I found the second part of the article to be more thought-provoking than the first 36 pages. It is still wordy and repetitive, but I could understand more clearly what the authors were getting at. Some of the points were not only understandable, but also might have some practical use for teachers.
The sixth skill is distributed cognition, meaning that intelligence is not just in your brain anymore, but also in your ability to use technology to think for you. Spellcheckers, databases and other computer programs allow you to do things quickly that would take much longer if you do them on your own.
Collective intelligence refers to the ability to work with others to solve problems or to attain a common goal. When students combine knowledge and share ideas, solutions are found and goals attained. Usually the results are more complex and richer than if they had been attained without teamwork.
Judgment is the ability to evaluate sources of information. Students need to know how material is developed and the biases with which it is presented.
Transmedia navigation allows students to gain information from many sources in many forms. While reading, writing, speaking and listening are still critical skills, students need to know how to use and evaluate information from music, images, movies and each other.
Networking means that students have the ability to use the computer (search engines, databases, etc.) to gather information, to combine that information to produce new knowledge and then to communicate what they have discovered to a specific, interested audience.
Negotiation skill allows students to work effectively with a diverse population of people, ideas and cultures.
Having identified the three core problems and the eleven core skills, the authors make suggestions how schools, after-school programs and parents can help students learn this new literacy.
The challenge for this new literacy is how to give all students these skills so that there is no technological culture gap created.
This article, along with another one just published in the May issue of Reading Teacher, made me reconsider game playing for children. I can see where there would be positive results as far as working cooperatively rather than competitively, having a non-threatening environment to experiment in, receiving feedback when learning new skills, and solving complex problems using multiple sources of information. These are all important skills that should be taught purposefully to all students. The other side of that is that students also need to understand the consequences of too much technology. This morning’s paper reported on the visit to Cheldelin Middle School of the “Subway Guy.” He told the students that his weight problems began in third grade when his parents gave him a Nintendo. He spent all his time sitting at a computer or in front of the TV and lost interest in sports and outdoor activities. While he has been able to lose weight and sustain a lower weight, most people can’t. I feel the time children spend on technology needs to be balanced (or overbalanced) by time spent in physical activity, play and face-to-face social contact.
Wednesday, May 2, 2007
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Confronting the Challenges of the Participatory Culture
When I read the first part of this article I thought there were some good ideas in it, but when I went to articulate them, I couldn’t do it. The article seemed very repetitive and abstruse.
I have found that, as this article stated, most computer professional development does emphasize the technology and how to use it rather than how technology can transform education. I am usually left wondering how to use the technology and if the projects suggested are any better than projects that do not use the new technologies.
The main point of the article seemed to be that education should change to allow students to use computers and technology in a participatory culture that has the following features: low barriers to creative expression; strong support for creating and sharing one’s work with others; an informal mentor program that allows more experienced students to help those less experienced; students believe that their contributions are important and students feel connected in some way to others. The authors make the point that computer games, simulations and communications allow for this type of culture in a non-threatening, engaging atmosphere. Students see these activities as fun, not work, although they are developing many skills necessary for their futures.
Three main problems exist for education using computers in this manner. First, all students need equal access to computers both in school and out. Because this is basically impossible, there will always be a gap between the haves and the have-nots. Second, students have to be able to reflect on their experiences and differentiate between what is real and reliable and what is not. In games and simulations, students often assume that there are no biases and that activities reflect the real world, which is usually not the case. Third, the social constraints that are present in a classroom are not necessarily present on-line and so there are few constraints to behavior on-line. Some way needs to be found to help students understand ethical behavior.
The authors emphasize the importance of students learning to read and write before they become part of a participatory culture. The skills they will need to be part of that culture are social skills. Communication through technological media will not replace the need to read and write. However, using technology to communicate will provide students with more feedback and more engaging literacy experiences than they are currently having in classrooms today and will help them become better readers and writers.
I’m glad that the authors are not advocating that we throw out all traditional means of learning to read and write. I do think that we are entering an age where some conventional writing skills – using correct grammar, spelling, conventions and so on are going to become less important to communication.
There are eleven core media literacy skills discussed in the article and page 36 got us through four of them: play as a means of problem-solving with emphasis on engagement over fun; performance in the sense that a student takes on a different identity, often in games; appropriation where a student uses existing media content in new ways; multi-tasking which involves focusing on more than one thing at a time to process information and produce results.
These core skills all seem to be mostly based on use of games and simulations. Will students develop a work ethic if everything they do is completely engaging and fun? Will we develop a workforce that will only produce if the work is engaging?
I have found that, as this article stated, most computer professional development does emphasize the technology and how to use it rather than how technology can transform education. I am usually left wondering how to use the technology and if the projects suggested are any better than projects that do not use the new technologies.
The main point of the article seemed to be that education should change to allow students to use computers and technology in a participatory culture that has the following features: low barriers to creative expression; strong support for creating and sharing one’s work with others; an informal mentor program that allows more experienced students to help those less experienced; students believe that their contributions are important and students feel connected in some way to others. The authors make the point that computer games, simulations and communications allow for this type of culture in a non-threatening, engaging atmosphere. Students see these activities as fun, not work, although they are developing many skills necessary for their futures.
Three main problems exist for education using computers in this manner. First, all students need equal access to computers both in school and out. Because this is basically impossible, there will always be a gap between the haves and the have-nots. Second, students have to be able to reflect on their experiences and differentiate between what is real and reliable and what is not. In games and simulations, students often assume that there are no biases and that activities reflect the real world, which is usually not the case. Third, the social constraints that are present in a classroom are not necessarily present on-line and so there are few constraints to behavior on-line. Some way needs to be found to help students understand ethical behavior.
The authors emphasize the importance of students learning to read and write before they become part of a participatory culture. The skills they will need to be part of that culture are social skills. Communication through technological media will not replace the need to read and write. However, using technology to communicate will provide students with more feedback and more engaging literacy experiences than they are currently having in classrooms today and will help them become better readers and writers.
I’m glad that the authors are not advocating that we throw out all traditional means of learning to read and write. I do think that we are entering an age where some conventional writing skills – using correct grammar, spelling, conventions and so on are going to become less important to communication.
There are eleven core media literacy skills discussed in the article and page 36 got us through four of them: play as a means of problem-solving with emphasis on engagement over fun; performance in the sense that a student takes on a different identity, often in games; appropriation where a student uses existing media content in new ways; multi-tasking which involves focusing on more than one thing at a time to process information and produce results.
These core skills all seem to be mostly based on use of games and simulations. Will students develop a work ethic if everything they do is completely engaging and fun? Will we develop a workforce that will only produce if the work is engaging?
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Because of my interest in literacy instruction, I chose two articles that talked about literacy projects using technology.
The first was Digital Connections: Transforming Literacy in the Primary School, by Cathy Burnett, Paul Dickinson, Julia Myers and Guy Merchant. This article was written about a research project involving fourth and fifth grade students attending two British schools.
The authors were looking for ways to transform literacy instruction using technology, not just using technology as enrichment for current teaching methods.
Students from two schools used e-mail to communicate with each other to produce a PowerPoint presentation about their views and interests. The PowerPoint was presented to a group of student teachers. The project was purposely planned for a real audience (the student teachers) and with real communication necessary through e-mail. The students met together twice while putting together their PowerPoint, but their initial interactions were by e-mail and then after meeting once, e-mail was used to refine the PowerPoint drafts.
E-mail was used to get things done and PowerPoint was used to demonstrate what had been achieved.
To show that the curriculum had been transformed through the use of technology the authors gave several examples. Digital writing involves different skills than those needed to write with paper and pencil. For example, students needed to know how to use a mouse, a keyboard and a screen. Students asked questions as they worked which led to informal peer tutoring on skills such as font size, and copying chunks of text. Students tended to edit as they wrote, usually a word at a time, rather than writing a whole message or text and then going back to edit.
Use of e-mail encouraged children to communicate in a way that focused on exchange of information, playfulness and experimentation. They were highly motivated and willing to experiment and learn about writing in this context. They developed their ability to create meaning in different ways.
I think it would be very feasible to work on similar projects with fourth and fifth grade students. I feel it is very important for students to have real reasons for doing projects and e-mailing other students for information to produce a project is meaningful. The students could be given suggestions of final projects, such as creating books, PowerPoint presentations, etc. for use by younger students or for use in the community and then be allowed to decide what they would like to produce.
E-mail may be a little out of date for students of today, but in the elementary school, where digital phones are banned, it would encourage writing. There might be more motivation to write this way than on paper as mistakes are easily corrected and the final product is never illegible.
The second article I read, Bookbinders: Fusing, by Johanna Riddle, talked about four media projects the author had done with elementary students. She found that the more she was able to integrate literature, visual literacy, technology and creative problem solving, the more the students were motivated to learn.
For primary students, she used “I Spy” books by Jean Marzollo and Walter Wick. Each student picked a book and then used the digital camera to take pictures of other students with their books. Students read their books and generated a list of objects mentioned in the book. The students then collected real objects to represent the objects on their lists. Students learned how to scan objects and then made a digital picture of their concrete objects. They wrote questions about their objects and attached those questions to their pictures. The picture and questions were taped to the inside cover of the book.
Another primary project was similar, using the Tana Hoban book, “Look Again”. Students used a digital camera to take a picture of a familiar object, then enlarged a small portion of the picture. The children learned to crop and the small section of the picture was put into a PowerPoint by the teacher. The PowerPoint collection of all the students’ pictures made an electronic book, similar to “Look Again” that the students could read as a class and share with others.
For older students, the emphasis was on using technology in literature circles. The first project had students making book covers using a photograph that symbolized some aspect of the story. The covers were printed and put on school copies of the books.
The second project was a “You Are There” style unit. Students used word processing, scanning, digital photography, PowerPoint, Publisher and Adobe Photoshop Elements to produce a finished product, an image from the book created by the student, overlaid with descriptive text.
These projects all seemed very doable to me. There would be other ways to accomplish these projects without using technology, but then the students would not have been introduced to the many possibilities of creating with computers.
The first was Digital Connections: Transforming Literacy in the Primary School, by Cathy Burnett, Paul Dickinson, Julia Myers and Guy Merchant. This article was written about a research project involving fourth and fifth grade students attending two British schools.
The authors were looking for ways to transform literacy instruction using technology, not just using technology as enrichment for current teaching methods.
Students from two schools used e-mail to communicate with each other to produce a PowerPoint presentation about their views and interests. The PowerPoint was presented to a group of student teachers. The project was purposely planned for a real audience (the student teachers) and with real communication necessary through e-mail. The students met together twice while putting together their PowerPoint, but their initial interactions were by e-mail and then after meeting once, e-mail was used to refine the PowerPoint drafts.
E-mail was used to get things done and PowerPoint was used to demonstrate what had been achieved.
To show that the curriculum had been transformed through the use of technology the authors gave several examples. Digital writing involves different skills than those needed to write with paper and pencil. For example, students needed to know how to use a mouse, a keyboard and a screen. Students asked questions as they worked which led to informal peer tutoring on skills such as font size, and copying chunks of text. Students tended to edit as they wrote, usually a word at a time, rather than writing a whole message or text and then going back to edit.
Use of e-mail encouraged children to communicate in a way that focused on exchange of information, playfulness and experimentation. They were highly motivated and willing to experiment and learn about writing in this context. They developed their ability to create meaning in different ways.
I think it would be very feasible to work on similar projects with fourth and fifth grade students. I feel it is very important for students to have real reasons for doing projects and e-mailing other students for information to produce a project is meaningful. The students could be given suggestions of final projects, such as creating books, PowerPoint presentations, etc. for use by younger students or for use in the community and then be allowed to decide what they would like to produce.
E-mail may be a little out of date for students of today, but in the elementary school, where digital phones are banned, it would encourage writing. There might be more motivation to write this way than on paper as mistakes are easily corrected and the final product is never illegible.
The second article I read, Bookbinders: Fusing, by Johanna Riddle, talked about four media projects the author had done with elementary students. She found that the more she was able to integrate literature, visual literacy, technology and creative problem solving, the more the students were motivated to learn.
For primary students, she used “I Spy” books by Jean Marzollo and Walter Wick. Each student picked a book and then used the digital camera to take pictures of other students with their books. Students read their books and generated a list of objects mentioned in the book. The students then collected real objects to represent the objects on their lists. Students learned how to scan objects and then made a digital picture of their concrete objects. They wrote questions about their objects and attached those questions to their pictures. The picture and questions were taped to the inside cover of the book.
Another primary project was similar, using the Tana Hoban book, “Look Again”. Students used a digital camera to take a picture of a familiar object, then enlarged a small portion of the picture. The children learned to crop and the small section of the picture was put into a PowerPoint by the teacher. The PowerPoint collection of all the students’ pictures made an electronic book, similar to “Look Again” that the students could read as a class and share with others.
For older students, the emphasis was on using technology in literature circles. The first project had students making book covers using a photograph that symbolized some aspect of the story. The covers were printed and put on school copies of the books.
The second project was a “You Are There” style unit. Students used word processing, scanning, digital photography, PowerPoint, Publisher and Adobe Photoshop Elements to produce a finished product, an image from the book created by the student, overlaid with descriptive text.
These projects all seemed very doable to me. There would be other ways to accomplish these projects without using technology, but then the students would not have been introduced to the many possibilities of creating with computers.
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
March 21 Teacher Blogs
I checked out three blogs, Borderland, Adventures in Educational Blogging and Blue Skunk Blog.
I found Borderland to be the most interesting because the author is a reading teacher from Alaska. I got started reading an old blog about DIBELS and snake oil, then I had to read through all the comments and discovered the last one was written by Richard Allington! The author, Doug, seems to like controversial topics and uses the blog to put forth his opinions on literacy instruction.
Adventures in Educational Blogging is a record of what is happening in the teaching life of a tech supervisor in Singapore. Susan Sedro uses blogging to talk about the techniques and technology that she is using in her school. Her latest blog was about using technology in music instruction. Her purpose seems to be to reflect on how well the technology works for her, the staff and the students as well as to give blog readers ideas of how technology can be integrated into teaching.
The last site I visited was Blue Skunk Blog. The author is a director of media and technology in a Minnesota school system, an adjunct faculty member with a university and a writer of professional articles. His most recent blog was written like a newsletter, full of short news items, jokes, anecdotes and some personal news. Other blogs are articles on one topic. His blogs deal with various subjects, but usually something having to do with libraries, standards or technology. The postings are often very humorous. He wants responses to his blogs as they may form the basis for articles for publication in professional journals.
I think students could use blogs in the same way these authors do. They could write journals where they describe school projects and reflect on their usefulness. They could write newsletters full of opinions and anecdotes to share with other students and get feedback from their peers. They could use a blog to stir up controversy that might cause others to respond. This could result in deeper thinking or it could cause them to become more entrenched in their beliefs.
I found Borderland to be the most interesting because the author is a reading teacher from Alaska. I got started reading an old blog about DIBELS and snake oil, then I had to read through all the comments and discovered the last one was written by Richard Allington! The author, Doug, seems to like controversial topics and uses the blog to put forth his opinions on literacy instruction.
Adventures in Educational Blogging is a record of what is happening in the teaching life of a tech supervisor in Singapore. Susan Sedro uses blogging to talk about the techniques and technology that she is using in her school. Her latest blog was about using technology in music instruction. Her purpose seems to be to reflect on how well the technology works for her, the staff and the students as well as to give blog readers ideas of how technology can be integrated into teaching.
The last site I visited was Blue Skunk Blog. The author is a director of media and technology in a Minnesota school system, an adjunct faculty member with a university and a writer of professional articles. His most recent blog was written like a newsletter, full of short news items, jokes, anecdotes and some personal news. Other blogs are articles on one topic. His blogs deal with various subjects, but usually something having to do with libraries, standards or technology. The postings are often very humorous. He wants responses to his blogs as they may form the basis for articles for publication in professional journals.
I think students could use blogs in the same way these authors do. They could write journals where they describe school projects and reflect on their usefulness. They could write newsletters full of opinions and anecdotes to share with other students and get feedback from their peers. They could use a blog to stir up controversy that might cause others to respond. This could result in deeper thinking or it could cause them to become more entrenched in their beliefs.
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Currently I am on leave so I do not have a classroom to refer to directly. I am a reading teacher and have also been a primary classroom teacher. I worked many years at a school in Corvallis, so I will use the technology there as the basis for my response. The school has a large computer lab that classes can visit once a week and at other times if it is available. It is (was?) also open some evenings for use by the community. Each classroom has at least two computers, a television with a VCR and a listening center. There are several digital cameras available for check-out in the computer lab. The library catalog is on the computer. Just to function in the school, students have to learn to use input and output devices as well as the terminology to communicate about technology.
Direct instruction in the use of computers should require very little time- probably a few short lessons. The majority of the technology standards can be addressed by integrating the use of computers, digital cameras, videos, etc. into content area projects. Students can work in groups and individually to research and present topics in social studies and science. Students can produce or help produce a web page and/or an on-line class newsletter (that can be printed for families that don't have internet at home.) Computer games that fit into content areas can be made available during class time or free time whichever is most appropriate.
Students can use digital cameras to take pictures to illustrate their writing. With a little help, first graders can create PowerPoint presentations about themselves that can be displayed at open house. As long as the batteries are charged and the systems are running, there are many ways to integrate technological tools into classroom curriculum.
Direct instruction in the use of computers should require very little time- probably a few short lessons. The majority of the technology standards can be addressed by integrating the use of computers, digital cameras, videos, etc. into content area projects. Students can work in groups and individually to research and present topics in social studies and science. Students can produce or help produce a web page and/or an on-line class newsletter (that can be printed for families that don't have internet at home.) Computer games that fit into content areas can be made available during class time or free time whichever is most appropriate.
Students can use digital cameras to take pictures to illustrate their writing. With a little help, first graders can create PowerPoint presentations about themselves that can be displayed at open house. As long as the batteries are charged and the systems are running, there are many ways to integrate technological tools into classroom curriculum.
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