students seem motivated to learn, and they are performing at an accelerated level.

This media/communication course that was adopted into this ELA curriculum emphasized the following standards (20):

Active self-directed learners: students inquire creatively about their world, take risks, and examine opinions as they initiate actions and complete tasks.

Effective communicators: students write well, read widely and in depth, listen perceptively, share ideas orally, and use language, numbers, and symbols to convey and receive information.

Effective collaborators: students assume various roles to accomplish group or community goals, using self-knowledge, compromise, cooperation, and respect.

Informed decision makers: students define the issue, research alternatives, consider consequences, and make choices that demonstrate intellectual integrity and rigorous evaluation.

Creative producers: students produce art in the classical, contemporary, and practical traditions using invention, design, and critical assessment.

Life planners: students determine options and pursue career and personal goals including a consideration for physical, emotional, and mental well-being.

Community participants: students understand and practice democratic traditions and values, including respect for human dignity, honesty, and fairness, and who accept the consequences of their actions.

These expectations seem fair, and they seem incredible to put into a classroom. These sound more like learning standards we should have in our own classrooms-not just "they should read Macbeth because Shakespeare is amazing."

We should have objectives that should really value our students' lives and their learning. The objective should not be "to learn symbolism." We always need to know why we're teaching what we are, and this curriculum really stresses and emphasizes this point: they're aiming to "help students become critical thinkers in responding to the world they live in" (27). This Media/Communication class is designed specifically for this.

This class entails the following: they address nonfiction reading and writing, they explore issues of media influence, they examine advertising from a critical perspective, they reflect and analyze visual approaches to the narrative, and they encourage students to "read" the media of their everyday life with a critical eye (27). Students are applying learning inside and outside the classroom. Isn't that an amazing goal?

One of the best facts from this chapter was the closer connection students formed with their teacher as a result of the new course. Students gained mutual respect for one another and the teacher. These two quotations jumped out at me:

"There's a connection with these topics that sometimes doesn't happen when you're talking so much about literature that students are familiar with" (34).

"Students now let [the teacher] into their lives outside the classroom, and that provides [her] with opportunities to understand what knowledge and skills they need" (34).

These student/teacher connections are powerful. The teacher develops a closer relationship to her students so that they are more comfortable sharing and learning in a warm environment. The teacher knows how to push each student so each can excel to the greatest of his/her abilities. The student is pushed to keep learning outside the classroom because learning inside the classroom is fun and relevant. This type of learning is one that students can actually use in the real world. Why else should we be teaching them?

Education Gaps

"American society started to coast in the 1990s, when our thurd postwar generation came of age. The dot-com boom left too many people with the impression that they could get rich without investing in hard work [...] Who needed an education? Who needed to sweat over an engineering degree?" (325).

Friedman, above, discusses a common idea that I constantly ponder: Why are Americans becoming so lazy?

The answer is not too difficult. With increasing technology, many things are done for us much easier than they were in the past. Look at the washing machine, the microwave, the dishwasher, the INTERNET, etc. Everything, today, is made easier by new and innovative tools that essentially do the job for us. Our time is cut in half by these machines, allowing us more free time to relax.

These inventions are great, but they produce a lazy nation, especially regarding education and the work force. Friedman discusses the education gap at the top, implying that we are not educating enough young people in advanced math, science, and engineering. I think that any educational subject could be applied here, though. He discusses how young people have to master the fundamentals in order to excell at and tackle these advanced studies, but fundamentals appear "boring" and "not fun" to people anymore. He says, "The culture now is geared to having fun" (338). How true is that?

These fundamentals and hard work that is necessary for certain advanced jobs that will truly help this country progress in the future are not happening right now. We need work ethic, something that is becoming abandoned because of this laziness, and this idea that we don't have to work hard to make money.

Even students going to college aren't using these high-level skills we need in order to compete and catch up to other nations. With 26.4 million college graduates in 2003, only 31% fulfill these high-level skills (340). We can't be the powerhouse we think we're going to be if we're performing at this level.

This extra free time, I mentioned above, is not going to productive studies, but to television watching, gaming, instant messaging, and phone calls. Friedman writes that "the literacy of college students has dropped because a rising number of young Americans in recent years had spent their free time watching television and surfing the internet," thus, "we're seeing substantial declines in reading for pleasure, and it's showing up in our literacy levels" (340). Okay, this is where we come in. Our job is to teach literacy, among multiple texts, technological and not. We need to provide different texts which are appealing to students' interests--not throwing age-old literary texts at them. If we stimulate interest in learning, students will be more apt to be life-long learners--an ultimate teaching aim.

At the bottom of the education gap, many schools are still teaching the same materials and strategies as they did so many years earlier. We need to change with the times. In our country, since each school's curriculum, teachers, materials, budget, and principles are dependent per school, each has a different way to do it with different means of income. Poor schools have little materials, less qualified teachers, which leads to a poor education, and vice versa. Friedman says that other countries fund differently, making their education system more effective: "[they] fund their schools according to what it will take to deliver a standard curriculum, and then they take the money out of the state's general budget" (346). We can't change the system, but we can try to work with it and around it. We can try to give our students the best education we can with the resources we have. We can write grants and use what we have in order to make up for this fault.

School is supposed to be the "agent for social mobility," but we know that that is not true for all people in all areas of the country. I know that I cannot be the next president or a pre-med student. We need to teach for social justice.

But the main point is, that "there are fewer and fewer decent jobs for those without a lot of knowledge" (347). So what do we do? We want our students to have jobs. We want them to be smart. We want them to succeed. So, we need to make learning "fun." We need to incorporate their interests and technologies to appeal to them. Learning is diverse, coming from many forms and in many, many ways. We have to be creative, take what we have, stimulate interest, and instill student-centered classrooms that promote life-long learning and life-long literacy. We can't do this with desks in rows, reading aloud a dull book with a dull theme. We have to meet students where they're at and then push them to have work ethic and interest so that they will be able to succeed far after they leave the classroom.

Death of a Salesman

"I believe that the common man is as apt to a subject for tragedy in its highest sense as kings were." -Arthur Miller (from "Tragedy and the Common Man")

Last week, I attended Syracuse Stage's production of Arthur Miller's The Death of a Salesman, which was absolutely fabulous. The reference material the audience was given was absolutely incredible, giving wonderful pictures and writing on Miller and the play. I found myself devouring the reading material in the booklet before the play, wondering if this material would be interesting for future students. By the way, I did not know that Miller was romanticall involved with Marilyn Monroe... Interesting fact.

Viewing this play made me realize how impertive and crucial it is for us, as educators, to involve our students in cultural experiences like this. I read this play on my own, as an English nerd, but I will not remember it as fully and deeply as I will now that I have seen it performed. I will remember this performance perhaps more than my initial reading of words on paper. This play brought the plot and themes to life--an experience that we should introduce and instill for our students. This experience made me realize how valuable this experience is, and how I want to bring my students to these plays and events in order to instill a love and appreciation for performing arts, and of course, literature.

Students could even interpret the characters/setting/tone/etc. from the play itself. The stage was decorated wonderfully, represting the home of the common man quite well. I was thinking how interested I would be to hear what students thought about the layout of the stage and props. I was even curious of clothing selections; such topics would make for great discussion in class.

Above, I included a quote from Miller on the common man. I started my blog with this because it really connects to Freidman's points of this flattening world. He fears that we will have to many Willy Lomans in our future--people who are expendable and more like cogs in the machines than useful, innovative workers. We need to avoid preparing our students to become Willy Lomans, and instead, have free thikers who can produce and develop their abilities in versatile methods in a variety of ways (including technologically producing their ideas via internet blogging or iMovie). Our country will not keep up with other countries and companies if we produce Willy Lomans. We need to avoid shooting for average/the common man, and instead, aim higher than we want so that we can over-prepare students to compete in this ever-developing, growing, and changing world.

I do pity Willy though. I hope not to see more Willys in my future.

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Text Messaging

Fifteen-year-old girl wins $25,000 in a text messaging contest.

Contestants had to text the word "Supercalifragilisticexpialidoucious" as fast as they could.

Check out the quick story on msnbc.

Is anyone surprised that the winner is 15 years old?

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Shape-Shifting

Shape shifting: educational, social service, and sports experiences and achievements that can be arranged and rearranged in order to define and redefine oneself as a certain kind of competent person.

This blog is focused on the article from Young, Dillon, and Moje entitled "Shape-Shifting Portfolios: Millennial Youth, Literacies, and the Game of Life." These portfolios can come from a variety of things, like school subjects, sports clubs, academic clubs, internships, or they can explore how "family income, race and ethnicity, native language, social class, gender, popular culture, digital technologies, globalization, and/or geographic and social space" because these elements influence students' lives (115).

Imagine the amount of material we all have to include in our shape-shifting portfolios from this semester alone. The blog we're writing on right now could be included in our portfolios. I have had some passionate blogs and revelations on my blog, which act as pieces that I could include in my portfolio, or more specifically, my ENG307 portfolio.

My ENG307 portfolio would mainly consist of my blogs, but it would also include the projects I have worked on. I would include the pages I worked on for social bookmarking, the pages for bookmaking, and now the media literacy lesson that Staci and I are working on right now.

Portfolios are important though--especially those that come from our education classes for when we eventually apply for jobs. We'll want these materials anyway to refer back to when we're in the profession, and to add to once we're there. A student named Katie wrote that "Learning how to put together the portfolio and market yourself is the most important thing that I learned" (118). Marketing ourselves... I think that's what it comes to at this point in the game for us here.

One could have multiple portfolios for the amount of talents and skills he/she possesses. Honestly, I could see myself putting forth a lot of portfolios if I dedicated the time. Students could put together theirs before college, in order to market themselves and promote their talents. Our role as teachers is to assign meaningful and relevant projects that students can produce to put in those portfolios. If we allow students choice and range to work on projects that they can produce to the best of their abilities, then we are doing them a great service in regards to adding to portfolios.

What's in your portfolio?

Monday, April 23, 2007

RIP Kurt Vonnegut



"Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before." -Kurt Vonnegut

Kurt Vonnegut passed away recently, a tragedy for lovers of his literature. The NY Times wrote an article about his passing.

I am a huge fan of his work; I even got my little brother (who was not interested in reading whatsoever) to be infatuated with his writing. He has now read more Vonnegut than I have! I want to inspire others to read like I have him--part of my mission as an aspiring ELA teacher.

Anyway, if you haven't read Vonnegut, check out his most famous novels: Cat's Cradle and Slaughterhouse Five. Or, check out this short story if you would teach utopias or are interested in utopias: "Harrison Burgeron."

I read an article on Vonnegut in my local newspaper in Albany recently, and it turns out that he actually worked at the General Electric plant in Schenectady for a while in the 1940s. A lot of his ideas on science fiction, machines, and factories generate from this location. What a great way to get students interested in Vonnegut, for he lived here and was inspired by local places.

Over the summer, Rolling Stone Magazine put out an article on Vonnegut, which I saved perhaps for future class reading material. Articles from sources like that are exciting and interesting, but if I gave them an article from the newspaper, it might not be as appealing. Yet, they would be more apt to read Rolling Stone. That magazine has very good writing in it, however, so it is sort of a trick to get them to read that.

Anyway, I just wanted to acknowledge a great writer lost.

RIP Kurt Vonnegut

VA Tech

My thoughts and prayers go out to the students at VA Tech. I have been constantly watching the news for advancements on the case, and I think of the families who are touched by such a loss.

MSNBC and Newsweek put together a great detailed description and layout of the tragedy, which you can look at here. These designs are what Friedman would suggest that our students will need to assemble for future jobs. This creativity and understanding/producing of technology in order to illustrate current events via the internet will be skills they will need in the work force.

On another note, I also think about being a teacher in a school shooting situation. In the case of VA Tech and Columbine, both shooters submitted English papers that alluded to suicide and homicide, yet the teachers did not say anything until it was too late. Imagine holding that much responsibility, and imagine seeing warning signs and doing nothing about it.

From these experiences, I take the lesson of being more safe than sorry. Dylan Klebold, Eric Harris, and Cho Sueng-Hui all had warning cries to their English teachers--the Columbine students even submitted a murderous video for a school project! If the signs are there, teachers need to be active or the costs will be extreme.

I also pictured myself in that leadership situation and how hard that must be for a teacher to put themselves as firt to die over their students. No question: I would do everything in my power to help my students reach safety before myself. My job is to help them. I just can't imagine the terrors one would face if something like this happened. But, this situation is one that we risk if we involve ourselves in schools, but I am willing to go in it despite this risk. I would rather try to make a difference than be scared away. I do not think this is the end of school shootings, unfortunately, but maybe we can do something to help stop potential shootings from happening.

Publishing

We don't really think about ourselves or one another as potential publishers, do we?

Publishing books seems like something that "authors" do, perhaps those like Jennifer Donnelly or Kurt Vonnegut. (RIP Kurt Vonnegut). But we can publish, which means that our students can publish. Perhaps a teacher could put a bunch of students' pieces together into a large compilation, like Will mentions in his blog (Lulu), maybe a student could submit his/her own larger piece, or maybe a student could publish an article or piece online.

Will talks about student publication in his blog. A seventh grade teacher compiled a bunch of stories into a book that will now be published in major book stores. Students must feel excited to work on those projects, for they are published to a real audience. Their work is authentic and purposeful. What an excellent idea.

When I was in elementary school, we got to publish our own stories in a small book that we kept for ourselves. Even though that is small scale, I still treasure that book I created, and my family loves to look back and read it. Even a small project like that would have authenticity, purpose, and relevance to students.

Similarly, Will has a post on talking to his daughter about publishing. His daughter seems awed about the fact that she could actually publish. With so many opportunities, we must instill the idea to our students, our just youth in general, that anyone can publish. You can be an adolescent or adult, and one can publish anything--poetry, articles, stories, commentaries, memoirs, etc. His daughter's reaction is one we will face in our classrooms, kind of shocked but excited. We can have a similar discussion in our classrooms, even with the introduction of the class blog. Then that idea can change as we open opportunities for students to publish their pieces to a large piece or just to submit to a contest or online journal/magazine.

Students want to be heard and put their opinions, ideas, and stories out there, because many students are looking for recognition. Will also posts about a business card, which students distributed to participants at a presentation, that presented the classes products (class wikis and blogs). Students have some finished product that they can share with other people--and that is exciting! They will not be impressed to show their Regents essays, but they have something more meaninful that they would like to show others, not just strangers, but also family members and friends.

Take these ideas into account even for yourself, for publishing opportunities are opening up faster than you think.

Monday, April 16, 2007

Desks Not in Rows

Who can be surprised that colleges are developing new degrees that center on the newest, developing technologies?

Will Richardson's blog informs us that Michigan has developed a degree in social computing, which means that "Students pursuing a specialization in Social Computing learn to analyze online social interactions, both in online communities and in more diffuse social networks. They learn about features of social computing technologies so they can recognize opportunities to put them to use in new settings and make good choices about alternative implementations."

If this degree is popping up in Michigan, I bet other schools will jump on the bandwagon. Maybe if it isn't even just this specific degree, but other schools will create other programs that focus on computer technology. Jobs that we can't even think of now will be the ones that our students will be working for in many years. Friedman tells us that. I guess we better start preparing our students for these types of degrees and work in the classroom. We also should introduce them to these types of programs so that they know they can pursue these careers.

Adding on this same idea, another blog post of Will's shows a School 2.0 Project in where a group envisioned the following changes for their school and community within the next 3-5 years:

-A community where the conversation is more about what students are demonstrating than the scores on the test.
-Where residents have a window into the classroom.
-A community that can participate in a more global conversation about learning and teaching.
-A school that is the center of learning for the community.
-One that has a more open network to the world.
-One with more opportunities for global learning.
-One where the desks aren’t in rows.
-Teachers that have wider learning networks and are excited about new technologies.
-Teachers that have freedom to learn and feel supported and not fearful.
-Students that have more freedom to learn and are drivers of their own learning.
-Students that have more collaborative learning experiences and interactions with the local community.
-Learning that is centered around essential, big questions.

Isn't this exactly what we're trying to create in our own future classrooms? This seems to be the central discussion we constantly talk about in 307. Will has initiated these kinds of ideas in this school, but we can do the same in others. These types of changes are the future; not necessarily the stereotypical image of the classroom in rows that we may be observing right now.

When I took the ATS-W teacher certification test this weekend, the test seemed to constantly reinforce how much New York State teachers should prepare students to become active citizens and participants in their communities, and that teachers should be able to teach to multiple styles of learning. The classroom that Will envisions in his blog posts adheres to New York State's calls. Using a media literacy classroom (like Hobbs envisions) would appeal to many different styles of learners. Will's idea focuses on that as well, and it gets students involved as active members of their community.

How can New York State complain when we are addressing their greatest demands of us? We can have our students nail the tests they want them to pass if we can first generate interest in learning. They can excel if we give them the proper resources and motivation, but first we need interest. Interest is in media literacy and change in a dry system, so if we have the tools available, why not use them?

NYC Police Use Cell Phone Cameras

I was watcing SNL last week, and a bit on Weekend Update mentioned how the New York City Police Department is introducing the use of cell phone cameras to use as evidence for crime scenes.

Why not use such useful technology if it's handy like a cell phone?

This article reminds me of the recent case at UCLA where a Middle Eastern students was harassed by campus police officers for not having proper ID. When he refused to show his ID to the officers, they dragged him out of the campus library and tazered him.

Here is the YouTube clip of the incident. The recording is not the best, but at least it somewhat captures the incident. It can be a little disturbing at times if you're going to watch it; I warn you.

The Middle Eastern college student used cell phone video recordings from other college students who witnessed the event to help convict the police officers. Such evidence will be useful in the future for other cases.

You Know You are Living in 2007 When...

YOU KNOW YOU ARE LIVING IN 2007 when...

1. You accidentally enter your password on the microwave.

2. You haven't played solitaire with real cards in years.

3. You have a list of 15 phone numbers to reach your family of 3.

4. You e-mail the person who works at the desk next to you.

5. Your reason for not staying in touch with friends and family is that they don't have e-mail addresses.

6. You pull up in your own driveway and use your cell phone to see if anyone is home to help you carry in the groceries.

7. Every commercial on television has a web site at the bottom of the screen.

8. Leaving the house without your cell phone, which you didn't have thefirst 20 or 30 (or 60) years of your life, is now a cause for panic and you turn around to go and get it.

10. You get up in the morning and go on line before getting your coffee.

11. You start tilting your head sideways to smile. : )

12. You're reading this and nodding and laughing.

13. Even worse, you know exactly to whom you are going to forward this message.

14. You are too busy to notice there was no #9 on this list.

15. You actually scrolled back up to check that there wasn't a #9 on this list.

I got this email, and I knew I had to put it on the blog. How true is this?

Sunday, April 15, 2007

Video on Demand

To increase student interest in subject material, video clips seems more interesting to students than a worksheet. Students are not going to get anything out of an activity that resembles the typical format of something that is school related. It's almost like we have to trick them into learning now, but we can do that because we have awesome new tools which are stimulating and will increase student learning.

One such system is this video-on-demand system implemented in Baltimore, Chicago, and now Nevada. School curriculums are more engaging because they use video clip teaching tools which enhance student learning. Content comes from PBS, Scholastic, and National Geographic, which are excellent sources to bring into the classroom.

One interesting comment I thought appropriate for us to reflect on was the following: "What distinguishes Baltimore County's effort is that the district has convened teams of teachers in each school to brainstorm ways of using the new resources to their fullest potential across each academic discipline."

What else are we taking this course for? I feel that every student in 307 could answer this question. We just need to raise the question in our school systems; we just need to initiate this change or it will not happen on its own. We have been brainstorming tons of ideas that could use the integration of video clips in the classroom. That's what many of the Hobbs' media literacy projects are doing, because I know that is what my project is focusing on.

Adolescents have so many television programs at the tips of their fingers that are educational. Maybe they seem dry and boring, but if we introduce certain educational programs, or ways to interpret programs, then we can promote learning through hobbies they already engage in. An article in Education Week states that "In today’s fast-paced world, education needs to be spread out over a lifetime, and the main thing we need to teach our young people is to love the process of learning." Video clips will help this, not worksheets. Life-long learning starts with blogging, it starts with video clips, it starts with iMovies, etc. This is how we can help our students be lovers of learning.

Also, the artcle states that "A century ago, there was no way to address these concerns, but, thanks to computers and the Internet, we now have rapidly improving tools that will soon allow virtually all young people to master essential material at their own pace, and to do so at any point in their lives. There will probably always be a place for the classroom, but it will be a place where intense and intimate learning takes place with highly willing students, not a step on an assembly line."

I bet Will Richardson would be in total agreement with this quotation. He offers so many new techniques in his book that we can take with us in the classroom, from wikis to blogs to podcasts to webpags to flickr. Richardson writes that "We are at the beginning of a radically different relationship with the internet, one that has long-standing implications for educators and students. The coming years will be marked by a flood of new innovation and ideas in teaching, most born from the idea that we can now publish and interact in ways never before possible" (133). Let's take his advice and create new ideas we can integrate into the classroom. We are brainstorming many ideas in class, and we can continue or brainstorming in the years to come as well.

We are currently learning about so many materials that we can use in the classrooms to increase student motivation, interest, and drive to become life-long learners. Name any project that students have done in this class; they can be integrated into the classroom, and students will LOVE them!

Technorati Results




I included two charts I saw from the TECHNORATI report which I thought were relevant to class material. The chart on the left shows how much people are increasingly blogging about issues, crises, and events that take place in the everyday world. Perhaps a great technology project to have ongoing throughout class would be to have every student have their own blog, and then students could blog about current issues and topics that are currently happening in the media. This activity is preparing them to be active participants in their communities, and especially the world. Students can learn to express their voices on key issues to a larger audience--not just me as their teacher.
The second chart on the right hand side, I found appropriate, because it reminded me of issues raised in The World is Flat. Look at how many bloggers there are per language! We are basically tied with Japanese, which shows us how active they are with producing texts via the internet. This graph shows us how essential it is for teachers to get their students to produce authentic material to a wide audience. Blog their opinions; let them share what they have to say with more people (adolescents just want to be heard).
The website also recorded that "Technorati is now tracking over 70 million weblogs, and we're seeing about 120,000 new weblogs being created worldwide each day. That's about 1.4 blogs created every second of every day." Each classroom could continue to add to those statistics.
If we really interest our students, they could continue to blog way after they leave our classroom. Imagine the mark we would leave on them when we can give them this life-long learning tool that they can use and operate daily for the rest of their lives. Doesn't that seem more authentic, more beneficial, more fun than a worksheet?

Wednesday, April 11, 2007

The Simpsons

For my project this block, Staci and I are working on a media literacy project focused on teaching satire through an episode of The Simpsons.

In place of class today, Staci and I worked in the library on our lesson plan. For those interested in using The Simpsons material in the classroom, first consult my del.icio.us page which includes parodies from literary novels and plays, but also consult this webpage on Simpsons material.

Our project will show the episode entitled "Bart Gets an Elephant." The synopsis is as follows:

In a KBBL Radio Contest, Bart is given a choice of $10,000 or an Elephant, stupidly, Bart choses the elephant. They fail to give Bart the elephant because they expected him to pick the money. Bart complains, and with the two workers jobs at stake, Bart is given an elephant. Bart names it Stampy. Homer gets the idea to charge people for elephant rides, and to see the elephant, but he realizes he doesn't make enough money to support his family, and the elephant. Bart refuses to give the elephant to the Ivory Dealer, but that was Homer's suggestion. Homer got stuck in a tar pit, and Stampy pulled him to safety, and Homer gave Stampy to the Zoo out of respect.

As you can see from the material here, students will form an understanding of satire from this episode. They will use multiple interpretations of this text to see what the writers of The Simpsons are saying about societial issues and ideas. I liked this particular episode because it focuses on economic exploitation and exploitation of natural resoruces/animals. This is a prevalent issue in the world right now, especially with global warming, of which I am extremely opiniated and concerned over.

The episode also emulates the "American Dream" and greed, which are also interesting and necessary issues to tackle in the classroom. The homework assignment to follow would be to have students find examples of satire in the world around them, from movies, TV shows, the internet, books, comic strips, plays, etc.

Satire exists everywhere, but showing students in the form of a play from the 1900s will not appeal to them. The Simpsons are very popular among adolescents, so this activity will defintely grab student attention and show how relevant satire is to their everyday lives.

Monday, April 9, 2007

Slam Poetry

Awesome slam poet on the power of poetry.

Blades of Glory

Connecting with my last post, a new and popular movie (Blades of Glory), is also a hot topic among adolescents.

I saw this movie yesterday and could not help but think about the same idea we learned from our field trip: use movies to help students learn literary elements. In Blades of Glory, the first few minutes of the movie deeply describes each character in a flashback segment. My revelation was this idea:

Here I am, sitting in a movie theater, decoding this information so I can make predictions, judgments, and assumptions of characters, and I am doing this unconsciously. How did I learn to do this? Isn't this exactly what we want our students to do when they engage in a text, whether it is print or electronic-based?

The opening scene I describe is very funny, which would really capture students' attention. Will Ferrell has the ability to grab anyone's attention, especially that of a sleeping class. Students will be more interested in decoding the characterization in Blades of Glory than a literary text. Start with an example like this, and then characterization might be better understood when examining print-based texts that students read in class.

The Sopranos

Hot subject right now: The Sopranos.

Their final season began last night--probably a highly talked-about topic for adolescents. Conceptualizing this media, I had a thought on how to incorporate this into the classroom.

Perhaps my idea could work with any episode of The Sopranos, since I will be focusing on the effect of setting to plot. However, this first episode would be highly effective in analyzing the significance of setting.

Like we saw in our field trip to the alternative school in Ithaca, use movies/tv to explain and analyze literary elements to students. Plot was essential in the first episode of The Sopranos last night because they left their home in a wealthy section of New Jersey to explore the quiet, rustic areas of Upstate New York. I plan on teaching in this area, specifically referenced last night in the episode as Glens Falls, so using a popular media source that references the area to which students live would be highly engaging and exciting for students.

The scenes were shot in areas that my students could be familiar with. They could analyze the significance of the change of setting to how the characters behaved. Last night, the characters behaved in a more primitive way, perhaps influenced by the new setting in a foreign, nature-esque environment.

The Sopranos is a bit touchy to bring into a class because of language and sexuality, but if a teacher only showed a certain length of time, the clip would be appropriate. There was not much language or sexuality in the clip I would envision using.

Students are familiar with Tony Soprano and the characters in the show, as Jennifer Donnelly pointed our during her presentation at the DATE Conference. We're starting with what students know and building on this prior knowledge. The Sopranos is just one example, and this would be a great example since many, many students probably watched the episode last night. Keep the curriculum relevant, intriguing, and most importantly, up to date.

"Struggling" Adolescents

I have heard the phrase "struggling adolescents" too many times throughout my education classes and observations at local middle and high schools. That phrase assumes that the problem lies in the student, not the teacher.

Perhaps that assumption is wrong.

David O'Brien conducted a study on such "struggling adolescents" with a focus on increasing student engagement through multimedia activities. His study looked to answer two questions:
1. Why do adolescents who "struggle" with reading print text--a complex processing act--competently engage in these media-rich practices and choose to engage in them?
2. What is the nature of that competency and how is it connected to engagement?

To any reader, pre-service teacher, current teacher, student, former-student--anyone!--which activity sounds more exciting to you:
Choice A: Read The Outsiders and write an essay about the effect violence has on the Greasers and the Socs.
Choice B: Use a range of different sources, print and electronic-based, to show the effect violence has on adolescents.

Choice A seems connected to any typical English class assignment. Many students will not be interested or engaged in that assignment. Choice B seems more relevant to their own lives, more authentic, more interesting, thus a higher engagement would result in this activity.

O'Brien discovered that student competency and engagement increased when he introduced Choice B to his research subjects. He discusses our transition from the "print-centric" world to the "media-centric" world. We used to solely live in a print-centric world, but now we also live in a media-centric world. We need our students to keep up with the world we currently live in, not just the traditional world that was around years and years ago.

I want to add some lines from the text that speak so loud to me, for I have seen these exact points in my own observation:

"Low achievement led to low perception about abilities, which resulted in increasing disengagement from reading, which, in turn, resulted in lack of practice, low fluency, lagging decoding skills, and the absense of strategies."

"When students discover, early in their academic careers, that they are not doing well in reading, and they attribute success to stable factors outside their control, success is perceived as unattainable, universal, and permanent."

"Helplessness is learned as a response..."

The last quotation is probably the most valuable lesson I attained at my recent observations in a middle school. Students would not do assignments because they would either get the answer from a teacher/observer who would tell them the answer, or they would not do the assignment and there would be no punishment. Helplessness was something that these students did not master in this class alone; this problem seemed to stem somewhere earlier in their academic careers.

So what does the teacher I observed do from there?

She has students who have learned helplessness and use it as a result. They are in a classroom that specifically targets Choice A above. They have little resources in their school, but they could perform Choice B at home or in the Mac lab at their school.

Why do I think this would be successful in this particular classroom?
These students are so busy texting on their cell phones and talking about TV from the night before that they can't listen to the teacher speaking to them. So, keep their focus on what they are talking about in the classroom, and put ELA skills to use on that topic.


The students I observe behave in ways described in the above quotations. I only see one school, but I am sure this is the case for many classrooms all around the state. Think about the points raised in this blog in order to change something in school systems now. Consult Hobbs, consult Richardson. These students are only "struggling" because we allow them to.

Tuesday, April 3, 2007

Are iPods Taking Over?

Okay, so iPods are everywhere now right?

Try sneakers.

Nike has just signed a deal with iPod, so runners can track their mileage through their iPods. A sensor from the iPod can be inserted into the sneaker so the athlete can record his/her distance covered.

How far can technology go?

What will be next?

I thought the iPhone was a bit much, but anyone could see that coming. I just didn't think sneakers would be incorporated into the mix. Check out an article on the topic--it's pretty crazy.

It seems that iPods are taking over everything now--what can't they do?

iPhoto

Tomorrow, my group will be presenting what we have so far on our project: iBook using iPhoto. You can check out iPhoto on this website.

If anyone is interested, check out the website, pay close attention to our presentation, and make sure you have lots and lots of patience.

Our group is focusing on creating a book for the Adolescent English Education program at Cortland, but the kinks of the project are really getting in the way. There are many minor glitches that we are encountering, so we will only get to show you all a portion of our finished product. We still need a bit of time to polish the finishing touches on our masterpiece.

I hope I'm not making this project sound like a downer, because collaborating pictures to an overall theme is really exciting. If you have an easily accessible Apple computer at home, then you will have no problem doing this project.

I could see so many amazing projects developed from this program:
-character collages
-plot sequences
-creative writing projects
-class progress/development across the year

Try it out for yourself.

Zines

Zines, pronounced as "zeens" answers.com informs me, are a new form of authentic writing practices that can go on in any classroom. Perhaps you have heard of e-zines, publishing non-traditional writing pieces on the internet for publication, but zines can even be incorporated in the classroom.

The article "The Zine Project" discusses how zines actually work within a classroom. One was quoted commenting on the zine project: "I think letting [students] speak about what was going on in their lives and then using them to invent writing prompts was a good tactic."

Agreed. What a great way to formulate interest in writing. Not to state the obvious, but people like to talk about themselves and what they know. Especially adolescent students... Perhaps those who are resistant to writing are assigned tasks that are not authentic; they have no relevance to them, they seem school-related and boring, so they give up before they start. I think there would be little resistance to writing if the task was focused on a topic of their interest on a writing topic they created themselves.

Main concerns? Maybe some are skeptical of zines. Maybe some of skeptical of Hobbs' media literacy project, but Hobbs poses a great argument. She provides a list of skills that English teachers are required to teach (in her specific school), but I am sure this list is similar to most schools. Here is a sample of items on her list:

-Examine the structure of persuasive arguments
-Examine the effects of word choice, tone, bias, point of view, and structure
-Incorporate research and critical analysis of topics
-Recognize structure as a part of the message
-Evaluate the competence and credibility of speakers
-Adjust your spoken and written language based on your audience

Quickly looking at these necessary skills, one can see how easily these skills can apply to either the zine project or the media literacy project. These projects are interesting to the students because they directly effect them. They are consumed in the media and with problems and issues that effect their every-day lives, so why wouldn't they want to express their concerns, complaints, problems, or praises through creative writing?

Zines and media literacy will appeal to students because they differ from normal "classroom" assignments. Writing can be cool--we just need to know how to approach it so that it will interest students. Both Hobbs and Tobi Jacobi have great strategies to get students motivated to write. Publication will motivate student activity; we just need to give students the appropriate tools to get their messages heard.

Type vs. Script

Personally, do you write better using script on paper or typing on a computer?

Is it different for every person, or are we (as technologically challenged adults) different because we grew up learning how to write first on paper?

I think we misplace the fact that computers were not writing tools when we were first educated. I remember having a computer lab in my elementary school, but we used the lab to play educational computer games. The computers were old school macs with no mouse and ran slower than we had time in the period. Now, I see computers in classrooms that can transfer information within minutes. My cousin who is in elementary school types her homework on her own personal laptop. The youth are learning writing skills on laptops.

This whole idea occurred to me when I was reading a live chat on Education Week. One person asked: "Has the use of computers to write meant that students are writing better? worse? no difference?"

Answer: "I think students are writing both worse, and better. On the worse end, teachers complain that students cut-and-paste from online sources or simply repeat or paraphrase information without thinking critically about it.
On the better side, researchers who have studied student writing since the 1980s have found students feel more motivated when writing with computers and they produced papers that are neater, somewhat longer, with fewer spelling and grammar errors. The quality of the style and content is about the same, researchers have found.
But researchers have also found that students who normally use computers to write perform better on writing assessments when they use computers, rather than pencil and paper. That's a logical finding, but it has implications for standardized testing, which today offers both paper and computer versions of writing assessments."


I don't know if this answer is really this cut and dry. I think students today have a more difficult time connecting with writing on paper because they are so used to transferring their ideas via keyboard. Writing on paper has now become associated with worksheets or mindless activity, like copying down a phone number (but even that can be punched into a cell phone). Allowing students the ability to write in both atmospheres seems to be ideal for me, but I think most of the long-term writing projects should be focused towards a computer.

Students will be working and writing on computers, so we should have them writing a lot on them. We (the older generation) have adapted to writing on this machine, but we must think about how this practice is completely natural to students. They are comfortable on the computer typing a mile a minute to their friends on AOL instant messenger. You want to get them interested? Type something. Paper is old news to them.

Monday, April 2, 2007

Keeping Up


I thought I would include the chart above in my discussion here. Look at how all schools, low and high income, have adapted so far to technology. Perhaps slow, but at least we have this domiant number of schools connected to the internet.
If we can get this many schools to connect to the internet, then maybe we can begin to incorporate other digital resources as well. We, as fresh, young, incoming teachers, need to bring in ideas to pitch to our schools. What technology resources will we ask for when we write grants? What will we be looking to bring to our school?
This article states that "For many educators, 21st-century digital literacy must hinge not on the superficial fluency with technology that many students exhibit in their off hours, but on proficiency in such skills as effectively sifting through a glut of electronic information and producing creative work that will be valued highly in the global marketplace."
Friedman's eyes would light up if he read those last few words in that sentence. Students will need to be competing globally by the time they reach adulthood, so we need to shift students attention from dull worksheets to internet resources.
On a different link from the same website, the author uses an example of a high-tech teenager who is bored with the lack of technology in his classroom. He feels bogged down by his inability to use the skills he normally uses throughout his day.
The student says, “When I step out of school, I have a pretty high-tech life. When I step in school, I feel like I’m not me anymore. I have to jump into this whole old-fashioned thing where everything is restricted.”
This should not be happening.
This exact instance reminds me of the presentation I saw from the ELA conference in Corey Union held by Shade Gomez. Clearly, his program where students used digital sources to convey deeper readings of Shakespeare's Hamlet demonstrates how students will go above and beyond our expectations of what they can produce. If we give them assignments that are up to their speed (in regards to technology), they will meet us there, or go beyond. Students will not feel restricted, like the student above, if we provide projects where students can explore their intelligence through the latest technologies.
That interests students; that's where we need to be.