Teaching in the 21st Century: Digital Media

How do we use technology to change (improve?) teaching and learning?  First, we must recognize that our students are social and learn collaboratively.  They are used to creating content online, not just consuming content.  How do we use this to our advantage in the classroom?  And more importantly how do we focus on the content and not the technology?  The technology should be invisible.

A few summers ago I had an opportunity to attend a workshop by Sara Kajder and she always put the majority of the instruction on the content/product and let students figure out the technology to get there.  For example, if students are creating a digital story.  They spend 3-5 days drafting and creating their story.  They spend one day finding the images and creating the final digital product.  That way the focus is on process, not product.

This video was quite interesting:

Watch the full episode. See more Digital Media - New Learners Of The 21st Century.

I want to allow options for students to work together and share their thinking and learning while using technology – to be producers of content.  Maybe this is a wiki, or a blog, or a podcast…it could work with practically any technology.  I just want the focus to be on collaborating and sharing their learning.  By working together, individual expertise becomes collective expertise through interaction with peers and/or community members.  Digital media allows guided, real-time experiences like location/placed-based learning.

“Digital media is changing the ecology of reading and writing.” – James Gee

What are some ways you do this in your classroom?

The Last Little Blue Envelope by Maureen Johnson

Ginny’s adventure continues when she gets notification that the last (lost in Greece) letter has been found.  She returns to London to retrieve the 13th envelope and follow Aunt Peg’s final instructions.  The journey continues with Keith, the love interest in the first book, and a new young man, Oliver, who found the lost letter.  When Oliver seems to be less than kind, Keith agrees to join Ginny in completing the tasks for the final letter.   Not sure if a third book in the series is planned, but the author definitely leaves the ending open for another book.

  

  Themes:  identity, friendship/relationships, discovery

Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver

Some say just before death your life flashes before your eyes.  Others see a bright light in their final moments.  High school senior Samantha Kingston gets to pay more attention than most as she relives her final day over and over again.  Sam’s life ends in a car accident after a party one Friday night in February.  However, the next morning she awakes to discover that she’s reliving February 12 again.  What will she do differently?  How will she change her actions?  Will these changes impact the outcome of her life and the lives of those around her?  I did get bogged down in the middle of this book, but greatly appreciated the journey Sam took to her final day(s).

Has some profanity and alludes to sexual situations – more appropriate for high school readers.

Themes:  relationships, death, bullying, redemption, forgiveness

Goals: Update

Wow, can you believe that one half of 2011, is over?!  Or, I could say that only one half of 2011 remains.  Touché.  It’s time to do a goals progress update and see how I’m doing.

1. Get published.

Rejected.  Again.  In the fall of 2010, we were rejected by ASCD’s Educational Leadership.  Now we’ve been rejected by NCTE’s Language Arts.  It’s back to the drawing board for a major rewrite and/or to find another journal for publication consideration.  I’ll admit I feel a little stalled at this point.

2. Read more books.  (Goal of 50 in 2011)

To date, I have read ­­­­­­­­­­­­­35 books.  That’s an average of 5.8 books per month.  If I keep up this pace, I’ll read 70 books this year, which well exceeds my goal.  Granted, six of these books were picture books, but even if you subtract those from the list, I’ve read 29 and that’s over half-way to my goal of 50.

3. Blog more often.  (Goal of three times per month)

            I knocked this one out of the park!  Whoot!

April = 4 posts

May = 9 posts

June = 7 posts

That’s an average of 6.67 per month!  I have exceeded the standard.

I've never been one to write down my goals (personal or professional), but having something written does allow me to revisit and reevaluate periodically.

Reflections on 2010-2011

As the school year draws to a close, it’s time to reflect on my work this year.  As you know, it was my first year in a new district and school.  The school has had Literacy Instructional Coaches in the past, so most of the teachers were familiar with the coaching model.

I spent the first five to six months of the school year facilitating multiple Learning Teams of mixed content teachers (science, social studies and language arts).  There were about 30 teachers across the three teams.  These teams met twice weekly for professional development and lesson planning.  The professional development topics were chosen from weak performance areas on our state standardized tests.  Topics included:  cause-effect text structure, headings, inferring, identifying author’s purpose, evaluating website credibility and using context clues (vocabulary/word study).  The staff development sessions led to a common language and structure around these skills.  The hope was that students would encounter the same structure of say, inference, in multiple contents and contexts throughout their day.  The raw scores of our 2011 test are back, but we do not have access to specific item analysis yet, so I can’t judge the effectiveness of this approach.

For the last three to four months of school, there were no Learning Teams.  (Long story; don’t ask.)  I spent time working with teachers to continue the work that started in Learning Teams.  I also reached out to some teachers who needed additional support in their classrooms.  For some, this involved weekly planning sessions.  For others, it involved co-teaching multiple times per week.

Mainly in the second half of the school year, I facilitated a team of language arts teachers in a major revision of our curriculum maps.  This was a HUGE undertaking and we spent months completing this work.  Knowing that the revised curriculum maps would include Readers’-Writers’ Workshop as the main instructional format, the Literacy Coaches developed several staff development sessions to boost teachers’ comfort level.  We presented an overview of Readers’-Writers’ Workshop (format, structure, routines, common language, etc.).  We hosted a make-and-take session centered on Readers’-Writers’ Notebooks so teachers could add to their notebooks all summer and use it as a model for students in the fall.  Lastly, I presented an overview session of Literature Circles as our district is moving away from the whole-class novel.

All told, this was a good year.  I know there were missed opportunities, but with coaching, building relationships and trust is vital to having difficult conversations.  I think next year I would be able to go more deeply with my staff and see a greater level of growth.

Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins

Who wouldn’t love a year of study abroad? How about your senior year of high school? You would have to leave all your friends and everyone you know to travel to a country whose language you don’t speak. You would have to start over.

Anna from Atlanta (ha, ha!) gets to spend her senior year of high school at a boarding school in Paris.  The problem is, it wasn’t her idea.  Anna’s dad is a popular romance novelist and with his new money has come a concern to keep up appearances.  He decides to send Anna to the prestigious School of America’s in Paris.

Anna doesn’t even speak French, she took Spanish at her old high school in Atlanta. She doesn't want to leave her friends or her little brother, Sean. Faced with new situations, Anna must adapt and thankfully, her new neighbor, Meredith, invites Anna to join her group of friends.  There’s Rashmi, the beautiful Indian girl who’s dating Josh, the Senator’s son and a talented artist.  Then, there’s Etienne St. Clair, the gorgeous, charming boy who lives on the floor above Anna and Meredith.  Everyone’s in love with St. Clair, but he has a girlfriend.

Anna grows to love Paris, learns to speak French, learns a ton about herself and finds her true love. 

Although not a totally predictable romance, it’s still a romance that kept me up until 1am reading. The characters are complex and it is very well-written, especially for YA.

Themes:  friendship/relationships, loneliness, love

Planning for Summer (Reading and Writing)

As we wrap up the school year (whoo, hoo!), it's time to think of our plans for summer reading and writing and set some goals. I created a document (click to see Google Doc) to assist teachers and students in planning and setting goals for the summer.


I am also wondering how this can translate into the first weeks of school in the fall. Will students have an opportunity to share their writing? How about give a book talk about their summer reading? What will that look like?

Anybody have goals for summer reading and writing you’d like to share?