I spent a lot of time yesterday, reading through my students’ adventure short stories. Some were fantastic; some were just OK. But all of the stories had some interesting nuggets that I wanted to be able to share out with the rest of the classes. So, as I was reading, I began to “capture” a line from every story — something interesting, intriguing. Some hint of the larger story. Then, I went into our Glogster site and created this Story Shard poster. Actually, this is the first of two that I am going to be creating (I am not quite done with all the stories.)
I like how it looks like a wall of stories, and there is something quite interesting about seeing all of these story shards together in a single place — sort of like a graffiti wall of ideas.
I’m getting ready to dive into the adventure short stories that my students have written but I want to share out their use of Glogster.edu for creating “companion pieces” to their stories. This assignment was to learn about how to use the digital poster site and how to create a multimedia project that is an extension of their stories. I guided them on summary writing, setting, and protagonist/antagonist, and on the elements of design.
It’s been interesting to see their posters come together, particularly since I have not yet read most of the stories. Of course, I know a little of each story from our work in class, but not everything. The posters give intriguing hints. Now, I am thinking: what if the stories began on paper but then finished on a digital poster? (sort of like what Patrick Carmen has been doing with connecting his novels to media). The glog would be a final chapter of their short story, or the story might leave off in a cliffhanger to be resolved online?
PS — They also completed a bridge engineering project with Glogster, which I will share out tomorrow or Monday. They did a fine job on that assignment, too.
We spent our second day in our Digital Lives unit talking about identity. For my 11 and 12 year old students, this can be a pretty complex concept, particularly when we are thinking about how we make shifts in our personality and the way we want to the world to perceive us based on where we are. Once again, the CommonSense Media site curriculum around digital citizenship has been a rich trove to pull from, including an interesting video about how kids represent themselves (and not always for the good) and a useful handout that breaks down how one student represents themselves online and offline.
The video and the handout led to interesting conversations in my classroom throughout the day, leading to an activity around the creation of avatars for their Glogster accounts. Their mission: create a visual representation of themselves so that if I, or anyone else, were to ask why an avatar was chosen or created, they could make a clear connection to some interest or hobby or facet of themselves. It can’t be that the avatar is cool. It has to be there for a reason.
But back to our discussions for a minute. Here are some vignettes that stayed with me.
Many students who are gamers talked about the choices they make around usernames in gaming communities, like World of Warcraft and the like. They mentioned how they try to choose a name that represents the qualities of a hero or an adventurer. They like that part of a creation of an account, it turns out, probably because they can slip outside of their own name and identity.
One student noted that he plays an app game on the family iPod, but that his father first created the account. For a while, both son and dad were playing, and sharing the account, but now dad doesn’t play nearly as much. The son, of course, still does. The gaming community for that app, however, must assume (and why wouldn’t they?) that it is just one player — the dad. So sometimes, messages come from other players directed at dad, but received by the son. Nothing inappropriate, but my student noted how “strange” it was to be perceived as someone other than himself, and as an adult, too. A real adult — his dad.
A small number of girls are passionate about horses, and apparently there is a pretty popular equine social networking site that many of them are part of. They noted how they enjoyed how everything there is all about horses, and one student made the comment that in the network, she feels like an expert about horses and admitted to a certain confidence she doesn’t always feel outside of her equine community.
I asked how many students have ever not given their real ages when signing up for an online site, and many raised their hands. Most choose older, not younger. Some have done this with Facebook in order to skirt the 13 year old age regulation. When I asked why they would create an identity that was older, most could not really explain. But one student did note that if felt that they could seem cooler if they were older.
We just launched into a unit (a new one for me) around Digital Lives, which will cover such topics as safety, personal information, social networking, passwords and more. I am mostly adapting a great curriculum developed by CommonSense Media, which has some interesting videos, lesson plans and activities. Yesterday, I began by posting a huge icon with the words “digital footprint” on the interactive board, and then we began to chat about what that meant.
Most had no idea. And once we began discussing the digital debris they leave behind at websites, I could already see some eyes opening up. Clearly, they don’t think much about their digital identity when they are online, and they are online a lot. Facebook, Youtube, and many other sites form the basis of what they do when they are on the computer. Very little computer time is offline.
As it turns out, this week’s Time for Kids magazine was perfectly tailored to begin our discussion. The topic of the main article was about how schools are starting to use tablet computers and technology in order to replace textbooks and inform instruction. They were quite interested in the programs where students get iPads for the year. We then went over the results of a survey I gave them two weeks ago about their own habits of technology. I paused at places where I have seen changes this year (more mobile devices, more confidence in their technical savvy, more viewing of videos online, etc.) and we had a long discussion about Facebook and password protection (to be continued another day).
We ended up talking about avatars, and how one represents oneself in an online space. They have some work to do around brainstorming an avatar for themselves, and then we will be doing some work around avatar creation on Wednesday, using our Glogster community as a place to experiment with representing themselves in an online environment.
Here are some of my notes from our far-ranging conversations during the classes yesterday:
They immediately noticed that school districts that are providing iPads seem to be in places that are well-off, which led to a discussion around the issue of the “digital divide” in which the “haves” get access, and the “have-nots” don’t. I was happy to talk about this problem, but it was the students who observed this and who worry about it;
We talked a lot about advertising, and how “free” sites aren’t really free. They were startled to learn that YouTube gets 2 billion hits a day, and that Google owns Youtube, and makes money off it by embedding advertising into sidebars and now, more and more, into videos themselves. One student said he took the time to read some of the new privacy policy by Google (praise for him!) so that he could understand what might happen to his skateboarding videos;
Protecting reputations was a central focus, and will continue to be, as we talked about the relative permanence of what you put online in sites like Facebook. I reminded them that in a few years, they will be applying for college or seeking a job. It may seem like that is far in the distance, but it is not when it comes to your online digital footprint. It follows you. I could tell that got the attention of a number of students;
The Time for Kids article sparked a long discussion (guided by me) around the pros and cons of iPads and tablets in the classroom. The pros included embedded media, cost savings, interactive learning and connection to the outside world. The cons included possibilities of theft, distractions, and the need for constant upgrades.
I’m really impressed by their insights, and thinking, and I look forward to more of these discussions. At ages 11 and 12, this is the time we want them to be thinking along these lines. I want them to be critical thinkers, and critical users of technology. However, as I stressed many times, this is also not to freak them out, and make them so nervous they don’t want to go online anytime. It’s all about managing their identity and my aim is show them some tools to do that.
Yesterday (as part of Digital Learning Day), I brought all four of my sixth grade classes into Glogster.edu for the first time, and as expected (from past experiences), they loved it. They love the possibility of embeddable media, they love the clip art, and they love the colorful options of theme and “stickers” and more. But before they could even get their account information, we had a long discussion about “design principles.” For many of my students, this kind of thinking is new, although when we began to talk about Apple and its products, something clicked for a lot of them.
I began by explaining some of my own thoughts around design, with an emphasis on web design.
“Just because you can do it doesn’t mean you should do it”
Don’t make random decisions about your design – be thoughtful in your choices
The way colors look together is important
Images and video should be partners to text
Be consistent with your theme (background, text, images, multimedia, etc.)
Simple design is always better than complicated design
I then showed them my Glogster project (which I had shared with them the day before, as they knew they were going to be working on a Glog related to their short stories). I asked them to pick apart my thinking. Why did I choose what I chose, and how did those choices connect to my short story (which I had read aloud to them last week)? It was great. They noticed many of the elements that I wanted to notice.
Then, I shared this following Glog with them. I took the same text but purposely went anti-design. You should have heard the “whoahs” and “I can’t read that” and “yikes” that accompanied the first look. Then, again, I asked them to break down what I did NOT do when it comes to design choices. We talked about colors, about busyness, about lack of theme, about no connection to the original text.
I think they got it. Or most of them got it. Check out this project which a student began in class and then completed at home. I would say that it shows pretty decent design principles, don’t you?
I am bringing my students onto Glogster.edu for the first time this year, but we will be using the digital poster site quite a bit as the year progresses for projects around multimedia writing in ELA, engineering explorations in Science, and a history poster in Social Studies (and who knows, maybe some graphing in Math). What we will be doing today is talking about “design principles” and then, they are going to working on a Glog that connects with the Adventure Short Story they just completed yesterday. Their Glog will focus on:
My students are in the midst of an adventure short story project. This is the first year I have required all of the stories to be typed, not handwritten, and so, much of our class time has given way to them using the laptops for writing. Most of them are in the rising action of their stories, but we have been talking mostly of how to create a climatic scene that the story will build towards and then resolve afterwards. One problem for a lot of young (and old) writers is starting with a great idea, moving it along and then …. the story never goes anywhere. We’re using structure to keep that focus and create a finishing point.
But, I am also spending time at the start of each class, sharing out videos of writers talking about writing. Here are a few worth sharing:
If you have links to videos like this, please drop me a comment so I can share it with my students and also, add it to my Writers Talk Writing Playlist.
It’s been about two years in the planning, but this month, two professors (and associates through the Western Massachusetts Writing Project) will be launching a research study in my classroom around the ways in which my students use technology and digital media in school and out of school. The study is entitled “In the Midst of Change: Young People Composing in a Digital World.”
The two visiting professors — Anne Herrington and Donna LeCourt — intend to observe the work that we do around composing with digital tools (in conjunction with a new unit I am doing around digital citizenship and the use of Glogster), and then they will be interviewing a few students about the compositional choices they make when they create something with technology. I admire both Anne and Donna for their work around composition and rhetoric. Anne and I were co-editors (along with Charlie Moran) of the book collection, Teaching the New Writing: Technology, Change and Assessment in the 21st Century.
One focus of the conversations that we have had in the last year or so is what my students do with technology and composition outside of school. We are curious to know and document the kinds of writing with technology that goes on outside of the school walls. Anne, Donna and I (and another professor who is no longer part of the initiative) have long talked about ways to document the choices that young people make around composing with these new tools, and what influence the world outside of school has on the writing in school, and vice versa.
So, I am excited to see the project almost underway. I am also a little nervous. It’s strange to have visitors looking in at what is going on, although that nervousness is countered by the fact that I know the researchers quite well. Still ….
Our school’s Community Service Club held a Hat Day/Decorate Your Head Day event yesterday to raise money for our Senior Citizen Center (whose old furniture got moldy when put into storage). The event raised hundreds of dollars. To spark some fun, I put an image of myself up on the interactive board and told my students to decorate my head. They sure did. We had a lot of laughs with this quick activity.
We’ve been working hard on character traits this year, exploring personality, emotion and physical appearance of the characters in the books we are reading. This activity involved creating a “character trading card” and then writing up a descriptive piece of writing of the character in the card. Another student in another class then got the description and had to find the character on the wall. They had a pretty good time playing detective, and learning about other characters and other books (although there were a lot of Katniss and Percy cards).
