“Thing 23″

I can’t believe this class is over, and that I was able to finish all these things. Some came more easily, while others took a lot of operating instructions, which, thankfully, Sarah provided. It was great that I could watch her tutorials over and over again. It reminded me of when I used to pick up the needle of my record player to play a song over and over, until it was scratched beyond repair. We’ve come a long way baby. Speaking of babies…

I remember when I was sent home with my first child. It was terrifying, and I did rely on books, etc., but mostly, I had to persevere. So they sent me home with this laptop a few years ago, and I’ve been using it to maintain curriculum and little by little exploring its capabilities. I, however, was still really a novice, and still pretty much am, but I have learned a great deal. Again, I owe this to our teacher and to persevering. In the next few days, I’ll bookmark things and make sure that I make a few cheat sheets so that I can move forward and incorporate these things into my classroom, for this has been my main objective. I’m particularly interested in how students seem to be more invested when they see their work online. I want to explore this more, thinking of ways to build in authentic assessments that will access their potential as students. Ultimately, that’s all I want, and I’m willing to do whatever it takes to get there. I do believe that technology also offers many ways to help students who may struggle. Always, however, I think of all of these tools as a way to build upon the connections I try to make in the classroom. Education, to me, is about translation and making connections. You must translate the material into something else in order to really process it and make connections with other material, and with other people.

I explored Wordle earlier because I like to make interactive bulletin boards, and I also think it would be fun to incorporate in in a poetry unit. It would be interesting to give kids all the same word and then compare their Wordles. We can then have a discussion about why we choose certain words versus others, and why there are so many commonalities. It’s a concrete way to begin discussions on universal truths and themes, one of my favorite topics.

Today, after being snowed in for several days, I made this Wordle with my kids, Liam and Eva, and their friend Grace.

As Sappho wrote: “Although only breath, words which I command are immortal.”

Now on to the Easy Bake Oven, or is that microwave.

This wordle was made on: http://www.wordle.net

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alt="Wordle: snow"
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“My Podcast”

I must admit that I’m really frustrated. Creating my own podcast took me a whole day. I just couldn’t get it. I lost sound when I tried to edit and ended up having to redo it over and over. I probably tried to tackle more than I should have, and I ended up only doing a small poem, after recording a lot more about poetry and how I use it in the classroom. My hope was to have something I could send to other colleagues about how and why I use poetry in the classroom as a way to help “reluctant” writers. I’m working on a developing a curriculum around this that I want to share with educators, particularly teachers who work with students with writing differences. In the end, I think it’s not that the students are really reluctant, but struggling and feeling defeated. Poetry allows them to be successful in a medium where they have often felt like failures. Ultimately, it’s not them who have failed in the past, but education who’s failed them by demanding prescribed output.

As an English teacher, I was taught that students must master certain skills, and I still believe that to some extent; however, I think there should be allowances and degrees for how and at what level these skills are mastered. We know that every student is not going to get a Ph.D in literature and teach at Harvard. Not even every English student is going to reach that level, so why would we expect all students to master the five-paragraph essay or a literary analysis in the same way? We can’t. Poetry meets students where they are and allows them to explore without certain constraits. This is what my podcast dealt with and one of the ways I imagine using a podcast in my professional life, once I can master it a little better;-)

I love Grammar Girl and have used her to teach grammar in my classroom, and as a personal resource. I have used NPR in my classroom so that students can hear the authors’ voices and understand a little about their relationship to their work, which I think helps kids appreciate revision and the creative process. When I taught storytelling this year, we listened to StoryCorps, which documents ordinary citizens and the memories that help define them. My students loved this, and I think you will too!

It’s great to watch things, but listening is an important skill for students to develop as well. Podcasts help students do this so that they can hone their focus and become more active in their education. I think it’s great for students to also podcast themselves. This will help them develop their speaking voices, and it’s wonderful for students who often struggle to get up in front of an audience. Finally, it helps students self-reflect. Providing this, in truth, may be its most useful tool. It certainly has been for me.

Here is a podcast of me reading one of my own poems. It’s a start.

“Video Sharing”

I was already a Youtube/Teachertube junkie before I surfed the site to complete this assignment. I love finding clips for my students that apply to their learning because I know that this is a modality that’s not only very familiar to them, but one they really value. My son spends a lot of his “screen time” watching Youtube, mainly shows online, but there are also home-movie clips that he hears about and loves to share with us or his sister. As the video Sarah posted suggests, Youtube is so appealing because it documents common citizens. More and more, media is becoming about us, about more of us getting that 15 minutes of fame. For example, Susan Boyle blew the world away on Britain’s Got Talent, but Youtube took her to global fame. I’ve watched her audition many times, and I still get teary-eyed watching it because it reminds me that no matter what, people can realize their potential. I think, this is why so many people watched it:  we’re drawn to ourselves exemplified in our common human experiences.

In terms of classroom use, however, I used these resources more when I taught history last year. For English, I’m more focused on teaching novels and writing, and I struggle with ways to think of how to best incorporate these tools in my classroom. For example, I looked around for a video by an innovative teacher on essay writing, and I just didn’t find anything in my searches that I thought would capture my students attention. I did, however, find a really interesting segment on Wes Anderson’s adaptation of Roald Dahl’s The Fantastic Mr. Fox into film. It provided insight on not only the adaptation process but also on Dahl as a writer and how his environment informed his novels. Since we’re just finishing Dahl’s memoir Boy, it’ll help the students to think about Dahl and his writing process, which is the lens through which I have been teaching this book to the kids. My course is called Our Imagined World, and it focuses on the power of imagination, but also how our life experiences–both personal and on a more cultural anthropologic level–inform who we become and how our world evolves. No doubt, this is some heady stuff, so this three-minute segment will serve to frame these more sophisticated understandings in a concrete way. I can ask the kids: Why was Dahl so concerned with the way film makers interpreted his books? Why did Wes Anderson want to do this film? Why was it so important for Anderson to travel to Dahl’s house and recreate his world in his movie? How are these answers related? What’s also tremendous is that the students will be able to see a bit of Dahl’s world. I can’t take them to England, but I can bring it here to them. I really do wish, however, I could talk them to England. So, I see myself continuing to use Youtube as I have, to reinforce meaning. Have some fun looking at this short video on Anderson’s adaptation of The Fantastic Mr. Fox.

“FLICKR and Photos”

Exploring FLICKR brought back memories of going to galleries to explore photography and other artwork when I was young. I’d spend hours wandering these venues, pondering artistic interpretation of still lives, people, and landscapes. Through these images, I was often inspired to write, particularly because my poetic voice is one wedded to imagery. Exploring these kind of images on FLICKR brought the same kind of inspiration to the surface. I also often called my family members over to come and see a particularly striking image. I started to consider all the ways I would use this resource in the classroom, and, really, there’s a well of possibilities.

As an English teacher, I often use images to inspire students to write and consider literary elements, such as imagery itself and setting. With the advent of the internet, I have been pulling images up via google images, but I hadn’t really accessed FLICKR in this way. In fact, had I really known how to navigate this site, there are a lot of ways I could have incorporated this into my creative writing class. I do plan to use the slide show to teach theme in my next novel. Theme is challenging to teach, and this medium helps students to translate more abstract thoughts into their own landscape. As I’ve mentioned before, ultimately, it’s through translation that we really learn. This medium offers students a way to do this in a language that is familiar to them.

I think teaching visual literacy is very important and something that needs to be done across content areas. I have to pick ways in which it makes sense for my class, which I think should parallel teaching other things I do, such as analysis and organization in composition. In social studies classes, I think students need to consider current events via images ,not just text. I think of the images all over the internet of the catastrophe in Haiti. My own children have encountered them. I worry about them becoming immune to these things. They have the power to connect us to our humanity but it has to be presented in context. I think of stumbling upon the pictures of Jonestown when I was a child. They haunted me because I didn’t understand how a community could kill its children, and without help to negotiate that questions, where would I have been left?

I heard a student say yesterday that life is unfair and we just need to live with it, embracing what we can. Partly he’s right, but I also think we need to work toward embracing our humanity. My text book at Bryn Mawr was called Teaching to Change the World. The world is changing, but we must remember, it’s we who change it.

“K12 Online Conference Session”

Because my students spend so much time texting and using their phones for various things, I thought I would attend the session on using the iPod Touch in the Classroom. I like how instructional it is, from taking the phone out its box to navigating resources and applications. I didn’t even know that you could read books on the iphone or record audio via a thumbtack mic. Story text looks like a very cool application that could be used for student to brainstorm stories, in the way I use story boards now. I see many of my kids being drawn to this, especially ones who struggle to draw.

For me, as a digital immigrant, I need as much instructional material as possible. It is like learning a new language.

Overall, I’m amazed by all of this little tool has to offer. It has convinced me to buy one at some point, maybe as gift for my 40th birthday. What better way to welcome my middle age than to embrace something cutting edge (at least I see it as cutting edge: lol)! Any thoughts, Sarah? I’m also cautious, because when you get older, you often start to become more easily wooed by products (my mother recently bought the Egg Genie. My father-in-law always buy things via the tv at three am, like the razor he bought my husband recently that works underwater). As we age, there seems to be a desire for the instantaneous. I worry, however, about waning patience. I see such anxiety with students and adults when technology gives out, like it did the other day in my community service. The language of technology takes over and sometimes we forget how to just be. I really think this may be a problem for my students in their lives.

In terms of accessing this specific technology, there are financial restrictions. Most of my students don’t have ipod touches, so we’d have to maybe commit to buying a bunch as a school. It would be cool to get a classroom set, but that’s still a great deal of money; however, it’s less than a cart of laptops. The questions is: Is it worth the investment? I turn to Sarah again to answer this.

For me, it’s time for a break. I think I’ll go listen to some Bing Crosby on my ancient CD player.

Classroom 2.0

After looking at this web site, I can think of no better analogy than an Escher work; there are just layers upon layers. I guess all of the internet can can feel like being lost in an Escher painting. The positive side is that it’s thought provoking and rich with resources. A drawback is how lost you can feel in it, like being in the Escher work, or down the rabbit hole.  It’s hard to balance so much: work, family, professional development, etc.  I sleep four hours a night, and still don’t have enough time to get what I need to get done, completed. My hope is that once I acquire more knowledge of and fluency in this technology, I’ll have a toolbox that I can come back and build upon.

I do like how social networks could be used to teach. I loved the idea of having students talking to each other as characters in To Kill a Mockingbird on Ning. Sarah B., I’ll be in touch with you about this.

Thing 13–K12 Online Conference Keynote

I liked how Kim Confino connected 21st learning traits to being a stranger in strange land. All of the components nicely outlined by Confino seemed to really meet the challenges and needs of 21st century learning. I truly believe that one of the strongest things teachers need to have in order to meet the needs of their learners in the 21st century is adaptability. This was true of teachers before, but it does feel more pressing now that the world is more global and there are more varied students in our classrooms. It’s wonderful that we can individualize more for specific learners, but, we, as educators, really need to adapt in order to do this successfully. My school exists because other schools didn’t meet the needs of our learners. Therefore, this is always on my mind whenever I’m teaching a lesson. I constantly think of how a lesson will be received by J, L, or I. I have to allow for choice and variation. I must always be thinking through various modalities. This, luckily, is a strength for me.

I think other strengths are ones identified as attributes belonging to third culture kids: I feel that I’m collaborative, have a global perspective, tolerant, empathetic, and seek to provide authentic experiences for my students. I guess this is because as a daughter of an immigrant, I am a third culture kid. What’s striking about this experience is that–as one grown TCK pointed out–while I can move around in two worlds, I’ve never felt I belonged in one world or another. This is a bit like being a digital immigrant. I do worry about how being an immigrant rather than a native will affect my ability to authentically bring technology into my classroom.

I work to connect my classroom and school more globally by bringing diverse literature into my classroom, but, mostly, it’s through my community service learning project that I think I’m doing this more successfully. This project is centered around the subject of human trafficking, so students have researched this topic as it relates to different parts of the world. We’ve also talked about fair trade and how purchases in this country affect other people’s human rights. Certainly, it’d be great to connect to people around the world working on this issue via the internet. Perhaps, the students could research agencies and contact them. Perhaps they could connect to other students in other countries also working on this issue. I’m going to try and set my Google reader to accept some of this feed. I’ve been using the reader but not as productively as I could be doing. This, I think, is not only because I’m a digital immigrant, but because I struggle so much to find the time to do the things I want or need to do.

Confino talked about how in Asia everything is “always on.” In some ways, this can be good. Confino addresses how the teacher, like in the Buddhist proverb, can be there when the student is ready because they can access things like online lectures, etc.; however, I still worry about how this informs the pace through which we all move in this world. I mean, I’m really more like the tortoise than the hare. This coursework was to require a few hours of my time each week, but it takes me more than double, and sometimes even five hours. I’m a very detailed thinker, probably because I’m a TCK, thinking things through various lenses.

My children, like my students, are always looking for the next pop-up, so to speak. With my own children, I work to develop mindfulness through their religious life in the Quaker tradition. They also experience this because they attend a Quaker school. They sit in silence for half-an-hour a week, which is a challenge still, but they’re learning to find that the true answer to any questions begins inside of yourself. All ideas begin and end in you. True, there’s a journey in between, but they’re bookended with self-introspection. I also tell them this a lot. Some of this leaks into my teaching life, not the religious aspect of it, but the idea that you must reflect and find your relationship to the question, and, in the end, find your own question to answer. Life to me is really about this. One of my biggest questions is: How can I help?

In teaching, I always always come back to being connected in authentic and meaningful ways. For the last six years, my son has been learning Spanish, and he’s not been that invested in it. This has been disheartening to me, because I partly sent him to his current school because they offered a language at such an early age. I think it was horrible that my mother was told that shouldn’t teach her daughter her native language because it would prevent me from truly assimilating. The truth is, I haven’t assimilated. And, unfortunately, not learning Spanish pushed me further form my own heritage; ironically, further isolating me. I wanted to open the world for my children, connect them in a way I wasn’t able to connect. So, understandably, I was dismayed. Well, in a few weeks my ten-year-old son is going to live in Mexico for two weeks, with a Mexican family. Some parts of me thinks I’m absolutely out of my mind, but, mostly, I thrilled that Spanish has taken a new life for him. He’s eager to be immersed in it and experience one of the cultures it reflects. He has his Mexican buddy, another ten-year-old boy who’ll be coming to live with us, in May. They’re exchanging letters where they discuss their interests, etc. The bridge is beginning, and I’m eager to see it / him once it’s been crossed.

Thing 11-Wikis in Education: Your Wiki or Mine

I wrote on my partner’s blog some thoughts on using a wiki that I want to reemphasize here in this week’s comments. Certainly, there were a lot of wikis to sort through, and while many are really interesting, what this course is doing for me more than anything else is helping me to think about curriculum in general and re-evaluate what will best help students evolve as learners, and, ultimately, prepare them to be adult participates in a democratic society. This is why I was so happy to read the article “10 Best Practices for Using Wikis in Education” that Sarah posted. These practices could be slightly modified to apply to education in general and remind us that technology should be used to help us help our students reach learning goals.

This article emphasizes that we as educators must remember that students need to have a tangible sense of direction and a sense of purpose in the task. There, ultimately, has to be something in it for them. For many students, this can be a grade in itself, but, for others, that’s just not enough. This is fine because I don’t want to be the kind of teacher who has to rely on grades for product. I want students to pursue things because of the opportunity it provides them to learn about themselves and their world. I know you’re all saying to yourself that this is what we all want. I believe this to be true of the teachers I work with, and that’s why I love working where I do, but I think we still struggle to understand how to present material in a way that provides the right opportunity for all students we encounter.

I recently had a very successful assignment where all students participated, and some kids who never rewrite, wrote extra drafts. I look over the best practices, and I see so many of the components in my project there. I’ll actually look over this list from now on as a guide.

Overall, I feel much more ready to tackle a wiki. I really liked Sarah’s English wiki on teaching the theme in The Giver, which I might adapt for our students. Her students did a great job of creating slide shows, which were then posted on the wiki for all to view. I like the idea of using a wiki as a kind of gallery space for students’ work where other students can explore and perhaps give feedback on the final product. Parents, too, can view it and even send the link to other family members. I also like the idea of connecting with authors as well, such as inviting them to see the space and maybe even commenting on the pieces.

Recently, I friended the poet and writer Marge Piercy on facebook. I told her how inspirational she had been and gave her an anecdote of a student who had recited her poem “Barbie Doll” for a class project; it was particularly striking because it had been a boy who chose the poem that addresses the tragic effects of objectifying women. Well, after that exchange, I never anticipated I would hear from her again. Then, one day, she checked in with me because I posted something as my status that she interpreted as frustration with my teaching, although it really wasn’t. It was, however, just amazing to me that she was concerned or interested. It was another exchange that probably would never have happened if it weren’t for technology. I may be part of the hoi pollio, but in this space, we’re a little more equalized, which helps us connect to one another, and, at its best, can help us be those active citizens we need to be to ensure equality for all.

I Love the Sound of Your Voice

Sappho here.

I’m feeling a bit less existential today after finishing my unit on oral traditions with my students. As I sift through their wonderful myths in order to make a bulletin board and prepare their final test, I think of how in someways this lesson, which brought them back to the beginning of how we originally interfaced with one another, is so connected to where our world is going.

In college, I read Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death. I don’t want to go into a lengthy description about the book, only mention that his commentaries are connected to the Huxleyan idea that through media we’re self-medicating ourselves into bliss. The premise, I think, are his thoughts that “form excludes the content,” or how something like TV breeds passivity. He writes that only through the written word can truly complex meaning be obtained, citing how once, our presidents were known for their writings rather than their appearance.

So, I’m hopeful. The written word is back, and there’s much more access to it than ever before. Certainly, I worry about how social class limits one’s ability to engage, but this has always been a dilemma. We certainly, however, need to work on providing equal access, in many arenas. Given access, we can now hear what is written by getting our computers to talk to us. We can access books this way; speeches, such as presidential; our peer’s stories, and so many other things.

My students will be telling their stories to one another this week as part of Pioneer Day, and I also plan to have them available on a Wiki for parents: certainly, past meeting present. It would be great to get a few of them reading their pieces in this space. That might be too ambitious for this time around, but it’s something I want to do. Now, by no means is this passive. It’s akin to people having salons or gathering around the campfire. I do, however, agree that we have to teach the human connection too, the one-on-one; this is why my unit included various media. The technology should, as I have always said, be used in a meaningful way. This, for me, can’t happen unless kids/people feel connected.

I hope that when we explore science fiction next semester, the students will really be able to use the foundations of oral traditions to help them consider the future. I think that, ultimately, it’s through the past we all find our future, on a personal and societal level.

One Among Many

I’ve successfully set up my Google Reader. As a digital immigrant, this has to be the equivalent to my mother having her first thought in English, without translating from the Spanish first. I mean, in some ways, it feels that big. Today, I first saw my word of the day from dictionary.com: hoi polloi, or the common people. In an instant, I saw the latest news from my best friend’s blog revealing that she’s successfully passed her 14th week of pregnancy, with twins; she’s been combating infertility and continuous miscarriages.  Then I quickly noticed a review of Mary Karr’s new memoir in the Sunday Book Review, written by Susan Cheever: now there’s a distraction.

The book chronicles Karr’s divorce, recovery from alcoholism, journey toward God, as well as the power of writing.  Cheever states that Karr, while teaching mildly retarded women, was reminded of the power of poetry. Cheever quotes Karr from the book:  “Such a small, pure object a poem could be, made of nothing but air, a tiny string of letters, maybe small enough to fit in the palm of your hand.  But it could blow everybody’s head off.” I was lost to that thought, which reinforces why it is I do what I do each day:  both teach and make sure I scrawl some sort of poetry down.  I also made an addition to my Christmas list.  Oh, and Mary Gaitskill has a new novel. Where will I find the time?

Inspired again by the power of language, I sifted through the Educating Alice blog I have bookmarked and found wonderful suggestions on how to use the application Comic Life for projects. This kind of application was made for middle school, and I honestly can’t wait to brainstorm with our technology coordinator (hint, hint) on how to use this in relationship to my Roald Dahl unit. It’ll be a great tool for kids to consider such literary devices as imagery and hyperbole.

Despite my momentary success and excitement, I felt a bit overwhelmed, like the proverbial kid in the candy shop. I, like some of my colleagues, find it hard to read large chunks of prose online. I mean, the internet can sometimes feel a bit like Las Vegas. In truth, a place I’ve never wanted to go. When I went to Stonehenge many moons ago with my husband, we stopped in a little pub in Solsbury.  The barmaid said that she would love to travel to Vegas someday.   In fact, it was the only place in America she wanted to visit.  The rest, she suspected, “looked as drabby as England.” I was excited about getting to drabby “Henge.” In fact, we missed it that day and had to come back again, costing us a day of our trip.  I didn’t care.   I wanted to ponder those stones, consider how the light was caught in their armor.  So, I guess for some who are not native, the glitz and glitter can be alluring.  I, however, still long for the fleshiness of a book, the pulp. Try curling up to a good computer or falling asleep with one in your lap; I’ve done it, and I wouldn’t suggest it.

Tonight, I took my kids to the library, where aging librarians sorted through piles of returns and assisted with inquiries. Almost everyone, but the old and very young people, was on computers.  A posted sign advertised that wireless is available 24/7, although the libraries are hardly open anymore. My son stared over someone’s shoulder, onto the computer screen. He exclaimed, “Look, you can get Facebook here.”

Terminal after terminal, people were checking emails, coming up with clever statuses, and searching the vast ether of the web. I was feeling existential enough, reconsidering my word of the day: hoi polloi.  I had an urge to get some Eastern European poetry out. Then I remembered what my daughter asked me the other day. She wanted to know why Grandma just couldn’t get a Facebook account in heaven. I told her that we just didn’t have the technology yet. I guess the next best thing is my friend’s Charlie’s blog Trulogy, a space where you can write honestly about or to a deceased loved one.