Finding the Time

With our busy lives as teachers, meeting all the demands on our plates, the question arises as to how to fit social networking into an already busy schedule. Dr. William Kist addresses this issue from his interviews with teachers in the field as well as his own classroom experience. (W. Kist, The socially networked classroom: Teaching in the new media age, pp. 120-121)

My reactions to his suggestions are as follows:

1) Choice in media use is important for student creativity but they need to have many tools to draw that creativity from. We need to reduce the technological barriers in our classrooms.

1) Students can be excellent resources! They have a wealth of experience to offer, capture the engagement of their peers, and appreciate being respected.

2) Not all students are "digital natives" as some may claim. This is a dangerous misconception. It truly is the responsibility of classroom teachers to teach these 21st century skills. If I am unable to do it, then who do I know who can teach me?

3) Many schools offer some sort of computer class for students. Collaboration with the media specialist or other teacher can help these skills be taught in one class period and then applied in others.

Blog, blog, blog.

Being relatively new to the blogosphere, my opinions are still forming on its application to our lives and the potential lives of my students. The first blogs that I read were those of acquaintances and friends from the distance running community. Mostly these were in some way related to the sport, but those that were most interesting to read had some element of creativity to them. If the writing was good, I was hooked! If it wasn't, I would move on to something else. This is the same way I approach any other media that I read.

My first role in being an actual publisher in the blogging world way when I opened a Facebook account. At first, I struggled to determine anything meaningful to say. It was hard to find communicate something about myself that my "friends" would actually care about! I still struggle with this. When this medium is used strictly for self-promotion of thought or status, it becomes very stale to me. I appreciate those of my "friends" who are using the site to open people up to new information like political ideas, news articles, websites, music, arts, and events.

Dr. William Kist references Angela Maiers, a literacy consultant, who "advocates that 70% of what one posts be sharing resources or providing links rather than lecturing or giving online speeches. "This is purposeful, mindful literacy, she says."" (W. Kist, The Socially Networked Classroom, 2010, p.62) In using blogs in the classroom with students, I see where blogs need to have a distinct purpose. There can be freedom in the way that blogs or blog responses can be developed by students, i.e with the use of other media and links to other work, but the more structured the criteria are for blog assignments the more directed the blogs will be toward specific learning goals. As a math teacher, I was glad to see Dr. Kist reference Kenneth Rochester, a math teacher at the Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia. Kenneth is using Google Docs as a way to have learning groups post their solutions to the classwork from the day. The next class day, one of these Google Docs is selected as an answer key for the rest of the class. (W. Kist, 2010) I like this as a new way to get students to collaborate, to be accountable, as well as a way to share ideas and open up dialogue in class!

I am eager to start the school year with blogging in mind! I am excited to share this potential with the colleagues on my team, assuming we have access to an appropriate platform at our school. The possibilities of how we can use blogs with our students are many and I can't wait to hear the ideas of my fellow teachers!

Cell Phone Novels

"In October, the cover of Popteen, a magazine aimed at adolescent girls, featured a teenybopper with rhinestone necklaces and pink lipstick and an electric guitar strapped to her chest, wearing a pin that said, “I’d rather be reading.”"
(D. Goodyear, The New Yorker, December 22 & 29, 2008, p. 65)

Popteen is a Japanese fashion magazine and the cover picture is a reflection of the phenomenon of cell phone novels which seem to have transformed the literary culture in that country. The fact that a teen girl would rather be reading than doing anything else is telling of how pop culture in Japan is different from that in the United States. Cell phone novels, novels written predominantly about and by young Japanese women on cell phones, have been embraced by much of the Japanese youth culture. Yet the hierarchy of the literary culture in that country has shunned the genre as not worthy of being considered in the same class as novels written in the more standard form. This phenomenon is documented in the article “I (heart) Novels” by Dana Goodyear, The New Yorker December 22 & 29, 2008,

pp. 62-68.

Cell phone technology provided the medium for this genre of literature to flourish in Japan. Cell phone use and ownership is much more prevalent than personal computer use and ownership. Websites that allow people to sync their work from their cell phones into a "published" form have allowed cell phone authors to have their voices heard. These voices are supposedly autobiographical, much like a blog, yet use pen names and do not have any personal information attached. This is the result of a culture that does not allow or focus on individual fame or expression.

"Roland Kelts, a half-Japanese writer born in the United States and the author of “Japanamerica,” sees the Internet as an escape valve for a society that can be oppressive in its expectation of normative, group-minded behavior. “In Japan, conflict is not celebrated—consensus is celebrated,” he said. “The Internet lets you speak your mind without upsetting the social apple cart.”"(D. Goodyear, The New Yorker, December 22 & 29, 2008, p. 66)

This article was very intriguing to me. It is exciting to see how the internet and cellular age has given birth to a whole new genre of writing in Japan. This is probably just the thing that many of those involved in the development of the net hoped for! I do wonder if this same genre would have the same predominance in the United States. (The article does reference two websites that are acting as forums for cell phone novels in the U.S., Quillpill and Textnovel.) Our culture is quite different from Japanese culture. Would people really be willing to publish their work without getting personal recognition? Maybe most would not but I bet that many would. This could be a great forum for students to publish their works of fiction. I need to check out these sites to see if it is being utilized for this purpose.

As Mone, the pen name of a cell phone author featured prominently in the article, states,

“People say these horrible things about cell-phone novels, and I’m not sure they’re mistaken. They say we’re immature and incapable of writing a literate sentence. But I would say, so what? The fact that we’re producing at all is important.”

Chapter 4 Text Reflection-"Grande"

In reading the fourth chapter of Dr. William Kist's book, The Socially Networked Classroom: Teaching in the New Media Age, I was moved by many facets and applications to my teaching. This chapter is titled "Grande", Social Networking in a High-Tech Environment. My school is not what I would consider a high-tech environment. We are more blessed than some schools with the aspect that we have at least 3-4 desktop computers in each classroom, access to several stationary and mobile "labs" for whole class use, as well as a set of classroom "clickers." Yet, like most schools that I have knowledge of, we have a significant internet filter that prohibits full access to Web 2.0 for our students. Nonetheless, there are many meaningful things presented in this chapter that all educators can draw from regardless of their school's technology.

One of the key points raised in this chapter is teachers' experience with and modeling of appropriate and acceptable use of any social networking medium. Whether we are able to use Web 2.0 to its fullest capacity in our classrooms or have to adapt activities to be more intranet based and shared among smaller groups, it behooves us as educators to model for our students and explicitly lay out guidelines for being online. We can develop these guidelines by being a part of the blogosphere professionally and consider the etiquette that we should adhere to. Several points are given in Bud Hunt's Blogging Guidelines (pg. 73) that have far reaching implications:

1. Students using blogs are expected to treat blogspaces as classroom spaces. Speech that is inappropriate for class is not appropriate for your blog. ...

2. Never ever ever give out or record personal information on your blog. Your blog is a public space on the internet. Don't share anything that you don't want the world to know. ...be careful what you say too. Don't give out your phone number or home address. This is particularly important if you have a personal online journal or blog elsewhere.

3. Again, your blog is a public space. . . if you put (content) on the Internet, odds are really good that it will stay on the Internet. Always...ten years from now when your are looking for a job, it might be possible for an employer to discover some really hateful and immature things you said when you were younger and more prone to foolish things. Be sure that anything you write you are proud of.

4. Never link to something you haven't read...when you link to something, you should make sure it is something that you really want to be associated with.

Regardless of the environment in which we teach in, aren't these important online skills to be modeled and explicitly stated? The environment that our children engage in outside of our classrooms is predominantly unfiltered. I believe any opportunity we have to teach them these acceptable use skills is helping prepare them for the 21st century that they live in.

Mike Slowinski from West De Pere High School in De Pere, Wisconsin, stated in an Online Etiquette document he wrote for a collaborative literature circle project, "The main purpose (of this Google Group) is to discuss the book. However, if that is all we do on there, I feel as if we would not be using this site to its full potential." As I begin to learn how to use new media in my classroom and with my students I may begin by taking assignments and projects that are currently being done offline and putting them in an online format. Yet, to truly change the nature of how we do math in my classroom, I will need to utilize forums such as blogs, wikis, and Google Docs so that students can be collaborative without the strict confines of a 52 minute period and have their work made public to each other (or the rest of the blogosphere if possible) and open to comments and critique. It is this latter component that I am excited to experiment with in the hopes that it will raise the level of student concern for the quality of their work as it is exposed to people other than their teacher, parents, and themselves.

Hierarchy and New Media

I am becoming very intrigued by the concept of a hierarchy of text. When one encounters a word or idea in a variety of contexts like I have with this concept, you cannot let it go! I first heard or read about this idea a few weeks ago and it has come up again this week in Dr. Kist's New Literacies course at KSU. Dr. Kist states in his book, The Socially Networked Classroom: Teaching in the New Media Age (2010), " A breaking down of this kind of hierarchy of symbol systems probably begins by helping kids to respond to texts, both print and nonprint -and not necessarily tied to print texts- in a thoughtful manner." I believe that a hierarchy of what is acceptable and worthwhile literature, art, even science based media definitely does exist. The old conventions still dictate what is presented in school. I am continually amazed at just how much "text" is really out there that is not in the form(s) that my education was fueled by. It is a beautiful thing that the internet has broken down the barriers to letting people's "voices" be heard. Angela Maiers, Independent Literary Consultant, feels that teachers are stuck in an old paradigm in this regard and tend to get obsessed with who owns knowledge...it

(Creative Commons Licensing) turn copyright upside down. In the spirit of 21st century, teachers have to realize that it's not about hoarding. (Kist, 2010).

I am not a published writer, so it may be unfair for me to have an opinion on this, but I think the rules are inevitably changing!

History of the Internet

Wow! Finished reading the article, An Oral History of the Internet, Vanity Fair, July 2008. While I was aware of some of the elements to the development of the net, it was fascinating to see how far it has come and the applications that have come out of its development. Interesting to see how something that had its roots in national security could become a medium for writing a public journal, downloading music, or participating in an auction for any number of products or items. As the article gives excerpts of comments from the key players of the development of the internet, it also gives a great perspective of what was happening in our culture at the time and how technology was evolving. Maybe it is because my youth has seemed to pass by so quickly, but the article really gave me the perspective of how quickly the technology of the internet and its applications has developed. Why 1995 only seems like last year!

In relation to our class discussion about cell phone use in schools and the overall impact of mobile devices on our society, check out the following link to a story I heard on NPR yesterday morning driving to class. Pretty interesting!

NPR

New Literacies?

I am increasingly intrigued by the idea that one of the many roles we have as educators is to emerge students in the variety of media that they will undoubtedly be using all of their lives. This responsibility should assume that we are also using these new media in our lives, both professionally and personally. I have been slow to embrace much of this technology for many reasons, such as motivation, need, as well as the time that I devote to this learning.



Among the other scary responsibilities that I have as an educator of young people is that of giving them adult guidance in how to navigate and communicate in the multi-media world. ...today's kids are more connected to other people on a second-by-second basis than they have been at any other time in our history. (W.Kist, 2010) Obviously, parents and teachers cannot monitor every moment and action of students. But why wouldn't we want to pattern our classrooms and the media we use in them after the world that students live in? If we do not, we miss out on the opportunity to model appropriate and informed use of these media. I am not as learned as most of my students in the use of technology for learning and fun, but I would be kidding myself if I believed that all children are just "hard-wired" to work with electronic media. This would be a misconception that falsely assumes that my students are going to learn how to navigate their world on their own.