This morning, I am pleased to be a part of Littleton Public Schools’ Adolescent Literacy Institute, and I am able to participate in Harvey “Smokey” Daniels’ keynote, “Best Practice Across the Curriculum.” Here are some notes from his session:

• Goals for today
  • Define “Best Practice”
  • Consider the missing link: student collaboration
  • Watch video of kids working together
  • Introduction to Inquiry Circles
• Books: Best Practice, Content Area Writing, Subjects Matter
• 91& of the time, 6th graders spend their time listening to teachers talk of doing commercially prepared seatwork (Pianta et al, 2007)
• What’s missing?
  • Engagement
  • Curiosity
  • Content
  • Thinking
• Best practice
  • In 1993 when we worked on the first edition of this book, we were thinking about how other professionals look at the “state of the art” in their field and consider what is “best practice.”
  • Sadly, it is now showing up in “best practice” workbooks
  • So, what is “best practice?”
  • Coverage vs. Inquiry
    • Cover the curriculum (a “curriculum of mentioning”) vs. slowing down and going deeper, screened content
    • Atheoretical vs. driven by learning theory (whatever you subscribe to, all theories agree that students must act upon information in order to make it their own)
    • Assigning reading and writing vs. modeling reading and writing
    • No strategy instruction vs. explicit strategy instruction
    • Backloading instruction vs. frontloading instruction (Jeff Wilhelm)
    • Little or no support during reading and writing vs. time, activities and tools that support students (before, during, and after)
    • Textbook-based vs. variety of texts
    • Teacher chosen topics and assignments vs. student choice and responsibility
    • Solitary vs. social
  • See Consortium on Chicago Schools Research
    • Students in interactive classrooms had nearly 1/3 more gain in achievement than non-interactive classrooms
  • Small group work
    • Groups of four seems to be the magic number for group work
    • Small groups are lifelike
    • In small groups, we are smarter
    • Small groups generate energy for challenging work
    • Small groups make the most of diversity
    • Small groups bring “best practice” teaching to life
    • Small groups help us differentiate instruction
    • Employers increasingly require small group skills
    • Linda Darling-Hammond’s book on Powerful Learning
    • Social skills predict earnings better than test scores
  • Common Core Standards
    • “Engage productively and respectfully with others”
  • How do we get predictable and positive outcomes from students?
    • Make personal connections
    • Get them to know each other
    • Mix up the groups periodically
    • Know who can, and can not, work together
    • Teaching them to ask follow-up questions
  • Modeling an open inquiry
    • Studying the future

• Points to consider when thinking about collaboration with Google Docs
  • We spend our weekend grading student papers while they are out — how can we invite them to collaborate?
  • Students often get information from only one source — how do we help them find more?
  • Solitary vs. social — how do we effectively structure group tasks to involve everyone?
  • Asking follow-up questions — how do we teach students to really interact with one another and ask pertinent, empathetic follow-up questions?

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Another semester has zoomed past and, before these thoughts escape me, and I begin a series of summer workshops and our CRWP summer institute, I am going to try to capture a few of the lessons learned in relation to digital writing and digital teaching. Good lessons seem to come in threes, so here goes:

1. Digital storytelling takes time, and a story to tell (larger lesson: any digital writing takes time, and a distinct audience, purpose, and sensibility to craft and design)

I enjoy digital storytelling, both as a digital writer and as a teacher. I appreciate the ways in which a combination of images, sounds, music, and video — coupled with one’s own voice — can create a multimedia work that is truly more than the sum of its parts. Moreover, I continue to be intrigued by new understandings related to fair use of digital media, and the implications that this has for creating digital stories. So, when I introduce digital storytelling to any group, especially my pre-service teachers, I get excited about the possibilities of what can come.

That said, I also get worried, because sometimes what comes when their stories finally premier are not really digital stories in the sense that they have crafted a narrative and supported it with multimedia. Instead, they are slideshows set to music. While one could argue that I am being snooty in this distinction, I don’t think that I am. Let me elaborate a bit.

If we want writers to compose stories, then we have to expect them to begin with the story. I am not sure where I went wrong with this over the past semester, but as I watched the numerous digital stories that my students produced for their final portfolio, I was amazed by the fact that so few included their own voice (literally, by recording it) even after they asked me if they needed to do that. Also, even after we looked at a few digital stories and talked about the ways the authors used transitions and effects, as well as supporting their tale with music rather than letting the music tell it, I still saw many, many slideshows with music.

So, I am not sure what else to say about this right now except to say that I need to reiterate the idea that digital stories need to, well, tell a story. In your voice. With your voice. More to think about with that in the summer institute.

2. Wikis are the most functional space for digital writing to live

After talking with my friend Steve before the semester about how and why to keep using wikis (after almost making an ill-fated decision to switch to Ning), I am more pleased than ever that I use a wiki for the hub of activity in both ENG 315 and in CRWP.

This semester, I asked my ENG 315 students to post almost all their work to the wiki, as well as to respond to the work of their peers. This really extended the conversations that we were having in class and made having a writer’s profile that much more important because they could link all their work back to it to form a makeshift portfolio. As many of them have continued with their work over the semester, the wiki grew and grew. Now, most have very robust writing profiles that also include their multigenre projects.

I like the idea of calling these writers profiles, as that implies something that will continue to grow and change over time whereas, somehow, “portfolio” seems to be more fixed. Given the ways in which the profiles worked this spring, I hope to use the same strategy in CRWP this summer, the WRITE NOW grant workshop in August, and in my ENG 618 research methods class in the fall.

3. Something is changing in the conversations about literacy and technology

I am really not sure when and how this happened, but Sara and I were talking about the fact that, in the past year or two, the ways in which people talk about technology and education seems to have changed. Even as recently as the workshops I was doing for PROJECT WRITE in 2007-8, it seemed as though participants kept asking “why?” when a new technology was introduced to them (and these were people that volunteered to be a part of the grant). That said, it really seems to me that in the past two years, the question has shifted from “why?” to “how?”

In other words, there really isn’t a lot of time spent on arguing for technology use in education anymore, at least not when I go to a school or conference. Maybe it is because many people have laptops and internet-ready mobile phones. Maybe it is because of a backlash to NCLB. Maybe it is because of the many curriculum documents and reports about 21st century literacies. Probably some combination of all of this, plus a shift in the skills and attitudes that children now bring to school.

All the same, I have begun to find it refreshing that I can start the conversation with a group of pre-service or in-service teachers now and not have to justify technology use so much as I need to talk about the literacy practices enabled by technology. I get my first chance of the summer to have that talk tomorrow with teachers in Littleton, CO, as they work to integrate laptops into their writing courses.

So, considering my approach to digital storytelling, the use of wikis, and the ways in which we talk about technology will continue to be on my mind this summer. I look forward to the continued learning as I participate in the many upcoming PD events I have scheduled for the summer and hope to share more of my thinking here.

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Alfie Kohn, an outspoken critic of traditional schooling and standardized testing, spoke at CMU on Wednesday, March 17, 2010. Here are some notes I captured from his talk, “Overhauling the Transmission Model: An overview of traditional versus progressive teaching”

• You may know if you have been a student or teacher that learning is not simply a process of absorbing information throw at you, but if that is true then it makes sense for this presentation to not be about me just talking at you
• What I am going to describe for you is a first grade classroom in New England, where kids were studying the Mayflower, and the kids showed up to see that the chairs and tables were pushed to the edge of the room and the floor had an outline of a ship made in masking tape.
  • A classmate comes in and unrolls a scroll from the king — we cannot sail on the ship until we know how big it is. Teacher asks — any ideas for how to figure this out? Figuring out how tall a student is, using him as a measure, then with hands, etc. The king doesn’t know how long the child, the hands, etc are.
  • They don’t get it that day, but they return to it the next day… measure it with the classmate’s feet… he knows the king!
  • Finally, on the third day, the teacher finally introduces the concept of standard units of measurement, and gives them rulers.
  • What distinguishes this lesson, makes it unusual?
    • She took three days to let the students discover this concept; “covering” material makes you feel that you don’t have enough time — this is about “discovering” material
    • There was a rationale, not just “open wide” and here come the facts
    • Basis for life-long learning and problem solving
    • It was connected and inter-disciplinary
    • It was generative and collaborative
    • Invited the children to use their imaginations
    • Both hands-on and minds-on — they were inventing the idea of a ruler and figuring out standard units of measure
• How might we find teaching and learning more generative if we were involved in these types of classrooms?
• Middle school example — what questions do you have about yourself? What questions do you have about the world?
  • Looking at questions together to develop themes, then the teacher takes themes from each of the groups and to synthesize what students are saying to look at some overarching themes to intrigue them all. Examples: conflict and war, the future, etc. This becomes the overarching curriculum for the entire school for the entire year. Teachers in this school see them as generalists first, then content area specialists second.
  • The teaching is organized around questions that the kids themselves have asked. The students themselves become scholars, far more engaged in what they are doing than in traditional school settings.
• High school example — Harvey Daniels and Best Practice High School, Chicago
  • Cross-disciplinary unit on fast food and how it connects to health, economics, popular culture, etc.
  • Read Fast Food Nation and connected it to content in biology related to nutrition, digestion, etc.
  • Students then chose from magazine articles about the fast food industry — animal cruelty, locations of fast food in low-income neighborhoods, etc.
  • Went to restaurants and kept anthropological observation journals of patrons and employees
  • Some became activists around the issue
  • Did they test at the end? No… they kept portfolios of letters, pamphlets, and other materials that they created
• What can we do in classrooms to make this happen?
• Setting up a false dichotomy… but one to use as a way to compare/contrast…
  • Traditional — skill and drill (although, “traditional” models in the sense of being “old” is multiage learning and apprenticeship models)
  • A new, progressive way… as exemplified by the examples I offered
    • Differences:
      • Traditional — the purpose is to get the “right” answer and spit it out on demand to the teacher who has all the power and will determine who talks when (the point is not to have an intellectual conversation, but to give the one answer that the teacher wants, the one that she is fishing for)
        • What to Look for in a Classroom (from alfiekohn.com)
        • I want to see stuff from the kids on the walls… but what does it look like? I don’t want all the pumpkins on the wall in a kindergarten room to look the same.
        • How to teach kids to read — a teacher thinking about phonics may look at the phonemes, the progressive teacher will focus on meaning
        • Standardized tests measure what we need least; efforts to improve tests scores lead to less authentic learning
        • Mom asks “what did you do in school today?” Kid answers, “nothing.” He is probably right — he may have had a lot done to him.
      • Old school — bunch of facts and skills. Worksheets to learn how to add, but not applying it.
        • Progressive school — facts and skills are taught in a context.
        • It is easier, not just more interesting, to make sense of this if there is a context… “I think that I could read this if I knew what it was about.”
      • Traditional — no good reason for learning
      • Progressive — create a lesson with and for your students that will engage them
• When I talk about this in terms of context, problem-based learning, etc… I am referring to the idea that teachers have a collection of facts to but into students’ heads ala Dewey, Freire
  • When the kids have nothing to say about the course, the curriculum… consider the “ten year” question. What is left of your course after a decade has passed? We are creating elaborate snow structures on the last day before spring… it drains right out again if we are not helping students learn in real ways. We are meaning-makers, and we work from a constructivist approach. The best learning is a process of reconstructing ideas.
  • When people talk about making things more “rigorous,” we should be worried about that…
  • We often think that AP courses are the best courses in the high school because they are “accelerated”
  • It almost always works out that when we are trying to “raise the bar” and “close the gap,” we have kids who are poor who are being given more drill and skill while the rich kids are doing more real learning.
• Last effect of traditional education is the loss of curiosity
  • As kids move into school, their intrinsic motivation dies off as a response to traditional instruction
• Final question — if everything I have said is true, especially if progressive schools are proven by research to be effective, then why is the traditional approach still so common?
  • It is difficult to do well
  • Not given training in college
  • We teach how we are taught
  • “Any idiot can stay one chapter ahead of the kids”
  • Top down leadership; lack of autonomy
• Q/A
  • Books: effects of grading, negative effects of homework, negatives of standardized tests, bribes and threats of disciplines
  • Check out Diane Ravitch’s “Death and Life of the Great American School“
  • Question to ask at schools — How do you hope these kids will turn out? Happiness, problem-solving, ethics — these are the things that we care about in the long run and these are the criteria we should set as “standards”
  • Ted Sizer’s work on the Coalition of Essential Schools
  • The teachers who were glad to have me didn’t need me; the ones who didn’t want to talk fit the model of traditional education

Reflections

Alfie Kohn certainly stays on message, despite his “digressions.” I first started reading him over a decade ago, saw him speak about five years ago, and have been influenced by his ideas in many ways. There are some points that I disagree on, especially the idea that assessment is — in and of itself — an almost evil force, because I think that we can do assessment in responsible ways that help kids learn and help teachers teach. But, overall, he reiterates the negative data (and anecdotes) about testing, grading, skill and drill teaching, and awards for kids that he has been discussing for years. As I think about writing instruction, especially in an age of technology, I think that we can take some of these ideas and look at how a writing workshop approach can foster student learning in a constructivist manner, one that values the context in which students work and the authentic inquiry that they choose to pursue.

I think, too, that we have to recognize the overwhelming forces that teachers face — it is not just about individual choices inside our own classrooms, although that is important; it is about the structural aspects of schooling and the expectations of our society that place particular demands on schools, teachers, and students. At the end, he began to talk about the socio-economic and political influences on our system of education, and I think that we really need to talk more about these influences because they permeate our classrooms. Teachers can be progressive within their four walls, or their school, but that is not going to create substantive change in the system. It is a start, indeed, but will not change the entire system.

At any rate, I know that many of my CMU students were in the audience, and my sincere hope is that they have gained some insights into some of the perspectives that I bring to ENG 315. I try to alleviate the pressures of grading and invite them to think critically and creatively about what they can do as writers and teachers of writing. I ask them to do authentic writing, both personally and professionally, and I do not rely on tests in any way. Instead, I ask them to write in different genres, for different purposes, and to different audiences. As one student said in class the other night, “This is a lot of work.” Indeed, it is. And, I know that it is overwhelming and that my class doesn’t meet the expectations that they have of what a college course, or a methods course, should look like. Yet, I think that it is valuable work, and I hope that it will encourage them as writers and teachers of writing to be a little more, as Kohn would suggest, “progressive” in their own classrooms.

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After a wonderful week in Philly and while reflecting on my experiences at the NWP Annual Meeting, “Digital Is” Conference, and NCTE Convention, I was fortunate enough to engage with a Michigan colleague who, as a part of her master’s program, is doing an inquiry project on establishing her own digital writing workshop. She had picked up my book (thanks!) and then had some questions for me, specifically related to her teaching context. With her permission, I share excerpts of our email conversation here in hopes that it may be useful for some of you attempting to establish digital writing workshops in your own classrooms and schools. The exchange begins with her first question, and I have indented my responses for clarity.

1.  Access is my biggest issue.  Currently, I share a laptop cart of 20 with the whole school (about 220 kids).  I do have 5 computers in my classroom, but I am unable to sign out the cart on most days, leaving me one day a week (to compete with the whole school) to sign out the laptops.  I am currently dreaming and searching for grants to get more computers for my own classroom, but access continues to be an issue.  Not all of my students have access to computers or internet at home, and most aren’t able to use a computer during the school day.  (The competition to use one of the classroom computers can be pretty stiff, especially since many of my students have computer usage written into their IEP…  leaving all the others without class time access.)  How does one go “fully digital” without access?  Do I make blogging their weekly writing a requirement and then have them come in during lunch or after school?  Or do I wait on that part until I know everyone has fair access?

I am in a fairly fortunate position…  my class sizes are small.  But how much do I push the envelope?

You are welcome, and thanks for taking the next steps — I applaud your enthusiasm and professionalism. I look forward to hearing about your work.

Cross-posted on the Digital Writing Workshop Ning.



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As the holidays begin, another conference season comes to a close.

For the past week, Sara and I have been in Philadelphia at the National Writing Project’s “Digital Is…” pre-conference, the NWP Annual Meeting, and the National Council of Teachers of English Annual Convention. As it is each year, we enjoy spending time with colleagues and find opportunities to learn about their work. Moreover, we pause to think about our own work including what we have accomplished in the past year and what we are looking forward to in the next.

To that end, I began writing this reflection in the lobby of the Sheraton in Philly, continued it at the airport and on the plane, and now post it as I spend Thanksgiving with my parents. Here is my day-by-day account of NWP/NCTE 2009.

Tuesday, 11/17/09

Arriving in Philly on Tuesday afternoon, we had some time to enjoy a quick walk and prepare for the “Digital Is…” reception. Sponsored through NWP’s work with the MacArthur Foundation’s Digital Media and Learning Initiative, the entire “Digital Is…” conference was designed as an opportunity to convene teachers, teacher educators, and other stakeholders in conversations about what we know about teaching and learning with digital media. The opening reception was fun, followed by dinner with colleagues from Science Leadership Academy. A great way to begin our week, for sure.

Wednesday, 11/18/09

“Digital Is…“convened in the Sheraton, with two slideshows from Danielle DeVoss. The first ran as a background show during breakfast, the second was her keynote. There is no way to capture the energy that she shared during this session, except to say that she really framed the day with her eight key themes about “digital is…” that I outlined in a previous post. So, even though the experience is not nearly the same, here are the slideshows:

For the afternoon, I was again fortunate to present with Dawn about our work with podcasting, as featured in Teaching the New Writing. By doing a protocol analysis discussion of the work, we were really able to dig deeply and think about what was there. One of the more stunning realizations that we had in the conversation was about the ways in which the composing process changes when writers begin with the goal of creating a spoken and, in some sense, permanent text. I think that the line from the notes that captures it best is that the process of recording the podcast “reinforces writing as a capacity that changes across genres and audiences and mediums.” It will be interesting to see where Dawn goes next with this work.

The second round of discussion was interesting, too, as we mixed up groups and have conversations across the elements of student work. Rather than try to capture all the complexities of that conversation in writing, I will share two items. The first is a list of “final words” that I asked participants in our session to state in relation to their thoughts about composing in digital environments at the end of this hour-long conversation. The second is a concept map that I tried to draw while we were talking. Neither alone captures all that happened in our session, but perhaps will give you some insights into what happened.

Concept Map from Digital Is

• Hybridity
• Genre
• Messy
• Openness
• Elegance
• Excitement
• Immediacy
• Future
• Mistakes
• Surrender
• Reciprocity
• Space
• Dirty
• Play
• Organic

I had the opportunity to then help close the day, asking participants to create “invitations” that could be used to ask other stakeholders to join in the conversation about digital writing with youth. One of the most consistent themes from throughout the day was the fact that most of the digital writing opportunities that students have are taking place outside of school. This is a travesty. If we can create these types of engaging opportunities outside of school, then surely we can consider how to do better at creating these types of learning spaces inside of schools. This is something to chew on in the weeks and months to come as I figure out where to go next with my own work and the direction of our writing project.

That night, we were treated to a panel discussion of “What Kids Learn When They Create with Digital Media” with Renee Hobbs, Founder, Media Education Lab, Temple University; Nichole Pinkard, Founder, Digital Youth Network and DePaul University professor; and Elyse Eidman-Aadahl, Director, National Programs and Site Development, National Writing Project.

Thursday, 11/19/09

The NWP Annual Meeting kicked off with morning and afternoon workshops. In the morning, I attended one on developing site leadership and, in the afternoon, on integrating new literacies into the site’s work that featured Paige Cole, Joe Conroy, Shasta Looper, and Sara Beauchamp-Hicks. Along with Sara’s overview of how she integrated her own growth as a tech leader into her site’s work and securing mini-grants and creating professional development experiences, I was particularly interested in watching Paige and Joe talk about the work that they initially developed at Tech Matters 2007 and to see how they have grown work at their sites. Literally, I had goose bumps watching Paige’s video reflection. Taken with ideas from the morning about how to support and encourage site leaders, the two sessions reminded me of the power of the NWP network, and how small doses of encouragement from a mentor can turn into incredible work.

Friday, 11/20/09

More NWP today, with Billy Collins bringing down the house at the general session. Truly, truly wonderful. Also wonderful was the introduction of the Chippewa River Writing Project as one of the new sites in the NWP network! Later in the afternoon, I was able to attend a session on community partnerships, including a presentation from Joel Arquillos from the amazing 826 organization (which, if you haven’t heard about, watch Dave Eggers’ TED Talk and then visit the 826 website). Also, I got to hear about the Eastern Michigan Writing Project’s Family Literacy workshops from their program director, Kim Pavlock. So many powerful ideas here from both Joel and Kim, but the biggest one being that we need to make learning to write purposeful for students and the process of doing so clear to their parents. What incredible programs to model from. To close the day, I got to hear from two of my mentors — Patti Stock and Peter Kittle — about the power of taking an inquiry stance towards teaching demonstrations in the summer institute. I am very much looking forward to returning to CRWP and talking over all this information with my leadership team, most of whom were there with me and will have ideas of their own to share, too.

Saturday, 11/21/09

An early morning brought both Sara and me to the NCTE booth, leading Tech-to-Go sessions for those beginning their day at NCTE. I talked about wikis, while Sara presented on Google Forms and then, later in the day, on iPod Touch applications. This led us to my presentation with Bud Hunt, “Reports from Cyberspace,” This was truly an amazing session, as we tried to incorporate a backchannel discussion through Twitter, delicious, and Chatterous. Also, in trying to use newer tools for presentations, I created a Prezi and Bud made a Voice Thread. The conversations that occured in the session, both face-to-face and online, were amazing, and we are thinking about repeating the session again next year. One recurring question was about access, and both Bud and I contended that it is reasonable to expect kids to do digital writing now, because there is access available in many more places and most of the tools are web-based. We also touched on issues of filtering, curriculum, assessment, and how to begin digital writing workshops.

Later that night, Sara and I were able to join the Heinemann reception and found out that my book sold out in the convention hall! Thanks to everyone who picked up a copy there, as well as to everyone else who then ordered one online. I am  looking forward to where my next writing opportunity may take me…

Sunday, 11/22/09

We awoke Sunday morning for a wonderful session on erasing copyright confusion, and I was then able to interview Renee Hobbs for an aricle on fair use for CCCC-IP. We also were able to meet with the CEE Web Site Editors, and came up with a plan for developing some basic content for the site. Our afternoon found us on adventures in Philly with my friend Carl Young, and we enjoyed a visit to the National Constitution Center. In thinking about how and why we ask students to compose digital writing, our visit to this center was particularly appropriate, as we were greeted with remixed versions of “People” magazine covers, featuring such historical figures as Abraham Lincoln and Betsy Ross, as well as a highly-interactive multimedia experince in the museum.

Monday, 11/23/09

While we had planned to go to SLA, and appreciated the invite to be there, we ended up spending most of our day at at the Franklin Institute. Perhaps we will have to do EduCon instead. So, even though we missed SLA, we greatly enjoyed the Body Worlds exhibition, and felt that was a good use of our final hours in Philly.

Also, we realized that we missed the NCTE Centennial Preview, but John Golden provided the link for me, so you can enjoy it online!

As with all NWP/NCTE trips, this one game me so many good ideas and connections with colleagues. Next on my agenda are to begin planning next summer’s CRWP SI and, ideally, an advanced institute related to digital writing and copyright. Also, I am working on writing the article for the Cs Intellectual Property Caucus, CCCC-IP. Still thinking about so much, and hoping to get back to Philly with my entire family for more of the historical aspects of the town that we missed.

And, so goes another NWP Annual Meeting and NCTE Convention. Thanks for sticking with me through this whole pose.

Now, time to plan for the convention in Orlando, celebrating 100 years of NCTE.

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Notes from “Erasing Copyright Confusion” at NCTE 2009

Joyce Valenza, Renee Hobbs, Kristin Hokanson, and Michael RobbGrieco

Center for Social Media

• Renee Hobbs, Temple — What is the purpose of copyright?
  • Protect intellectual property
  • Ownership, profit
  • Authors’ right
• In fact, the purpose of copyright is to promote creativity, innovation, and the spread of knowledge
  • Owners have pushed for longer length of copyright
• How we Cope as Educators with Copyright
  • “See no evil” teachers — don’t examine copyright issues at all
  • “Close the door” teachers — know that there is something to copyright, yet keep it private
  • “Hyper-comply” teachers — they hold on to this idea more strongly for their students than themselves
• When I use creative materials, which concepts apply?
  • Attribution — citing your sources (an academic community’s normative conventions that they agree upon to acknowledge other’s work)
  • Plagiarism — not acknowledging source material used in your work
  • Infringement — copying another’s work in violation of the law
  • Fair Use — the legal use of copyrighted works without permission or payment
  • Licensing — Asking permission and paying a fee
• Copyright balances the rights of owners with the rights of users
  • Owners get to control how their work is controlled and distributed for a limited use of time
  • As users, however, we have some rights, too
  • All those things you knew about the “30 second rule,” the “10% rule,” the “45 day rule” are not the law
    • The charts that you see, they are not the law — they are negotiated agreements that have “the appearance of positive law”
    • The guidelines actually limit our understandings of fair use
    • You can use copyrighted material in a variety of ways — criticism, comment, news reporting, scholarship AND creative work
    • Peter Jazi — the benefits to society outweigh the private costs to the copyright holder, or else copyright law becomes a form of private censorship
• Michael RobbGrieco, Temple — Responding to the Rise of Remix Culture: Challenges and opportunities for teaching, learning, and literacy
  • Are you a part of remix culture?
    • Build on others?
    • Quote passages?
    • Do you have a website?
  • Our students are fully immersed in a remix culture
    • Remix is how our students add their own personal experience to the wider culture and make their experience known to others
    • Can remix perpetuate cultural norms that are oppressive?
    • Critical remix for democracy, dialogue, and exchange
    • Single Ladies in Mayberry
  • Develop media literacy skills
    • Balancing producer and consumer identities
    • Can create shallow engagement without critical interpretation (this is where educators come in)
    • How do we realize the potential of fair use while also facing the challenges that are present?
    • How can we be critical with our students and invite interpretation and argument?
    • Michael’s video: Copyright, What’s Copyright?

• Kristin Hokanson, Upper Merion High School
  • What does it mean to add value to other people’s work?
  • Use of Flickr images for a biology project
  • Use of Dave Matthews “Gravedigger” with Spoon River Anthology
  • Media Lab’s “Teach Them to Reason” tool
  • Ending Copyright Confusion Wiki
  • Attribution is an ethical practice, not a legal one; citing sources doesn’t let you off the hook
  • Fair use is a reasoning process that requires critical thinking; context and situation determine how fair use applies.
  • Am I creating something new (through transformative use), or am I redistributing (which is, in contrast, a violation of the law)?
• Joyce Valenza, Springfield Township High School
  • Dorothy Fair Use Video
  • Copyright Friendly Wiki
• This project is a user-rights movement
  • The Code of Best Practices for Fair Use is NCTE’s official policy on fair use
  • The guidelines that have been created since the implementation of the 1970s copyright law were brought about from negotiations by the media industry; the guidelines that were created are not set down as the law

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The Social Media Portfolio: Using Technology to Promote Meta-cognitive Skill Development

At NWP’s Digital Is

Rafi Santo, Amana Kaskazi, and Shonell Richmond

• Global Kids
  • 20 Years in existence and focusing on significant global issues
  • Issues: Local to global and global to local understanding
  • Leadership: Skills necessary to affect change
  • Technology: How does new media contribute to our mission of global citizenship; our mission to empower youth voice aligned well with the use of technology
  • Youth: We work with youth in a variety of contexts, both locally and from a distance through technologies and in virtual worlds
  • Afterschool: Need to overcome the stereotypes of afterschool technology programs that create “super geeks”; our students are not geeks, necessarily, but there is something much broader about how to use technology in these contexts
• Media Masters
  • Goals for addressing the challenges to media literacy
    • Giving students the means and skills to produce media who otherwise might not be able
    • Discussing ethical issues surrounding digital media production and participation
    • Promote active student reflection on skill development
  • Creating a “digital transcript“creating a portfolio with Voice Thread
    • Examining media use (music, web, etc)
    • Visualization, negotiation, and other key themes
    • Recognize the skill, utilize the skill, and enact the skill (Do it, recognize it, talk about it)
  • Discussion
    • Specific example of Harry Potter reading to discuss copyright, appropriation, and “whole life learning”
    • What can the assessment tell us — about students’ change in media literacy skills, attitudes, and abilities?
    • How can an assessment like this work in school contexts (very qualitative, not quantitative)?
    • How can we connect this to other academic skills?
    • Student preparation for portfolios — having earned the badges, it was easier to identify the project that connected to the skill, but then we had to add a reflection to it, and that was more difficult
    • Extending the assessments into different contexts; using this portfolio with meta-cognitive elements for other purposes, such as college admissions
    • Helping make explicit for young people the ways in which we are asking them to think
    • Power of ownership and the ability to hear someone’s voice, as well as the commitment behind the voice
    • How does having a framework help make the portfolio more powerful?
    • Using writing to teach critical thinking in different content areas

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Danielle Nicole DeVoss asks us to think about what digital was then and is now…

Digital is…

• Networked — we compose in networked spaces
• Collaborative — people are able to connect and create through these networks (LolCats)
• Multimodal — typography, kinetic type, digital stories
• Re-Mediated — taking a media object and recreating it so it moves across media; moving across text to audio to video (StarzBunnies)
• Remixed — taking bits and pieces and parts of other media to create new messages and meaning
• Policed — digital millennium copyright act; You Tube copyright issues (Fair Use)
• (Requires) Critical thinking — because of the visuals (Harry Potter, Redbook)
• (Can be) Democratic — Iran and Twitter, YouTube Debates

Writing is Digital — this is, as Elyse put it, our moment.

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As we prepare to head to the NWP Annual Meeting and NCTE Convention in just about a week, I am also plugging away at our Chippewa River Writing Project Continued Funding Application. I have come to one of the most compelling parts of the report, at least for me… the point where we reflect on the summer institute and think about what that means for our site. So, here is where I am at right now and, in the spirit of collaboration, I look for any insights that you might be able to offer me here as I try to articulate my vision of our “digital writing project.”

Thanks in advance for your feedback and I look forward to seeing many of you in Philly next week!
—
From the CRWP CFA — Troy’s Reflections on the Summer Institute:

Our summer institute, from its inception, focused on a clear integration of literacy and technology. In seeing ourselves as a “digital writing project,” we began our work with the intent that a “web 2.0” ethos of collaboration, creativity, and commitment would infuse our work. As we reflect on our experience as leaders in this first summer institute, and review the comments of TCs, we see that these elements were present. In terms of collaboration, we relied heavily on the wiki and Google Docs as spaces to share all of our work, from our initial writer’s profile to our responses to teaching demos to our own personal writing. Teachers began the institute with the expectation that they would, indeed, become part of a collaborative and connected group, largely enabled by the technologies that we chose.

In terms of creativity, we invited participants to engage in literacy and technology not just from a functional perspective (although, getting the technology to simply function was sometimes a problem!), but from critical and rhetorical perspectives as well. Our use of digital storytelling, for instance, highlights this perspective. While inviting participants to create their own digital stories, we also analyzed the stories that others had created to get a sense of what worked, what made the digital stories more than simply a collection of images set to a narration. By constantly moving back and forth from the technical to the critical and rhetorical aspects of composition – both analog and digital – we feel that participants were better able to articulate what was creative about their work, as well as why that approach worked.

Finally, we look at the commitment or level of engagement from participants. While we are happy to report that participants in our summer institute, like participants at countless other institutes, reported that their summer experience was, to use an oft-quoted phrase, “life changing,” we were also surprised to see the level at which they believed the digital aspects of our work influenced them. For instance, one participant may sum it up best by responding to the “most important thing” question from the final SI survey conducted by Inverness: 

The most important “thing” I gained is confidence with some interactive technology to implement in my classroom. I think implementation of the Wiki will benefit my students. Their mindset is that school work isn’t “real” work, and I’d like to change their mindset. Use of the Wiki will assist, I believe.

Simply stated, we “wikified” our teachers’ beliefs about what it means to be a writer and teacher of writing. Like Wikipedia, where many contributors create a collective whole that is, indeed, much more than the sum of its parts, we feel that our summer institute, with its focus on “collaboration, creativity, and commitment” allowed participants to see writing, and digital writing, in an entirely different perspective. We hope, like all NWP sites do, that this new vision will help inform the ways that they teach writing in their classrooms, especially in the ways that they integrate technology.

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Dan Priest is a pre-service teacher from Western Michigan University and presented “Rethinking Technology in the Multimodal Classroom” at MCTE’s fall conference. He suggested that his explorations of the internet and some of the tools available continue to inspire the ways in which he teaches with technology. Using his Wii remote/homemade Smartboard, he argues that “Students are more receptive to graphically designed instruction today than what is considered practical” and cites some of the following examples:

• Visuals and social networking
  • 4chan.org
• Kinetic typography
  • fontstruct.com
    • Use to graphically illustrate a text and add emphasis to characters’ speech and elements of the text
  • wordle.net
    • Use to analyze word usage and identify patterns in own and other’s texts
• Postsecret
  • making up stories about what this image means to your life
  • Also, see Found and Awkward Family Photos
• Magazines and Publishing
  • Issuu
  • The 39 Clues
  • FanFiction
  • Internet Movie Script Database
  • Scripped — free screenwriting software
  • Historical Tweets
  • Scribble Maps
• Looking at photos
  • Shorpy.com — historic photo archive
  • Lewis Powell — what time and decade is this? Who is this?
• Tools
  • Media Converter
  • We Feel Fine
  • Poetry 180
  • Prezi
  • Slide Rocket

This was a wonderful presentation from a young teacher — some tools that I knew, many that I didn’t — and shows me that there are some great things happening in classrooms with multimodal composition, and even greater possibilities.

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