Relaxing day.
The best of today is that the Oscars are getting ready to start in a few minutes. As a movie-holic, this is one of my favorite nights of the year. I love the Academy Awards. The fashion. The films. The feeling.
Also, I’m rooting for Colin Firth, so I’m anxious for the Best Male Actor in a Lead Role category 🙂 The King’s Speech baby!!
One of the things that I most appreciated from the first chapter of Teaching The New Writing is this notion of “textured literacy.” The writers credit a 2005 article by Kathleen Blake Yancey with naming and describing textured literacy as “the ability to comfortably use and combine print, spoken, visual, and digital processes in composing a piece of writing” (38). I find this idea fascinating because it’s the perfect way to describe the skills that are being required of the next generation of students. They have to not only be able to understand and comprehend texts in a wide variety of formats, but also be able to create them.
I thought that Anne Herrington and Charles Moran did a great job of setting up their observation of the several different versions of testing across states as well as their argument against the validity of one type of writing assessment. I never felt as though they were trying to trick me into believing their side of the case, but instead felt as though they were presenting the facts about an ever-evolving world and a never-evolving test.
After visiting several county education websites, I was struck by Hall County’s newest middle school, Da Vinci Academy. Although many school districts acknowledge the existence of technology and its helpfulness, Da Vinci Academy (much like Tim Tyson and Mabry Middle School) really celebrate all of the potential. Some school districts are more willing than others to accept technology as a part of daily student life, but to me, incorporating technology is more important than just recognizing it. Not only does bringing technology into the classroom provide a forum for discussing all of the potential issues that may arise, but it also gives students the chance to create meaningful and relevant work. The professional world is almost always jumping on the “new technology” band wagon, and by introducing students to a healthy relationship with technology, they will be more prepared to leave high school or college and start something new.
“They want school to go beyond preparing them for next year…what’s more important is to balance that with getting them prepared to make a contribution today.”
Wow. Listening to Tim Tyson’s keynote speech and watching the videos that he shared was completely inspiring and a little mind-blowing to me. I loved how he really advocated for his students and inspired them to create work with meaning. I think that being published is a big deal for anyone, especially for middle school students. How cool is it that they all explored real-life, controversial topics? I wonder how often students are short changed because someone thinks that they won’t understand it. I think that Tyson’s inspiration to students to learn as much as they can about a topic and present it in the form of a video is a project that will inspire students to become life-long learners and to continue exploring and discovering.
I also checked out Tyson’s Web site, which I loved not only because his blog is full of practical advice, but also because it’s clear to me that he cares about the future of the students. I was also very inspired to read about Tyson’s services. I tend to be a natural skeptic, especially when it comes to motivational speakers. I always wonder if they’re really in it for the cause or for the money. That being said, when I looked for Tyson’s fees, I found this: “The truth is, he is more interested in making a positive impact on the profession than in making a lot of money and has been remarkably flexible in working within the realities of budget constraints and the variety of needs schools and school districts have.” I find that extremely refreshing, and the optimist in me (the optimist and the skeptic are always fighting) believes that it’s true.
Will Richardson‘s text book has been one of the most valuable text books I have ever purchased. Not only was it easy to read, but it was also full of useful information. It’s a book that I know I will go back to time and time again. I am grateful to have read Richardson’s text because although I consider myself fairly technology literate, Richardson made clear all of the opportunities that Web 2.0 has provided to educators. In addition, I appreciated Richardson’s pointing out that the Web is something that already infiltrates the lives of students that we will be teaching, which means that it has created a new set of literacies. Bringing the Web into the classroom offers the chance for teachers to help guide students through these new modes of publication. One more point that I took away from Richardson’s book is the big shift in encouraging collaboration. It’s always been interesting to me that individual work has almost always been the focus even though in the “real world” that exists after high school or college, collaboration is at the heart of almost everything. With all of the opportunities that the Read/Write Web brings, encouraging collaboration and helping students build collaborative skills is one of the most important, in my opinion.
In my opinion, podcasts are a very valuable and powerful tool. I think that using a podcast made by either the teacher or the students as a supplement to class discussion can help with comprehension as well as help students interact with the text.
From the perspective of the teacher, I think that a podcast can provide a chance to cover discussion topics that may or may not have come up in class. With a 50-minute time constraint, I think it is very difficult to get into really deep discussion, and by raising a few more topics online and discussing your point of view on them, it provides a chance for the class to continue. In addition, I think that allowing (or requiring) students to respond to your podcast either on a blog or another forum gets them thinking not only about the text itself but about publishing and facilitating a healthy discussion ONLINE. Providing students with an summary of what was discussed in class or of the reading itself may also be helpful to students who have a hard time understanding the literature. One example is this audio podcast about To Kill A Mockingbird.
Instead of the teacher authoring all of the podcasts, using them as a tool to get students interacting with the text is also useful. By splitting the class and the text up into groups, then having them record a podcast based on either their chapters or their theme (depending on how your divide the text), it causes the students to dig in and create something that becomes somewhat of a study guide or supplement to the text. Although it may not be a podcast in the traditional sense because it won’t have more episodes, this video is one example of how students can create a supplement.
One more idea that I had about podcasts is how powerful of a tool they can be for days when there is a substitute teacher. Although I know that substitutes are very capable, I’m sure that there will be days when a break in discussion will cause a break in the rhythm of the class, and a podcast could help that. I’m sure it’s not something tried-and-true, but it is an avenue that I would try.
Google Reader is a site that is visited on my computer multiple times a day. That being said, it wasn’t until reading Richardson‘s chapter about the Reader that I fully understood just how useful it is. The ability to be able to use RSS feeds for news searches and blog searches is amazing to me, and I can’t wait to try it out.
“…having used the Wikipedia entry not as a source of truth, but as a springboard to further inquiry” (93).
This quote from Darren Crovitz and W. Scott Smoot’s article “Wikipedia: Friend, Not Foe” (English Journal 98.3 (2009): 91–97) perfectly sums up how I feel about Wikipedia. It’s probably never a good idea to use it as a primary source, but think of all the possibilities that can come from looking not only at the often extensive amount of information on an entry, but also from all of the sources and citations.
After reading about John of Austria in the Encyclopedia Americana, then searching for him on Wikipedia as well as Britannica, it’s clear that Wikipedia offers a a plethora of additional information.
The information that we first found on Britannica’s site was very concise and to the point. It was as if they wanted to define John of Austria (or Juan de Austria) in as few words as possible, which could be helpful if bare bones were all you needed. After accessing the full article for the Britannica, his life was expanded upon, making it comparable to the information in the Encyclopedia Americana. If at the end of the day, you just need to know a few facts about John of Austria, then these sources are extremely useful.
That being said, the Wikipedia article was much more comprehensive, both expanding upon the things that were mentioned about John of Austria in the other resources and allowing instant access through linking to the other events that were mentioned. In my opinion, Wikipedia is a much better source, if for no other reason than linking to the other events and people that pepper John of Austria’s life.
I'm just sayin'... 
