Presentations: Digital Citizenship and Online Research
February 8, 2010 by Brad W · 2 Comments
I begin almost every course that I teach with a brief media unit on 21st century skills and media literacy. Because much of what students are doing today is online, I like to think that we are doing our best to mold quality digital citizens.
Here are two presentations I share with my students near the beginning of each semester: Digital Citizenship and Smart Research, complete with an embedded assignment.
These presentations ask and attempt to answer two fundamental questions: (1) In our wired world, can our students protect themselves while positively contributing to the information highway? And (2), with millions of websites at their fingertips, can our students effectively evaluate websites?
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Icons for these presentations are from DryIcons
Reflecting on Media Expectations in the English Classroom
January 31, 2010 by Brad W · 2 Comments
On Friday I attended an excellent conference at our Board office: Wired for Success. I find that sessions like those energize me, giving me new ideas to explore but, more importantly, space to reflect on my own education process in the classroom.
The day began with this popular YouTube video:
Lately I’ve been thinking about the use of technology in the classroom (surprise!) and that big Media Studies strand in our provincial curriculum documents. (If the Ontario curriculum is unfamiliar to you, I’ll just quickly summarize: we have four major curriculum strands that are to be incorporated into all English courses: Writing, Oral Communication, Reading & Literature, and Media Studies.) It’s striking, isn’t it? Media Studies on par with Reading and Writing.
I know that when I first saw the new curriculum with Media Studies identified as such a major strand, I was surprised at the decision to do it that way. To my mind, the English classroom is about oral communication, reading, and writing, and “media” just encompasses the many non-traditional vehicles for engaging in those practices. Oral communication? We could build learning around a speech in front of a class, or around a podcast. Reading? There are my favourite novels to work with, and there are movies that operate with a grammar and syntax of their own. Writing? Students could practice with a short story, an essay or a blog.
But a colleague pointed out to me the wisdom of separating Media Studies from the other strands: it isn’t easily ignored this way. We teachers can tend to find something that works and we’re comfortable with, and keep using it. Why not? So that fantastic novel unit that we developed a year ago gets trotted out again this year, with a few updates … and then next year … and so on. It is extremely difficult to find the time or inclination to re-work our teaching approaches from the ground up. It’s unnerving, uncomfortable, and even scary. Oh, and it takes time, something we lack when school is in session.
A new strand in the curriculum document, however, can give some of us that push we need to re-think things. Just asking ourselves how we are meeting the expectations of the four strands makes us reconsider our approach and do more than just tweak our unit plans. Ignore an entire strand, however, and be prepared to answer to parents, administration, and even colleagues.
So I was excited to be a part of this conference at our Board. And while the presentations were superior and challenging in many ways, I did have one concern: balance. As I participated in the sessions, I began to get the impression that instead of Grade 11 English we were hoping to offer “Moodle 101″; or instead of ENG 4C it was to be “Wikispaces for Beginners.”
Don’t get me wrong: I’ve used wikis in my English classrooms for the last three years, blogs for the past four, and websites before that. I believe that these tools are important and need to be used as platforms for learning. I think that what I was struggling with was the hype around the technology itself without a genuine discussion of how that technology supports different types of learning. I fully intend to use different technology and media in the classroom, but always with the goal of improving my students’ skills in reading, writing, and oral communication.
Next semester, I’m going to test out a Ning with one of my courses and a Moodle with another. Ultimately, however, my students’ learning will be evidenced by their essays on Jane Eyre, their dramatic presentations of King Lear, and their analysis of gender stereotyping in advertising.
21st Century Skills – Unit Plan (Grade 12)
December 6, 2009 by Brad W · Leave a Comment
This unit is designed to introduce Grade 12 students to critical analysis and media literacy. Relying heavily on material from the Centre for Media Literacy, students work with five key media literacy questions to analyze a range of texts, from advertisements through full movies. Students are expected to maintain their own reflective blogs as a component of their work.
Level: ENG4U- Timeframe: 12 periods, including a test period
Unit Outline
- Lesson 1: Introduction to the course (1 period)
- Lesson 2: Introduction to blogging and FCA novel selection (2 periods)
- Lesson 3: Media Literacy (1 period)
- Lesson 4: Stereotypes and Male Violence in Media (1 period)
- Lesson 5: Analyzing the News (1 period)
- Lesson 6: Online Safety and Research (1 period)
- Lesson 7: Camera Angles and Comic Strips (1 period)
- Lesson 8: Movie Analysis (3 periods)
- Unit Test
The unit outline [PDF] includes a summary of curriculum expectations plus a sample calendar.
Lesson Plans
Unit lesson plans [PDF] provide detailed steps to covering each of the unit topics, relating them to the corresponding expectations and teaching strategies.
Assignments
Reflective Blogging (10 marks)
Students begin blogging, publishing at least one reflective post and two comments on classmates’ blogs. Students evaluate their learning using the blogging self-evaluation rubric.
Media Text Analysis (10 marks)
Students use the five key media literacy questions to analyze an advertisement. Learning is assessed using the media text analysis evaluation rubric.
News Analysis (10 marks)
Students use an expanded analysis framework to discuss, in writing, a 30- to 60-minute news broadcast. Learning is assessed using the news analysis evaluation rubric.
Evaluating Online Resources (10 marks)
Students must find five credible online sources for a given topic. (Global warming is the topic in the attached handout; I have also used an author as a topic option.) Students are not able to progress in course activities until they have demonstrated competence in this. An evaluation rubric is available for this assignment.
Comic Strip Analysis (10 marks)
Students select a comic strip of at least five frames and analyze it in terms of camera techniques and storytelling. Learning is assessed using the comic analysis evaluation rubric.
Movie Analysis
While watching a movie in class, students complete the movie analysis handout [PDF]. This is not marked directly; however, students may bring their completed handouts to the unit test.
The 21st Century Literacy assignment summary [PDF] includes detailed instructions for students to complete each assignment.
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Image by juanpol
Presentation: Digital Collaboration in the Classroom
November 20, 2009 by Brad W · 4 Comments
I am a part of the technology committee at our school, and today we are delivering a series of presentations related to technology use in the classroom. I was selected to present on the use of wikis in education. If you wish, you can download my digital collaboration presentation.
Technology Use in My English Classroom – Part II
September 25, 2009 by Brad W · Leave a Comment
As I mentioned in my an earlier post, our new Technology Committee surveyed each department on how technology is currently being used in our classrooms, and how would we like to see it expanded. Below is the second part of the manifesto that I submitted to my fellow committee members.
Opportunities for Expanding Technology Use in English
- Currently we English teachers have a list of texts (novels, short stories, and plays) appropriate for each grade and level, from which we can select in our course planning. We also have guidelines around the type, scope, and frequency of written assignments for different grades and levels. We could do the same for media studies and oral communication, listing the types of media to be addressed at each grade level and the kinds of multi-media assignments that students could be creating. This would help us determine our current and future technology needs.
- Access to computers in the classroom has been improving. However, those of us teaching in portables do not have the same access to computers (or to any technology in general). Also, the labs are difficult to book and cannot be used for more than 3 days in a row. This poses challenges for English courses. For example, a writing workshop intended to teach students how to draft, track changes, collaborate, insert comments, and publish work electronically would occupy about five days, and is not possible with current lab restrictions.
- The English department is seriously under-resourced in the area of technology. To begin with, we should have at least one dedicated LCD projector (with a laptop or the ability to bring a personal laptop) and at least one SmartBoard. This could begin the replacement of DVD/TV systems and overhead projectors.
- Currently our students learn how to use the Windows operating system. Opportunities to expose students to other operating systems would benefit them – particularly those who might pursue trades in online publishing, communications, or graphic design.
- The ability to bring a personal (teacher) laptop to school and connect to the Internet (wirelessly) without affecting the school network would be ideal.
- The ability for me as a teacher to remotely access the same server from home and from school would help keep course documents up-to-date, secure, and in one place.
- As more teachers develop PowerPoint or SmartBoard lectures, sharing these with one another would enable us to quickly build a large library of solid lecture resources.
- Cross-curricular teaching would help students understand how their different courses connect, and can allow us teachers to share our expertise. For example, in this year’s class, the Photography teacher helped me teach a class on camera angles and lighting, a foundational lesson enabling students to critique media texts. We are discussing how we might collaborate further: for example, on topics of blogging, wikis, and Photoshop. This collaboration allows us to focus on areas of experience and interest without feeling that we need to be experts in all of these areas.
- As other teachers use blogs, we could track lessons learned and have students look at work happening in other classrooms. We could also have students collaborating across classes via blogs – commenting on one another’s posts. Students write differently when their peers are reading their work; often their work is superior to that prepared for the teacher alone.
- As other teachers use wikis, we could collaborate across classes. For example, in 2008, another teacher and I were able to set up cross-class literature circles. I have also been invited to participate with classes run by other schools in other countries via their wikis.
- I realize that we can’t influence Board policies a great deal; however, it would be nice to see the policies around online access changed so that we can teach students how to use the Internet safely. Right now the many severe restrictions only teach students how to get around security (and they do!), rather than teaching them about the risks of being online, how to protect themselves, and how to conduct themselves as digital citizens.
- Personally, I have found that blogging about my classroom experiences has enabled me to develop a professional learning network of English teachers around the globe who are integrating technology into their courses. I have learned much from them, and would enjoy interacting with more colleagues that way.
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Image by paulo-barcelos
Technology Use in My English Classroom
September 25, 2009 by Brad W · Leave a Comment
As I mentioned in my previous post, our new Technology Committee surveyed each department on how technology is currently being used in our classrooms, and how would we like to see it expanded. Below is the first part of the manifesto that I submitted to my fellow committee members.
With the updated 2007 English curriculum, Media Studies is now one of four strands that are to be incorporated into courses, on par with Reading, Writing, and Oral Communication. Effectively addressing Media Studies as a strand involves the use of a range of technology in the English Classroom.
| Technology | Uses |
| Computers | Student assignments, particularly multi-media ones
Student tests. When typing, students are able to communicate more in a shorter period of time. |
| Server | Hosting updated copies of all course documents |
| iPod | Sharing audio clips, podcasts, and audiobooks to extend listening skills. |
| Cameras | Practicing image capturing to understand the “grammar” of visual image texts. |
| DVD Player | Sharing video clips and movies for critical analysis. |
| LCD Projector | Used in almost every lesson for either lectures, video clips, assignments, etc. |
| SmartBoard | Fantastic tool that lends itself to many uses in the classroom. Used daily when available. |
| Software | Uses |
| PowerPoint | Used to prepare virtually all lecture notes. Many are available electronically for students.
Used by students to prepare photo essays (teaches image/word association). |
| Photoshop | Used by students to edit images for photo essays and multi-media presentations. |
| Audacity (or Garage Band) | Used by students to create and edit audio presentations. This is especially effective with student-created Shakespeare scenes. |
| Movie Maker | Used by students to create multi-media presentations, such as book trailers. A key expectation in the 2007 curriculum is that students be able to create multi-media presentations, and this application is one of the best for that. |
| Smart Ideas | Used by students to brainstorm and organize their ideas. |
| Comic Life | Used to create storyboards. Enables students to translate concepts from one medium to another. |
| Kurzwell and Universal Reader | Used to accommodate students with modified learning plans and to improve their reading skills. |
| Online Applications | Uses |
| Blogs and Blog Portals (Blogger, Edublogs, & 21Classes) | Used in several ways:
Class blog where students comment (for lower levels). This encourages discussion Class blog portal, where each student owns a blog. These are used as reflective journals and for building collaborative essays. Teacher reflective blog, which is the basis of a professional learning network. |
| Wikis (Wetpaint, Wikispaces) | Wikis have replaced class websites because of their interactive nature.
Used for posting assignments, due dates, and rubrics; hosting virtual literature circles and other discussions; and sharing student work. |
| Class Websites | Mostly used as a communication tool for parents: provides expectations and due dates |
| Teaches students to succinctly capture the essence of ideas (140 characters). | |
| Used as a basis for character studies (“Create a facebook page for …”) | |
| YouTube | Some videos are used for instruction (e.g. Information R/evolution) |
| Flickr | Creative Commons licensed photos are the only photos students may legally use, and they are available on Flickr. Class time is spent teaching students how to identify, use, and correctly cite images. |
| GoogleDocs | Allow for collaborative document creation. |
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Image by paulo-barcelos
Self-evaluation is Key to Student Blogging
March 1, 2009 by Brad W · 6 Comments
As usual, online writing and discussion is an important part of my Grade 12 University level course. I’ve elected to use both a class wiki and individual student blogs for this component.
Our class is using 21Classes for our blogging platform. I chose this because it allows me to set security at levels that are comfortable for me and my administration. All of the students’ work is visible only to members of the blog portal. If necessary, I can also set permissions so that all blog posts and comments must be approved by me prior to being published.
One month into our semester, and I’m really impressed with the quality of interactions happening online. I’ve given students broad topics and a target number of posts and comments for each unit.
This past week, I noticed a significant improvement in the quality of the posts and comments appearing online. It dawned on me that the students had just completed their blogging self-evaluations. Unlike many evaluations that students seem to just accept as their achievement, this self-evaluation process appears to be encouraging better online communication. Since the self-evaluation, the entire class seems to be very careful to incorporate images using only the “Attribution License” images from Flickr; they’re properly citing these images; they’re all using links in their posts with displayed text, including links to their earlier posts; and they’re replying to comments left on their own blogs. It will be interesting to see what happens after the next self-evaluation in a couple of weeks.
Based on this experience, I’m going to be introducing more structured self-evaluation in other areas, too. It’s a bit more work — I feel like I still need to ‘mark’ their work myself as well as ‘marking’ their self-evaluation — but the quality of the students’ work is well worth it.
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Photo by mezone
Tips for using Audacity in the classroom
December 7, 2008 by Brad W · Leave a Comment
Spending a period in the computer lab with students attempting to create audio files can turn into an exercise in minimizing headaches. Having incorporated Audacity into several classroom experiences now, I’ve learned the hard way some lessons that I will share here:
- Create an electronic hand-in folder for the class before starting the assignment. As with most schools, our server allows for the quick and easy creation of groups and classes with icons appearing on student computer profiles for the receiving of assignments, and a drop box for their electronic documents.
- Once students open Audacity, have them hit “record” and then immediately hit “pause.” Let them catch their breath, review their lines, and understand that pause is now the only button they need for the duration of the recording session. They should not hit “stop” until the very end.
- Remind students not to over-use the pause button. If they make a mistake, get flustered, or swear, they should just take a deep breath and begin reading their line again. All mistakes will be edited at the end.
- Remind students to wear their headsets and to be mindful of their neighbours. Their microphones will pick up other voices and noises in the lab.
- Once students have read to a natural break (the end of a scene or poem, usually), they may hit “stop” and save the file. They should also hand in this base file, along with the _Data folder, before any editing is done. That way, in the event of a catastrophe — and at least one group will have a catastrophe — all will not be lost.
- Students should be aware that once “stop” has been selected, any future recording creates a new track. That’s okay. Tracks can be pasted together.
- One little detail: the mouse may need to be clicked at the beginning of a track to hear it in its entirety.
- In locating errors, students should carefully note the time and duration by watching the ruler while listening to their track.
- Students should export their final version (in MP3 format) to the drop-in box. Exporting may take longer than five minutes and should not be left until just before the bell.
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Image by Emuishere Peliculas
Cursive writing: Still an important 21st century skill
November 24, 2008 by Brad W · Leave a Comment
I know that I’ve talked about cursive writing before, but it’s been on my mind again lately.
I’m finding so many students unable to keep up with the basics in the classroom because they cannot write competently.
Competent handwriting has several characteristics: accuracy, legibility, and speed.
My students struggle to accurately copy notes from screens that I’m projecting in the classroom. Despite being of a generation of renowned multitaskers, it is terribly difficult for them to read something and copy it accurately. I wonder if this is partly due to our culture of spellchecking. Do students unconsciously expect an incorrectly written word to be underlined in red for them?
Their handwriting is often illegible, even to them. This frustrates them when they try to study or to re-write earlier writing drafts. And it goes without saying that I am constantly struggling to interpret the answers that they have written on tests or the drafts of assignments that they have submitted.
On top of this, the speed of their writing seems to be declining. I frequently find myself ready to move on to the next slide or point, only to wait for several moments for a portion of the class to get down the material already on the board. I remember being eight years old and having my teacher drill me on the art of reading a few words at a time and then copying them before moving on. I’m watching high school students who still tend to read one word, copy it down (often incorrectly), then look up to find the next word to copy. It’s slow and frustrating work for them. Especially for those that are printing with block-letters only.
So one solution would be to move to using tools that students are comfortable with: keyboards and phones. Using electronic notes is not yet an option, however, as (like many schools) we are slowly building our computer presence and have only just reached the point where each classroom has a single computer. And using text messaging via phones just makes me shudder, mostly because the brevity of the medium doesn’t allow for much sustained thought.
Another solution might be to begin to teach some old-fashioned handwriting in the classroom. Don’t laugh — I am seriously considering this.
One of the questions then becomes, “Which system?” Standard or D’Nealian? It would make sense to go with the standard system, as in theory that is what my students would have learned in elementary school. However, in my conversations with elementary school teachers, I’ve learned that very little class time is being spent on helping younger students learn to form letters.
D’Nealian is a system that makes sense to me. The cursive letters are similar to the manuscript letters, creating a stronger learning link for students. Handwriting Without Tears is another program that seems to be designed to make connections between manuscript and cursive writing. (It is a bit discouraging to note, however, that it only has resources for students up to Gr. 5. Furthermore, Handwriting Without Tears does not provide any free online resources, and this is not a project that I am about to spend personal cash on.)
Modern Italic handwriting might just be my favourite. I was first introduced to this by a British teacher, and came to quickly appreciate its simplicity and yes, even its beauty. Letter shapes are retained from manuscript through cursive writing, and the joining that occurs in the cursive script is natural.
Next question: How can I justify teaching handwriting in light of the Ontario curriculum expectations?
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Image by Marco Arment
Facebook at School
November 20, 2008 by Brad W · 3 Comments
What goes around, comes around … and goes around again. And when we’re talking about social media, it seems the speed of that cycle is just that much faster.
For example, Facebook is already retro. At the end of our last school year — that would be June of this year, only five months ago — I heard students saying, “Facebook! Oh that’s sooooo 10 minutes ago!” There must have been a change of heart over the summer, however, for it now seems to be enormously popular with that same crowd.
Facebook is one of those tools that I have wanted to incorporate into the classroom, but I’m finding my efforts to do so frustrated.
Before I go any further, I will state emphatically that I have no interest in becoming Facebook “friends” with students, a move that in my opinion would be completely unprofessional.
There are a couple of ways that I have tried to use Facebook as a tool for building students’ ability to make connections between texts and their world. First, I like to ask them to build a Facebook profile for a main character. Take Macbeth, for example. Students learn a lot about the Thane by building him a Facebook profile and thereby asking questions like, “Who are his friends? What groups would he join? What would be on his wall?”
The second main use I’ve found for Facebook is as a tool for students who are building media campaigns. Creating a Facebook group and event for imaginary media campaigns is a natural choice for students. Doing so helps them reconsider questions like who their target audience is and what images best communicate their ideas.
But I’m finding my efforts to use Facebook stymied by school internet security. (More on that another day.) In short, I can’t access Facebook in the classroom or lab. This means that students can’t present their online Facebook work, and I can’t evaluate it. And since becoming a ‘friend’ with a student is not an option for me personally, I’m not going to be able to evaluate it outside of the classroom, either
So I guess that what I’m looking for now is a blank electronic template that looks like a Facebook profile. Perhaps a template that is created in PowerPoint and links only from slide to slide rather than to actual online groups or friends. If done well, the students might really enjoy the activity.
Or maybe I could go back to paper and pen. Or to quill and ink. Or perhaps chalk and slate.
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Image by Jacob Botter
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