Quick Quote in MEA Voice

Just today, a colleague of mine was telling me that I need to be better at self-promotion. So, here goes…

Future teachers (college students now) use blogs and wikis to share their own writing—so they can someday help their own students do the same.

“Teachers are teaching the digital generation,” explained Troy Hicks, assistant professor of English Language and Literature at Central Michigan University, where he instructs preservice teachers.

(MEA Voice, February 2009, p. 10)

Earlier this year, I was interviewed by a reporter for the MEA as a part of their special issue on teaching with technology. The interview was an hour long, and very engaging, so the very short quote here seems to just barely scratch the surface of what we talked about. That said, I am honored to be featured in this publication along with my friend and colleague Dawn Reed.

Given the many conversations that I have had with colleagues over the past few months about the uses of digital writing, and especially with my own pre-service teachers in ENG 315, I am becoming more and more encouraged that this is becoming a part of the discourse in educational circles. For instance, at MRA a few weeks ago, one of the comments about our session on writing across the curriculum was that a participant wished she could have heard more about the digital writing tools I was suggesting in order to support that work.

So, thanks to the MEA for featuring me in their article and to everyone who continues to push technology and writing in new directions. As always, I am enjoying the continuing conversation.

Notes from “Digital Storytelling: Enhancing Language, Visual, and Media Literacies”

Digital Storytelling: Enhancing Language, Visual, and Media Literacies

MRA 2009 Presentation

Ledong Li, Tingfeng Luo, Wen Wu, Fan Zhang, Oakland University

  • What’s Your Story?
  • Stories Surround Us
  • What is digital storytelling?
    • Daniel Meadows: “short personal multimedia tales told
      from the heart”

  • Educational Use of Digital Storytelling
    • Focus on specific topic and contain a particular point of
      view
    • Topics range from personal tales recounting historical
      events, exploring life in one’s own community, to the search for life
      in other corners of the universe
    • They can vary in length, but in education they typically
      last between 2-10 minutes

  • Procedure
    • Write script
    • Collect assets
    • Create storyboard
    • Draft, edit, and finalize
    • Publish it as a movie file

  • Hardware
    • Computer
    • External hard drive/flash drive
    • Headset with microphone
    • Scanner
    • Digital Camera/Digital Video Camera
    • Facilities with access to internet

  • Software
    • Movie Tools: Flash, Premiere, Photostory, Movie Maker,
      iMovie
    • Imaging Tools: Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, iPhoto
    • Audio: Audition, iTunes, Garageband, Audacity
    • Players: Windows Media Player, iTunes, VLC, Flash

  • Why digital storytelling?
    • Storytelling has been important to individuals since the
      early days of civilization
    • In education, storytelling remains a way to teach subtle
      points and make elusive abstractions concrete
    • With the latest development of computers, multimedia
      systems, and the Internet, “images, sounds, animations, and video
      clips” can be brought together with “texts,” providing a wide range of
      story formats

  • The Changing World
    • Friedman, “The World is Flat”
      • Globalization 1.0 (1492 – 1800) Countries/trade
      • Globalization 2.0 (1800 – 2000) Companies/labor
      • Globalization 3.0 (2000 – Present) Individuals/internet

  • Moving from web 1.0 to web 2.0
    • Mode: Reading to writing
    • Primary Unit of Content: Page to post
    • State: Static to dynamic
    • Viewed through: Web browser to Browsers, RSS Readers,
      phones
    • Architecture: Client server to web services
    • Content created by: Web coders to everyone
    • Domain of: Geeks to “mass amateurization”

  • What does this mean for learning?
    • Obvious answers
      • New technologies and tools
      • Different workflow processes
      • Competition and expectations of end users

    • Less obvious answers
      • New expectations for the relationship between learners
        and instructors
      • New modes of writing and communication
      • New literacies

  • Web 2.0 to Literacy 2.0
    • Web 2.0 – business model focused on a service rather than
      product that values participation, collaboration, and distribution
    • Literacy 2.0 – students are appropriating digital
      applications, networks, and services; they are developing new ways of
      reading, writing, viewing, listening, and recording — new ways that
      embody this 2.0 environment
    • Literacy 2.0 necessarily involves extensive
      participation, collaboration, and distribution of expertise and
      intelligence

  • Purpose of our Study
    • Engaging graduate students (in-service teachers) and
      undergraduates (pre-service teachers) in how to make digital stories
    • Examine the potential of digital storytelling used to
      enhance traditional and new literacies
    • Bridging literacy methods, changing perspectives, how to
      inform instruction

  • Roles that participants played
    • Writers
    • Text editors
    • Visual designers
    • Image editors
    • Voice recording specialists
    • Audio editing
    • Movie producers

  • Impacts on education
    • Practical and learner-centered
    • Meets ed tech standards
    • Enhances literacies: language, visual, media
    • Helps build useful skills in web 2.0/literacy 2.0:
      participation, collaboration, distribution

Announcing MIT’s International Journal of Learning and Media

Today, I received an exciting announcement from Kellie Bramlet with MIT Press Journals. In addition to the series of books that they released last year with a Creative Commons license, they are now offering the following new journal:

The International Journal of Learning and Media

MIT Press, in cooperation with The Monterey Institute for Technology and Education (MITE), is pleased to announce the publication of the first issue of The International Journal of Learning and Media (IJLM). A first of its kind, the journal is devoted to examining the intersection of media and learning in multiple contexts. Volume 1, Issue 1, edited by David Buckingham, Tara McPherson and Katie Salen, is now available for FREE at http://ijlm.net . While IJLM retains the peer-review process of a traditional scholarly journal, its editorial vision and electronic-only format permit more topical and polemic writing, visual and multimedia presentations, and online dialogues. IJLM will allow the broad community interested in digital media and learning to share its insights using the tools of digital media. Sections of the journal range from shorter pieces on critical issues of a timely nature, through longer essays on keywords shaping the landscape of learning and media today, to traditional peer-reviewed scholarly articles.

http://ijlm.net is currently in its beta stage and we welcome your comments, questions and thoughts on how to improve the site. Please contact us by clicking on the Feedback button in the upper right corner at http://ijlm.net

The development and publication of IJLM is supported by a grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation as part of its 5-year, $50 million, initiative in digital media and learning.

Congrats to Janet and all RCWP Teachers

Been a long time since I’ve been blogging… hope to get “caught up” on some emerging ideas over spring break. But, for now, here is some good news from RCWP. Congrats to Janet for her leadership and all my colleagues whose work made this award possible!

The Engaged Scholar – Featured MSU Engaged Faculty – Janet A. Swenson

Janet Swenson knows that effective communication depends on far more than simply the written word. Over the past few years numerous powerful and inexpensive communication technologies have become available to the average user. Cell phones enhanced with camera, video, and keyboard capacities, along with fully functioning, highly portable mini-notebook computers, have emerged in conjunction with Internet-based social networking and collaborative writing opportunities.

Since 1993 Swenson has directed the Red Cedar Writing Project (RCWP), an educational outreach program and professional development network that serves teachers of writing at all grade levels. RCWP is also MSU’s site of the National Writing Project, which aims to improve student achievement across the United States by improving the teaching of writing and improving learning. Keeping pace with emerging technologies is one of the ways that RCWP does that.