Knowing when to say when: Are links in blogs good things?

I just read this article by Terry Freedman, and it got me wondering about how many links are good to include in a blog entry.

I link a lot in my graphic novel blog, because I am trying to give people opportunities to gather more information about a subject. I figure if they want to skip a link, they can and should. There's no law that says they have to follow every path they see. But then do folks navigate away and end up not reading what you originally posted?

Any thoughts out there (in your copious spare time)?


In the meantime, here is a picture of a threatening toddler. Enjoy!

Technology Review #3: Quickmeme

According to the Merriam Webster's Dictionary and Wikipedia, a meme is "an idea, behavior or style that spreads from person to person within a culture." Memes are things that are largely fleeting, such as people speaking like Austin Powers or wearing friendship bracelets or posting lolcats online.

As Ann has pointed out, there is a great site cataloging memes called Know Your Meme, but there are also a number of sites where you can go in and make your own memes. One of these is Quickmeme.

Quickmeme is a place where there are premade images that you can go in and edit with your own captions. As you will see pretty soon, it is pretty easy to do.

 I just made that.

Some of the meme entries would probably go over the heads of many younger students so I probably would not use the site with elementary students. Also, I probably would not use the site in school, in part because I could see students easily goofing off with it. I do think it would be great for a homework or extra credit activity. I could even see having a "best meme" contest for content area classes on a specific text or topic.

I just made that, too.

You can sign up for Quickmeme, though you do not have to. Mostly I did so I could easy find and download my work there. I could not save images immediately from their website once I made them anonymously, so I opened an account so all my images were saved in a group.

The pros of this site are that it is pretty easy to use, quick for making, finding and sharing images, and it is funny. There is a constant "best of" queue on the front page of the site, and you can sort through individual images to see all the entries there are.

The cons are that the content can be "adult." I am using quotation marks because most of the humor is quite juvenile, though there are things like casual drinking and smoking that are probably best not connected to instruction as routine practices with younger people who are not of legal age for such activity. Some adult supervision seems required.

 I just... Aw, you get the picture.

Because the pictures themselves are basically empty canvases, I could see lots of content connections. These memes could show up in all kinds of classes, such as:

Algebra

English Literature

Government/Social Studies

Chemistry

Spanish/Foreign Language

 In case you have not noticed, making these memes can be addictive. Go try out Quickmeme yourself!

Text Set Collection #2: Making Media Presentations

• How to Create Your Own Podcast: A Step-by-Step Tutorial

http://radio.about.com/od/createyourownpodcast/ss/How-to-Create-Your-Own-Podcast-Make-Your-Own-Talk-Show-Music-Program-or-Audio-Stream_2.htm

This article provides a number of useful sites and resources for making your own digital audio recording spiffy and available to share in a variety of formats.

For: All ages

• How to Create a Podcast Video Tutorial

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hrBbczS9I0

A pretty elementary walk-through for making, editing, posting, and sharing  a podcast. It also helps with working with Audacity and Wordpress. It also is very helpful in terms of sharing helpful podcast sites.

For: All ages

• Audacity

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

A free audio editing and recording program. It is a great resource for splicing together sounds.  Pretty much the cheapest and easiest way to edit sound files.

For: All ages

• Masher

http://www.masher.com/

A free, online video mash-up site. It allows you to use their library of clips, images, and music to make your own original videos. Allows you to easily share and imbed videos.

For: All ages, though I would use supervision

• Animoto

http://animoto.com/

Another free online, movie/slideshow maker. This one allows you to add music as well. It looks very crisp, professional, and clean. The website worked way better for me in Internet Explorer than in Firefox. I think this would be a good place to make a video slideshow for a book talk or a book/story response project.

For: All ages, as far as I can tell

• How to Make a Movie with Movie Maker Tutorial Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOcnV0UpIG4

A video walk-through of how to make a movie using MS Movie Maker, which is a free program you can download for PCs. It takes a little getting used to but it can be a quick and easy program to use once you get the hang of it.

For: All ages

• How to Create a Project in iMovie

http://www.wikihow.com/Create-a-Project-in-iMovie-08

For Apple users, a relatively bare bones step by step set of instructions to make an iMovie. It is supposed to be so easy a child could do it.

For: All ages

• xtranormal

http://www.xtranormal.com/

A relatively easy way to take your words and make an animated movie. The site requires you to sign up and create an account,which is free. More options, like additional characters and settings are available if you want to get a paid account. There are also options for educators, including class sets of subscriptions.

For: All age students

• So You Want to Get a Ph.D in the Humanities

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obTNwPJvOI8

A sample xtranormal movie. A funny, mean teacher/student advising session. Also, a pretty good critique of academia. Learn about a student who wants to make a living writing about literature. And death. Also about the poor, put-upon, and jaded professor.

For: College students

• A sample video

I made this video for you to see how xtranormal can work. The site lets you save, download, and imbed video for free at least one time (but you have to pay afterward). Enjoy!

For: All age students

The Great Train Getaway
by: sterg

• Goanimate.com

http://goanimate.com/

An even easier way to make a video than xtranormal, though you can only make a one-minute long video without having to upgrade to a paid membership. Also, no sharing other than offering a link. And you have to pay to download your video. You have to register, and there is a choice of characters, setting, and style, just like xtranormal. They also have an educator option. Don't forget to save your work, because I accidentally hit the back button and lost all my work the first time :(

For: All age students

• A model goanimate video

http://goanimate.com/videos/0VccAVTNXbro/1

Here is a video I made using the program. I tried to demonstrate what it could do and how the site works.

For: All age students

GoAnimate.com: sbotzakis%27s+Animation by sbotzakis

So, you made a video and want to post it somewhere?

• YouTube

http://www.youtube.com/


The granddaddy of video hosting sites. It may be blocked at your school, but there are ways around that by typing https in your web address for example. You can post among the crazy cats, insane babies, and vloggers. Requires registration to post.


For: Most ages, though supervision  and previewing are advised

• Vimeo

http://vimeo.com/

A free video hosting site. It tends to be more academic than YouTube, though it has its share of silliness as well. Requires registration to post.

For: Most ages, though supervision  and previewing are advised

• Teachertube

http://www.teachertube.com/

A free video hosting site with a specialty for educators. It has lots of educational videos in many subject areas and you can join in the fun there and post for free. Also requires registration to post.

For: All ages, as far as I can tell. Some subject matter may be too intense for younger students.

Lessons I have Learned While Teaching This Class, Part 2

1. Commenting on Wordpress blogs is a more pleasant experience

2. I am beginning to HATE Captcha images

3. Falling behind in grading is no good at all

4.  Not having administrative support on your own computer makes it hard to load programs you need to make and model projects.

5. You guys are pretty smart, and I like reading your reflections very much!

6. I wish I did not feel like this so much lately:

7. We are more than halfway there! Hang in there!

Inanimate Alice

Inanimate Alice is an online novel, but it is also an experimental kind of writing. The authors call it transmedia, a combination of various media platforms. The story is told through a spoken narrative, images, cell phone calls, text messages, music, puzzles, snippets of language, video, and words. It is difficult to explain just how this experience works, but I enjoy seeing all the various media types weave a storyline that brings about some very visceral responses. Reading the story is sort of a combination of watching a movie, reading captions, solving puzzles, texting, and listening to a soundtrack. I recommend you go check it out and see what it's like for yourself.

So far there are four completed chapters, with each happening in a different country and with Alice encountering increasingly complicated (and I say scary) situations that she has to deal with. Similar to the Harry Potter books, Inanimate Alice follows the main character as she gets older and matures. I see no age limits for readers, though I think this is probably not a narrative for very young students. I have know people to share the site with third or fourth graders who really got into it.

The story is interactive in a few ways. There are puzzles and cell phone screens that readers have to manipulate to propel the narrative. You have to keep scrolling arrows as well. There is also a tool bar of sorts that is populated with scenes from the book as you go through the story, that way you can revisit or reread parts if you would like. 

The site is also full of teaching resources, providing some guidance of how such a text might be used with students. There are links to the new Common Core State Standards, downloadable activities, and a teaching packet. They also provide objects like this badge below, so you can "convey the fact that teachers there are engaged with the latest developments in digital storytelling."

 

There is no advertising on the site, and the makers only promote this story, which is free, and their work with others providing workshops for educators and online authors.

Three of the chapters are available in  Spanish, Italian, French, and German, so they could also be used with ESL or second language learners.It seems like they are trying to make this story rather multicultural. I wonder if it is too bourgeois though. Would your typical student relate to it?

So, go check out Inanimate Alice already!

Lessons I have learned while teaching this class so far

1. Reading and responding to 13 blog posts a day takes a long time, longer than teaching a daily summer school class.

2. I cannot keep up reading, writing a reflection for each chapter, and reading/responding to everyone's blog posts.


3. Some of my students are very web savvy already.

4. Some of my students are learning to be more web savvy.

5. Those Captcha prompts can be very difficult to read.

6. I am not a robot.

Do we live in a dystopian future?

 Today I read a New York Times piece about Ray Bradbury by Tim Kreider, where he talked about the author's foresight about the role of technology in our contemporary world. His view is that we live in a dystopian future already.

What do you think about that?

My First Text Set Collection: Doing Educational Action Research

Action Research in Education
http://www.edu.plymouth.ac.uk/resined/actionresearch/arhome.htm

 This website is arranged with questions about action research followed by answers that clarify what it is and how it should be conducted. A good basic resource.

Age: For college students
 
Action Research for Science Educators
http://www.drawntoscience.org/educators/action-research/index.html

This site has great resources, definitions, and examples of action research projects that I think would be very helpful to the novice researcher in any educational discipline/content area.

Age: For college students

Educating as Inquiry
http://www.lupinworks.com/ar/change.html

A website that collects different teachers' views and works on action research. There are so many helpful links on this site. It's a great resource for the teacher who wants to engage in mindful inquiry.

Age: For college students

Student Action Research for University Access
http://sarua.ed.qut.edu.au/

From Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia, this project involves high school students in doing action research in their schools and communities. It's a great look at the potential for using AR to effect social change.

Age: For high school/college students

Action Research Primer
http://www.peterlang.com/index.cfm?event=cmp.ccc.seitenstruktur.detailseiten&seitentyp=produkt&pk=46698&concordeid=69527

This book by Patricia H. Hinchey contains the basics and ins and outs of conducting action research projects. I plan to use this book with my own classes starting in the fall.

Age: For college students

Participatory Action Research
http://www.sagepub.com/books/Book230910

This book written by Alice McIntyre is an introduction to action research, a review of its basic principles, and a guidebook that could be used for starting projects. If I don't like the Hinchey book, I will give this one a go.

Age: For college students

Action Research
http://arj.sagepub.com/

A scholarly, peer-reviewed journal from SAGE. This is a great source for examples of action research studies as well as a prime source to publish such work.

Age: For college students

Educational Action Research
http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/09650792.asp

A scholarly, peer-reviewed journal from Taylor & Francis. This is a great source for examples of educational action research studies as well as a good place to publish such work.


Age: For college students

Center for Collaborative Action Research
http://cadres.pepperdine.edu/ccar/projects.school.html

A website that contains information about AR projects done by Masters of Arts students at Pepperdine University. The portfolios show work done with elementary, high school, and college students.


Age: For college students

Undergraduate Action Research Projects
http://educationprogram.duke.edu/Research/Student-Action-Research

These are online videos of PowerPoint presentations done by education students from Duke University. These are good models for what a final presentation should look like and contain.

Age: For college students

UW Action Research Projects
http://www.aimcenterseattle.org/action-research-projects

These are pictures of posters made for presentations done by  University of Washington graduate students as part of their action research work. These are also good models for students who have to produce posters for presentation.

Age: For high school/college students

Research Report Format
http://uacoe.arizona.edu/short/Syllabi/Research%20Report%20Format.pdf

This site is a PDF file that spells out all the sections that go into a research paper. I feel like it is a great model that beginning writers would benefit from using. Written by Kathy Short.

Age: For high school/college students

APA Formatting and Style Page
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/16/

From Purdue University's Online Writing Lab comes this helpful resource to APA 6th edition Style, which is the reference style used in the majority of educational research.

Age: For high school/college students

Guide to Grammar and Writing
http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/

An online resource that has information about writing from sentences to paragraphs to various formats. It also has frequently asked questions sections that can help with common questions (like, When do you use affect/effect?) and other mechanical issues. The site is text heavy, and I think it would work better for older readers/writers.

Age: For high school/college students

Participatory Action Research Guidelines 
http://research.utk.edu/forms_docs/human_subjects_action.pdf

From the Human Subjects Office at the University of Tennessee, this form spells out the guidelines for doing ethical and approved action research while being a university student or faculty.

Age: For college students and professors

Funbrain - Is It all that fun?

For my first review I checked out Funbrain. This site is supposed to be for students grades in grades 1-8. It has stories, comics, games, and I felt it was more something for younger students. There is no log-in, but the site gives you passwords once you have passed certain levels so you can resume play without losing any progress on the gameboard (kind of like Candyland).

There are lots of games that are secretly drill activities: matching exercises, math computation drills, and mouse moving activities that seem to be about motor control. Some games are combinations of all three things, like Bumble Numbers. I think there is lots here for younger folks, but I bet older students would feel this site is "for babies" and not so challenging after a short time. I think that this site would be great for kindergarten to second grade students.

The hardest part of the site for me was Math Baseball, which features some pretty difficult computations, at least if you try to do them in your head, like I did.  I can see it being a quick way to get some students to practice simple algebra exercises, but also something that could get old quick. I did like running the score up though...

I also tried the Mad Libs because I liked those so much when I was a kid. I was almost immediately frustrated with the words moving. Typing them in was not as much fun, and when I was finished choosing I was bummed to see some grammar errors and omissions in the actual passage. Not a good showing, I am afraid.

I think this site is ok for basic skills work, and there are certainly links to books like Diary of a Wimpy Kid (seem like they are all Scholastic products), which is good, I guess. They also have comics, like Brewster Rockit: Spaceguy, which is full of lame Star Wars jokes and does not seem even aimed at kids, but I thought they were subpar, so no links to those.

There is a moderate presence of ads, and they certainly are pushing an app and site called Poptropolis (I am not linking out of spite) that seems to be more of the same. Funbrain also advertises DVDs, cartoons, Froot Loops cereal, and other popular culture things.

It seems more a slight diversion or skills work than something that would be appealing over a long period of time, which bummed me out. I had higher hopes for this site!

I would get fun for my brain elsewhere.

Children's Websites to Check Out

Hey all, for class on 6/6/12, I have us down reviewing children's websites. Please check out the following websites on your own, then pick one to review in an in-depth, written entry (about 300 words).  Then check out what your classmates have to say...

Here's a list of sites:

http://www.Clubpenguin.com

http://www.fanlala.com/

http://www.Webkinz.com

http://www.Whyville.net

http://www.nick.com/club

http://www.funbrain.com/

http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/kids/

http://www.brainpop.com/

http://www.timeforkids.com/

http://www.hasbro.com/mylittlepony/en_US/

Some things you might mention in your review:

• What age level student should use it?
• Is this a site that could be used in school? If so, how?
• Are there any content area connections?
• How interactive is the site?
• How commercial is the site?
• Pros about the website?
• Cons about the website?
• Does it require you to sign up?
• Is adult supervision required?

 Happy reviewing!

Knobel & Lankshear Chapter 1

1. What was the chapter about? 
This chapter lays out what the book is all about. It also hits on the major theorists, like Gee and Street, and also on the major parts of new literacies, namely sociocultural theory, D/discourses, and the presence of different technological interactions.

Probably what I appreciate most is how they talk about what "new" means. The practices are not new: even before fan fiction for example, there were people who engaged in the activity. They just could not share or get feedback as easily. What is "new" is how we can talk about literacy as something that not everyone does exactly the same way for exactly the same purpose. This might not be a new idea in and of itself (Street called this an ideological model of reading in 1984!), but the ways some people talk about stages of development and learning standards you would think literacy was a unitary process.

I am glad we have new literacies studies to highlight this important fact. 

2. What does this chapter tell you about teaching students?
Building from my first point, the main part I get is that we need to find ways that students want to interact with reading and make learning worth their and our whiles. I know that the references in this book are dated (and it is so OLD - it's from that faraway time 2008!?!) but I still see the points applying today.

We live in a world where people can get fired up about books like Twilight and interact with the media to the point where big factions of Team Jacob and Team Edward arise. They mobilize around social networks, buy t-shirts, watch movies, debate, and bring these texts into their lives. 

Additionally, some people write fan fictions about the characters they like. They post their stories online, get feedback, build connections with other fans, and in one case make something derivative that they can shift, twist, and shape into something new that draws its own fans, creates its own sensations, and becomes a phenomenon of its own. 

Is all of this work crap? Is it garbage? Is it worth our while? That's not for me to say. What I do see is that people get mobilized and excited about a book and about literacy practices in ways I wish I could get our students interested in school. And they make things!

Our job is to find out what we can do to get the kind of connections and relevance to work in our favor. That is a tall task, I understand, and it will take us some big changes to get our instruction to meet students in terms of interest, relevance, and usefulness. It is not just about technology but what we can do.

3. Can this chapter be applied in your content area?
I can't think of a content area this chapter doesn't apply to. 

D/discourses

Ok, for this one I am going old school and refering to something I write a long while ago, my dissertation. The whole thing is available here (you can read it if you are having trouble sleeping :p)

James Gee (1991, 1996) expanded on Foucault’s (1969/1972) notion of discourse as a set of rules that linked language, institutions, and social relationships and also incorporated features that spoke to de Certeau’s (1984) notions of strategies and tactics. Gee (1996) divided the concept of discourse into two versions, one lower-case, the other upper-case. Lower-case discourses were described as specific behaviors, “ways of being in the world” (p. 127) that included language, gestures, clothing, values, and beliefs. Abstractly speaking, they were specific actions and features stripped of their meaning. In conjunction with lower-case discourses, upper-case Discourses were the sets of rules that dictated “how to act, talk, and often write” (p. 127). These rules were tied to notions of identity and related to a complex system of social connections. Discourse involved following certain social conventions to “‘pull off’ being a culturally specific sort of ‘everyday’ person” (Gee, 2005, p. 7). Discourses included the myriad rules that constituted social identities. Gee stated that practicing a Discourse included being a convincing member of a social group, whether it is a regular at a bar, an award winning physicist, or an avid hip-hop fan. These rules gave meaning to and also dictated how to use various discourses.

D/discourses were always bundled together. Gee (1996) emphasized that the division of lower-case and upper-case was artificial and only separated the terms to make his academic arguments. An example of the intertwining of D/discourse can be seen in making eye contact. As a behavior, making eye contact is an example of a discourse that belongs to a number of Discourses. Depending on the context of the person making eye contact, the Discourses that constitute her/his social identity, making eye contact can be used variously to insult, ask a question, indicate attention, or show sexual interest. Gee (1991) likened Discourses to “identity kits” (p. 3). In a manner of speaking, big D Discourses were kits that contained the little d discourses.

Summation: So the little d is the behavior and the big D is the rule of society that makes you do the little d like you do in that particular context. Simple, right?

An identity kit? (Not to scale; contents may vary) 

The point here is that we teach students lots of little d behaviors and tasks, but sometimes (always?) we do not so much take into account their big D identities. It's a way of talking about why students do not think tasks done in school are important outside of school. Because the little d activities may not jell with  their big D experiences or desires. That is an issue of relevance and worth.

Web 2.0

What is Web 2.0 and why should we care?

I think for those of us now, we don't really think about Web 1.0 because we have been in the Web 2.0 world for more than 10 years now. So what is this things we are dealing with? Taking a cue from Tim O'Reilly who originated the term, it's about a few things: interaction, production, seamless application, and easy use. Web 2.0 is highly interactive and invites people to take part not just as readers or consumers but as writers or producers.

Why I see this important in education is because students are often treated liked only consumers: they have to learn what we have to teach. But they are also used to interacting and answering back. How can we reconcile these matters in classrooms. Realistically through class discussions, but most of those, studies show, are glorified "tell the teacher what she wants to hear" sessions and not true discussions (IRE - Initiate-Response-Evaluate). Maybe using blogs or other networking ideas we can allow for more thoughtful interaction. Also maybe we will figure out such work may work better than cramming a whole bunch of standards down students throats...

If you want a lot more on O'Reilly's thoughts (and I do mean a lot, this page is HUGE and DETAILED), check out this link.

My Reflection on Bauerlein & Howe video

My initial thoughts:

On Bauerlein:
There is a part of me that does not want to like Bauerlein's train of thought. He seems to be cut from the E.D. Hirsch, Jr. school of thought, that you have to know certain canonical or core subjects and texts in order to be literate. I just think that leads to a sort of snobbery. Do you really need to read The Federalist Papers in order to be a productive citizen? (I haven't). Or several plays of Shakespeare? (I have). Do we all need to have certain shared cultural knowledge in order to relate, interact, and be successful? I am not sure. If anything, it seems to me that there is so much knowledge right now that it is difficult to ascertain just which parts are most important to know. Sure, some seem to get you into more clubs, like honor societies and colleges, but how much of that is living in the past or looking at a set of skills and knowledge that are becoming less relevant every day?

I do take his point that we do not know the repercussions of what all this peer-to-peer networking will be in the long run, and I do wonder about the disconnections that can be occurring that may short circuit traditional mentor/mentee relationships.

On Howe:
I wonder: Are millenials smarter than everyone who came before them - or do they think differently and have access to way more data that ever before?
The measures he cites seem to be random and maybe unhelpful: IQ scores? homework hours? TV-watching hours? I am not sure if these things and the behaviors he mentions mean that students in the past were worse off or better off now. Just because tests scores range up may mean that teachers are doing a better job preparing their teachers for the tests.

I do like his point about how we are constantly measuring the youth of today according to the past, when we have no way to measure those past youth to today's standards. There is a part of me that suspects strongly that there are no really big differences between youth then or now, and that the differences lay in the technologies and affordances we have. Of course children in the 1950s read more. TVs were scarce; there were no video games, and if you wanted entertainment you had to go out to the movies or hang out with your friends. Nowadays you can log on and hang out as much as you want (or are allowed) and see all kinds of sites worth of games and entertainments (videos and music, etc).

On this entire debate:
I also feel there is a danger of trying to characterize an entire generation. How alike or cohensive can they be? Are there outliers who excel (e.g. the spelling bee and science fair winners and Ivy League students) and skew things up? Is Howe cherry-picking these examples, like Bauerlein implied? I do not know if the examples he cites are representative on the whole. Likewise, I do not know if the basic skills and general cultural knowledge Bauerlein seems to want would be all that helpful in the end either.

I feel the answer lies somewhere between these two authors and their books. Students have access to more information and texts and technology but that does not necessarily mean they are smarter or dumber. They actually have to do something with all the (dis)advantages they have. And the jury is still out there. What I take from this debate is that we have to do school differently and take into account this current generation, which has to deal with transformational change way more than anyone else has had to. But then we are all in that boat, only we have not necessarily always been in it at the same time until now...

Are they smarter or just different?

One last thing that gets my goat:
Lots of people like to cite this 2004 NEA study that cites how much people are not reading any more. What about this 2008 NEA study done a couple of years later that says exactly the opposite? Is it chopped liver?

Bauerlein & Howe Video

Here is a link to the video The Millennials: The Dumbest Generation or the Next Great Generation?

Please watch it and then write a detailed response (at least 300 words) about your views of the authors' points on your blog. 

We will be reading each others' blogs next week on Monday, so get crackin'!

In the meantime, here is an infographic you may find informative: