Molliwog-Into the Pond of Digital Writing

The final project I have in mind for this class is to create a class wiki for AP Literature.  One of my main goals for the wiki is to create a place where we can build some community since the group of students I have meets in four fragmented small groups only once per week and only rarely do we meet as a larger group.  I hadn’t initially thought about using the wiki for formal graded assignments; however, I think I could shape it in that direction if needed. 

As the wiki is a place to build collaborative learning, I think peer feedback is probably more important than any feedback I can provide.  The wiki comment box at the bottom of each page is a great place to comment on each other’s writings.  I also think a class scavenger hunt of sorts might be a different, maybe even fun, peer review activity once there is more content on the wiki.  Students could write questions for their own contributions, which I could assemble into a larger hunt.  I would also like to give feedback, especially with the posting and writing students do early on (reinforce good things!), perhaps via individual conferences during study halls or even setting up an online conference.  I really liked the SWS Online format we learned about in the presentation on Nov. 25.  I don’t necessarily have the tools to do that, but I can take the general idea and make it work somewhat.

I created a rubric for the wiki based on the criteria we brainstormed in class.  I see this as a rubric to look at the “end” product of the wiki.  I could use it to do some summative assessments, I suppose, along the way.  I would also adjust the “Content” criteria to specifically match the content we put up on the blog.  For example, we may create a set of pages reviewing books they have read in high school classes that would be good for the Open essay question on the AP exam.  For that, content would include a brief plot overview, setting info, main characters and their relationships, symbols, and themes.  

Wiki Rubric

Tags: AP Literature, evaluation, feedback, peer review, rubrics, wikis

How good to be immersed in a project.  Wow, does that make you learn what you are doing.  I didn’t quite finish editing my video in class last week, therefore I had to work on it a little more at home.  Ah, frustration!  At home, I realized I hadn’t saved the movie file correctly and it was already saved as a QuickTime movie; therefore, I couldn’t edit it any further.  However, I know this type of problem is a common scenario students experience so it was good to feel those emotions myself—even a little humbling.  When I finally sat down to finish my video, which basically meant starting from the beginning of the editing process, it went much more quickly than my first attempts.  That said, it did take a decent amount of time, but the finished product is fun to have. 

Using the digital camera to capture video was great.  It was so simple and quick, though the quality maybe wasn’t as good.  However, I’m just an amateur!  I thought using iMovie was quite easy to use.  The latest version had some similarities to GarageBand, so I felt some things were easy to pick up on.  Having a plan for what I wanted my final video to look like really helped give me focus.  I think storyboarding is an integral step for students in creating videos.  Also considering teaching video production, I think you have to be planful but also ready to troubleshoot—and students need to be along for the ride. 

Students love doing videos.  They take work and time—even sweat and tears sometimes—but students always seem so proud of the finished product.  I think they could be a great way to get students to translate their understanding of a literary text, by interpreting a scene or section from it.  Videos could also be used for interviewing, field notes, instructional pieces, and much more.

This is a presentation I’ve actually done before, highlighting some of the good and bad points of PowerPoint design.  To try out some new techniques I used Slide Rocket.  I don’t have the typewriter sound in Slide Rocket like I do in my PowerPoint version of this, but I think the point on transitions still gets made. 

http://app.sliderocket.com/app/FullPlayer.aspx?id=140dc875-8b7a-4d1b-9b98-0523a2d239c4

Tags: GarageBand, iMovie, interactive presentation, Powerpoint, Slide Rocket, video

This is my silly little video starring my ten-month old (with a cameo by my three-year old). He follows his brother all over the house, including the bathroom. It was fun to capture video of him as he is so close to walking and though he’s pretty shaky, he travels all over the house.
Toilet Escapades
 

Tags: toddlers, video, vlogs

My First Podcast

Does anyone remember My First Sony?  It was a tape player with a microphone attached and you could record with it!  For the time, it seemed amazing technology.  These days, with all of our technological advancements, it really seems like child’s play. 

Well, this week I ventured into the world of podcasts.  What an experience!  My biggest dilemma actually was coming up with a topic for my podcast.  I wanted it to be something that would be useful and relevant to my students and also something that would necessitate the use of audio.  We are just wrapping up our unit on storytelling, where students collected a story from an elder (usually grandma or grandpa) that they then craft into a well-rounded story, rehearse and deliver to their peers.  The storytelling process really starts with an interview of the elder.  The students prepare for interviewing by considering questions they might ask in order to solicit good story fodder.  However, I don’t think our students are very experienced with interviewing and I think a model of the interview would help them understand the process—get it in their heads better.  So, I decided to interview my stepmom and create a podcast students could listen to as a sample.  I blended the interview with my own commentary on preparing for the interview by thinking of questions to ask, adjusting my questions to “smaller” more specific ones, and some closing thoughts on the interview itself. 

Here is the RSS feed for the podcast.

Public download link: https://mediamill.cla.umn.edu/mediamill/download.php?file=20841.mp3

I thought the experience went pretty well.  I could putz around with the podcast forever, I think, trying to iron out all the wrinkles. One thing I noticed is that my voice is very soft in the Skype conversation with my stepmom.  I need to figure out how to raise the volume level of those parts so it doesn’t sound imbalanced.  I also think the podcast is a little long (about 15 minutes), but then again, I wanted to give the experience of the interview and found it hard to edit it down much further.  So far it’s just voice, but I’d like to add in some small musical transitions that take the listener into and out of the interview segments—to give it more of a chapter feel.  I used Audio Hijacker and found it a simple tool, however, I was bummed by the 10-minute time limit.  I know there’s no such thing as a free lunch, but I also didn’t want to rush the interview.  Unfortunately, right as my stepmom’s third story reached its climax, the 10 minutes were up!  I made this work with my podcast, I think, because my students don’t really need to hear the whole story to get the idea of the interview.  The technology was pretty simple to use and I get the sense that a podcast could be created fairly quickly.

I really like the idea of using Skype to conduct and record interviews.  Even if students don’t use it to create a podcast, it would be a useful way to document the conversations for later reference, rather than the traditional form of taking notes. 

In terms of using podcasts, I think using them to study media forms would be very interesting.  But in regards to teaching voice, I think podcasting could be really useful.  I can see putting students in groups, each with the same scene, and assigning them a “voice” to interpret and perform the scene with.  This would require students to look critically at the text, develop voice and character, and consider meaning and significance.  Podcasts could be recorded of the scenes and then shared with the whole class.  Follow-up discussions and conversations could focus on the different interpretations based on voice.  Students might then use this insight to shape their own writing, recording, or speeches.  

Tags: interviewing, podcasting, podcasts, Skype, storytelling, voice

I listen to about two podcasts per week—if I’m lucky.  As a mother of small children, I find its hard to fit in even that.  I subscribe to the Wait wait… don’t tell me! podcast as well as Grammar Girl.  The latter is a new addition to me but I like it a lot.  I enjoy that it’s not very long, but to the point and very informative.  Plus, I love grammar!  I also subscribe, but very rarely listen to, NPR’s Environment podcast, which is a collection of all the environmentally-related stories from the week.  But I find it hard to listen to it every week and sometimes I’ve already heard, read or talked about the story with others. 

Currently my students are working on storytelling.  I think a logical leap is to do a storytelling podcast.  I always think it’s great to model what you are teaching, so I’d like to do a podcast of a story I collect from one of my elders.  We encourage our students to go up two generations and collect a story from a grandparent, great aunt or uncle, or family friend—someone who is more removed than parents are.  I’d love an excuse to talk to one of my grandpas about his life.  I already know some of their stories, which might be a starting place for my podcast, but then I’d like to conduct an interview and include this is the podcast as well.  I think I’d need to ask more open-ended questions to get my grandpa talking freely about his childhood, early years in teaching, memorable parenting moments, working in the potato chip factory and even what retirement is like.

I already have my students create a podcast (well, an audio file really, since they don’t publish it).  We do it during a unit on infectious disease (I think I’ve mentioned this before) where we give students a scenario about the bird flu epidemic reaching Minnesota.  Part one of the assignment is to create a fictitious blog and part two is to create a podcast news report. 

I have a colleague who is currently recording feedback/comments on papers and I’m intrigued by this idea.  I also like the idea of collecting students’ stories and publishing them somewhere so that parents and other family members—even the tellers themselves—can access them.  I think podcasting should try to bring out working with voice since it’s audio-based.  You could look at enunciation, inflection, emphasis, varying tone and pitch, sound effects, characterization, etc.  We could listen to podcasts of various stories and analyze their storytelling techniques in order to inform our own stories.

Tags: podcasts, storytelling

For the online role-play, I took on the role of the school counselor, who was against single-sex classrooms.  In creating this role, I considered what role the counselor serves within the school in terms of the interactions s/he has with staff and students but also what the counselor sees his/her role to be in helping students.  I let this be my guide as I composed my posts; I wanted to show a concern for helping students be comfortable and respected in the school community and for getting students prepared for life beyond high school.  I feel like I relied on some research, but I admit that I mostly referred to the research others found.  I could have done more research, but I also felt that the counselor would focus more on issues of school climate and observation.  I had fun creating a name for my character, Ms, Guideme Wright, but I like to bring some humor into most things I do.  Strangely, I think this also allowed me to keep focused on my character’s goals and perspective.  I know with role-plays we want students to embrace their roles, but I don’t think that means humor has to be eliminated.

As mentioned, I was mostly focused on preparing students for the real world.  Along with this argument, I also talked about gender identification dilemmas, de facto tracking, not enough research to support this move, and that we might better address the inequities directly rather than moving to segregated classes.  I didn’t cite a lot of research, but did try to refer to the con expert’s research, as well as align with other con characters.  I think my arguments and reasoning were effective, as the points were identified by the school board members in their decisions and they were brought up in the class discussion.  I honestly felt like others had really read my posts and considered my opinions.  It was validating. 

I thought roles with more power were the experts because they brought in a lot of good research-based arguments and the teachers and students because of their personal experiences and emotional appeals.  Research and emotion, we know, are powerful lines of argument.  I thought each respectively used these strategies to get their arguments heard.  I also think the roles with power really developed their characters well.  I had a good sense of character through the voice, language and arguments.  This made their arguments more convincing and they seemed to carry more weight in the discussion. 

My personal beliefs aligned pretty well with my character, though I must say they solidified more as the role-play progressed.  I was more unsure when we started the role play about how I felt, but the more I read, researched, and wrote, the more clear my own opinion became. 

I agree with some of the other comments that have been made about posts and length.  I certainly felt a bit overwhelmed about how much there was to read, so some coaching in the classroom might help.  I can also see how it might play out differently in a class that spends more than a week on a role-play and also meets more than once a week.  In class time could be used at several points to keep the conversation going, so there wouldn’t be a rush of posts at the last minute. 

Tags: discussion, reflection, role-play

I really like the idea of digital storytelling and also digital poetry. I think it has unlimited applications in the classroom. I was really drawn to the idea of digital poetry especially; I believe it would give another range of ways for students to express themselves. It also gets them to look at words and images together and even more critically than just printed word on paper. Overall it just adds another dimension of meaning. I teach a Poetry Workshop short course (over 7 days) and this would work really well there where we experiment with the notion of what poetry is and what it “looks” like.

I chose to create a digital version of Mary Oliver’s poem “The Summer Day”, which is one of my favorites. I found myself pouring over pictures in Flickr and carefully selected images to include in my version of the poem. I used Powerpoint to create the poem, which I have to admit, felt a little archaic. However, it allowed me to play with colors and the movement of the words in a way that made me really consider the meaning of the poem, its parts, and my interpretation of it. Also, since I wasn’t using sound with this, I found myself paying very close attention to the speed of animation—trying to match it with the pace I would read the poem. I imagine that this would be even more meaningful with a poem of my own generation, which I would have my students do, but I also think it was useful to explore the meaning of an existing poem.

The Summer Day

I’ve also used Comic Life in my class in several ways. I find it easy to use, engaging and the students build a closer connection to the project, text or topic we are exploring. For example, I’ve had them create a comic version of a chapter in a novel we are reading where there are multiple points of view. I also think it could be used as a pre-writing tool, perhaps, like storyboarding to get the basics of a story determined and arranged. I personally want to experiment more with audio and images as well. I think this would open up even more creative avenues.

Tags: digitalstorytelling, Flickr, poetry, Powerpoint

I ran out of time to introduce my AP Lit students to Salman Rushdie before the MEA break.  I created a VoiceThread of my Powerpoint on Rushdie and am uploading it here so that they can access it and hear all about Rushdie and the controversy over The Satanic Verses prior to their reading of the novel Haroun and the Sea of Stories.  

Tags: AP Literature, Powerpoint, SalmanRushdie, VoiceThread

I think part of my final project will be to create a wiki. The working idea I have right now is to use it for my AP Lit course. As I’ve mentioned before, we only meet once a week and the wiki would be a place for students to collaboratively create an understanding about the pieces of literature we are studying as well as the different facets of literary analysis. I focus the course using critical theory lenses, so it might be interesting to create a page about each lens with links to sources about the lens and pieces of analysis using the lens. There could also be a page(s) for the various texts we study.

As we get closer to the AP test in May, students could use these pages to review. I also got an idea from one of the wikis on the course wiki list (Vicky Davis, I believe). Students could post pages for past texts they’ve read with info on character, setting, plot, symbols, theme, etc. (the main points) in order to review specifically for the open essay question. I think this could really utilize the features of a wiki well in the sense of collaborative writing but also sharing the info with other students.

Since I’m just sorting out the idea of it still, I don’t have a fully formed view of what the AP Lit wiki would look like. Categories that come to mind include literary terms, critical lenses, texts covered, test prep, essay writing/literary analysis, interpretation, explications, must read texts (beyond what’s assigned!). You can check out my (very rough) wiki here.

Challenges to wikis would be access to and comfort level with wikis and technology in general. I think more and more, students have increased access and familiarity with Web 2.0 and computers but I don’t want to assume that my students have it all under control. So some guided practice and modeling in class would be a must for me. How many times have I had a student exclaim about the evils of computers? I think another challenge to collaborative writing is balanced participation, which really is a concern with any group work. How do you get all students to contribute in a fairly even way, with everyone participating some and no one writing too much or too little? I also wonder if collaborative writing “slows down” the writing process since it takes time to post, read what others have written, respond and contribute more writing. This could be good to slow things down, but perhaps tedious at times. However, I am optimistic that the benefits would outweigh the potential downsides.

Tags: aplit, wikis

For my Flickr slideshow, I decided to search for photos of the Scottish Highlands.  Every other spring, I lead a group of students on a Field Study to Scotland and we spend all of our time in the Highlands.  At our first meeting for the field study in the fall I usually show a Powerpoint slideshow of pictures from past field studies to give a flavor of the sights and experiences.  This helps parents and students decide if it’s the right field study for them and also gets everyone excited about what’s to come.  I really enjoyed using Flickr to find more photos honestly because there many more talented photographers out there than I am!  I was able to find so many images to use and could use these along with my own to better promote the field study.  I also think I could use this, or something similar, as a pre-writing activity before we leave to get students thinking and writing about Scotland.  I often describe it as a beautiful, varied, and magical place but I’d like to hear students’ responses to the images and get their impressions of the place.  So here is my slideshow; I hope you enjoy the beauty of the Scottish Highlands as much as I do.

I can see many places where students might use Flickr and/or VoiceThread, many of which have been mentioned by classmates such as a form of storytelling and research assignments (on place, character,etc.).  I especially like the idea of using it to spark writing and can see a real use for it in the Poetry Workshop class I teach.  We often use images to generate ideas and starting points for writing and the slideshow provides a neat, clean and fairly easy-to-use format for doing this.  

For the VoiceThread part of the assignment, I used the same images as my Flickr slideshow but I rearranged them and added commentary.  With more time, I’d love to develop this more and even put it on the school website as a tool for students, parents and visitors to access and learn more about the field study.  In fact, this would be an easy way for all of the field studies we have to promote themselves as well as capture experiences upon returning from the field studies.

I can see a great use for VoiceThread for an assignment I do in the spring.  We have students explore the Stone Arch Bridge area looking for aspects of sustainable development.  Students spend a morning with journals and cameras recording their experiences.  Their final project is to create a photo essay of their day.  VoiceThread would allow them to upload photos and record comments on what they are seeing.  They could also write text to add another layer.  This would be much more interactive than our old standby: Powerpoint.  I especially like the audio comments and think this would be great for sharing with other groups.  I look forward to trying this activity out as well as thinking of other possible uses for these Web 2.0 tools.