For Those Schools Who Block YouTube - TEACHERTube

To add new possibilities to the land of possibilities, TeacherTube has arrived to assist educators wish to use video in their classrooms when their school district block other video sites. The future of American classrooms is changing rapidly. Click on the above to explore a little more.

Writing as a means to Life Stories

Plummer, K. (2001). The call of life stories in ethnographic research. In Atkinson, et. al (eds) The Handbook of Ethnographic Research. pp. 395- 406. Sage Publications.

In terms of telling one's life story, one has to consider audience. Who will hear me? Who will read me? How does my recognition of how stories are told influence how I will share my world. Ken Plummer wrote,,

"The dry old tale told by a boring social scientist who hedges the tale in with the dust of theory and jargon will never meet such higher criteria [aesthetic delight]. Writing skills, the craft of telling, art, imagination - all these now come into their own, and help us to distinguish the valuable social science 'life story' from the less valuable one...for such stories to be successful they have to be written to attract an audience (something most social science usually cannot imagine!), to help the reader see the phenomenon, and finally - most importantly - to persuade the reader to hold certain views..." p. 401.

Plummer (2001) points out an important distinction between research writing and the what I would argue is the type of writing placed on most blogs. Blogs are meant to be constructed for the personal aesthetics of an individual thinker, writer and constructor for ideas, life and knowing. Their audience is in their head and even if it is the self, it is someone they feel needs to keep a hold of their life story construction.

EduBlog Insights

Anne Davis, who works at Georgia State University in the Instructional Technology Center in the College of Education, has been keeping an online blog a lot longer than I have. Recently, in a listserv mailing to members of the National Writing Project, I learned of her hard work and intellectual efforts.

Her on-going blog is called EDUBLOG INSIGHTS; Comments, Reflections and Occasional Brainstorms (and it can be reached by clicking on this link).

To highlight my initial perusal of Anne Davis's thinking, I wish to acknowledge why "Blogging is educationally sound for teaching students" -- a list she has compiled on her own site:

*Blogs provide a space for sharing opinions and learning in order to grow communities of discourse and knowledge — a space where students and teachers can learn from each other.

Puzzling About Audience Awareness and Blogs

I've perused four more articles that focus on "audience awareness" and how online writing "may" help students push towards becoming better writers. I'm finding studies that parallel my thinking, yet focus on elementary or middle school writers with a specific audience designated before they post their written work onto the web for anyone to find and read. This post will move from a broad conversation addressing the insight of Starr Lewis at the Kentucky Department of Education, and move towards three qualitative studies. Looking at Starr Lewis's thinking is close to home; Kentucky's writing program fostered over twelve years of growth within me as a teacher of writing in Kentucky.

The State of Kentucky is celebrated for its portfolio assessment. In Kentucky, students are expected to be writers, K - 12, and teachers are responsible for keeping writing folders for students every year. In 4th grade, 7th grade and 12th grade, students produce a writing portfolio to be assessed as part of a school's accountability. Starr Lewis, a leader in portfolio assessment in Kentucky and now the associate commissioner for the Office of Academic and Professional Development at the Kentucky Department of Education, reflected on Audience Awareness (2001), as it pertains to Kentucky's advanced writing curriculum. Since 1990, Kentucky has drawn much attention to its portfolio assessment and this attention continues today.

Lewis (2001) states four beliefs about Kentucky's Writing portfolios that should always be on the table: 1. Assessment does affect instruction, 2. All students deserve the opportunity to learn to express their thoughts and beliefs in writing, 3. Education should prepare students for the types of writing they will do throughout their lives and 4. Education should open doors for all students. A classroom that sets goals for writing assessment will be a classroom that fosters better writing instruction. Before the educational reform in Kentucky, students were expected to write for various audiences in the State's program of studies, but they did so very little because it wasn't assessed. She notes that students wrote seldom and when they did, it was always in forms for their teachers to assess. The writing portfolio process introduced students to writing for a variety of purposes and for a variety of audiences, and writing occurs more often in Kentucky, now, because it is factored into the way the State assesses its students.

Even so, understanding "authentic audience" remains a struggle (Lewis, 2001). More specifically, Lewis writes, "Without a connection to the world outside the classroom, there is no audience other than the teacher or classmates. Because the outside connection has not really been established in most classrooms, the best a student can do is to write as if he or she were addressing an audience for a particular purpose." (retrieved: http://vnweb.hwwilsonweb.com/hww/results/results_ single_ftPES.jhtml). Her point, however, is that a contrived audience is superficial and makes for unauthentic student writing. Teachers should teach writing, then, as a means for real-world experience.

In 2008, using the Internet, especially Blogs, can be one way to push teachers and students to think about ways for writing to transcend classrooms. When teachers and students probe who might read a student's piece of work, why they might want to read it, what criticisms the work may bring, etc., teachers and students enter the irreplaceable conversations of what real writers wrestle with -- conversations that are "remarkable" (Lewis, 2001). In summary, audience awareness is a key factor in developing students as writers. The Internet is a place to initiate conversations about audience awareness and online publishing.

Henderson & Joyce (2005) looked to pre-school and elementary classrooms to determine that students often find an audience for their thinking and writing in teachers, peers and/or other adults in the room. They determined that developing a sense of audience begins with signing an artist's name. Through school sharing and participation, audience construction is started. Understanding what is expected and valued by audience members helps young students to develop an awareness of the types of information, explanations, visual aides, and content audiences expected. The conversations around these relationships is where the teaching occurrs. (There may be a parallel here to Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development in that as students become writers, they must grow comfortable, at their own pace, to how their ideas and words are received by those who read their work. Therefore audience-awareness is a developed process).

Karchmer-Klein (2007) looked specifically at 4th graders as they moved their writing towards Internet publishing and noticed that ability did not factor in how students used electronic features for designing how their writing looked online (with images, font choice and spacing) and that offering literacy instruction with the goal of online publications increased students' audience awareness. When writers are more able to understand their readers, they are more able to design more effective writing. Through reading and analyzing online texts, a young writer becomes more equipped with what their writing should look like. What is new with online writing, though, is that now a writer must understand how to use online features to create meaning for their readers: audio, font, video, graphics, color, hyperlinks, etc.. Her findings suggest that their is a relationship between literacy instruction and the development of audience awareness while writing for online publication. Her study also notes that further work is still needed, especially when reconceptualizing a global audience who may find written work online. Technology is changing the way educators should be teaching writing and requires innovative thinking that researchers are only beginning to understand.

Garthwait (2007) studied the use of online composition with 7th grade students. Interestingly, she discovered that students were receiving useful instruction in a computer lab class about audience awareness and online writing that was untapped by the language arts teachers who shared the same students with the computer instructor. There is potential for collaborative learning and integration, especially because the computer teacher offered much insight on how posting to the web requires an awareness of what individuals desire to see. Recognizing a multimodal reality of today's student learner, Garthwait (2007) discusses how employing tools that appeal to a wired generation makes sense. Although words are one tool used by writers, the online writer is allowed graphics, video, audio, etc. that also help convey meaning and understanding. Audience awareness shapes composition, and the new space for writing -- the Internet -- opens new conversations about audience.
Perhaps teachers have been lacking with their instruction and guidance on how audience awareness creates good writers (Garthwait, 2007): "Digital writing becomes powerful because it has the potential to meld easily verbal, visual and auditory communication: a see-saw between abstract (lingual modes) and intuitive (graphic arts modes" (retrieved http://vnweb.hwwilsonweb.com/hww/results/results_single _fulltext.jhtml;hwwilsonid=CE). The computer lab teachers helped students gain electronic literacy skills that other educators need to promote, as well. In the computer lab, students were able to focus on specific audiences with knowledge of strategies used by online writers. There are new semiotic tools used by today's writers that are used to recognize who the audiences are. Students learned a great deal about significant writing skills while learning about computer skills. In many ways, the processes go hand in hand, but at this school being studied, the connection was not yet made.

Garthwait, A. (2007). Middle school hypermedia composition: A qualitative case study. In Journal of Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia, 16, no. 4, p. 357 - 375. retrieved 3/24/08,
Wilson Web.

Henderson, S.D. (2005). Developing a sense of audience: An examination of one school's instructional contexts, in Reading Horizons,, 45, no.4, pp. 321-348, March/April, retrieved 3/24/08, Wilson Web.

Karchmer-Klein, R. (2007). Audience awareness and Internet publishing: A qualitative analysis of factors influencing how fourth graders write electronic text. In Action in Teacher Education, 29, no. 2, pp. 39 - 50, Summer, retrieved 3/24/08, Wilson Web.

Lewis, S. (2001). Ten years of puzzling about audience awarenss. In The Clearing House, 74, no.4, pp.191-196, March/April, retrieved 3/24/08, Wilson Web.

PEW, It doesn't smell that bad; actually it's interesting.

Given the the vast majority, 87%, of American youth are now online (Lenhart, Madden & Hitlin, 2005), educators can assume that access for in class, technological conversation should occur. Youth today are likely to be savvy with online work and this work should be addressed, especially in relation to traditional, text-based literacy practices often found in American schools. Since 2000, more adolescents are using the technological boon in their everyday practice, and most of these work from their homes, 74% (Lenhart, Madden & Hitlin, 2005). A smaller percentage, 13%, do not use the internet and this population tends to be African-American (Lenhart, Madden & Hitlin, 2005). With this noted, 77% of African American students DO go online, they note.

Today's teenagers "enveloped in a wired world" (Lenhart, Madden & Hitlin, 2005, p. 11), but they also live active offline lives, as well.

Working with writers, a writing teacher encourages the individuality of his/her students and would tap into the offline lives of their students through encouraging personal narratives from experience and personal essays. Blogs, an online tool, might be a place for teaching audience awareness and the importance of idea development because they are a genuine community where written words can be read by many. With this said, Blogs are a great place to study the offline/online world of teenagers.

Lenhart, A, Madden, M. & Hitlin, P. (2005). Teens and technology; Youth are leading the transition to a fully wired and mobile
nation. From PEW/INTERNET & AMERICAN LIFE PROJECT. Washington, D.C.

A Weekend of Adding Blog Literature - a mini-review

6 more resources (5 worthwhile):

1. Using blogs for English Language Learning at the University level has been documented (Bloch, 2007). Because of its low cost, easy accessibility, and the ability to distribute work to larger audiences, students are more likely to see themselves as authors. Bloch (2007) notes that there have been only two types of blogs: those that deal with issues of social and political importance and those that revolve around identity and more personal issues (p.4). In particular, online discourses foster a social community for bloggers and such community unite disparate backgrounds of English Language Learners (Bloch, 2007). Blogs united readers to writers and writers to readers. Of greater importance, Bloch (2007) reverses the questions teachers often ask when wondering about the uses of blogs. He turns it around and asks, “What problem do we have that blogging might be a solution for? (p.11). In conclusion, blogging is a form of literacy itself (Bloch, 2007).

2. Blog burnout occurs (Nardi, Schiano, Gumbrecht & Swartz, 2004), even if most blogges are aware of their readers(audience awareness). Nardi, et al (2004) acknowledge the five, major motivations for blogging: documenting one’s life; providing commentary and opinions; expressing deeply felt emotions; articulating ideas through writing; and forming and maintaining community (p. 43).

3. Blogging began to emerge in 1997 (Martindale & Wiley, 2006). Martindale & Wiley (2006) discuss that it is a tool that that has advantage over discussion forums (p.59). Because of post-course inaccessibility, course management systems alter the way students post. Blogging is more permanent and students are more motivated to write (59). Martindale discusses his multiple audiences when it comes to content. For him, there are six: himself, students in various courses, students in his degree programs, friends and coworkers, colleagues around the world and unknown readers of the world (p. 59).

4. For girls, weblogs address a dual nature of interpersonal communication and mass communication (Bortree, 2006). Content for girls tends to be talk about the day and what occurred over the weekend (p 30). They write for friends, but also recognize they are aware of the general public who may read their posts (p. 34). Because of the dual audiences, writers must be aware of how their words are presented. For the most part, blogs are used by teens to maintain relationships (Bortree, 2006), but more research is needed, especially with in-depth interviews with teenage bloggers for their insights.

5. In 1999, the total estimated # of blogs was 50 (Drezner & Farrell, 2004). There is currently no official organization to govern the blogossphere, so capturing “ideological consensus” doesn’t occur (p.33). Blogs are influential because they do affect international media coverage (p.34) and both journalists and pundits find what matters from weblogs. Because the Internet allows everyone access to information, those who blog can become instant fact checkers to challenge journalists and what is being reported (p. 37). They are a forum for citizens whose country may not allow political expression (p.38).

Bloch, J. (2007). Abdullah's blogging: a generation 1.5 student enters the blogosphere. In Language, Learning and Technology, 11.2. June, pp.128-142.

Bortree, D.S. (2005). Presentation of self on the web; an ethnographic study of teenage girl weblogs. In Education, Communication and Information, vol. 5, No. 1, March. pp.25-39.

Drezner, D.W. & Farrell, H. (2004). Web of influence. In Foreign Policy, December,
pp.32 - 40.

MacKinnon, R. & Zuckerman, E.. (2006). Gathering voices to share with a worldwide online audience. In Neiman Reports, v. 7, Winter, pp.45-47.

Martindale, T. & Wiley, D.A. (2008). Using weblogs in scholarship and teaching. In Tech Trends, Volume 49, Number 2, pp.55-61.

Nardi, B.A., Shiano, D.J., Gumbrecht, M. & Swartz, L. (2004). Why we blog. In Communication of the ACH, December, Vol. 47, No. 12, pp.41-46.

Stoked

One of the things I love about reading to find out what I didn't already know is when I come across an article that discusses what I haven't been able to find. Tonight, I found such an article:

Grabill, J.T & Hicks, T. (2005). Multiliteracies meet methods: The Case for digital writing in english education. In English Education, V37, n4, July, pp 301-311.

Grabill & Hicks (2005) discuss the why and how of digital literacy importance. Recognizing the call for multiliteracies framework (New London Group, 1996), the authors call on Zhao & Frank (2003) to address the invasive species of technology, but also how English educators need to embrace this tool (p.303). Writing is restored as an immediate need for communication in a technological age. They continue with "audiences and writers are related to each other more interactively in time and space" (p.305). Technology challenges traditional principals and practices of composition because it transcends the teacher as the only reader of possible text. They write, "Writing instruction must equip students with the tools, skills, and strategies not just to produce traditional texts using computer technology, but also to produce documents appropriate to the global and dispersed reach of the web. This shift requires a large-scale shift in the rhetorical situations that we ask students to write within, the audiences we ask them to write for, the products that they produce, and the purposes of their writing" (p.305).

Boom. That's what I write when I find something that resonates with me. Boom Boom Boom.

Grabil & Hicks (2005) continue with the recognition that it isn't the English teachers place to teach writing with computers but to understand how computers as technology are being used as outlets for writing. Students still need to be taught about the traditional modes of writing and why writing matters. Teachers engage students through lessons on audience awareness, conventions, voice, etc. to prepare them for the world they will inherit as working individuals.

Finally, they state literacy should not be considered any longer without addressing technology, too (p.306).

I didn't have this source for my first draft of a literature review, but it offers many links to the points I was trying to make.

"Are Teachers Ready for 21st Century Learning?"

John Norton (2008) has done something new. Instead of creating an article for Teacher Magazine, he cut and pasted reader's responses to the Karl Fisch's "Is it Okay to be a Technologically Illiterate Teacher?" blog posting. Through this "editing" Norton carries a reader through the trials and tribulations that teachers have with technology.

Norton (2008) feels conversations on the Internet, Web 2.0 tolls, and though instant communication, coupled with lobbying groups wanting newer skills are changing teaching and learning in profound ways.

I am not the only one perusing the questions I have.

Audience Awareness

I'm feeling engaged with this blog project after talking with Dr. Jing Lei today. Because my work is with English Education and her work is with technology, this experience has been a reeses peanut butter cup commercial where peanut butter meets chocolate.

I've become very interested in the concept of "audience awareness" through research I'm doing in another class. It occurred to me that one of the primary ways "blogs" are good is the audience. Who is it? Why is it? Where is it? How does this change the writing process of students when they know the reader/viewer will be "beyond the teacher"? I think it means a world of difference when a piece of writing transcends a classroom.

Lee (2000) and Garthwait (2007) agree. Both wrote about how audiences changes with hypermedia opportunities for students and, as a practitioner and researcher, they were able to come to different conclusions.

Lee (2000) writes that technology is sexy and sees virtues being extolled (p. 24). In the reality of classrooms, access to technology is often a major stumbling block. She notes that computers transcend the idea of "expensive typewriters" (p. 25) and notes that in her classroom students found voice from creative writing and technology. Ownership of the work was more apparent. Lee (2000) does not address blogging as an outlet for writers, but concludes, "I've discovered that the authentic audience found on the Internet has a profound effect on the quality of student writing in all grades." (p. 30).

Garthwait (2007) conducted a qualitative case study over six months with a 7th grade hypermedia unit. Giving me several leads for future readings, he addresses how "space" (p. 359) is utilized differently by strong writers and this is true for the students who use technological space to express themselves. Because web writing melds verbal, visual and auditory communications, "a see-saw between abstract (lingual modes) and intuitive (graphic arts modes)," teachers need to rethink the way they guide student writing. She found that through conventional cueing device: Naming, Context, & Strategy/Responses used to connect to audience were present.

I'm looking forward to reading more.

Garthwait, A. (2007). Middle school hypermedia composition: A Qualitative Study. In Journal of Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia, 16, No. 4. pp. 357 - 375

Lee, G. (2000). Technology in the language arts classroom: Is it worth the trouble? Voices from the Middle. . Urbana: March, vol. 7, Iss. 3, PP. 24 - 32

Cummins, J. & Sayers, D.

Before I begin this post, I have a question. Using the link provided from Blackboard only allows partial viewing of the text. Looking up the text, online, I found that it has different publishers and publishing dates. Why is this? I'm unsure of the exact citation, because the online community seems to have variations. Even so, here are my notes from what I could partially comprehend from the pages the link allowed:

Cummins, J. & Sayers, D. (1995). Brave New Schools; Challenging Cultural Illiteracy
Through Global Learning Networks. St. Martin’s Press, Ch. 3

Key Points:

Inequity in technology resources mirrors every other inequity in distributions of human and material resources, between school districts and between industrialized and Third World countries.

the network of networks, however, provides the possibility of communicating a rapid speeds anyone who wishes to be “connected” (18).

“Unlike academics, researchers, commercial enterprises, and even nonprofit organizations, classroom teachers confront a formidable and often daunting task in their attempts to link students to the Internet” (19).

Communication that transcends class to class boundaries can be advantageous to participating classrooms.

“Distance, in the context of class-to-class exchanges, creates the possibility of collaboration with an unknown but knowable audience, principally through written communication” (32).

Looking at Training High School Educators

Transitioning from classroom teaching to university researching has been more difficult than I expected. Why? It falls along the line of "Publish or Perish" and "#'s and Perish." As a classroom teacher, my intent was to do great work at the pace I was able to keep with the hundreds of students on my roll for six hours a day and the volumes of keeping up with my expectations for them. This, coupled with State crack-down on scores (which I'm proud to say I found success), a more diverse student population every year and then a hit or miss administration style, was cause for a lot of stress. Now, the stress is not as physical as it is mental. At the University, one must "Know" their "field" enough to "profess" it to others in written form. Keeping up with such truth is difficult.

I bring this subject up as it is my intent to be a trainer of teachers and to best prepare them for English classrooms. For this reason, I found R.G. Sultana (2005) to be extremely interesting. His review of initial teacher education programs covers the debate between what is best in preparing teachers. Should the preparation exist more on campus with experts in the research field professing knowledge onto students or should the experience occur in professional development schools where students will get experience in the field to reflect on?

Where I stand on this issue is not the purpose of my post. Instead, I wish to connect a few of Sultana's observations with my thinking on "blogs" as a teaching tool. He writes, "The fact remains that education must be responsive to new societal realities, trends, and "needs" (while remaining critically sensitive to the fact that "needs" are anchored in socially constructed discourse that in never politically innocent" (237). He continues to note that Initial Teacher Education should make "efforts to help prospective teachers make a shift from insular to connective specialization and to socialize them into the habit of lifelong learning...." (237). Perhaps, teacher preparation cannot ignore the changing communities of online interactions, because such cyber-communication is growing normal.

R.G. Sultana leads his readers to the following: "It is nevertheless critical to emphasize the point made by Papert (1987) that the more quickly new technologies of communication have been integrated into teaching/learning nexus, the more easily they seem to have become co-opted in the mainstream educational paradigm, that is, top-down delivery systems that fail to recognize real differences among learners" (239). He makes this point after recognizing that technology has been used to create interdisciplinary learning communities.

My point with this posting is that educators preparing future educators cannot ignore the ebb & flow of technology in the ecosystem before us. With this said, paying attention to blogs this semester hasn't been a waste of time.

Papert, S. (1987). Computer criticism vs. technocratic thinking. In Educational Researcher, 16 (1), 22 - 30.
Sultana, R.G. (2005). The initial education of high school teachers: A critical review of major issues and trends. In Studying Teacher Education, Vol. 1, no. 2, November, pp. 225 - 243.

Creating Agentive Selves

OAKLANDDUSTY.ORG

Hull, G.A. & Katz, M. L., (2006). Creating an agentive-self: Case studies of digital storytelling. In Research in the Teaching of English, volume 41, Number 1. August, pp. 43 - 81

Although Hull & Katz's presentation here is not on blogging, they present a theoretical framework that is interesting to my current blogging curiosity. An overview of this article is a two person study of creating a multimedia sense of self at the DUSTY project in Oakland, California. The authors look at a twenty year old man and an adolescent girl as they make sense of their "story" and its relation to their agency.

..."how we represent ourselves in storied worlds depends on who we are trying to be in relation to others in the present." 45.

"...we argue that people can develop agentive selves, using the unique repertoire of tools, resources, relationships, and cultural artifacts -- the semiotic means, if you will -- that are available at particular historical moments in particular social and cultural contexts. Traditionally, primacy has been given to narrative in oral and written forms as the semiotic means most central for the creation and enactment of identities. However, other semiotic systems can be primary as well -- dance, music, images."

Multimedia story telling, like Blogging, is a way of incorporating semiotics into the story creation of the self. The difference is that "journaling" that used to be private can now be public for real-world audiences and spaces. From "diaries" to "blogs," the nature of writing to construct the self changes -- no longer under lock and key and shelved away where no one can see it, the "blogger" takes a risk of exposing their "truth" to all.

The Blogolympic Games

This just in: China and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has approved "blogging" for Olympic athletes, but there will be guidelines and limitations.

Let the games begin.

BLOGOLYMPICS

Web, 2.0 -- it can be quite wonderful.

PBS Frontline has been doing a series on teenagers in cyberspace. Their footage is available online. I post it for anyone who'd like to screen the documentary. Just click the hyperlink and you'll get there.

Education Changes Needed?

Associated Press, 2008. Technology demands ed. changes. In Teacher Magazine
February 10.
http;//www.teachermagazine.org

In a brief overview of the 2006 Pew Internet & American Life project, this article estimates 64% of those ages 12 - 17 have created online content. Also, 8% of adults have created a blog, while 28% of teens have. Boys post more video files, but girls dominate the blogosphere and photo postings.

I guess I'm girly for enjoying online blogging (but then again, I've always kept writing journals, which my Danish friends always say is a very middle school girl thing to do). Whatever.

It is interesting that teens from single-parent households, and lower income teens are more likely to blog than those from affluent backgrounds. Any idea why this might be?

The #'s of bloggers doubled in the elapsed two years of the Pew study. Over 89% of teens said they've responded to an online posting.

Teens are labeled here as "super communicators."

Blogoholics Anonymous

Emmet Rosenfield's work came to me on a National Writing Project listserve. As a Virginia Writing Project consultant, Rosenfield is currently keeping a once-a-week blog entitled "Eduholic" where he sits down and writes about his teaching practice.

Oh, P. 2008. Eduholic: Blogging teacher-consultant gets national attention. On the National Writing Project website:
http://nwp.org.

Rosenfield admits the blog, "gives him an opportunity to reflect on his practice and make those reflections available to the world." In addition, the blog has made him a better writer. The risk-taking and real-world audience has informed his teaching, connected him better with his student and parental communities, and offered him feedback from teachers around the world.

Blogging is a "brave new world," because audiences are responsive. Rosenfield writes, "It's time to 2.0, as I wrote last post. At least, time to take another few baby steps towards integrating the best of today's technology into my teaching repertoire...I can't in good consciousness continue to teach digital natives without employing tools that are the most effective available."

His blog, Eduholic, is written more journalistically than as a diary-type posting site. As with all writing, knowing the audience and purpose for the material is key, and it is wise to think about who will read his postings: teachers, parents, students and inquirers like me. Traveling on the frontier of the profession, work like Emmet Rosenfield's sets a pace for education in the future. It's worth a visit, for sure.

Leveraging Web 2.0

Oliver, K. (2007). Leveraging web 2.0 in the redesign of a graduate-level technology integration course. In Tech Trends, Volume 51, Number 5

As an assistant professor of instructional technology, Kevin Oliver is interested in the instructional design of web-based learning environments and their effect on student-thinking skills.

In this study, Oliver looks at distance learning courses for teachers and how Web 2.0 is used to acclimate teachers to the web as a teaching tool. Web 2.0 is an umbrella term for many of the online, free tools for web collaboration, sharing, etc. on the web, including Blogs. "Blogging tools are perhaps the most familiar example in the Web 2.0 realm with purported education benefits, allowing students to post reflections, book reports, and stories online, and then receive written comments from teachers, other students, or parents within their log space" (55).

The use of Web 2.0 tools replaces the "budget" concerns of most schools in having to purchase software. These tools are free.

Blogs are used often to promote thinking about one's practice -- a diary of sorts for sharing with other professionals and receiving feedback. They create an online community. From Oliver's work, "79% of teachers who created blogs" found blogging useful. The other 21% did not. (56).

Going with Gardner's "Multiple Intelligences," it would be presumptions to think 'blogging' would be helpful to all learners. They are a tool for learning and not a panacea.

Of note, Oliver addresses the 1974 Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) to note that the information trail left by blogs posits many ethical implications. "Appropriate behaviors" must be addressed for what is posted and ethical conversations must occur -- including fair use, plagiarism and personal information that might not belong on a classroom blog.

Commenting on a Commentary

Dawson, K. & Ferdig, R.E. (2006). Commentary - Expanding notions of acceptable research evidence in educational technology: A Response to Schrum et al. Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education,
6(1), 133-142

Kara Dawson and Richard E. Ferdig review and expand on the research agenda conversation regarding technology education. I found their commentary interesting for our present place in "yet" another paradigm shift. They pit the "research or perish" motif at Universities against "usefulness for practitioners and policy makers" and call for a "code book" to unify the language being used to discuss educational technology in research. They also note that there needs to be further research on teachers' beliefs on technology in their practice, and a move move away from self-reporting and more teacher in practice studies. They also call for a more interdisciplinary approach and to use ideas, terms, and concepts from psychology and other disciplines for the development of a common heueristic.

At my juncture as a scholar-in-training, I wrestle with the deeply felt practitioner part. My work as a classroom teacher allowed me hands-on, in the trenches, every day experiences. This new work, University work, has me wrestling with the validity of publishing for researchers and not for teachers who can use all the help they can get. Most of my reading thus far has been playing "catch-up" to the conversation I never had the luxury to hear as a classroom teacher. In fact, I feel cheated that so much scholarly work occurred in the academic world, but never trickled down to my public school practice. This is not good.

Even so, I feel this commentary has a place on my blog because it gives me ideas for audiences and what needs to be said next.

Dawson and Ferdig spend a lot of time discussing the importance of mentoring doctorate students. I have a funny thought: what if it was NDLB (No Doctorate Left Behind) and University teachers were governed by how well they made all doctorate students successful, and financial sanctions fell on those places that couldn't do it. I believe the way academics write and deliver knowledge might change drastically. But, this is only an aside.

Flying under the Wings of KCO

My advisor, Kelly Chandler-Olcott, wrote a review of J. Inman's and D. Sewell's text, TAKING FLIGHT WITH OWLs: EXAMINING ELECTRONIC WRITING CENTER WORK. From her review of this text, I've learned that OWL translates as Online Writing Lab, and as KCO notes, such online writing lab practice comes in a variety of sizes and are situated in a # of 'habitats'. I wish to include this notion of 'habitat' because it follows in Zhao's discussion of a classroom's ecosystem and how technology is now a part of a school's life network.

Kelly C-O refers to D.J Leu's review in the Handbook of Reading Research where he addresses that computer technology has been integrated into many writing centers so quickly that research and evaluation have not been able to keep pace.

KCO recognizes that OWLS makes her more conscious of how she provides feedback on writing through emails and the course website, but also how students are to respond to one another's work digitally. She points out that she MUST model her own process in composing online replies to the work of others --- in other words, she must TEACH how technology is to be used to communicate professionally. (p.190)

Issues of face-to-face time and screen-to-screen time are a reality for the digital age.

Online Writing Labs are catalysts for collaboration among diverse people. (Another use for blogs). They are places for assistance with writing.

"...we cannot ignore the fact that many members of the next generation of writers may find online tutorials more attractive, not less, than proximal ones." 194.

"...the next generation of writing center clients may need facility with a different kind of composition---one that is more multimedia in nature---than current OWL clients do." 194.

KCO questions the use of writing tutorials around traditional print texts, alone, and challenges thinkers to address how Online Writing Labs may be used beyond traditional text means and into multi-mediated representations.

How this connects with the blog-osphere is, again, an indication of how quickly the technological world works. Beyond OWLS, the invention of FACEBOOK, Blogger.com, MySpace, etc, not to mention the interactive communities arriving from web-based communities around the globe, make such a discussion old -- fast.

from Education Week

Cech, S.J. (2008). Tests of tech literacy still not widespread despite NCLB goals; Education Week; http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2008/01/3021techtests.h27.html?

*not all students in 2008 are "technologically literate"
*to be "technologically literate" need to know how to operate hardware, software AND analyze information that flows through the
machines. They must be able to EVALUATE digital content, while using this content creatively and ethically to communicate with
others.
*as of yet, we still don't have a national tool for measuring "technological literacy".
*there is a bill introduced this year called ACHIEVEMENT THROUGH TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATION ACT that would uniformly
define what student tech literacy should be.

What I read here is that although technology is an appliance as noted earlier, there still isn't a framework for what students should learn technologically in school nor do we know who, specifically, should teach this.

Reading Teenage Life Online (2001)

Perhaps this research has been updated, but my advisor pointed me towards this study and it helped me to understand the teenagers I work with, and future teachers will work with, a little better:

Lenhart, A, Rainie, L & Lewis, O. (2001). Teenage life online; the rise of the instant-messaging generation and the internet’s impact on friendships and family relationships. Washington, D.C.: Pew Internet & American Life Project; http://www.pewinternet.org/report _display.asp?r=36, retrieved 28. January, 2008.

*The internet has a pivotal role in the lives of American teenagers. About 17 million youth ages 12 through 17 use the Internet: about 73%. Teenagers use of the Internet plays a major role in their relationships with their friends, their families, and their schools. (This is up according to readings from this class)

•55% of parents believe that it is essential for today’s children to learn how to use the Internet in order to be successful and another 40% believe it is important. (It is more than half. I imagine this number has gone up in seven years)

•Many teens manage and play-with their online identities. Significant numbers also say they pretend to be different people and that they have been given false information by others. (What teenager isn't playing with their identity? Shoot! What adult isn't?)

•At times, parents and teens don’t see eye to eye about the Internet and their family. Parents and their children often do not agree about the place of the internet in their home.(Are they supposed to?)

•At times, the role of the Internet at home generates struggles

•The Internet helps at school. 11% get their primary or only access to the Internet through school.

•87% of parents believe the Internet helps their children in school. 78% of teens agree.

•94% of online teens report using the Internet to research for school. (This is key for my understanding of research in 2008)

•71% say they relied mostly on Internet sources for the last big project they did for school.

•Online material is a teaching tool outside school, too.

•Going to the a website where they can express opinions about something is at 38% (Here is where I think Blogging is most interesting. I'm not sure if there are studies yet of how Blogging is used by classroom teachers. I'm interested in how it can be a tool for having students write beyond the "teacher as assessor" model we have today. Audience awareness is key in the teaching of writing and the development of a write)

•Creating a web page is at 24% (this study doesn't differentiate between web pages and social networking sites because social networking sites came after it was released.

•Not all teenagers use the internet in the same way (Imagine that. We're all individuals)

•Mutlitasking is a way of life

•The majority of teens and parents say that teenagers know more about the Internet than the adults (and their teachers!)

•83% use the internet primarily at home and not at school (This is a key item for me. This tells me that computer use is definitely a vehicle for homework and outside of school writing ---)

•The Internet allows a distance that allows more difficult conversations to occur online with friends.

•Most feel the Internet allows uses to find their true selves

•Schools are the primary place for those who are less privileged to have access to the Internet (Teachers need to know this!)

The Pew Internet study addressed a lot more, but this is what I thought was useful for my needs. I'm curious if they've updated it and I need to check on this. I guess that is what research is all about.

Bryan

Scribbling with THE DIGITAL PENCIL

I've just finished:

Lei, J., Conway, P.F., & Zhao, Y. (2008). The digital pencil; one-to-one computing for children. New York, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Although I may choose this text to review for another class, (we're assigned to write a review to send off for publication), I wish to post here how this text assists my thinking on "Blogging In An English Classroom".

•computers have moved from being innovative into being an appliance that can be used in a classroom like a pencil, a pencil sharpener and a chalkboard. “computer technology is no longer an innovation. Computers have become appliances seamlessly integrated into our lives.” 10 “Compared to innovations, appliances are more affordable, widespread and reliable; they have fixed functions and often disappear into the context where they are used. (2).

•There’s been a move from group ownership of computer technology to individual ownership.

•computers function as communities themselves: a community that can compute, take photographs, create video, watch DVDs, connect to the internet, fax, listen to the radio, etc

•social capital is the potential to access resources through social resources and informational resources available via technology today creates cyber communities. Interconnected communities grow. We are social creatures. Online people learn from each other and assist the learning --- an audience is real. Audience Awareness is key in a writing classroom.

•The internet is favored over other mediums during a student’s leisure time.

•At one time, information was “pushed” at individuals and controlled by those with media power. Today, information can be “pulled” to the convenience of those seeking information (or entertainment) when they want it. p. 12

•“The most fundamental change in ICT is perhaps the capability it affords individuals to publish and broadcast their ideas to a broader audience. Thanks to low-cost digital tools and easy access to the Internet, practically anyone who wishes to publicize his or her ideas, images, or any other personal information can do so. Publishing and broadcasting are no longer controlled by corporations or organizations; they are now within the reach of the individual. Podcasting, Web logs (or blogs), and YouTube.com are just a few examples of personalized publishing and broadcasting.

•“Blogging is another form of personalized publishing that has grown exponentially in a matter of years. A blog, or Web log, is a user-generated Web site written in a journal style. It started as manually entered online journal entires in the mid 1990s, but toward the end of the 1000s, tools to facilitate the creation of blogs became available, which made it possible for anyone who can browe the Web to contribute to the web. Blogs began to grow as a quickening speed. As of November 2006, a conservative estimate put the number of blogs at 60 million. Blogs kept by individuals have already become an important competitor to traditional mass media such as newspapers.” 13.

•rapid #’s of students are using “digital pencils”

•There needs to be a “co-evolution and co-adaptation for digital citizenship.” 186

• new, one-to-one learning is likely to play a critical role in helping education systems attain educational goals of:
o understanding the global system
o capacity to think analytically and creatively across disciplines
o ability to tackle problems and issues that do not respect disciplinary boundaries
o knowledge and ability to interact civilly and productively with individuals from quite different cultural backgrounds
o knowledge and respect for one’s own cultural traditions
o fostering of hybrid identies
o fostering of tolerance

•social networking sites allow the predicted two out of every three individuals who go online to be individuals who producing, collaborate, research and publish from their personal computers. 189

•pushes forth the questions: How is one-to-one technology changing children’s media consumptions and production patterns What is the role of adults and educators in mediating these patterns both in and out of school? 191

•m-generation: media/multitasking (Rideout, et. al, 2005), N(et) generation (Tapscott, 1998) or digital natives (Prensky, 2001). --- regardless, there is no distinction between play and learning. “They are not passive consumers of information, but energetic participants and active contributors to the digital world.” 192

•more intercurriculum, more sharing, more collaborating, more national, more international

•The digital world is a part of our lives. “Then, in this digital world, in which technology defines talents, what kinds of talents are needed? What kinds of skills will our students have to learn? Thus, schools need to teach our children to learn how to become competent citizens of this new world.” 200

•FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTS:
o knowledge of the nature of the digital world
o positive attitude toward the digital world, including appreciation for the complexity and uncertainty of it.
o ability to use different tools to participate and lead in the digital world
o ability to use different tools to express, create digital products, and create and manage online communities.

• “Our ecological view of technology necessitates that we take seriously the social life of the digital pencil.” 204

Zebra Mussels and Automobiles

I'm a believer in Dewey's belief that experience + reflection = knowledge. That is why I'm curious to experience this "blog world". Many of my graduates keep blogs while off at college and they've invited me to join. So, in 2008, I promised myself I'd spend a year journaling online to see what it is about --- this began before I knew about blogging weekly reflections for this class.

I keep writing journals and each is packed, but sits dusty on bookshelves with no audience. The "community" space of blogs intrigues me because it is a public. I think Chris's idea of "self aggrandizing" is true, and posting online has a bit of hubris to it. Yet, I'm recognizing early on -- who actually visits and reads these posts? One of my previous students, now a senior a Purdue, has blogged his entire college experience. I've keep up with it and am shocked by how detailed his postings are and how personal. I've wondered often, "is it decent to post such intimate material?"

Either way, this week I wanted to teach myself if it was possible to upload a video reflection for the reading. I don't know if I like that as a forum, but I'm giving it a try so I have a new experience to reflect on.

BrY

My Local Perspective on Political Definitions of E-Learning;

I grew up with a typewriter. Sometime in the young, 1980s, my family purchased Atari. When I headed off to college, I bought myself a Brother Word Processor. A few of the kids on campus from 1990 – 1994 had an Apple computer.

In 1996, after finishing my Teaching Masters, I enrolled for an environmental science degree, too. It was here, I first learned about e-mail. I worked as an intern for the Beargrass Creek Task Force and operated on an Apple computer for word-processing and creating newsletters, mailing lists and databases. Also, I began learning about the web and, with dial up, I helped create a Kentucky Environmental Resource Guide. Soon after, I bought my first Apple personal computer.

When I entered the classroom in 1998 to teach 9th, 1oth & 12th grade English, I didn’t have a computer in my room. Instead, I had the one at home. By 1999, we were upgraded to have a new computer. I had an original eMac. By 2001, I joined forces with the CSILE Network in my district, and this provided my students with four eMacs. By 2003, I had a Powerbook and now I operate on a MacBook Pro.

In many ways, I evolved with the current “E-Learning” age. As an English Teacher, I tried my best to utilize technology and feel moderately successful. I know that colleagues of mine chose the “Luddite” approach and I like to think of myself as more of an “enthusiastic embracer” (Conway & Zhao, 2003a). My room inevitably moved from a text-centered room to a text/cybertext reality. I transitioned with my students and I can attest to the digital divide (Zhao, Y., Lei, J. & Conway, P.F, 2006) of one urban school.

I am not a sage who is able to see far into the future, but I know that the conventional teaching strategies of yesterday will not be the same tomorrow. As a tool, computers, the internet and social network sites have changed a lot of my thinking about how to get students ready for a future where ICTs (Information and Communication Technologies) will be at the forefront.

Looking at the world of blogs and how they can encourage the teaching of writing in a high school classroom is my early-focus of this semester. Because of this, I wish to highlight several points made in Chapter 26: A Global Perspective on Political Definitions of E-Learning: Commonalities and Differences in National Educational Technology Strategy Discourses (Zhao, Y., Lei, J. & Conway, P.F, 2006).

#1- Zhao & Conway (2001) identified technology, teachers, students, and educational goals as the four defining elements of e-learning. How these four elements are seen through policy represent how e-learning might be viewed presently.

#2-Zhao & Conway (2001) brought from cognitive science and educational psychology that there are three images of student learning through e-learning policy: passive responder, active solo inquirer and active social inquirer. All three of these images can be found in online-blogs.

#3-With today’s global village, “the competition of economy among countries is more and more a competition of knowledge and technology is viewed as a powerful tool in improving the country’s competency in a global economy” (Zhao, Y., Lei, J. & Conway, P.F, 2006). Blogs joins the global village.

#4-Our national success relies on how able students are with acquiring skills and intelligence necessary for work and citizenship.(U.S. Department of Education, 1996). Blogs provide real-world audiences.

#5-“Can schools afford the investment? The real question is, can they afford not to make this investment?”(U.S. Department of Education, 1996). Schools have stipulations against blog website, but most students use blogs from home. Perhaps safe “blog spaces” are needed for schools to use where non-threatening posts can be guaranteed.

#6- There are inequities in the access to educational resources. (Sayers, 1996). All one needs to do is visit local schools in the city and in the suburbs.

#7-“The main goal for integrating technology in schools is to improve the performance of school children and thus enhance the country’s competency in a global economy. This view ignores the development of human beings and how the use of technology influences the overall development of students” (Zhao, Y., Lei, J. & Conway, P.F, 2006).

#8-e-learning policy and plans have a utopian tone and are extremely optimistic (Zhao, Y., Lei, J. & Conway, P.F, 2006). In the words of Brendan Kennally, “I love/to believe/in hope.”

#9- implementing new technologies in schools takes a long time (Zhao, Y., Lei, J. & Conway, P.F, 2006). There needs to be applause, however with how quickly American schools have accomplished a lot of good technological work. I’d argue that there was a lack in my experience, however, with professional development in technology. I am mostly self-taught.

#10-About one/third of e-learning policy does not provide a discussion about how students learn (Zhao, Y., Lei, J. & Conway, P.F, 2006). The internet has much available, however, for how students learn. The world is at their fingertips. They need to be taught how to navigate this, however.

#11- Policies assume that students are already active, quick and competent learners. (Zhao, Y., Lei, J. & Conway, P.F, 2006). In many instances, students are more capable than their teachers with technology. This needs to be noted, too.

#12-Teachers become Luddites or enthusiastic embracers (Conway & Zhao, 2003a). Embracing technology is the answer in my opinion.

#13-Technological optimism is frighteningly similar amongst international policies and seems to unite cultures rather than recognize the individual cultures of each nation with unique needs. (Zhao, Y., Lei, J. & Conway, P.F, 2006). Perhaps in the end we’ll finally learn there is only one race: the human race.

This text was wonderfully informative and written. It is needed in 2007.

Conway, P.F. & Zhao, Y (2003a). From ludittes to gatekeepers to designers: images of teachers in political documents. In: Zhao, Y (Ed.) What Teachers Should Know About Technology? Perspectives and Practices. Greenwich, CT: Information
Age Press

Sayers, D. (1995). Educational Equity In An Information Age. Teachers College Record

U.S Department of Education. (1996). Getting America’s Students Ready for the 21st Century: Meeting the Technology Literacy Challenge.

Zhao, Y., Lei, J. & Conway, P.F,. (2006). A global perspective on political definitions of E-learning: Commonalities and differences in national educational technology strategy discourses. In The International Handbook of Virtual Learning
Environments, 673 -697. Springer, Printed in the Netherlands.

Zhao, Y & Conway, P.F. (2001). What’s in, what’s out?: an analysis of state technology plans. Teachers College Record. Available online at: http://www.tcrecord.org/content.asp?ContentID=10717.

Welcome!

Tonight, I entered a new semester at Syracuse University enrolled in a class taught by Professor Jing Lei entitled, "Educational Media Theory and Research."  There are three students enrolled in the class and each of us are in charge of conducting an independent study on research that interests us in the field of technology.  

My major interests are in the teaching of writing, creating writing communities, encouraging creativity in the classroom and empowering students.  For many years, I've worked as a Critical Friends Coach, in a K - 12 Public School in downtown, Louisville, Kentucky: The J. Graham Brown School.  A past student of mine, Patrick Yen, created a video project to capture the essence of the school: community (which can viewed at this link).

For the last few years, I've followed a few students as they journal their college-experiences and I've had a growing interest in how "blogging" keeps the Brown School community alive.  I've dappled in a few blogs of my own, too, and currently I'm interested in how online, blogging communities can be used as a "critical friends" network.  In particular, I'm curious to how blogging can be used as a tool to support colleagues with their thinking, writing and teaching.

It is the intent of this blog to serve as a vessel for online communication as my classmates and I work our way through educational media theory.  

I welcome you.