Kathy Yancy is the opening speaker for NCTE’s Institute for 21st Century Literacies.

• First task: Define literacy
• Second task: Define 21st century literacy
• Third task: Identify 10 key terms that define 21st literacy
• Fourth task: Put key terms onto chart paper in some form. Here’s what our group of 4 came up with (using Wordle.net)

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.

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:

• time limits
• violence and martial arts (think high school boys)
• podcasts and slideshows - ask the students “Is this what you want other people to hear.” Ease kids into projects so they care about a quality produce
• alone or with others - helps kids who don’t have the equipment
• alternatives - you can give students non-video options such as posters (but they’ll want to do video!)

Resources: These resouces can be used as long as you cite them:

• www.partnersinrhyme.com
• www.podsafeaudio.com
• www.jamendo.com
• audacity.sourceforge.net/

Titles and Screenshots:

• using save-as in PowerPoint (use save as > save as type > save as jpg option)
• screenshots
  • Google Earth or Sketch Up
  • PicLens - plug in for your browser - perfect fix for those with “iPhone envy.” Great tool for teaching vocabulary, for instance.

Free Photos:

• CreativeCommons.com- KIds need to read the attribution requirements; otherwise, they’ll go to Google and not only violate copyright but also pick something that will pixalate like crazy.
• Morguefile.com (newspaper term) - Huge file sizes, which are good for video.

Motion Experience:

• Motion should ahve a purpose (pans, faces, eyes)
• What to do if you’re on PC? Use PhotoStory3 - great, great tool and free! Import pictures > customize motion option > save. If you’re using panning, you want the motion to be different all the time (which is shortcoming with default panning (Ken Burns effect). Oh, and you can create music in Photostory. A bit “elevatorish,” but you have options. Tip: don’t use a favorite pop song because that’s what your listeners will concentrate on — not your movie.

Moving Beyond Freebies

• Macs - Final Cut Express
• PCs Adobe Premiere Elements - $99 (BHphoto.com) - It’s a memory hog, so you’ll need a good video card with lots of RAM. Remember to render often, not just save. Big advantage of having multiple tracks. Key frames feature is cool, allowing you to add great effects., such as translucent text floating across an image. Want a good mic for camera: lavalier mic.

Why do we do video?

• another way to show learning
• good for ELL, LD kiddos
• impact (”favorite thing”)
• audience - we need to expand the audience so that kids really stretch

Good news… You can contact Rushton via www.NextVista.org or rh@nextvista.org. Fabulous session!

Following on the heels of my trip to the CUE Conference, last Wednesday I headed over to our Sacramento Educational Cable Consortium (SECC) to help judge the SEVAs (Students Educational Video Awards). As I sat with a team of teacher reviewers scoring middle school entries, I kept thinking about Mathew Needleman’s second graders’ amazing going-beyond-Open Court productions , such as as Camouflage Jones - Private Investigator. Making an award-winning film requires more than a well-designed storyline and storyboard. A bit of background in basic camera shots can make all the difference in grabbing and keeping an audience’s attention (and scoring judges points)!

As part of my district’s DOLCHE project, we provided participating teachers with a copy of Niko Theodosakis’s The Director in the Classroom. As engaging and comprehensive as this resource is, it does not include a section on basic shots. Fortunately, to complement Nikos’s book and videoconferencing trainings, my talented DOLCHE partner Krishna Harrison-Munoz jumped in with both a teacher workshop and a student workshop on basic shoots, much of which is included in her Roadmap for the New Video Producer and her Roadmap for the Student Video Producer.* Combine this handout with Mathew’s Kinds of Shots Tutorial, and even I (Queen of Bad Photography) feel confident about taking digital storytelling to the next level.

*Note: This was my first time using the K12HSN’s edZone to upload a document. Very easy! And I love having all that free space for uploading!

Andy Carvin posted today about an amazing digital storytelling project/collection:One Story, 50 Tools, Infinite Possibilities. One of the challenges of working with emerging writers is getting them to buy into the need for revision. But, oh my, a visit to educator Alan Levine’s treasure trove of Dominoe the Dog stories introduces not only multiple tools for digital storytelling but also presents a beautiful model of the unlimited possibilities for constructing a storyline when storytellers embrace revision. If you listen to the story below, you will definitely want to visit the Levine’s CogDog wiki and check out the next 49 versions (and tools)!

I spent the weekend revisiting some of my favorite mentors on the art of teaching writing: Nanci Atwell, Donald Graves, Lucy Calkins and Ralph Fletcher. Thank goodness the many, many post-it notes are still in place; so it did not take me long to find the gems that made for the perfect writers’ workshop while I was still in the classroom. A post earlier this week by Miguel at Around the Corner was a the impetus for revisiting my collection:

“In fact, blogging isn’t a medium for sharing what you’ve learned, but writing your way into understanding, or as Toby Fulwiler (Teaching with Writing) writes, a way of bringing order to chaos. To deny students the opportunity, and what Nanci Atwell refers to as the TIME and OWNERSHIP of their ideas, is incredibly problematic.”

This morning I read through Carolyn Foote’s Desparately Seeking Engagement post in which she mentions another hero from my past, Ken Macrorie, whose iSearch approach to research-based writing is structured to help emerging writers find a life’s passion to research and write about. Since this is the time of year many seniors in my district are expected to crank out a “senior project,” I want to thank Carolyn for her insightful list:

1. Give students time to consider their interests. How many of us could “generate” a topic when approaching it completely cold. The bells rings–okay, pick your topic.

2. Consider having students, as I mentioned above, write about things that interest them or collect information for weeks or months prior to the assignment.

3. As you move through your curriculum, have students keep a “research idea” log as things in the curriculum pique their interest.

4. Consider conducting research across an entire semester or year. Two of our teachers are trying this this year–having students gradually collect articles of interest, compare Wikipedia with other sources, use delicious or furl to bookmark items, keep their eyes out for news stories on their topics and so on. (Interestingly, this was partially driven by the fact that our main library will be closed in the spring when they will be writing their paper, but it’s been very very effective educationally.)

5. Consider completely rethinking the “research project.” Tell students they will write a research paper sometime during the year when it feels right to them. Scaffold everyone at the beginning with assistance on logistics, but let students “strike when the iron is hot.” (I know we are dealing with high school students, but….they might enjoy having this flexibility and spontaneity).

6. Have students establish a blog or use a class bulletin board online as a way to explore topics, ask others for help and work collaboratively. (What would have happened for the student above if the teacher had said–well, if you want to do this topic, and if you and the other student agree, how about the two of you working collaboratively on your research and your paper? And then supported that with sharing web 2.0 tools that would have assisted them?)

7. Consider how writing a blog entry or several blog entries is like writing a research paper–where you explore, document and share your investigations and passions. Could a “blog” be a research paper and be even more meaningful because it’s published?

8. Consider making the process more open-ended for students. Every researcher does not end up with the same product in “real life.” Why can’t the product grow organically out of the topic and student’s process? Some students may want to create a video to inform others, while others may want to write a blog, and yet others may want to create a slide show and present their information to their peers. Empower students to make those choices.

9. If you are a classroom teacher, then realize that your librarian is and wants to be a real partner with you in research(and your tech coordinator may as well!) Most school librarians have teaching degrees(in some states, this is required) and most have taught. (and many were English teachers!) Your librarian sees research in action every day, sees the problems students are having, sees where help is needed and wants to collaborate with you and plan with you. Seek them out and don’t feel like you are bothering them or inconveniencing them. (And librarians, don’t ever make teachers feel like they are inconveniencing you!)

But whatever you do–think about how to engage your students passionately in their research. Think about how to make it authentic for students. Rethink how you were taught the “research paper” and rethink how you teach it. Throw out the old “box” and see what happens, because your students will benefit tremendously in the end. And imagine “grading” research papers where every student was so engaged and passionate about their writing and their topic that they transcended the form. Wouldn’t that make the process worth it for everyone? It could even become the spark that leads a student on a life-changing path as they learn to shape their own learning.”

And my last resource and inspiration for writing comes from 9 year old Adora Svitak on Teacher Tube.

My favorite radio program NPR included a podcast on blogging’s 10th birthday in today’s Morning Edition - http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=17562078. What could I add to Vicki Davis’s excellent description of blogging as a classroom tool for extending teaching and learning? Perhaps one blog post and two 30-second videoclips:

• The blog post that best sums up how and why blogging can boost literacy skills: Will Richardson’s Jan 2007 post Blogging to Teach Reading - “blogging is reading with the intent to write,” which is a whole different ball game than reading to answer a multiple-choice test!
• From Florin High School students Erica and Phillip explaining, during a 2005 CUE presentation via videoconferencing straight from their classroom, what blogging means to them.

Thanks to some year-long mentoring by Paul Allison and Susan Ettenheim, I am now fully on board with students having their own blogs. I logged off Wednesday night’s Teachers Teaching Teachers Skypecast with some concrete ideas for providing students with the scaffolding to incorporate and share research in their blog posts. Paul has set up a wiki with the instructions for getting Youth Voices 2007 students up and running with Google Reader. I can see how this common thread will help connect readers and writers within the elgg setup and community and stretch their thinking/reading/writing skills as they post and respond.

I am also remembering an NECC conversation with Mark Wagner, who mentioned a student blog he added to his reader: My Year 8 English Blog. After reading Casper’s piece on plastic bags, I sincerely hope this young writer will continue posting when he enters his 9th year.

And thanks to Karl Fisch’s recent post, I discovered 7-year old Abby’s blog. I’m looking forward to following her through the school year. Abby’s will be a great site to share with teachers. This is definitely not MySpace! And check out her ClustrMap!

Hence a new category in my Blogroll: Student Blogs.

Technorati Tags: student_blogs, readwriteweb, web20

It was my good fortune eight summers ago to travel to Washington DC for a week-long American Memory Project Summer Teacher Institute at the Library of Congress. What an amazing week and experience to tour first-hand our nation’s library! Eight years later, the LOC has continued to digitize hundreds and hundreds of primary source documents in their huge effort to make these resources accessible to the public - especially to teachers and their students.

I love being on their listserv. What I’ve pasted below is from today’s email, and is representative of the information, resources, and services - FREE - they offer:

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SPECIFICALLY FOR TEACHERS…
* Asian Pacific Americans Community Center http://memory.loc.gov/learn/community/cc_asian-pacific.php Help your students understand Asian Pacific Heritage through the resources of the Asian Pacific Americans Community Center. Don’t miss the Primary Source Set on Japanese American internment during WW II.* New RSS Feed - Poetry 180
http://www.loc.gov/poetry/180/
Did you know that a poem is available for each weekday of the school year from the Library’s Poetry 180 project? Now these poems can be delivered right to your computer desktop through an RSS feed. Teachers and poetry lovers: sign up today! http://www.loc.gov/rss/poetry/180.xmlOF INTEREST TO ALL
* The Battle of the Bulge - Interactive Essay http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/maps/wwii/essay1.html This unique presentation uses U.S. Army situation maps to illustrate this famous WWII battle. Your students will enjoy the interactivity and the historical expertise shared by Library of Congress experts.* Amazing Grace http://memory.loc.gov/cocoon/ihas/html/grace/grace-home.html This new Web site explores the history of “Amazing Grace,” one of the best-known hymns in America, through items from the earliest printing of the song to various performances of it on sound recordings. Don’t miss the illustrated timeline, the essays on the history of “Amazing Grace,” a discography, and a selected bibliography.* Pictorial Americana http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/list/picamer/toc.html
Are you looking for a primary source image to use as a lesson starter or to support a teaching objective? Browse the table of contents of Pictorial Americana for a list of topical sets of images about American life and history. Several new sections have been added.

* The Civil Rights Era in the U.S. News & World Report Photographs Collection - http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/list/084_civil.html
U.S. News & World Report photographers took these sixteen images during the struggle for African American civil rights. Use the images to help your students understand both the violence and hope of this pivotal time in American history.

* A Century of Creativity - The MacDowell Colony http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/macdowell/
As students move into summer leisure, encourage them to celebrate their creativity. They may be inspired by a visit to the online version of this Library of Congress exhibition. Students will learn about famous works that trace their origin to the MacDowell Colony, such as Thornton Wilder’s “Our Town,” Aaron Copland’s ballet “Billy the Kid,” and Dorothy and DuBose Heyward’s play “Porgy.” Students will enjoy hearing insider knowledge shared by Library of Congress curators.

* World War I: The Great War http://www.loc.gov/vets/stories/ex-war-wwi.html
This new presentation from the Veterans History Project offers the experience of World War I through the voices, images, and personal effects of those who were there. Students can examine written accounts (letters, diaries, and memoirs) and photographs that will breathe life into a study of this long-ago event.

* Science Tracer Bullets Online - Global Warming & Climate Change http://www.loc.gov/rr/scitech/tracer-bullets/globalwarmingtb.html Are hurricanes, melting glaciers, rising ocean levels, eroding coastlines, crop damage, food shortages, absence of rainfall, shrinking aquifers, wildfires, and lowered water tables signs of worldwide global warming? If your students are grappling with how to understand this topic, introduce them to this listing of vetted print and Internet resources from the Science Reference Section, Library of Congress.

**HAVE YOU USED THE LIBRARY’S TOPICAL PORTALS?
The content celebrates nationally observed heritage months, but many teach these topics year-round.

NEW:
* Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month http://www.loc.gov/topics/asianpacific/ This Library-wide Web portal offers links to video selections, sound files, Library collections, and teaching materials pertaining to Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month.

* Jewish American Heritage Month http://www.jewishheritagemonth.gov/ This Web site, created collaboratively by the Library of Congress, National Archives and Records Administration, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Gallery of Art, National Park Service, Smithsonian Institution, and United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, offers students a glimpse into the life experiences of the generations of Jewish Americans who contribute to the fabric of American history, culture, and society.

**PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT OPPORTUNITIES
*The first of four Library of Congress Summer Institutes for Educators are almost upon us. We look forward to making new friends as well as seeing some old friends this summer!

*If you plan to visit the National Educational Computing Conference (NECC) in Atlanta, consider registering for a half-day, hands-on workshop - The Library of Congress: The Crash Course (Tuesday, June 26, 1-4 p.m.)

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But the most exciting part of the email was the mention that the LOC now has a blog - http://www.loc.gov/blog. As soon as I finish this post, I’ll be adding the URL to my Bloglines account!

In the past few weeks, I’ve been following a discussion on the NWP Tech Liaison’s listserv about comic book software. From the Oregon Writing Project, TL Glen Bledsoe recently shared a project he and his students created using Comic Life software. And from the Western Mass. Writing Project, Kevin Hodgson has created a digital storytelling site where he posts inspiring projects and wonderful resources - among them Bubbleply, a free download that lets you add dialog bubbles to images and even video. So for the teacher who would love to make the genre of political cartoons accessible and engaging for students, I can envision introducing students to LOC image collections and then turning them loose with free software such as Movie Maker 2, Comic Life or Bubbleply to add a new layer of possibilities for student analysis of primary sources. Who needs a costly textbook (or scripted lessons) when our nation’s library has opened its doors 24/7!?!
Technorati Tags: Library_of_Congress, primary_sources

“You cannot uneducate the person who has learned to read…You cannot humiliate the person who feels pride.” Cesar Chavez

It jumped right out at me as I opened the front page of today’s Sac Bee - E is for Empowerment. As he did in life, on what would have been his 80th birthday, the legacy of Cesar Chavez inspires those still facing barriers of racism and discrimination to stand up - or sit down - or walk a line - for justice.

Since accepting Kevin H and Bonnie K’s invitation to contribute to a collaborative digital storytelling project - The ABC Project - I’ve been pondering how to represent the letters “E” and “P” via multimedia. What better way to commemorate (the unofficial) Cesar Chavez Day than by reviewing his life and important contributions to civil rights.

I’m starting by reviewing a set of lessons I developed in 2002 (just before I left the classroom to head over to our district office): Crossing the Line, The Circuit, Esperanza Rising, and Lupita Manana. With luck, I won’t find too many broken links. Somewhere I also have some interviews a group of 4th, 5th, and 6th grade students conducted with several students at Sac State, who themselves grew up in migrant labor camps, along with their wonderful professor Maria Mejorada. With luck, I can find those tapes. My idea is to create a movie using student voices to narrate images from fields of California, where young and old still toil to bring fresh produce to our tables.

“Si, se puede” = Empowerment
Technorati Tags: CesarChavez, social_justice, digital_storytelling

I started reading Karl Fisch’s blog last summer. I think it was through Will Richardson’s blog that I discovered Karl’s Fischbowl. Or maybe it was through David Warlick’s or Bud the Teacher’s posts. But as I read through Karl’s post this morning, I was able to travel back with him to August, when he very generously posted a PowerPoint he was planning to show faculty. A great presentation designed to get teachers thinking about the future and the need to prepare students for it (their future, not our present). The presentation included slides pertinent to Karl’s site, Arapahoe High School.

I also remember, shortly after this above post, another one appearing letting readers know that the PowerPoint was now available as a Flash video. Although I realized the presentation was now more streamlined, I don’t remember thinking there was any kind of xenophobic message there - none whatsoever.

So I am feeling bad for Karl this morning as I read through his post and see some of his second thoughts about the now much viewed - over 2 million!!! - Did You Know video. I had actually already read Will Richardson’s March 23 post Over 2 Million Views, but went back for a re-read this morning. This time I made my first - and last - trip to Tom Hoffman’s blog. Hoffman’s response reminds me of a recent incident I had, on a very minuscule scale compared to Karl’s video, when I sent out via district email a link to a free comic book design website - and got a hand slap from a curriculum coach who, rather than check out the link I provided, dug through the site and found a place where students could post a “happy thought or prayer.” Sort of ended my motivation to share resources. I certainly hope that will not be the case for Karl Fisch.

Ironically, it was only yesterday that I included a link to Did You Know in a response message on the NWP Tech Liaison’s listserv. And, while on a roll, sent it on to my bookclub listserv, since we’re reading The World Is Flat for our April read.

I want to thank and acknowledge Karl for sharing a wonderful resource. I second Will Richardson’s statement: “I agree with Will - “Oh. My. Goodness. You deserve a medal.”
Technorati Tags: Karl_Fisch, Web2.0