Muddling through the blogosphere
Although I generally use Firefox for my browser, last week I was facilitating an Edublogs workshop for the Area 3 Writing Project and noticed an issue with embedded files when viewed in IE: the files appear as blank boxes and no amount of clicking can activate or open them. So I turned to the EB Forum and found the solution: Use Firefox!
But if you must use IE, here’s your workaround: Same as always, you will need to copy the embed code from the media site and then open the HTML editor of your post or page. Put your cursor where you want the media file to appear and paste in the code. Then click on Publish or, if you’ve already published this page or post, click on Save. Do NOT go back into the Visual editor. For some reason, with IE, if you head back into the Visual editor, the embed code changes, which is not good.
I’ve updated the Intro to Edublogs Manual to include the embedding issue - and also added instructions on adding a hyperlink to a comment. Here’s the linik: http://blogwalker.edublogs.org/files/2008/08/edublogs_08-14a3wp1.pdf.
Ernest Morrell is opening the session with 4 discussion questions:
Issues:
Dynamic, challenging time for teaching English and literacy - and meeting increased literacy demands. Teaching 21st century literacies can help us to address many of these challenges while providing opportunities for youth to produce socially and academically powerful texts in ways that were not previously possible - democratizing access to literacy.
Big Question: Motivating students - Expectancy Value Theory of Motivation - 1) Motivation is measure of how confident you are in your ability to perform a task and 2) motivation is measure of how relevant the task is to you. Value + Expectancy = Motivation
Examples:
Elementary Students: Teatro- Theater of the Oppressed (Pablo Freire)- Education for humanity’s sake. Elementary students out of Watts neighborhood of L.A. doing tableau on violence in their neighborhoods. Actors (students) then invite audience in to dialogue. Students were producing both academic text and socially relevant text.
11th Grader English Students - Great Gatsby unit on critical media literacy & the American Dream. Students analyzing images in 50 Cent and Seventeen and learning to read images. Between the gangster image and glamour image, teens die due to inability to read the media. Critical media literacy is a citizenship skill! The American Dream tied to wealth, not citizenship. Assignment = counter media campaign (e.g., female athletes, tough guy tutoring younger students) If you don’t like the media, make a new media - that’s the difference with 21st century literacy. Students must learn to de-construct images - and to create their own.
Critical media production: documentary filmmaking - (www.tcla.gseis.ucla.edu) - Students documenting cultures of their communities. Link between academic literacy and documentary filmmaking. Students become experts on their topics. Requires a high level of literacy to produce a documentary.
Teaching film and television:
Involving students in researching their own communities, with goal of making world a better place. Using an Inconvenient Truth, for example, as a key piece, moving kids beyond their own issues to issues of world. Engaging in research to make the world a better place = Youth Voices.
Critical Minds Project: English class for 9th grade, low-performing students - “A Day in My Life” was first prompt for these east L.A. students. Turned essays in photo essays > digital film.
“There is absolutely no inevitability as long as there is a willingness to contemplate what is happening.” Marshall McLuhan
“The question is not whether English will change, but how it will change.” Ernest Morrell
To see Ernest’s PowerPoint: http://www.ernestmorrell.com/ (user=profmorrell; password=morrell).
I’ll send out a Tweet as soon as I’ve uploaded the podcast for the session.
Kathy Yancy is the opening speaker for NCTE’s Institute for 21st Century Literacies.
Bonus of opening session: Kyene Beers‘ explanation of “dip in/dip out” approach to Holt Language Arts program - very different than the scripted approach! I’ll be doing a podcast with her later in the conference.
My two weeks at the Holocaust Seminar were amazing, just amazing. Because I need some time to reflect on the depth and breadth of what I learned, I’m planning to share the experience and resources a bit at a time, starting with the way I started most of my days: walking through Central Park’s Strawberry Fields.
Can’t pass up a session with Hall Davidson! Hall is opening the session with a look at the stats on who allows/who forbids use of cell phones. It’s a long list on the “allow” side; a short one on the forbid side (Fidel Castro, the Talian, US school districts).
The ability to immediately send a communication - What’s the application? Kids can be creative with use of a cell phone - hey, they have them in their pockets, duh.
Video:
Telephone:
Next steps: Revise AUPs to include ethical, acceptable use of cell phones.
I managed to beat the crowds and am now sitting right up front for David Jakes’ session on 10 Points for Improving PowerPoint presentations. Dean Shareski just finished the introduction (hilarious) of David, who is now starting with some images of old technologies, such as the ditto machine…and heading into the ’80s with…PowerPoint. Yep, PowerPoint has been with us since 1987!
“It’s not what the software does. It’s about what they do with it. It’s about crafting the message.”
Teach them biology
The brain is innately designed to communicate visually. Brain wired for visual (30%), but auditory in only (3%). Therefore PowerPoint has to be really visual. Move kids away from templates and away from being text-based. Presentations are indeed performances. Don’t remove all text, but limit it. Dual Processing of brain: visual and auditory + Cognitive load: intrinsic(based on how complex material is) and extrinsic (based on how material is presented).
Teach them how to find images
Teach them design (Dean Shareski)
Teach them to sell
Color and font choice matters
Teach them to incorporate multimedia:
Teach them PowerPoint Secrets
Teach them to share
“Back of Napkin” – selling ideas by getting people to think visually
2008 = lots of ways to communicate!
I’m sitting in a very packed room with Rushton Hurley (I’m actually hiding from the fire code folks up front where they can’t see that I’m exceeding the room limit). Low Tech Advice:
Resources: These resouces can be used as long as you cite them:
Titles and Screenshots:
Free Photos:
Motion Experience:
Moving Beyond Freebies
Why do we do video?
Good news… You can contact Rushton via www.NextVista.org or rh@nextvista.org. Fabulous session!
Davina Pruitt-Mentle and Nancy Willard are leading this section on cyber awareness - which goes beyond cyber safety. PowerPoint of session will be up on NECC ning soon.
Davina: Academic Integrity/Cyber Ethics
Big disconnect between K12 arena and higher ed.
What’s the difference between academic integrity and plagiarism? Academic integrity includes plagiarism as a subset.
Traditional plagiarism includes:
New forms of plagiarism includes:
Statistics and Realities - From Center for Academic Integrity - Donal McCabe is a leading researcher. He reports that at least 80 percent of college students admit to cheating at least once - but colleges are reluctant to report problems of cheating, so stats are probably higher. His high school survey showed 74% of cheating on tests and written work. Almost 97% report copying homework at least once. At both the high school and college levels, few students take cheating seriously nor do they believe that their teachers really care (too much hassle, don’t care, not worth the trouble). Serious test cheating grows from 9th to 11th grade and drops off slightly in 12th grade. Students in midwest report lower levels of cheating than schools in west and northeast. Fact: students have a 99% chance of getting away with it. Over time, cheating has not increased substantially, but it’s becoming the norm. Love this student quote for one of the studies: “Except for English they [teachers] never really care.” Teacher quote: “no real consequences for students if you do turn it in.” Fuzzy AUP/SCCs are a problem, with so few having clear statement on defining cheating or consequences.
Suggestions: Students need more than just a single briefing of the AUP. Be sure to include library media specialist as a partner. Ashley Mouberry-Sieman has study online of differences between high school and college cheating:
Sites for security issues:
Nancy Willard - Center for Safe and Responsible Internet Use
Digital Divide + shift to Web 2.0 > huge changes!
Why do young people make poor decisions:
Approaches that are not working:
How do we do this cybers afety thing better?
Pretty cramped quarters in afternoon session of the today’s EduBloggerCon08 to join Vicki Davis’s Web 2.0 Smack Down session. We’re sharing favorite tools:
Very high-energy session!
The full title for this session is Digital Storytelling as the Disruptive Change Agent. Wes is starting with fact that student and teachers have little opportunity for feedback - and development - once they’ve created a digital story. Kevin’s Celebrate Oklahoma oral histories project taps into technologies such as a ning for creating the digital storytelling community.
The Oaklahoma Project was set up for interviewing veterans. The project started with GCast to record an interview over the phone (GabCast works too - both are free).
Advantage of uploading and sharing digital stories on the open web, comments are a possibility, connecting and reconnecting family members. We’re listening to the Lillie and John story amazing story - incredibly well written + music - quite the emotional impact. Check out Hank Thompson’s World War II story.
Digital storytelling in the classroom is a golden opportunity to teach positive, constructive use of technology. Maybry digital storytelling awards, for example, have changed student lives. How to get teachers going with filmmaking? Give a deadline and an event (e.g., Veteran’s Day). Time is the number one challenge, but by getting the students involved and having them use time outside of school will also help kickstart a project.