A Space is Place to Begin: #MNLI Day 4 Reflection

I had a conversation with Polly today that the majority of work we are seeing during design studio involves teachers creating a Wikispaces for their classroom.

This was not intentional. We used Wikispaces to organize or conference. Maybe providing the model lead to many teachers using this as their platform for connected learning. I like more robust solutions such as Canvas, Google Sites, or Wordpress but I understand the comfort teachers have and the control they get with Wikispaces.

Building your Online Space.

At the same time I also joined the personal learning seminar yesterday as part of the Connected Educators Month. It was hosted by Barbara Bray, Darren Cambridge, Mimi Ito, Steve Nordmark, and Sylvia Martinez.

They asked the audience, where teachers should start. I argued, after seeing the work teachers have done at #MNLI12, that you have to start by building an online space for you classroom.

So in the end it doesn't matter what tool you use just get your class online. When you open your classroom up to an online space you:

• Provide voice to the disenfranchised.
• Open up opportunities to assess process over product.
• Model the creation of a digital footprint
• Create opportunities for reflective learning and teaching.

I am amazed, and slightly disappointed, that so many of the participating districts still do not have a district wide solution for a CMS or a LMS.

Kevin Leander and Michelle Knobel have long argued that new literacies involve new spaces and new stuff for learning. I am so happy to see that many teachers built an online space as an extension of their classroom. Maybe their districts will respond:

gmsevaluatesources.wikispaces.com
casegrade5.wikispaces.com
readingcompweb20.wikispaces.com
plcww.wikispaces.com
bpmsipadbasics.wikispaces.com
projectmocktrial.wikispaces.com
loyaltymatters.wikispaces.com

#HackJam: #MNLI12 Day 3 Reflection

On day 3 of the Massachusetts New Literacies Institute I hosted a #hackjam. We all fought some torrential rain and found a restaurant with wifi. It was spotty so we couldn't develop too may remixes but still participants were amazed about x-ray goggles.

Basically a #hackjam is a self-organized event to show some of the great Mozilla tools such as x-ray goggles that allow you to remix websites.

It is such an easy tool to use and a great way to introduce some basic coding to students. I have used it in the past to highlight how words can shape persuasive language.




We began by remixing the New York Times and giving everyone at the table an Olympic medal. We then discussed classroom implications.

No Publishing Feature


This is when we noticed a hiccup. The publishing button for x-ray goggles no longer works. I posted a message to the hackasaurus google group.

Atul Varma, of the Mozilla, Foundation, suggested it was a litigation or security issue. Emma Irwin said it was x-ray goggles getting ready for full deployment out of alpha release.

Either way we needed a work-around. We developed three: screenshots, screencasts, Evernote Webclipper, and Google Drive.

Screenshots


The easiest solution was to take a screenshot. Stephanie did this with her remix of a Facebook page. She created one for a math class studying prime numbers:

The screenshot only worked with very small frames. We could not take a screenshot using Skitch, or Grabit longer than the window.

Screencast


I used a screencast to share my remix. It was a tribute to our logistics team Zach and Jim. I apologize ahead of the time for the feedback. I should have downloaded the audio track and reuploaded rather than record it through the speakers. It also short as I clicked on a video link I embedded. It must have refreshed while I was using x-ray goggles.




Evernote Webclipper

The work around that I see with the most potential is Evernote. We took a screenshot with Evernote woebclipper and then added it to a shared notebook. I see potential for this for educators. They could share the notebook with everyone in the class. Teachers could then add comments on the remixes and students could add reflections. This would provide important evidence.

Here is Jared's example

Google Drive

Jared also printed his screenshots as a pdf. He then combined the two documents into one PDF document. He then uploaded that document to Google Drive.

This is nice because you can embed the pdf on other sites.

Conclusion


The #hackjam was very successful. Teachers found new ways to teach code and the ideas for the classroom were huge. I look forward to sharing more events in the future.

Striking the Balance: #MNLI2 Day 2 Reflection

Its Tuesday (or it least it was when I was supposed to write this post) and we are moving into the hard work at the Microsoft NERD Center. Teachers worked to  shape their final products, attended a wonderful keynote by Polly Parker, and got to pick digital text and tool sessions.

I am left with one major take away. Striking a balance is hard.

It has always been our goal at MNLI to be agnostic about the tools and stress the pedagogy, but working with teachers demonstrates how important differentiating technology will be for students.

I came up with my solution. I am not going to teach you how to use a tech tool. Period.

I cannot strike a balance. I have to stress the digital text  side and show you how to transform the classroom.

The Basics

If you want to learn the basics I will show you, but it will be in the context of using digital text and tools to enhance your pedagogical goals.

If you want to learn the basics teach yourself. I have posted videos for all of my sessions on how to use the basic features of the digital tools we will be working with.

Trust me. After doing professional development around technology for the last decade I have come to the conclusion that this is the best solution.

The alternative is me saying, "Now click here" over and over again as I work the room to make sure everyone clicked at the same time. It is not a good use of instructional time.

Play Time

Instead I will offer play time. Experimentation is at the heart of the #MNLI12 experience. You see this in design studio and in the digital text and tool sessions.

So in my DT&T session I offer play time. This is after I share my pedagogical reasons for using a digital text and tool. During play time you can try out the lesson or you can sit and watch the video tutorials.

This approach builds in the level of differentiation necessary for our success. It also frees me up to provide support to participants regardless of their ability. If after watching the one or two minute clips you are still stuck...then I will help. But in the meantime I am going to focus on using the digital text and tool to enhance my pedagogical goal.

 As teachers we should do the same in our classroom. Provide resources to students, whether they are videos, peers, or handouts, that will reinforce basic skills of using technology while as educators we focus on transforming literacy practices.

Keynote From the Mass. New Literacies Teacher Institute

1st Reflection of #mnli12

Yesterday we gathered at the Microsoft NERD Center for the third annual Massachusetts New Literacies Institute (follow along on Twitter with #mnli12).

I enjoy every minute of the conference. The conference follows in a tradition of great educators who plan New Literacies Institutes across the globe. 

Each day I am going to try and share my basic take aways:

The learning matters not the tool

Our focus on the last two years has not been on technology. We define the issue as a tech issue and not a text issue. For us the goal is to get teachers to ask how are these digital texts and tools enhancing or inhibiting my pedagogical goal.

Digging Deeper

Thus every teacher will attend three different digging deeper sessions. These focus on online collaborative inquiry, online reading comprehension, and online content construction.

These 120 minute sessions focus on in depth pedagogical shifts in our schools. Two facilitators lead a series of hands-on activities.

Digital Text and Tools

They then get to choose eight digital text and tool sessions from a collection of twenty we have put together. Once again the learning takes precedent over the tool.

 Each session is designed to highlight digital text and tools can help students meet the College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards of the Common Core.

Design Studio

Participants also work each day in design studio. They have to self-organize into groups and create a learning activity to bring back to the class.

We had some great ideas yesterday. Librarians are focusing on source evaluation; math teachers on tablet integration to improve assessment and instruction; technology teachers working on digital storytelling; science teachers focusing on seismology; and many more.

We do a plus/delta chart each day. The teachers were so grateful to attend a PD workshop where they were actually creating classroom materials and not just warming seats.

The Internet is THE defining text.

Don Leu was our opening keynote presenter. Don reminded us that we are in epochal times and at no point in human history has literacy evolved so quickly.

He further pointed out that when it comes to online research and media skills are students are "digital "doofuses" not "digital natives." Don chared a series of assessments being developed by the New Literacies Research Lab. 

He left us thinking about three changes we must consider 

1. The internet is the text
2. The workplace has changed
3. Literacy will now always change

Teachers Need Support in Building Networks

We, as conference organizers, need to provide better support for teachers in building their professional learning networks. These are teachers, many who are paying out of pocket, to attend a summer conference. They want to effectively integrate digital texts and tools into the classroom.

Yet very few are connected. We did a brief tutorial on yotube, wkis, twitter, and blogs yesterday. Only a handful of teachers had a twitter handle or any online presence. 

As I move on to day two this will be my focus. I want participants to build connections that will help transform their classrooms.

Using Current Events, the iPad, and NEU.Annotate to Teach Argumentative Writing

As teachers address the  Common Core State Standrads they will have to make an instructional shift to  focus on Argumentative writing versus persuasive writing.

Argumentative writing requires a focus on evidence and not simply the emotional pull of persuasive writing. This does not mean, however, that persuasive techniques will not be used in argumentative writing.

In this tutorial I discuss how to use current events and NEU.Annotate to model, teach, and assess students ability to evaluate persuasive techniques.



Steps to Teaching Persuasive Techniques in Argumentative Writing.


1. Choose a current event article with an active discussion (the more vitriol the better). Take a screenshot. To take a screenshot you hit the sleep button and the home button at the same time.

2. Open up NEU.Annotate and insert the image. Click on the Mountain Icon. Choose the camera roll and pick the pic you just took.

 2. Add a second page. Cluck on the arrow icon. Then click on the gear icon. Choose add a page after. I would pick three pages so you can use the I do (model), We do (guided practice), You do (indpendent practice) model.

3. Find a persuasive technique. Using the drawing feature or the arrow point students to the technique.

4. Add a text box identifying the technique.

5. Move the text box above your arrow.

6. Finally have the students send the completed document to you. This can be done via email, as a pic, or Dropbox.

Overtime you will build a collection of annotated exemplars and mentor texts that students can use to model their own writing skills.

Supporting Argumentative Writing on the iPad

One of the biggest adjustment elementary  and middle school teachers will have to make as they integrate the Common Core State Standards into their writing will be a shift in the focus to argumentation.

Much of the writing in elementary school focuses on narrative writing and when we move into the informational genre we have our students compare and contrast on topics or try to persuade parents to give everyone an allowance?

What is missing? Textual based evidence. This key delineation defines the difference between persuasive writing and argumentative writing. One i based on feeling and the other on evidence.

How can we utilize the iPad, or other digital tools to scaffold the argumentative writing? I would suggest the use of a Vee Diagram.

Vee Diagram


I stumbled on Vee diagrams at my first educational research conference, American Educational Research Association, in Chicago  a few years back. It was one of those perfect sessions, you now one you never intended to attend. My original game plan was to sneak off to Wrigley Field for the first time and see the Cubs play. Yet on this dreary late April day a cold wet snow began to fall, and the game canceled.

So I decided to invest some time in a few sessions. Given the weather conditions, however, I did not want to leave my hotel. If you have ever attended AERA you know it is a behemoth. In Chicago that year it was spread over a dozen hotels on Michigan Avenue.

So I entered the third day of my first conference with no game plan. As a new graduate student, and still a classroom teacher at the time, you enter the conference with the ideas concrete and the names and faces of the authors and researchers as abstract. You leave with the ideas a more abstract and the authors more concrete.

For me it was my idea of how to teach persuasive writing. I was a 6th grade teacher, and in CT we have a writing portion of the Connecticut Mastery Test; at the time 6th graders were tested in persuasive writing.

So I randomly chose a room a room in the middle of the day and sat down. One of the papers being presented at the time was by Michael Nussbaum. It discussed the use of something called a Vee diagram (which I have since learned have been used in rhetoric for quite some time but it was, and still is novel to me),

Dr. Nussbaum was discussing a study he did in an online class and he tried to frame the discussion not around persuasive writing but argumentative writing (sound familiar CCSS fans and detractors?). His basic premise was he too often have students start with their position and then do the research. Nussbaum used the Vee diagram to have students research both sides and then develop their position.

How Does it Work?

I simplified the original design for my 6th graders (if you are interested to learn more drop me a comment and I can send you the original paper from AERA). 

1. Basically I have my students choose, or I give them an issue. 
2. Then I have students develop two positions on that issue.
3. Next the students find 3-4  claims for each issue.
4. Then they must find a rebuttal claim for each of their claims.
5. Then, if you wish to extend the learning. they have two find evidence to back up each claim
6. Finally the students write a position statement.

Using the iPad and the Vee Diagram

Lately I have been using the Vee diagram to support argumentative writing on the iPad. Basically I open the blank diagram in Pages and have it act as a pre-writing guide for my students. I have done variations where the students work in pairs and one student finds the claims for both sides, and the other finds the rebuttals. 

Using Pages (or NEU.Annotate) and dropbox (or gDocs, or a WebDav server) the students can send the document back and forth to each other. Once complete I have students write their own position statement that must contain a thesis and their  three most powerful  claims.

Extending the Learning

Once activity missing from the lesson, and it is critical, is source evaluation. I want to create another section where students must evaluate the source of their claims and evidence. This could be done individually, or better yet, in pairs (small groups) where students try to invalidate each others' sources based on author expertise, publisher affiliation, evidence, etc.