Digital Writing, Digital Teaching
The Homepage of Dr. Troy Hicks
My thanks to Steve Bambury and Sabba Quidwai for featuring me in an interview on their site, iPad Educators.
Their archive of 2013 interviews is impressive, and I hope that my comments help get many teachers inspired to integrate digital writing into their classes this year!
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Over the past few months, I’ve continue to have wonderful opportunities to speak at conferences and workshops, publish my work, and then share in conversations with fellow teachers. Two conversations in particular stand out as we had for the end of the calendar year.
First, Kristen Turner and I were contacted earlier this fall by Brian Newman, a high school teacher from Joliet, Illinois. He had read our English Journal piece, “No longer a luxury: Digital literacy can’t wait,” and wanted to ask us our opinions about blogging and how to engage students as writers. After recommending Youth Voices as a tremendous resource, I offered some specific advice about having students respond to one another:
Over time, as they post — and respond — I would encourage you to pursue some self-evaluation strategies. Ask them to go back and review their best blog post, and why they think it is so. Ask them, too, to review the best blog post from someone else that they have read. Then compare those posts. In that process of writing and responding, talk with them about the power of peer response and specific praise and constructive criticism.
Recently, Brian wrote us back and told us about the work that he and Sean Hackney has shared on their blog, Ancient Geeks. In this post, he discusses the end of semester writing conferences that he had with his student bloggers. He outlines 13 steps to take in order to become a better blogger and teacher of blogging:
I appreciate the work that Brian and Sean are doing with their high school writers, and hope that they continue to find success in the new year.
The second teacher with whom I’ve been communicating this semester is Katharine Hale, a fifth-grade teacher from Arlington, Virginia, who is working diligently to integrate digital writing into her traditional writing workshop. She blogs at Teachitivity and in her recent post, “A Fresh Approach to Fostering Digital Writers,” Katharine describes the multiple goals that she had for integrating technology and making her classroom workshop time more efficient.
The entire post is worth reading, as she has numerous lesson ideas and examples. She concludes that:
As I said in the beginning, this was my first attempt at truly integrating technology, specifically the iPad, into the writing experience. It was incredible to finish the unit ON TIME with not one, but two published texts. I especially loved the interactive flipped lesson. I felt I had gained a whole class period of instruction because I did not need to use class time to assess students and determine small groups. If you read their digital literary essays, you may even notice that many of my students’ conclusion paragraphs are the strongest part of their essay!
Katharine worked critically and creatively to both integrate the use of WordFoto and Thinglink, allowing her students the opportunity to go from brainstorming to publication on both a traditional essay and multiple pieces of digital writing. As with Brian and Sean, I wish Katharine luck in the new year as well.
Thanks to all of my colleagues who have shared their work — and their students’ work — with me over this past year. There are more books, blog posts, chapters, presentations, workshops, and other pieces of writing on their way in the new year. I will try to blog some more over the holidays, but if I don’t get to it then I thank you now for another year of reading my work and invite you to stay in touch.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Dear Educator:
Tomorrow (well, technically today by the time I am done writing this) is the second annual Digital Learning Day.
Cool. I’m all for digital learning, as the title of my blog implies.
But, as we prepare for the onslaught of tweets, blog posts, videos, webinars, and other celebrations, it is worth exploring the definition of “digital learning” that the group is promoting, as well as the background of the Alliance for Excellent Education’s president, Bob Wise. Understanding a little more about each of these components for the day should, I hope, give you a better understand of why it is happening.
First, the definition, straight from their website:
Digital learning is any instructional practice that is effectively using technology to strengthen the student learning experience. Digital learning encompasses a wide spectrum of tools and practices, including online and formative assessments, increased focus and quality of teaching resources, reevaluating the use of time, online content and courses, applications of technology in classrooms and school buildings, adaptive software for students with special needs, learning platforms, participation in professional communities of practice, access to high-level and challenging content and instruction, and many other advancements technology provides to teaching and learning.
In this sense, I read the definition of “digital learning” to mean content that can be delivered to students at a low-cost and, presumably, without certified teachers in place to facilitate their learning. Or, as Michigan Governor Rick Snyder calls it, “Any Time, Any Place, Any Way Any Pace.” The fact that teaching is only mentioned twice (one of those times as an adjective) and “teacher” is never mentioned should be of concern.
And, as a number of educational historians, most notably Larry Cuban, have pointed out, when there is no teacher buy-in with technology or technology-based efforts at reform, very little if anything changes. This line of thinking is very much with the proposals that organizations like iNACOL (one of DLDay’s partners) through their federal policy frameworks have proposed to essentially eliminate teachers and fuel public education dollars into private, online corporations.
Also, there are number of buzzwords and phrases in this definition that should raise the eyebrows of anyone who follows educational reforms efforts. Phrases like “online and formative assessments” is certainly a nod to the impending PARCC and Smarter Balanced assessments, which will be relying on computer scoring of writing, rather than informed, teacher-led assessments. The phrase “learning platforms” also barely hides a thinly disguised approach to curriculum delivery that is, at best, a type of self-paced credit recovery option coming in the form of programs like e2020 and Read 180. Finally, the euphemism “communities of practice” is code for teacher groups that are formed under the guise of choice and interest, but usually are created to fulfill a school’s need for performance to meet AYP goals, not genuine inquiry through teacher research.
Lastly, it is worth noting that Bob Wise, who teamed with Jeb Bush for the first Digital Learning Day let year, remains the president of the Alliance for Excellent Education, the main sponsor of DLDay. Despite his Democrat party affiliation, it is worth noting that Wise is an advocate for digital learning who has shared his views in conservative forums such as the Mackinac Center. Lastly, and perhaps most concerning, Bob Wise has close ties to ALEC and many other organizations tied to the corporate educational effort movement.
All of this hubbub about DLDay thus raised major concerns for me — as a teacher, teacher educator, author, consultant, and parent. As I look towards tomorrow and the thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of educators that will participate in Digital Learning Day, I wonder what we are truly celebrating?
Kids?
Creativity?
Real, authentic learning?
Contrast that paragraph full of edu-jargon quoted above and compare it with what happens when authentic assessment, student centered technology interfaces, and teacher driven inquiry guide digital learning that happens in places and spaces like NWP’s Digital Is and the DML Hub, through conferences like EdCamp and EduCon, or other affinity groups that coalesce through twitter or other social networks like Connected Learning. There is great digital learning going on out there, but not necessarily in the spaces or formats that DLDay actively promotes through their corporate partnerships and special interests.
So, what do you plan to do as you celebrate Digital Learning Day this year?
While I certainly encourage everyone to participate, I also strongly suggest that you think about the message you are sending in relation to digital learning: who has power and agency? Who has access? Who is accountable, and for what reasons? Are we talking about students, teachers, and parents working toward a common goal of universal literacy and civic engagement?
Or, is this just another corporate effort at “reforming” education into another line in their profit ledger?
However you celebrate DLDay, you have the power to show what digital learning is and can be, not just what corporations and politicians tell us it should be.
Use your power — and hashtags — wisely over the next 23 hours.
Update on February 7, 2013: Minor editing/typo changes.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
This weekend, I began working with teacher leaders from the Columbus Area Writing Project on the hybrid course we are calling “Teacher Leadership in Teaching Digital Writing.”
I’ve been fortunate enough to make many trips to Columbus in the last few years, and look forward to having this opportunity to work with these NWP colleagues as they prepare for their two-week Summer Institute as well as advanced institute for teacher leadership in digital writing.
We began Friday night by looking at one of Clay Shirky’s TED Talks, and in thinking about the implications for our classrooms and professional development work, specifically as it relates to the changing environments and expectations for writing in an era of the common core standards. This initial conversation generated a number of inquiry questions and ideas including thoughts about how we can value the principles of good writing instruction over technology tools as well as how we can invite our colleagues into these broader conversations about the changing nature of literacy.
We then went on to identify a number of our concerns through the “yeah but, yes and” activity used by many theater companies, and more recently as a training exercise for MBA students. We ended Friday evening by generating a list of potential technologies to explore together over the next few weeks, including Google Communities where we had already begun a conversation.
This morning we began by looking a the chapter I’ve been writing about our experiences in the Chippewa River Writing Project end how we have positioned ourselves as an “digital writing project,” embedding a variety of technologies and new literacies into our practices. While generally complementary, we were also able to generate a thoughtful discussion about how technology can have positive — and potentially negative — influences on teacher identity, and how sharing work publicly online can affect the ways in which teachers express themselves and choose to write.
The remainder of the day was devoted largely to a deeper exploration of the technologies that participants identified Friday night as being potentially valuable for our work together over the next few months. In particular, we delved deeper into the possibilities with Google+, Twitter, and Flipboard. Here are some of our notes:
The three books that we are going to read are:
Overall, I feel like this initial plunge into digital writing and teacher leadership was a successful one. As we concluded the day today, they generated a number of additional ideas and inquiry questions:
Over the next few weeks, we will be meeting once a week via Hangout or Twitter chat to share our experiences, discuss readings, and think about plans for their site as they create future professional development opportunities. At some point in the near future, I am hoping that we will be able to make some of our work public, and this is certainly a rich experience for me as well as I think about future models for professional development and learning and hybrid or mostly online scenarios.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
As I have stated before, I generally don’t do product endorsements, but once in a great while there is something that comes along that I think has great value for teachers and students as digital writers.
Citelighter is one of those tools.
I found out about Citelighter last summer, and used it as a tool in various presentations and workshops. Last fall, they contacted me and I’ve been in touch with their development team, mainly Kevin West, and I think that they are in this for all the right reasons: to help teachers teach and students learn.
Just to be clear up front, I have received an upgrade to a Pro account from Citelighter, as well as some other goodies like bookmarks and post-its to pass out at conferences. Beyond that, I am am not a paid endorser.
So. with that out of the way, what is happening with Citelighter that makes it a nifty tool? First, it is a web-based bibliography management tool, easy for students to install in a browser and to use across various computers. As the video shows, it is quite easy to use Citelighter as a way to document and reflect on web-based research.
Second, they just released some great new features, mainly a PDF Capture & Storage Function for Pro customers. Lastly, they are starting a pilot project for teachers with Citelighter Analytics.
Check out the details in this PDF: Citelighter Analytics Pilot Study Invitation. Needless to say, I think that Kevin and his colleagues are on to something very useful for students from upper elementary school into college. At the very least, I encourage you to sign up for the free account and to get familiar with the services.
And, Kevin can be contacted at kevinw@citelighter.com
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
This school year, I’m involved with our faculty development center’s “High Impact Teaching Academy.” Tomorrow, we focus our conversation on assessment, specifically on rubrics. After I replied to the questions for our discussion forum posting this week, I had to go on and write another one. Selections are below:
Second, another main idea that concerns me about rubrics in the broadest sense is that they can really be helpful when coupled with response. However, when they are only used as a way to “justify” a grade (in a sense, providing a CYA for the teacher), then that is a reprehensible use of assessment, and shows that there has been little to no actual instruction supporting the writing task or the individual writer.
For instance, take a peek at this rubric my daughter received on her essay last week. With all due respect to her teacher — who, of course, has dozens or perhaps even hundreds of assignments to grade each week — what does this tell me about my daughter’s performance as a writer?
There were no additional comments on the paper itself, and if I didn’t know anything about the teaching of writing, I would look at this as a parent and wonder how to help my child become a better writer because there is nothing on this sheet (or in the teacher’s non-comments) that helps me understand the difference between an “exceptionally strong” or “generally clear” point of view.
Fortunately, I do know a bit about teaching writing, but not all parents do. How do they help their children become better writers with “feedback” in the form of a rubric?
So, sorry to burst the rubric bubble the day before we plan to talk about them at the Academy. But, I figured it was better to get my rant out on blackboard before we met than to take up too much time talking about it tomorrow.
Thanks for listening.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
My thanks again to Anna Smith for inviting me to host the last #literacies chat of 2012 focused on digital writing and the common core standards: “Broadening the Scope: Teaching Multiple Literacies in an Era of Common Core Standards.” Before reading much further in my reflections, you might be interested in catching up on the archived chat here. (Also, for kicks, I created a PDF of the full chat, too. 42 pages!) As shared beforehand, the chat was focused on a few main ideas:
While scholars of literacy studies push the envelope and explore ideas such as multi-modality, digital writing, and critical literacy, our colleagues in K-12 classrooms continue to face a number of challenges. Most notably, countless elementary, middle, and high schools are now preparing for the Common Core State Standards as well as the PARCC/SBAC assessments that will be implemented in the 2014-15 school year. What will these changes bring to an already narrow vision of literacy proffered by a years of NCLB-style “reforms?”
Throughout the chat, there were some “big questions” to consider, although none of them fit conveniently in 140 characters, so I am posting them again here:
So, here I highlight a few of the more compelling interactions throughout the hour-long conversation, and also provide a list of the many links that my colleagues and I shared throughout (NOTE: because I am trying to keep similar threads together, these are not necessarily in precise order!).
A number of related questions and concerns came in this early part of the chat:
And a nice summary/transition/call to action:
Here, I pushed the conversation into thinking about practical action. What is it that we can do, immediately, to support multiple literacies and digital writing? Anna and Emily had an interesting interchange here:
Also, a separate but related thread on how the tests are going to be constructed was summed up by Judy:
And, Darren and Matthew were talking about implications of non-fiction reading and writing:
I then introduced the idea of “how might we leverage the demand in the CCSS to “Use technology, including the Internet, to produce and publish writing #literacies”
There was another interesting side-thread that developed here, too, about “fake” digital writing:
Here, I began by asking “#literacies With the large variety of organizations that are touting plans for education reform, with whom can we ally our efforts?”
I think that Sean summed up my feelings about starting on my iPhone and having to switch over to the computer:
Indeed! I think it points to the fact that the tools we use are definitely a component of the literacies we are able to enact.
I offer a brief reflection here, both on the content and the process of the conversation. First, with the topic for this evening, I am reminded that there are other like-minded English educators and English teachers around the country, all thinking critically and creatively about how to introduce digital literacies into an already crowded curriculum. Also, I am reminded of the fact that “what’s measured is what’s treasured,” and that we all need to become keenly aware of how the CCSS will be assessed with the PARCC and SBAC tests.
Second, in terms of the process, I really enjoyed this conversation and I appreciate the ways that Twitter chats can actually help us focus on a particular topic and generate a variety of ideas in a short period of time. More than just random tweets or back-channeling, this kind of focused conversation gives many smart people the chance to “tweet aloud,” akin to the “think aloud,” and we are able to digress slightly from time to time in the conversation, generating even more useful ideas and links. As the host, I wanted to honor the time and topic, so I kept moving things along at regular intervals, but the conversation was rich and reviewing it this morning has been valuable for me as I wrap up this semester and plan for my methods class again in the spring.
Thanks again, Anna and everyone, for an invigorating conversation. After the day we had in Michigan last Thursday I needed that healthy dose of collegiality and a reminder that we are still moving forward with worthwhile literacy reforms.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Earlier today, I had the opportunity to talk with the co-founders of sCoolWork, Alex Dayan and Shachar Tal, about their service and how it might help students come better writers. Normally, I do not specifically write about websites or services because that type of situation has caused trouble for in the past. But, I must say that I’m compelled by their story — as well as sCoolWork’s potential as a digital writing tool — and I wanted to share some thoughts here. In interest of full disclosure, please know that they have offered me no special access to the website, and that I am only currently logged in under the free account while the service is still in beta.A few weeks ago, Alex sent me this introduction to sCoolWork by e-mail:
Since I started development of my school paper writing application, sCoolWork, the question I ask myself time after time was: “Does automation help or harm to the learning process?” The answer isn’t straight forward.
?In my opinion, automation can help a lot when used in a smart way. First of all, automation can cut many time-consuming repetitive tasks. Once you’ve done something, redoing it dozens of times has no learning benefit. The whole formatting standards (MLA/APA) issue is another positive aspect for automation. Is it really important for the history essay to keep in mind what exactly should be italicized in each bibliography entry? Isn’t it much more important to let the student focus on his/her ideas?
And maybe the most important benefit of automation is conducting a proper workflow. Even after being instructed many times, students still start their work with writing the introduction and, naturally, stop at the second sentence of an almost blank document. Imagine something that can guide them into researching their points first, outlining their paper second, and only then writing content accordingly – what can be better than this best practice??? However, there is no doubt that automation can be harmful if we forget what it shouldn’t do.? Any automation which tries to “think” instead of the student is an enemy of education. Reading and understanding the material, developing and formulation ideas, writing the self-conceived content – all of these tasks must be done solely by the student. As a parent, I can’t accept any kind of “cheating” which might let my child get good grades, without enriching and developing his knowledge.?? My conclusion is simple. I support any kind of automation which can help students to focus on proper researching and writing, and I vote against any kind of automation which turns our children into button pressing monkeys.
Based on these thoughts I developed sCoolWork.
From this initial exchange, we traded e-mails back and forth a few times talking about the benefits and opportunities of such a platform. As we continued to talk, Alex shared this video and a link to their IndieGoGo funding campaign (which I have not yet donated to, although I may very well do soon).
I signed up for a basic account and tried it out.. one of the unique features about this service is the fact that students can create their document, use an existing template (such as cause-and-effect, or problem solution, not just “five paragraphs”) engage in useful research, and eventually will be able to share their work with peers and a teacher. They still need to do the research and learn how to effectively identify information, copy and paste that information into their own paper, and cite their sources. One important note for those of you who tried out is the when you go through the initial example was Abraham Lincoln, sCoolWork will automatically populate a paper with text as a sample. This will not happen when you create your own paper.
I’ve been playing around with sCoolWork (not yet available on my iPad though) and it is not an automated bibliography generator quite like Zotero, nor is it exactly functional in the way that creating a template in Google docs might be. Instead, sCoolWork’s main benefit is the fact that it sets students up to be successful with their writing. As Alex and Shachar made that point clear today, the two most intimidating screens for students of the blank word processing document and an empty search engine box.
sCoolWork helps students move beyond those intimidating spaces and get started on the research and writing. Sachar just returned from educational technology conference here in the United States and talked about teachers concerns related to cheating, plagiarism, or students simply not been able to compose high-quality work within the sCoolWork interface. As of now, they are working on plagiarism detection, as well as ways to help guide students through the research process and thoughtful and critical ways. Alex stated that “Our integrated search is tied to Yahoo BOSS plus we use AlchemyAPI for additional analysis and ranking.” Their goal is certainly not to do the work for students, but to help by enabling students so that they can do the writing for themselves. Based on what I have seen in the interface so far, I would agree.
Of course, none of this comes for free, and the two cofounders and the development team have been working diligently to bring sCoolWork out of beta in time for an October launch. As Shachar said in our conversation, it sounds as though they are going to work on a model where they will sell individual student or school licenses to those who can afford it, and you also make many of the services available for free to those who need it. The exact pricing structure isn’t set yet, but they estimate the individual licenses for a year would be around $80 with discounts for school-based subscriptions of many students.
Thus, my initial assessment of sCoolWork is that it could become a very useful digital writing tool, especially once the collaborative tools and peer response features are built in. This could be great for middle and high school students who are creating informational and argumentative texts. Thanks again to Alex and Shachar for sharing their work with me and best of luck.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
As a part of my day at the “Write to Learn: New World, New Literacies” conference yesterday, I had the wonderful opportunity to lead a keynote, do a breakout session on using mobile devices for digital composition (see this Google Doc for many links), and then do a three-hour writing workshop with fellow teacher/author Penny Kittle. While the morning sessions went well, and were quite enjoyable, I wanted to reflect specifically on the afternoon session that Penny and I led together.
Originally, we had each been slotted to lead our own three-hour workshop, but with only six participants, we decided to combine efforts and lead teachers through the process of creating digital writing, in a workshop format. You can see our agenda (in the form of a Google Doc), and it was an engaging, organic afternoon of learning. We taught in a workshop approach, “to, with, and by.” We began by talking about the idea of creating digital writing, sharing a great example of a PSA from one of Penny’s students. We then read and annotated an example of a This I Believe essay. Penny read aloud, and I captured many thoughts about what could be used in the essay to turn into a digital video.
That led to me then doing a “think aloud,” modeling how I would find images, music, and the like to include in a very much-shortened, rough draft of this essay as a digital video. Nothing fancy here, except that you can see how we talked, as a group, about the possibilities for the movie: using the scrapbook theme, having the text of her mother’s quote appear on screen, using the music in the background, ending with the image of a baby. It isn’t much, but it was interesting to see what we could all come up with in just about ten minutes of websearching and using iMovie. It is only a draft, not “done,” just “due,” so here is my attempt: Sample This I Believe Digital Video
The six participants in the workshop then worked on writing and finding media for their stories. I was able to watch Penny compose on-screen (she was using my laptop connected to the LCD), and it was really incredible to watch her voice pour out in the Google Doc. Really, go read her story about Donald Graves and Donald Murray.
The process reminded me of a few things: how the teachers appreciated the time to write, permission to play, and the guided practice, especially with technology. A few said that they felt confident enough to go into their classrooms and try digital writing. Soon. Others were less confident, yet happy that they had the opportunity to try digital writing in a safe space.
My thanks to Penny and all these teachers for the opportunity to work with you yesterday. I will remember this process that we went through together as I introduce digital storytelling to my pre-service teachers this spring.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Here we are with another month having passed us by and it seems like I’m struggling with a number of issues related to digital learning, in some senses, but more broadly on issues of school reform and how we will ever be able to set the ship of education sailing in the right direction again. So, this is a random series of thoughts for a single blog post, and yet I wanted to share them before this week gets underway. I promise that I will try to tie them all together in the end.
Over the past month, I’ve been in a variety of twitter conversations with really smart people about the issue of school reform and high school dropouts and, subsequently, on two episodes of Teachers Teaching Teachers. Couple this with conversations I’ve been having with my wife about the future of our children school district which, like many in Michigan, is facing unrealistic budget constraints, declining enrollments, and mounting obstacles to real improvement. all of these conversations are interesting, and there was one recent blog post by John Merrow that captures nearly all of the frustrations I think many educators share. In particular, I found myself tweeting back and forth with Lisa Nielsen, arguing the merits of homeschooling (or alternatives to models of “schooling”). Here’s a clip:
hickstro: @InnovativeEdu Great convo on TTT. Still, what is it schls can/could do well/better than a lone student guided only by his/her own passions?10:12pm, Feb 22 from Web
InnovativeEdu: @hickstro The idea of “lone student” is a fallacy. A student has plenty of resources at their fingertips. Many are blocked/banned by school10:13pm, Feb 22 from Web
hickstro: @innovativeedu I’m happy that my 2nd grader turns to Google for info for his animal report. But he turns to me for advice on writing it.10:16pm, Feb 22 from HootSuite
InnovativeEdu: @hickstro – Why are you only seeing choices as school or Google? Many are learning w/out school & with relevant learning.10:43pm, Feb 22 from Web
hickstro: @innovativeedu I hear you. There is more than school or Google. The best parents are going to provide rich experiences for their children.10:58pm, Feb 22 from HootSuite
InnovativeEdu: @hickstro Or…the best parents will support their children in pursuing & developing rich experiences.11:03pm, Feb 22 from Web
hickstro: @innovativeedu So, is this a school problem? Or a parenting problem?11:06pm, Feb 22 from HootSuite
InnovativeEdu: @hickstro what i am talking abt is a school problem cuz there are PS students that don’t have involved parents so they need school.11:10pm, Feb 22 from Web
hickstro: @innovativeedu I’d like to think more… what can the best elements of home schooling offer schools? What can schools offer home schooling?11:13pm, Feb 22 from HootSuite
InnovativeEdu: @hickstro Many of these questions have been answered. Government won’t fund it. How do we change that? Feb 22, 11:16pm via Web
There were others involved in this conversation including Teresa Bunner, and it came at the end of a very smart episode of TTT, so there’s little bit out of context here in this blog post. I’m not sure what else say about all of it at the moment, that this will be an interesting spring as my personal life — and education of our five children — seem to be on a collision course with my professional life and what I truly value about schools, education, and learning.
Speaking of school (or, in this case, not school) and learning, I will be facilitating a course in Peer 2 Peer University, also known as P2PU, beginning next week with my NWP colleagues, Christina Cantrill and Katherine Frank: Writing and Inquiry in the Digital Age. Focusing broadly on what it means to write in the digital age, my particular interest with this course is thinking carefully about how and why we can use curation tools for teaching and learning. Sure, I am riding on the coattails of the Pinterest craze and advocating for this is one of our foci. Still, I’m trying to figure out how this can be a useful tool after a conversation earlier this semester with Andrea, Leigh, and some others educators. For what it’s worth, I’ve started a board, “Content/Creation/Curation,” and already received my first comment: “I THINK YOU PEOPLE SHOULD JUST LEAVE PINTEREST ALONE! & let people like ME JUST ENJOY IT!”
Indeed. I will try. Join the conversation at P2PU over the next few weeks.
In my next seemingly random entry for the evening, I want to mention that I will be speaking this week at one of CMU’s “Speak Up, Speak Out” forums entitled “R They Watching U? Technology, Surveillance, Censorship & Privacy Rights.” Here’s the lowdown:
Date: Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Time: 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Location: Bovee UC: Auditorium
Speak Up, Speak Out: The Current Events Series presents “R They Watching U? Technology, Surveillance, Censorship & Privacy Rights.” SUSO is not a lecture series – it’s more like a town hall meeting called to discuss important events and topics in the news. Each forum is an opportunity for all participants to collaborate in thinking through the issues, identify problems, and consider solutions. For more information, visit the SUSO website. The forum facilitator is Justin Smith (SASW). Panelists include: Christopher Armelagos, graduate student; Amanda Garrison, Sociology; Troy Hicks, English; Jaime Humpert, student; Roger Rehm, CMU’s Chief Information Officer; and Ken Sanney, Finance & Law.
If there are enough of my colleagues who might be interested, I’ll certainly start the twitter back channel for this conversation as well, and could even open it up as a video feed on a Google hangout. let me know if you’re interested.
So, in the wonder of all things digital, I was enjoying Netflix this morning during my jog on the treadmill, And ran across this short documentary: Dive! Living Off America’s Waste. Tonight, we have the kids watch it with us, for two reasons. First, there’s the obvious social commentary that I want them to understand about food waste and all the issues about consumerism, consumption, environmental quality, and related ideas. Second, I found myself fascinated by the production of the film itself as a digital writing process. Jeremy Seifert appears to have produced this film in a manner that could be replicated by middle and high school students with a basic HD camera, a simple movie editing program, some creativity, and a lot of determination. I appreciated the mix of interviews, B roll footage, archival footage (most of which appeared to be from historical, public domain archives), stop motion animation, and the creative representation of food throughout. I think that the kids appreciated it, too, and my hope is that our two Girl Scouts might take this idea up as part of their social action project. At any rate, at the end of the week where I feel professionally helpless and I’m not sure to what I am doing is making much of a difference, it was good to see Jeremy’s film and to think about the power that a few good people can have in affecting change.
So, that was a mishmash of ideas for one evening. But, that’s what blogging is for, right?
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.