Saturday, April 25, 2009
Brain Gain- neuroenhancing drugs
I realize this isn't the type of technology we've been talking about in our class, but I think it brings up an important conversation for people concerned with the future of education to have. This is technology literally becoming part of us and in some ways the demand for neuroenhancing drugs comes out of the 24-hour culture create by some of the technologies we have talked about in class. In any case, I found the article on neuroenhancing drugs by Margaret Talbot extremely interesting. I hope some of you enjoy it as well.
Monday, April 20, 2009
An Online Writing Platform for Language Learners
I was really interested in this article, not only from an English Language Learners perspective, but also as a tool for teaching native English speakers to write. As I understood it, this platform goes beyond track changes and archives teacher and student comments in each draft of an essay progressively moving towards a final essay. The program correlates the number of errors, comments, and reoccurring problems. The program then automatically directs students to help pages on specific problem areas. Having graded multiple revisions of student essays, I see this tool’s ability to focus students on their own reoccurring errors (without having to rely on my memory of student’s individual trouble spots) as extremely valuable. In this way, while class time might focuses on overall class struggles, individual struggles are not left unaddressed. I also really liked the students’ ability within this program to send drafts to each other for peer-review and then archive comments from classmates. I think editing other classmates work is a great way to become a better editor of your own work and like to include as much peer editing as possible in my courses. Finally, I found the way this article broke down the platform based on the needs and uses of teachers, students, and researchers as an effective and persuasive breakdown for receiving funding and support. Wanting to know more, I went to the IWill website (http://iwillnow.org) mentioned in the article and was please to see the site has new posts made in 2009. That said, many links on the website were broken including the sign-up and contact us pages. I will try to get in touch with the web administrator to see if I can sign up and explore more.
Monday, April 13, 2009
The move from page to screen: the multimodal reshaping of school English
Just some quick thoughts on Carey Jewitt’s article:
Communication does indeed take place through the complex interplay of a range of modes. When reading some of these descriptions, I couldn’t help thinking how interesting it was that I was reading text that described the actions in a video that students used to better understand a text. What a unique space for learning! I wish the videos could have been embedded in the text and wonder if there are online journals that do that? I see this as an ultimate example of texts’ place at the top of academic discussions. It also highlights the ability of text to describe visuals as much visuals can be used to interpret text. Text can also create a viewing position for the reader. Text can describe the tone of someone’ voice. I don’t know if I’m comfortable with students being able to “by-pass the novel as a written text (i.e.they do not engage with it) and instead engage with it as a (multimodal) video text.” It's not the same type of learning experience. It’s clearly a new learning experience and it doesn’t engage in the text, although what it does do is very interesting. Given that it’s a new learning experience, I wish there was more on Bindy, the video character guide. I would be interested to know how students understood, related to, and made use of Bindy. What was Bindy’s roles and was the video guide able to achieve these goals?
Communication does indeed take place through the complex interplay of a range of modes. When reading some of these descriptions, I couldn’t help thinking how interesting it was that I was reading text that described the actions in a video that students used to better understand a text. What a unique space for learning! I wish the videos could have been embedded in the text and wonder if there are online journals that do that? I see this as an ultimate example of texts’ place at the top of academic discussions. It also highlights the ability of text to describe visuals as much visuals can be used to interpret text. Text can also create a viewing position for the reader. Text can describe the tone of someone’ voice. I don’t know if I’m comfortable with students being able to “by-pass the novel as a written text (i.e.they do not engage with it) and instead engage with it as a (multimodal) video text.” It's not the same type of learning experience. It’s clearly a new learning experience and it doesn’t engage in the text, although what it does do is very interesting. Given that it’s a new learning experience, I wish there was more on Bindy, the video character guide. I would be interested to know how students understood, related to, and made use of Bindy. What was Bindy’s roles and was the video guide able to achieve these goals?
Monday, April 6, 2009
Digital Literacies of the Cybergirl
On page 6 in the embodiment section, Angela Thomas mentioned two events that deal with violence in cybercommunities. I thought they both sounded interesting and searched for them online.
The first is My Tiny Life: Crime and Passion in a Virtual World by Julian Dibbell and is available as a full copy through google books. There is a chapter on the "Rape in Cyberspace” that I am currently in the middle of. Here is the publishers blurb on the book:
“Traveling through the social networks of LambdaMOO--an electronic world where players create their own environments, where gender and identity are infinitely malleable, and where actions seductively appear to have no consequences in "real life" --Julian Dibbell discovers a cybercommunity ripped apart by such real-world issues as crime, punishment, class struggle, and sexual obsession. In "My Tiny Life, " Dibbell ventures deeply into this half-real world --exploring even the MOO's erotic demimonde--and finds that the lines between "real life" and "virtual reality" blur, leaving set notions of community, history, identity, and love transformed and the definition od "real" experience irrevocably altered.”
The second event is Rest In Peace, Bill the Bot: Death and Life in Virtual Worlds, by Mikael Jakobsson. The following links to an html version of a .pdf of the chapter. LINK to Bill the Bot.
Hope you all find these as interesting as I did!
The first is My Tiny Life: Crime and Passion in a Virtual World by Julian Dibbell and is available as a full copy through google books. There is a chapter on the "Rape in Cyberspace” that I am currently in the middle of. Here is the publishers blurb on the book:
“Traveling through the social networks of LambdaMOO--an electronic world where players create their own environments, where gender and identity are infinitely malleable, and where actions seductively appear to have no consequences in "real life" --Julian Dibbell discovers a cybercommunity ripped apart by such real-world issues as crime, punishment, class struggle, and sexual obsession. In "My Tiny Life, " Dibbell ventures deeply into this half-real world --exploring even the MOO's erotic demimonde--and finds that the lines between "real life" and "virtual reality" blur, leaving set notions of community, history, identity, and love transformed and the definition od "real" experience irrevocably altered.”
The second event is Rest In Peace, Bill the Bot: Death and Life in Virtual Worlds, by Mikael Jakobsson. The following links to an html version of a .pdf of the chapter. LINK to Bill the Bot.
Hope you all find these as interesting as I did!
Monday, March 30, 2009
3rd point resources
Progress reports for the 3rd point projects were due in this week. I thought I would share the articles from my work cited. This way, anyone who needs to do some similar research will have a head start. All of these articles are available online through the CU library. =)
• Chambers, Bette; Cheung, Alan C. K.; Gilford, Richard; Madden, Nancy A.; Slavin, and Robert E. “Achievement Effects of Embedded Multimedia in a Success for All Reading Program.” Journal of Educational Psychology 98.1 (2006): 232 – 237.
• Cerhallen, Maria J. A. J.; Bus, Adriana G.; de Jong, Maria T. “The Promise of Multimedia Stories for Kindergarten Children At Risk.” Journal of Educational Psychology 98.2 (2006): 410 – 419.
• Huffaker, David. “The educated blogger: Using Weblogs to promote literacy in the classroom.” First Monday 9.6 (2004): 25 pars. 21 March 2009.
• Larson, Lotta C. “Electronic Reading Workshop: Beyond Books With New Literacies and Instructional Technologies.” Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy 52.2 (2008): 121-131.
• MacArthur, Charles A. “The Effects of New Technologies on Writing and Writing Processes.” Handbook of Writing Research. Ed. Charles A. MacArthur, Steve Graham, Jill Fizgerald. Guilford Press, 2008. 248 – 262.
• Macdonald, Janet. “Assessing online collaborative learning: process and product.” Computers & Education 40 (2003): 377–391.
• Ray, Jan. “Blogosphere: The Educational Use of Blogs (aka Edublogs).” Kappa Delta Phi Record (2006): 175 – 177.
• Williams, Jeremy B. “Exploring the use of blogs as learning space in higher education sector.” Australian Journal of Educational Technology 20.2 (2004): 232 – 247.
• Chambers, Bette; Cheung, Alan C. K.; Gilford, Richard; Madden, Nancy A.; Slavin, and Robert E. “Achievement Effects of Embedded Multimedia in a Success for All Reading Program.” Journal of Educational Psychology 98.1 (2006): 232 – 237.
• Cerhallen, Maria J. A. J.; Bus, Adriana G.; de Jong, Maria T. “The Promise of Multimedia Stories for Kindergarten Children At Risk.” Journal of Educational Psychology 98.2 (2006): 410 – 419.
• Huffaker, David. “The educated blogger: Using Weblogs to promote literacy in the classroom.” First Monday 9.6 (2004): 25 pars. 21 March 2009.
• Larson, Lotta C. “Electronic Reading Workshop: Beyond Books With New Literacies and Instructional Technologies.” Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy 52.2 (2008): 121-131.
• MacArthur, Charles A. “The Effects of New Technologies on Writing and Writing Processes.” Handbook of Writing Research. Ed. Charles A. MacArthur, Steve Graham, Jill Fizgerald. Guilford Press, 2008. 248 – 262.
• Macdonald, Janet. “Assessing online collaborative learning: process and product.” Computers & Education 40 (2003): 377–391.
• Ray, Jan. “Blogosphere: The Educational Use of Blogs (aka Edublogs).” Kappa Delta Phi Record (2006): 175 – 177.
• Williams, Jeremy B. “Exploring the use of blogs as learning space in higher education sector.” Australian Journal of Educational Technology 20.2 (2004): 232 – 247.
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Chapter 6: Any Eye on the Text and an Eye on the Future: Multimodal Literacy in Three Johannesburg Families
NOTES:
Introduction:
• How a father, a grandmother, and an aunt consciously scaffold for each child what counts as good reading practices.
• Each adult uses the practice of literacy to develop the girl’s ‘navigational capacities,’ their capacities to self-regulate, to map nodes and pathways of access in relation to aspirations and possible futures.
• The different ways the adults shape and reshape the ‘stuff’ of literacy has deep effects on the children’s orientations to the future both as readers and as subjects.
Background to the Study
• Ethnographic-style study of Children’s Early Literacy Learning (CELL) in the Gauteng and Limpopo Province of South Africa in 2000-2001.
New Literacy Studies and Multimodal Semiotics
• Literacy events and literacy practices: each literacy event is a multimodal communicative event in which adults and girl children are co-participants in activities that involve multiple modes of communication including writing, speech, image, and body in performance.
Classification and Framing
• Classification describes the apparent outer limits or boundaries of a practice or context.
• Framing refers to the degree of control that subjects have over the selection and regulation of contents, and over what counts as appropriate interpretations, methods or techniques, and forms and styles of communication.
• When framing is strong, there is a strong, visible pedagogy. When framing is weak, an invisible is pedagogy operative.
• Weak framing may get in the way of a particular discourse or practice, but it may create conditions of possibility for stronger socialization or more creativity.
Case Study 1: Dineo and Her Father
• Dineo is 9 and lives with her mother, father, brother and sister.
• Exposure to both worlds: traditional African religion and Christianity; also in language practices Sesotho, Isizulu, and English. Different status in each. English is seen as ‘grooming for the world beyond.’
• Value in English is shaped by parents’ past experience as learners.
• Event: a multimodal, multi-layer combination of spoken and written language, sound, image, gesture, body, and space. It is a whole family performance: father, mother, and brother are co-participants in the development of Dineo’s literacy. It is a form of ritual. Concerned with how text sounds—inflection and intonation, pitch and volume. This demonstrates the criteria for appropriateness. Dineo asserts her visual literacy skills by pointing to the rock image and inserting the discourse of school in the home to support her parent’s understanding. Father demonstrates that the text consists of units of meaning that are integrated into a textual whole. This activity is strongly framed—there is a right way and the meaning must be received and reproduced, not transformed. Emphasizes the importance of bilingual literacy in grooming her for the future.
• All three children were being sent to a family in the country because there was no food or money. =(
Case Study 2: Puleng and her Grandmother
• Puleng is 8 and lives with her grandparents, her mother is studying at a technical college. Her parents are both employed.
• Puleng’s safety is a constant concern for her grandmother, her primary caregiver. Her grandmother doesn’t trust their neighborhood.
• Puleng takes a taxi to school. At school she learns English as a first language, Afrikaans as a second language, and Sesotho will be taught in 5th grade. Sesotho is her home language. In everyday language, she switches between Sesotho, Setswana, and English.
• Core values are multilingualism and ubuntu
• Event: storytelling and story reading at bedtime, a nightly ritual. Multimodal, encompassing written and spoken language, image, gesture and performance. Grandmother offers language and commentary about images and writing, and she makes clear connections to images by pointing. Grandmother constantly tries to focus attention on text and acts as a literacy mediator. Textual practice models the metacognitive strategies used by experience readers. Similar focus on uncovering the meaning in the text. In the text, she shifts half way through the reading to focus on morals and draws connections between text world and real world. She asks yes/no, teacher questions. In storytelling, the grandmother focuses on the moral lessons of the story. There is a right way, particularly concerning Sesotho. Models family and community values.
Case Study 3: Margot and Her Aunt
• Margot is 6 and lives in with her parents and brother in an English speaking middle class family. She loves listening to stories and is an accomplished conversationalist with peers and adults. She prefers fantasy games with her neighbor Sara over computer games.
• Event: at the kitchen table with Margot, her mother, her brother, her aunt, and Sara (4 years old). Looking at a newspaper classifieds for a house. They use the image to make confident, unshakeable judgments of a stupid or nice or okay house. Parents do not lead this activity; the children lead it. Aunt plays a pedagogical role by pointing out features of a house for sale advertisements and playfully scaffolds the interaction by arousing interest in looking for features, i.e. price. She is a resource for textual knowledge, not an authority with the last word. There is a seamless switch from reading text and image to producing it. Writing is just scribble, but the aunt asks about and discusses it, communicating the message that the girls’ writing is meaningful. The aunt develops ‘navigational capacities’ for future home owning. Another shift when imagination takes over. In this event, classification and framing are weakest; there is an invisible pedagogy operation. Huge element of pleasure and play. “Literacy is as much about playing games and inventing worlds as it is about getting information about how to function in the ‘real’ world” (143).
Concluding Remarks
• The practice of literacy is not neutral but imbued with values, aspirations and attitudes around what textual practices count, for whim, and for what ends.
• Each family member uses the practice of literacy to develop each girl’s navigational capacities in relation to possible futures.
Introduction:
• How a father, a grandmother, and an aunt consciously scaffold for each child what counts as good reading practices.
• Each adult uses the practice of literacy to develop the girl’s ‘navigational capacities,’ their capacities to self-regulate, to map nodes and pathways of access in relation to aspirations and possible futures.
• The different ways the adults shape and reshape the ‘stuff’ of literacy has deep effects on the children’s orientations to the future both as readers and as subjects.
Background to the Study
• Ethnographic-style study of Children’s Early Literacy Learning (CELL) in the Gauteng and Limpopo Province of South Africa in 2000-2001.
New Literacy Studies and Multimodal Semiotics
• Literacy events and literacy practices: each literacy event is a multimodal communicative event in which adults and girl children are co-participants in activities that involve multiple modes of communication including writing, speech, image, and body in performance.
Classification and Framing
• Classification describes the apparent outer limits or boundaries of a practice or context.
• Framing refers to the degree of control that subjects have over the selection and regulation of contents, and over what counts as appropriate interpretations, methods or techniques, and forms and styles of communication.
• When framing is strong, there is a strong, visible pedagogy. When framing is weak, an invisible is pedagogy operative.
• Weak framing may get in the way of a particular discourse or practice, but it may create conditions of possibility for stronger socialization or more creativity.
Case Study 1: Dineo and Her Father
• Dineo is 9 and lives with her mother, father, brother and sister.
• Exposure to both worlds: traditional African religion and Christianity; also in language practices Sesotho, Isizulu, and English. Different status in each. English is seen as ‘grooming for the world beyond.’
• Value in English is shaped by parents’ past experience as learners.
• Event: a multimodal, multi-layer combination of spoken and written language, sound, image, gesture, body, and space. It is a whole family performance: father, mother, and brother are co-participants in the development of Dineo’s literacy. It is a form of ritual. Concerned with how text sounds—inflection and intonation, pitch and volume. This demonstrates the criteria for appropriateness. Dineo asserts her visual literacy skills by pointing to the rock image and inserting the discourse of school in the home to support her parent’s understanding. Father demonstrates that the text consists of units of meaning that are integrated into a textual whole. This activity is strongly framed—there is a right way and the meaning must be received and reproduced, not transformed. Emphasizes the importance of bilingual literacy in grooming her for the future.
• All three children were being sent to a family in the country because there was no food or money. =(
Case Study 2: Puleng and her Grandmother
• Puleng is 8 and lives with her grandparents, her mother is studying at a technical college. Her parents are both employed.
• Puleng’s safety is a constant concern for her grandmother, her primary caregiver. Her grandmother doesn’t trust their neighborhood.
• Puleng takes a taxi to school. At school she learns English as a first language, Afrikaans as a second language, and Sesotho will be taught in 5th grade. Sesotho is her home language. In everyday language, she switches between Sesotho, Setswana, and English.
• Core values are multilingualism and ubuntu
• Event: storytelling and story reading at bedtime, a nightly ritual. Multimodal, encompassing written and spoken language, image, gesture and performance. Grandmother offers language and commentary about images and writing, and she makes clear connections to images by pointing. Grandmother constantly tries to focus attention on text and acts as a literacy mediator. Textual practice models the metacognitive strategies used by experience readers. Similar focus on uncovering the meaning in the text. In the text, she shifts half way through the reading to focus on morals and draws connections between text world and real world. She asks yes/no, teacher questions. In storytelling, the grandmother focuses on the moral lessons of the story. There is a right way, particularly concerning Sesotho. Models family and community values.
Case Study 3: Margot and Her Aunt
• Margot is 6 and lives in with her parents and brother in an English speaking middle class family. She loves listening to stories and is an accomplished conversationalist with peers and adults. She prefers fantasy games with her neighbor Sara over computer games.
• Event: at the kitchen table with Margot, her mother, her brother, her aunt, and Sara (4 years old). Looking at a newspaper classifieds for a house. They use the image to make confident, unshakeable judgments of a stupid or nice or okay house. Parents do not lead this activity; the children lead it. Aunt plays a pedagogical role by pointing out features of a house for sale advertisements and playfully scaffolds the interaction by arousing interest in looking for features, i.e. price. She is a resource for textual knowledge, not an authority with the last word. There is a seamless switch from reading text and image to producing it. Writing is just scribble, but the aunt asks about and discusses it, communicating the message that the girls’ writing is meaningful. The aunt develops ‘navigational capacities’ for future home owning. Another shift when imagination takes over. In this event, classification and framing are weakest; there is an invisible pedagogy operation. Huge element of pleasure and play. “Literacy is as much about playing games and inventing worlds as it is about getting information about how to function in the ‘real’ world” (143).
Concluding Remarks
• The practice of literacy is not neutral but imbued with values, aspirations and attitudes around what textual practices count, for whim, and for what ends.
• Each family member uses the practice of literacy to develop each girl’s navigational capacities in relation to possible futures.
Monday, March 9, 2009
Comic Book Task
I used this book in my ELL class. First I’d give the students a photo copy of the chapter with the words missing and ask them to fill it in. They could either guess the story or make up something completely new. Then they would present their stories to the class (which was a lot of fun). And finally, we’d start reading and working through the real comic. It was great because the students were involved and excited. They were practicing writing and speaking— which usually intimidated some students, but in this situation they were so excited to share they couldn’t wait to present. And we worked on reading and building vocabulary. I wish there were more text presented in this comic book form. If you go to this amazon link and look inside the book, you’ll see the speech bubbles and scene settings that I would white-out in their handouts. http://www.amazon.com/Hercules-Twelve-Labors-Graphic-Universe/dp/0822530848/ref=si3_rdr_bb_product
Also, in college we watched the manga series One Piece and Naruto— both I really enjoyed and recommend. =)
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