My Rubric

I meant to post this earlier when I gave my description about a project I used to do with my seventh graders. I used to ahve the students work in teams to create a radio show. One option that the students had as a segment to produce was that of interview/talk show. Students could write questions, interview someone in the school and record it for inclusion in the radio show. Here is a rubric similar to the one I used to use. I always gave students the rubric ahead of time so that they knew what expectations that I was most concerned with. There were times in my classroom when we, as a class, would co-construct rubrics. I always found this to be a really rewarding and beneficial situation for both me and the kids because one might think that they would want to make the rubric really easy so they would be assured an easy A. For some kids this was the case but for most kids, they really took on this opportunity for agency and gave really important and thoughtful feedback about what should be included on the rubric. The process was so time consuming but so worth it. This rubric below is not one that the students had input on, but it is a near representation of one I used to use. Click the link below to go to Google docs to download the rubric. I couldn't figure out how to embed it here. Sorry!!

https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B3LUU23gb0rUZDY0ZWUzZTctMTRhNi00ZTQ4LTljZmYtNzU3Mjg2NjZhMWQx&hl=en

Website evaluation

I think that requiring students to do critiquing of websites is a really important thing to do because, for whatever reason, kids seem to think that whatever is on the web is good. They often fail to look into design features, use of space, and reliability. In college I had to do a big project evaluating five different websites and I found the critiquing process so valuable and eye opening that I required it as part of a GED English class that I taught for three years here in Eau Claire. Surprisingly the kids really liked it. I had designed an evaluation critique sheet in the form of a table and students had to answer various questions about the sties and make comments on different things. Their responses were overwhelmingly positive and I heard over and over again that the assignment made them look at websites differently. I know I do. When I visit a website I always find myself looking for a creator and the "last updated" date because information is changing quickly and if a website hasn't been edited for several years, and I am looking for current content, I will look somewhere else. I often use websites that I know to be accessible for my screen reader, or easily navigable with a magnifier. Some people might prefer the flashier sites but they ae really not for me. That is not to say that I like scantly designed websites. I like usable websites that are informative, current and accessible.

In thinking about evaluating a website, I actually first thought about a Ning that I am part of, not this one but one for another class. It really drives me nuts. First, the "look" of the site changes given the mood of the creator (or at least I have come to believe this). As opposed to our class Ning, which I have become fairly familiar with because i find it to be laid out in a very linear, easy to understand, non-cluttered fashion. This other Ning though will suddenly have videos on the main page or a wordle. Sometimes there will be embedded cartoons, which my screen reader only recognizes as "graphic". The links to course weekly assignments are in a different spot each week. Assignments are sometimes part of the weekly agenda and other times found on the main page, or under a discussion tab. One week I missed an assignment due date because I didn't even know there was an assignment because the requirements were laid out at the bottom of a page, but my screen reader got hung up in a graphic isaster and I wasn't able to navigate through the entire page.

Our class Ning is so different in that it has remained, in appearance, very consistent throughout the semester. Once I came to understand the environment, I could count on knowing where to find agendas and class expectations. There were no unnecessary flashy things that would get in the way of accessing content. I had relatively few snafus with accessibility. Links were, for the most part, all active and when clicked on, led me to the places I thought I would go. There were a few that didn't always link correctly but that happens to even the best designers. It was, all and all a reliable, content rich site. I wish that I could share the link to the other Ning so you could marvel at the differences but, sadly it is a private sigte for our class only so you'll only have to imagine a chaotic, graphics rich environment that is very visually stimulating, but not always user friendly.

The final final

Web 2.0 Accessibility Issues for the Visually Impaired

When we think about accessibility we often don’t consider is, in this rapidly changing technological world that we live in, which seems to rely heavily on web 2.0 tools for bridging our global community, how this affects those with disabilities.

Why should we think about accessibility on the web?
Accessibility is important to consider whether designing physical or virtual environments. For organizations that receive federal funding, it isn’t just a good think to do, it is the law. In 1998, Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act was established, requiring that US Federal agencies must purchase information technology products that meet accessibility specifications established by the US Access Board. According the According to the US Government’s Section 508 website, the adoption of Section 508 was enacted to eliminate barriers in information technology, open new opportunities for people with disabilities and encourage the development of technologies that will help achieve these goals. All federal agencies, and those that receive federal A fall under Section 508’s governance and must seek to adopt and maintain accessible information and electronic technology for their employees and the members of the public needing access to their information. This includes public schools.

Common inaccessibility issues with Web 2.0 tools:
-Inaccessible login boxes or security tests with no audible alternative as an option. Voice software often recognizes this as graphic
-Inaccessible interfaces which depend on drag and drop interaction with the use of a mouse
-Inaccessible user-created content which utilizes images without alternate text, styles, fonts and designs that are difficult/impossible to read, or rich media that is included without captions
-Inaccessible controls on audio or video players that are not compatible with assistive technology
-Use of JAVA which, in an attempt to make a web page feel more responsive, the user is able to exchange small amounts of data with the server behind the scene without reloading the entire webpage, but screen readers often see this as image or graphic and not as text and will not read it.

What is assistive technology?
Assistive technology for the visually impaired can include applications like screen enlargement tools, screen readers, refreshable Braille displays, handheld media storage devices, cell phones and for some, dictation programs. Both Windows and Mac operating system designers have recognized the importance of accessibility and have made great strides to include universal accessibility features within their operating systems which they believe can eliminate or at least reduce the need for additional stand-alone software installations.

The versatility and potential that Web 2.0 tools offer to teachers and students is amazing, though, educators should proceed with caution before requiring that a tool be used by all students for completion of a task. Consider the following:
- Check out web applications ahead of time, read reviews, find out how it measures up in terms of accessibility.
-Ask the students with exceptional access needs whether they are familiar with the application and/or if the assistive technology they are using will work in tandem with the tool
-Be sure that the purpose for which the tol is being used makes sense given the diverse needs of the learner. For example, does making an iMovie make sense when a project might be completed a different way? Will the creation of a picture collage really move a student’s thinking forward if she cannot see the images? Can a student provide written feedback instead of using videoAnt?
-Keep up to date, or at least try, to stay on top of up and coming improvements to assistve technology and web applications. Even within the last two years there have been many improvements to tools for the visually impaired that have made things possible that only a few years ago might have seemed like a distant, if not impossible achievement.

To view my VoiceThread presentations, divided into two parts because of length, see below:
http://voicethread.com/share/1596170/

http://voicethread.com/share/1596340/

Finally-Final Project

Below are links to my presentations for this class. I guess my VoiceThread got too long and I had to split it... at least I think that is what happened.


http://voicethread.com/share/1596170/

http://voicethread.com/share/1596340/

Blog as Portfolio-the semester in review

Blog/Ning post: Treating your blog as a portfolio, review back over your blog posts and reflect on your own learning/changes in the course: what have you learned? how have you changed? what more do you still need to learn?

It has been quite a semester and I must say that I have learned a lot over the course of the semester. First, I think I came into the course viewing digital writing tools as a good thing that could be used here and there within the curriculum to support a particular concept. What I failed to recognize at that time, but do now, is that digital writing is the direction in which the teaching of writing is moving and that as language arts teachers, we must change with the times. That is not to say that everything should, or must become an online task. I believe that if there is still a more efficient way to complete something offline, I might still choose to do this. However, if using online tools can enhance a particular learning experience, or make more efficient the way in which I critique students' work, bring it on! As a learner I have been exposed to so many new tools like VoiceThread, iMovie, iPhoto, and podcasting not to mention Diigo, VoiceAnt and Flickr. Some of them I have loved, others I have not. Most of the time when I have not loved a particular program or tool, it is an accessibility issue for me. Some of the tools, while cool, are not the right things for me and my teaching, while others, like voicethread and creating and downloading videos to YouTube will become a part of my regular practices. I love Diigo (the version that does work with Safari). as well and that has become an invaluable way in which I keep track of things that I want to share with students, and things I come across that will help me complete my dissertation. Though not truly accessible, I work through the challenges. What I have learned, as someone sensitive to the diverse needs of students, is that these tools have amazing potential for the future of teaching writing,. What bothers me still is that teachers will want to jump in and adopt all of these tools without considering that some of these tools are not right for all students and, what can be something great, can become a giant barrier in the learning process for some students. What I'd like to learn more about are ways in which students with disabilities can participate in the use of these learning tools, without the frustration that I have felt this semester. I am sure there are ways that some of these programs can be made more accessible, or maybe there are alternative tools all together. We just need to figure that out.

If you were to have students create portfolios for one of your past or present classes (hypothetical class if you’re not teaching) what material would you ask students to include in this portfolio? How would you use the features of e-portfolios—for example a blog or wiki—to have students display and reflect on their work? What criteria would you use to evaluate students' portfolios? How might students use of the the Minnesota e-folio, for example, for high school seniors seeking work? What are some problems with the authenticity of student reflections?

If I were to have students use an e-portfolio, I would ask them to include weekly reflections of their teaching experiences (right now I work with practicum students) and perhaps videos of their own teaching. What I think would also be interesting for inclusion would be videos of students doing their teaching with VideoAnt used to then critique their own teaching experiences, highlighting what went well and what needed improvement. If students used a blog type atmosphere for hosting their portfolios, I would also like them to include links to sites that they find helpful in informing their teaching, finding lesson plans, professional organizations in their content areas or bookmarks to interesting articles related to teaching news around the nation. I am just getting my first experience with evaluation of practicum students as we approach the end of the semester but I would evaluate students using a combination of written feedback and a audio file most likely. I feel like, even with all of the technology that exists, there is still a need for that "paper trail" of what went on in a students' placement. On the other hand I know I'd give more thorough feedback in an audio file because I wouldn't have to write it all down and would be more likely to elaborate on my thoughts. I would certainly encourage students to use their online e portfolios for interviewing because then administrators could see an instantaneous display of a student's work and growth and even ability to reflect.

Given the nature of the course I teach right now, it would be challenging to incorporate the tools we've learned about in this course. My students are just getting into their classrooms so many of them are not yet teaching in the large group setting. This eliminates the ability to use videos yet. But perhaps in the coming semesters as I teach students further in their teaching experiences will these tools find a place in my teacher toolbox. Personally though, I have been sharing a lot more of our family with extended family and friends through posting of videos and pictures and creating slideshows/voicethreads to share. I am not so scared of trying to take on the technology. I used to leave the posting of videos and the uploading of photos to my graphic design/art educator husband because I saw that kind of stuff as stuff that he knew a lot about. Now I feel like I have a better understanding of how it works and don't need to wait for him to make and upload videos of our kids to our YouTube or Facebook pages. Additionally I have found that I am more apt to consider using a technology tool rather than just a paper pencil tool, especially as I prepare to design the curriculum for this summer school course that my husband and I are co-teaching. Middle school kids, and even elementary school kids are going to love this stuff!!! The class has been a great one for me!

Check out this PowerPoint

I have been a user of PowerPoint presentations as a teacher for the history of my teaching career, not because I like them as a learner myself, but out of necessity to accommodate the visual learners in my classroom. At first I needed A LOT of help even putting together a simple PowerPoint. It was comical really. Most of my help came in the form of eager advice tidbits from my seventh graders. I have to admit that my PowerPoints were not interactive, were very straightforward and had no animations, transitions or even pictures. I was satisfied with merely getting a presentation completed.

As a student I have had the agony of sitting through countless presentations that are the ideal model of how NOT to do a PowerPoint. Too many words, no interaction, you name it. Essentially I believe that some use PowerPoint as a replacement for teaching. Class becomes an experience of a teacher clicking through and reading through slides. That is not instruction. Anyone who can read can do that. This has heightened my awareness and attentiveness to creating presentations that are used as a resource and are informative yet do not completely replace the instructor. I couldn't quite get a handle on how to narrate this presentation that I am linking to here, but if I could have, I would have, in addition to what you will see on the screen, added a lot of my own thoughts to supplement the online images and text. I hope you still enjoy the presentation. I have it in my google docs so here's the link!

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B3LUU23gb0rUNjZmYmJlY2UtNzVlNy00NDNhLTllYjYtZGVkZDc0NDllMTU1&hl=en

Digital Poetry

I find the melding of images and poetry to be fascinating. I enjoyed viewing the work of Thom Swiss because one could "read" his poetry numerous times and never have the same outcome. My poem is nothing like that, very linear because I lack the technical know-how to create something interactive, but I think it would be neat to learn how to do something like that.

I see the use of digital poetry as having great potential in the classroom particularly with middle and high school students. I think they'd really enjoy the experience of finding images to compliment text. By using hypertext, or doing something similar to what Thom did in his work would be really exciting.

While images are powerful, I do feel like when the author chooses the images to go along with a text, it takes a bit of the ability to imagine away from the reader. When I read things, I like to imagine in my mind how things look, how they unfold, and when the author does that for me, it takes away a bit of that ability from me. I liken this experience to going to see a movie that was based on a book. I may have imagined characters to look and behave one way, but the director and producers interpret things differently than I, and the characters might be nothing like I had hoped, leaving me sadly disappointed.

Due to the visual nature of the assignment, I had a lot of trouble completing the task. Someone else had to fit the pictures with the text, size the images and insert transitions for me because iMovie is not visually accessible to me. As a student in a class, being asked to use iMovie might be a very frustrating experience because it takes the student's independence away to a degree. I have not, as of yet, come up with a more accessible video production software though, so iMovie might be, at this time, as good as it gets.

Nevertheless, I hope that you enjoy my poem. It is entitled, "Today on Facebook" and is an original poem I wrote while in a class with Thom Swiss. I wrote it during the period of class when we were studying list poems, specifically Shards of Memory and how playing with time and fragmented ideas can be formatted into a poem. I used actual fragments of statuses from my own facebook profile. You'll have to excuse the blurriness of some of the pictures. They also were taken (mostly) from Facebook, but true to life, sometimes profile pictures on the site aren't exactly representative of top-notch photography but rather shotty cell phone pics.

A comic about an non-comical time

Using Comic Life I created the following comic strip about our family's Christmas 2009 experience. I kid you not, our entire family came down with the flu within about 3 minutes of one another and were up the entire night before Christmas doing laundry and cleaning up after sick kids. Needless to say, Christmas was not very jolly at our house last year. We are keeping our fingers crossed that this year is a bit more joyful in the Johnson household. I enjoyed using Comic life and I could see how kids could really get into this as well as they weave together images and text to tell a story.

My husband and I are actually hoping to teach a class this summer about graphic novels/comics to elementary and middle school students. My husband, being the more graphically-savvy guy is going to be in charge of helping the students create their images and I will be coaching them in creating complimenting text. It is an eight day course for elementary school students and a five-day course for middle school students. We are really looking forward to it. We're hoping for success, especially given the recent attention being paid to Graphic Novels as an exciting new literature genre.

I promise...

Hi everyone,
Okay, so finally I figured out my whole podcast issue. You can listen to the podcast at:
http://teachermomof4.podomatic.com/entry/2010-11-08T18_35_51-08_00

As for this week's assignment, incorporating the use of podcasts in the classroom, I thought about this quite a bit. Here are some things that I thought would be good ways to use podcasting.

-For a few years I had the kids create a radio show complete with different segments (school news, weather, sports, commercial breaks, jokes, etc). I tied the preparation part of the radio show into researching different topics and writing different stories (focus on journalism and technical writing). The kids would rehearse and then record their shows and then we'd listen to the completed show as a class via a cassette tape. A lot of the kids would ask for copies to share with parents and the copying became so tedious that often times it just fell through the cracks of the piles of stuff that one must accomplish as a teacher. I see podcasting as a very easy way to eliminate the hassle of making multiple copies of the finished product because as a teacher I could just provide the link. Additionally I think this is great because the sharing doesn't have to stop at the classroom level. More parents can hear what we are doing as a class.

-Along with the radio show idea for sharing work completed in the class, I feel like this same mechanism could be used as an avenue by which students could really share any kind of writing. I think it is so great to hear students read their own work because it gives a voice to their work but it also allows the students to hear their work read out loud. The use of podcasting would be a way for students to read their work and, again, share it with others via a link. Parents, family members and other students could hen hear what students are accomplishing. I think this could be especially cool for poetry because reading poetry aloud is a skill that I believe helps students develop their fluency and I love hearing students read their own work, giving voice to their own words.

-One of the projects I used to do with my students was a Legacy project for which I had students interview a member of an older generation about how times have changed, what school used to be like, what their childhood activities were like, advice the older generation would give to younger kids, etc. The students would then take the interview and create a written story from it. I believe that the interviews could just as easily be done and used to create podcasts. Not all students have access to individuals with computers/Skype but for those that do, they could use Skype to record interviews or record directly into Garageband or Audacity.

-Each quarter I gave the students a list ofoptions that could be done as "Quarter Projects". All the project options required some use of language arts skills but varied from creating posters to performing skits. One of the options was to read a book, or a portion of a book and create an audio recording of the reading. I think it would be neat if students would use Audacity or Garage band to not only read aloud the text, but add multiple tracks/layers, adding sounds to enhance the story, or read with multiple people to create an engaging read aloud. Then the final projects could be posted for others to hear.

Now that I'm teaching at the college-level and don't always have an extended period of time during which I get to engage with my students, I struggle to come up with ways in which podcasts would be helpful. I supervise practicum students in their initial experiences in elementary school and then each week students turn in a weekly journal reflection. I can see how asking the students to complete their weekly reflections using a voice thread would be advantageous but because of the personal nature of some of the things which students take up in their reflections, sharing these journals wouldn't be something that I would suggest via podcast.

I know you were waiting...

Hi there!!
I know you were waiting anxiously to hear my first podcast. Here it is!!! Visit me on PodOmatic!

http://teachermomof4.podomatic.com/

The podcast

So I really liked making my podcast. Once again, I struggled with choosing a topic, but once I did, I felt really comfortable. I took up the topic of book recommendations. I LOVE talking to people and finding out what they are reading/have read/would recommend, both for themselves and for children. So my podcast was called "Love Books?" and it highlighted four books that we hold in our library at home, and that I recommend to others. The first one that I cover is a book appropriate for infants and toddlers related to bedtime routines. The second features Mo Willems' pigeon and his hotdog adventure. The third book, appropriate for middle schoolers, teens and adults, "The Hunger Games," is a page turner for readers representing a range of ages, and at first wasn't a book that I thought I'd ever fall in love with. Finally I selected a book, "The Soloist," that is a great non-fiction adult book. Don't you want to hear the podcast?? Me too... but I'm still trying to work out the sharing part of the project so though its done, it is still secret until I can figure out how to share it with you!!! To be continued!!!

IMovie and Podcasting

So for this week's adventure I explored iMovie. I really struggled with a topic for a movie because I'm not in a classroom (besides to observe practicum students) and no other part of my own life is that exciting that it is worthy of a movie. I wanted the movie to serve a purpose as well. My son was just diagnosed with a Pervasive Developmental Disorder about two weeks ago. For those who may not know what PDD is, it is a category that includes Aspergers Syndrome and Autism, probably two disorders most of us in education have at least heard of, if not have dealt with in the classroom. As a family we are trying to find ways to help our son deal with social outings, particularly those that are a break from his routine, which can be extremely challenging. Because Halloween was coming up, I decided to create a movie "social story" for McKail to prep him for what to expect during our Halloween weekend. McKail would then be able to watch the movie repeatedly, see himself and hear his name in the movie and know what to expect. The use of social stories is pretty common place in working with children with these types of developmental disorders. I wish I could say that our Halloween was flawless, which I can't, but McKail did love the Social Story and perhaps it did help out! It may seem very elementary in the word choice and the flow, but that is how social stories usually are; they are meant to be very simplistic but very reassuring at the same time.

I thought I'd say more...

I didn't realize that there were some questions that I should have included in my initial post on role play so here are my responses for those:

1. What were some things that you did to create your role through use of language, information in/images used for your bio?

I played the role of a private school administrator. For me, I made language choices that would be things that I could imagine our principal saying (the principal at my daughter's Catholic school). Because private schools do cost money I felt like I was always have to "sell" my viewpoint so I used persuasive words and looked for research that supported the work that private schools are able to do, that public schools can't always accomplish.

2. What arguments were you making to convince other roles to support your position?

I made arguments that private schools are able to tailor their curriculum to have higher standards and focus on core curricular values without getting distracted by the "fluff" of schools. I sited studies that shared statistics that private schools score better on standardized tests as well and that parents have a choice in picking a school that supports their beliefs/views about what education should/should not be.

3. What evidence or reasons were your employing to support your positions? Do you think that this evidence or reasons were effective in convincing others to adopt your positions?

I highlighted many of my reasons for choosing private schools over public in the previous question. The evidence was okay, but I feel like it wouldn't necessarily convince someone that public schools need to be disbanded. Additionally, because I was trying to convince people to PAY for private education, that is simply not something that everyone can do, even though I did share a lot of situations in which people can get scholarships, that still takes work and cultural and social capital to which not everyone has access.

4. Which roles had the most versus least power in this role-play? What are some reasons that these roles did or did not have power? What were some strategies that the roles with power employed?

There was an individual that often made jokes rather than stated facts and though I really loved that from a humor standpoint, in a real debate I would be irritated by someone who wasn't taking a serious matter seriously. I was most impressed by those who included data in their responses but also comments packed with a lot of emotion are, to me, effective.

5. Were there differences between your personal beliefs and those of your role? Did your own personal beliefs on this issue change at all due to the role-play?

Well, this is complicated. I feel like I, as a parent, utilize my role as a white, educated individual, especially being a past K-12 educator when thinking about education. I send my kindergartener to parochial school and will most likely send my other 3 kids to parochial school as well. I will do this because I know what is involved in being a teacher in public education, and how sometimes instruction suffers under the pressure of administrators concerned only with test scores and not with students' well being, moral and social development as well so playing the role of a private school administrator was okay for me. It was hard though to not slip into the role of parent. Right now our kids' school is possibly going to close because of budget cuts so I have been playing the role of very active parent lately in trying to save our school so my emotions are running high right now. It was easy therefore to support a private school option because I do feel that my kids, in classes which are right around 15 kids, with teachers who are invested deeply in their religious development as well as their academic development will meet my child's needs better than, let's say, the public school down the road that has not met AYP in 3 years, where the kindergarten classroom has 27 kids in it. The role play didn't really change my opinion much. When I used to teach 7th grade, I worked on a team with 5 other teachers and all but one of us sent our kids to private school because we all were frustrated with the state of public education, even as public educators. And we weren't alone. In the school where I taught, more than half of the teachers who had kids sent them to public school. Our administrator actually called us together at a point and questioned why this was? She said we were setting a bad example by not supporting public school. I felt like saying to her that she was setting a bad example by not caring about kids... but I thought better of it!

Online Role Play

After our role play activity in class I have a lot of thoughts on using this in the classroom. I think there is a lot of potential, especially for students who may not speak up in a face-to-face debate, students like me. It is quite a bit easier (in some ways) to take on a role that you may not necessarily agree with and push an agenda associated with that role because everyone knows everyone is just playing a role and therefore hopefully no one would take anything that was said too seriously and wouldn't be out to judge what students are saying. In our debate in class I know I said things that I wouldn't have ever said in my true self role. I was much more verbal. It was also exciting to take on a role that was vastly different from my own perspective. I've been asked to do this for a number of classes and I always enjoy the experience. As a teacher I used to teach a debate unit and wish I would have considered using the online format to carry out that unit. It opens up a lot more possibilities for students who are naturally more passive in class. I also feel like it could be used to debate issues that come up within novels as well. So many possibilities.

Wiki-ing

A few years ago I tried using a wiki in my classroom with my students related to the Holocaust. It didn't work, not because the kids weren't capable of adding content, but because the limited access to computers required that all of the students were posting at the same time in our school's computer lab. Because of the synchronous posting, many posts didn't show up and it became a frustrating process for all of us. I never tried again with my students.

For this class, when asked to think up a blog topic, because I couldn't exactly find a place where it would neatly fit into the course I am teaching, I thought I'd make a wiki that would fulfill another interest of mine, and help others with whom I'm connected-parents. The wiki is a resource for parents on ideas and activities to do with kids. I am hoping that, after I share the wiki site with my friends and family, they will add to it and we can all learn from one another. I have some things to figure out yet and so it is a work in progress and pretty basic, but I'd like to spice it up as I become more familiar with the workings of wikis.

http://havingamommyday.pbworks.com/

I hope you enjoy!

A new way of telling a story

For my next trick... no, just kidding. This class does make me feel like a magician of sorts realizing all of the cool things that can be done with all of the free technology tools that are out there on the web. This week's endeavor, the voice thread story. I struggled to choose a topic. I was just going to talk about how awesome my kids are, and though to me that would be a completely fulfilling assignment, I chose otherwise to tell a story about one of my children, but to have a point to the story. So here goes, this was an emotional one for me, and I can see some glitches in it but for my first shot at putting speech to pictures, I think it is okay.
http://voicethread.com/share/1369684/

I hope you enjoy!!

A girl Like Me Vlog

Whom do you think is the audience for this vlog and, in terms of “visual rhetoric,” what aspects of the vlog are designed to appeal to this audience? What video/editing techniques are employed in this vlog post and how effective are they?

I had an opportunity to view the vlog "A Girl Like Me" which featured female teens talking about race and identity. I chose this video because I am extremely interested in both race and identity of minority children. I feel that the audience that this vlog targets could be educators, teens or individuals interested in race issues. I think that this video blog could be used effectively to initiate conversation about issues of race and self-confidence. The study conducted during the video where children were asked to look at dolls (white and black) and choose which was the nice doll, the beautiful doll, and even black children chose white dolls... this is SO sad. I recently watched a similar study that was done and highlighted on Anderson Cooper 360 and the results are so disheartening. Society is damaging the souls of our children by negatively portraying race so that even children can't/don't love their own color of skin. The video techniques that I found especially good about this video was that variety was used. It was not just focused on the individuals that were talking. Multiple people were used and images related to the topic were used along with voice over techniques for variety. I wish I would have/could have had time to try these techniques out when I made my own vlog but with practice perhaps I can incorporate variety, still and motion shots and voice over techniques in vlogs of my own in the future.

From Blog to Vlog

Today I took the next big step in digital media exploration. I created a vlog. This experience for me became a family affair because, to be fair to my children, I can't do much of anything without them being far from my mind... or in this case, the screen. So, sit back, relax, and get ready to meet me and the real stars of my Vlog.



And, while we're in the mood of sharing videos, here's a video that I think better captures my roller coaster of a life. Though I didn't "make" the video myself, I was, I guess, the star. This video says what I couldn't in my 3-4 minute vlog.

So many choices

Scarcely three weeks into this course on the myriad of options available for the teaching of digital writing and my head is already spinning. It is hard to fathom what the teaching of English will look like in ten years, especially when most of what we are learning in this class wasn't even on the radar of my professor for two Educational Media and Technology courses eight years ago. While all of these advances are well and good, for my final project I was thinking of approaching the use of these exciting tools in the classroom with students with exceptional learning needs. For most users it is not too difficult to create an account on, let's say Diigo, for example, and start to use the product. Picking up a camera or camcorder and shooting some footage isn't too daunting of a task, but what about for those students who don't have full use of their vision, hearing or extremities. In this case do these amazing technologies become more of a hindrance than a help? Are there other things out there that are equally as exciting AND accessible? For my final project I'd like to delve into that, for both personal and professional reasons.

I was born completely blind and went through my entire K-12 education, and part of college, with no residual vision. I used Braille, human readers and audio books to accomplish my school work. Sometimes I'd use a scribe in class. I learned to type when I was six because even back in the eighties, the computer was the thing to do if one was blind, to "level the playing field". As technology evolved I was introduced to numerous assistive technology devices and programs developed to help students like me. AT has truly been a lifesaver for me and I can most certainly attribute at least part of my being in a PhD program now to their use. That doesn't mean the road to accessibility was or is easy. Even after regaining some sight in college after a cornea transplant I continued to be faced with computer programs and websites, designed to help most of the population, that would be completely inaccessible to me. My frustrations are not isolated. Individuals with hearing and mobility impairments as well as those with learning disabilities experience their own set of challenges. Even in college I was excused from nearly a semester's worth of technology requirements because the technology professor couldn't figure out how to make JAWS (my screen reader) work in tandem with many of the programs and sites we were using.

I don't mean to sound cynical because I can be lulled by all awesome things that are out there just as easily as the next person, but before jumping into ,and embracing anything full force, I like to be sure that the product/service is usable to all students, so that I don't have to make any of my students feel like a burden if I were to introduce and require the use of some program in one of my classes. The premise of my final project then is to examine and critique the usability of many of the tools we are exploring in this class and hopefully come up with some sort of project that could be helpful for all of us and we leave this course, something that we can all refer to in order to determine the usability of these cool tools. In order to find information on this, I plan to use texts that I will locate in the Education Full text database, speak with AT specialists in the U of Disability Support Services Office and explore some of the AT tools that I have heard about available on the web, but haven't had a chance to explore fully. What will result is a mystery to me at this point. Hopefully this is a suitable idea for a final project.

We need to learn this stuff!

Here's a video that I think speaks volumes about why embracing the use of not just digital writing tools, but technology in general is essential to the education of our children. They need this!!!

My Initial Thoughts on Blogs for Personal and Professional Use

When thinking about the question, "how have I/could I use blogs in my everyday life?" at first I thought, I am not a blogger. It didn't take me long to realize, however, that I indeed am a blogger and have been actively doing so for the past three years. In January of 2007 my second child was born prematurely. Instead of bringing home a baby after a few short days in the hospital, our family was thrown into the world of the unknown. We spent weeks at the bedside of our son as he struggled for life in a Level 3 Neonatal Intensive Care Unit two hours from our home. In our time of greatest need, we received hundreds of calls and emails, everyone wanting to know what was happening, how we were doing and what people could do to help. One of the NICU nurses told us about CaringBridge, a website which helps connect families of chronically ill patients with other family and friends through the use of journal updates and a guestbook feature. Suddenly Caringbridge became our lifeline to the outside world. Essentially I blogged twice a day, sharing our victories and setbacks with anyone who read our journal. Blogging for my husband and I became a sanity-saver. After we were able to bring our son home we continued to blog about his daily activities, ongoing medical treatments and milestones. We found so much comfort and support from the more than 6,000 hits on our blog.

Professionally I have never kept a blog, but I always thought it would be interesting to read the blog of a first year teacher, or any teacher for that matter because sometimes, when I share stories about real life in the trenches of middle school, people are amazed at what really goes on in classrooms today. I have, however, required that my students blog. Four years ago I created a Moodle site, on which I required students to blog about books we were reading, units which we were studying, and some students were inspired to just blog for the sake of blogging. It was a useful tool for me as an educator because I was able to monitor and respond to my students' work in a convenient manner. I could read blogs anywhere I had computer access and was able to do away with my box of journals that I had otherwise been lugging home every Friday afternoon. Additionally, the ability to type rather than write was very motivating for some students because they either didn't like the physical act of writing, or because they liked using technology so much that the act of using the computer made the work more exciting. For me, I was also able to respond in a more timely manner to students, seeking clarification or further explanation.

In the teacher prep course I have been teaching for a university in my city, I have always thought that blogging would have been an amazing tool to use with my early practicum students. I would have loved to have students blog at least once a week about their experiences in middle and high school classrooms and require that they reflect on things that happened and ask questions about things that were new or interesting to them. For my class, however, the technology never fell into place, and so far this is still something I'd like to do in the future, if the opportunity arises.

As a PhD student at the U I have been required to create and keep a blog on several occasions. In most cases the blogs have been personal, ie. each student has his/her own blog and we post weekly and then are expected to read others' posts as well. In one class we used, what I would consider a class blog, if there is such a thing. Each week we had to log on to one blog that was created by our professor and we all contributed to the topic being discussed. It wasn't really a discussion board because many times there were not responses given to what was written. We were just expected to write, and read all the posts each week.

I believe the the use of digital writing tools have the potential to enhance teaching in many ways. As I mentioned, when I used blogs in my classroom with my middle school students, I was able to give more timely feedback. Students enjoyed writing on a computer more than they seemed to enjoy writing things by hand (which some kids seem to find nothing short of laborious). Students also had access to the writing of other students (though this was still carefully controlled in our building) and could learn from their peers. On the flip side, I do feel that for some students digital writing can be a hinderance. One thing that made the use of blogs and wikis and the like difficult for me as a teacher was access to the technology. I taught in a school of 1200 students. We had three computer labs which, between the three totaled 65 working computers (on a good day). Scheduling a computer lab was nearly impossible and usually involved begging, compromise and prayers to the computer Gods that once in a lab, the computers actually worked. Though 80% of my students had computers at home, that still left another 20% that didn't so access at school was limited and access at home for many students was not available. So, though some students had easy access to our Moodle site, many students simply didn't have the opportunity to use a computer to get online and participate. Another hinderance for me was that some parents did not feel comfortable at all with the use of Moodle and other technology tools because they feared for the privacy of their child's work. As a parent of children I can respect their fears, and though our district wen to great lengths to protect our students, things still happened, kids got bad emails from other students in other districts who someone gained access to our sites and some parents refused to have their kids use blogging or Moodle at all. Finally, I think accessibility is an issue for some people, particularly those with disabilities. Though many sites are accessible (for example, for the blind), not everything is 100% user friendly all the time. This can be frustrating for students and for me as a teacher. I have a visual impairment myself and rely a lot on a screen reader to accomplish tasks online. When I get on a site that prohibits me from doing my work independently, it takes the fun out of the task. I hate to create frustration for students by requiring them to use something that is not accessible.

What I'd like to learn... I know I have a lot to learn. I need to know much more about wikis. I tried to use one with my students but because we were all logged on at once usually during a class period, the simultaneous posting didn't work and so I stopped using the wiki. I'd really like to know more about how this can be a useful tool in a classroom and how to do the tagging and bookmarking associated with wikis. Also, I use YouTube as a teacher frequently and we have used our video camera to capture family moments but I've always left the editing and posting up to my husband. I would like to become familiar with how to create a video and post it, so that others can enjoy it too. This could be so helpful in delivering instructional material by creating a podcast for others to watch. Of course I'd also just like to know how to do it so that I can actually share videos of my kids instead of just watching them on the camera. I also would like to hear others' ideas about how to make the use of technology possible in a classroom in which availability of such technology is limited. How can we get video cameras in the hands of kids, how can blogging happen more often, when resources are so limited? As an English teacher I think it would be amazing to do some digital story telling or do something with performance poetry and get this on video to be shared with others but in my school, because of what we had to work with, this was never a possibility. I think there are so many possibilities, I can't wait to learn about everything that is out there!