Pushing Writing Literacy

Writing Literacy
Following the post on
http://weblogg-ed.com/2007/pushing-writing-literacy/

I realized that the ways I write today are very different from 10 years ago.
I write this blog, I maintained a weekly podcast for a year, create presentations and I still create newsletters as well.

The newest edition to my repetoire is posting to wikis. I have contributed to Wikipedia and maintain 3 other wikis on wikispaces.com.

Will Richardson is an inspiration to quote and follow up with.

"Makes me wonder, with all of the different ways in which I write, all of the different audiences I write for, all of the different ways I attempt to communicate and engage in conversations and connections around my ideas, it makes me wonder whether we'll ever see these many modes of writing as important enough to teach our kids."

I couldn't agree more. I do see some teachers valuing multiple modes of writing, but they are seen as leading edge or special. Shouldn't preparing our students to be literate be common practice?

Networking

Quoting Steve Dembo (Teach 42)
http://www.teach42.com/2007/10/18/building-out-the-choir/

[I] now believe that the most important thing you could teach a newbie would be how to build out their network. How to connect with other teachers and resources that will push their boundaries. And most importantly, how to support themselves when they stumble.
http://edtechlife.com/ Mark Wagner pitched a variation on this theme to http://center.uoregon.edu/ISTE/NECC2007/

NECC, and I hope they take him up on it. Regardless, I love the title he used. "Learning to network, networking to learn." Catchy, eh?

Falls right in line with that old phrase " Give a man to fish, he'll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish, he'll eat for a lifetime. Connect him to networks of hunters, and AllRecipes.com and he'll be able to eat a tasty fillet of tilapia with mushroom risotto and spring vegetables with lemongrass today. And tomorrow, maybe he'll start off with some smoked salmon and capers before moving on to."


The image above is from a network diagram that I created looking at how my network has changed in just the last 3 years. It is amazing how my life has changed with facebook, delicious, other online communities.
A recent story was shared with me about a student posting an essay frame to Wikipedia. Three days later the story was written. I asked a group of teachers how they would respond:
-Well, divide the mark by the number of contributors...
-No accept it as they didn't write it...
-Make sure that they quoted their sources

I look at it in a different way. Kudos to the student for being able to get the job done. This student knew how to work collaboratively, to draw on his network, and work in a timely fashion. Providing the essay was done well, they would have full marks in my books. I am not the creator of all information that I share. Why would I expect students to have to be the creator of all of their information?

Perhaps the assignment could even be tweaked to have the whole class work collaboratively to write either individual essays or create a content resource - such as a WIKI !.
Kevin

CUEBC Conference - Reaching one at a time

At the CUEBC conference hosted in Maple Ridge BC, I had the pleasure of having a conversation with Will relating to how to meet the needs of educators. It was a refreshing and hones conversation.

At one point, the question came up as to whether to spend purchase laptops for students or for teachers. The answer was to focus on the teachers. Thirty teachers that have a laptop to integrate into their personal and professional lives will change teaching far more than a class of students.

I found this fascinating and started thinking about it. We recently did a project with providing 10 laptops to 7 schools. We were looking at how that improved student learning and in particular writing. As positive as the results were, I now wonder how different it would have been to provide laptops to even 10 teachers in each of the schools (or 3 schools with 20 teachers) Instead of impacting 14 teachers practice and 350 students each year, our impact could have been 70 teachers and 1750 students.

As we drove deeper into conversation, I realized how much more valuable working with the teachers and building their capacity was. We can change the way we think and teach in the classroom that prepares students for what they can do at home. 1400 more students can take what they see modeled in the classroom and apply it at home.

It is fair to say that some schools do not have the same access at home for their students; however, most schools still have at least a computer lab and a classroom computer. (Not ideal but better than no access at all.)

Once the teaching has been empowered, there will be a better readiness for 1 to 1 laptop initiatives in the school. Currently our district would need to invest 5 million per year into just the hardware to impact 1 grade level. Instead, an investment of 200 000 would provide all of the teachers in a grade with a laptop. (Again not ideal, but with an impact of 5000 students)

A conversation with Will stretches your own understandings. The next thought that I had was that a laptop is not enough. To integrate effectively you also need a projector to share and demonstrate with students. That would involve a projector. Double the investment and we have a projector provided as well. I think for year one of the project that would be an amazing goal to have them integrating technology and impacting the learning of 5000 students in easily imaginable ways.

The next step that I can see is to provide SMART boards the following year. Maybe not all teachers will want them, but I would hazard after 1 year of being immersed with technology, most teachers would be ready for the next leap.

Is an investment of $3000 per teacher worth investment in student lives. (Assuming a life of 4 years on each of the 3 items, this boils down to $3000 / 4 years / 100 students or $7.50 per student.

As a parent, I would very happily pay $7.50 for my childrenís teacher to have access to tools that will prepare them not for yesterday but for thinking in the world they will be living in.

The Power of YouTube

I just read a very interesting article from the Washington Post Online.com http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/18/AR2007071802528.html?hpid=topnews


CNN and YouTube are sponsoring the next presidential debate. As part of the debate, they have requested questions submitted in 30 second video clips. They had more than 1479 submissions. Twenty-four were selected to be aired during the debate and to have the hopefuls respond to it. This is a very high profile option. Instead of letter writing as the communication method to participate in the debate, the ability to record and upload a 30 second video is the level of literacy required. (If you were living in the US, )

Are you literate enough to participate in this debate?

Are you literate enough to use youtube to educate yourself on what the canditates have said?

http://youtube.com/youchoose Are you literate enough to call candidates on their beliefs and statements with direct access to their statements on youtube? Being literate has shifted. Paper and Pencil have their place, but so do other communication technologies.

How information and media literate must teachers be?

"...teachers must learn what these technologies are and can do, and understand them, but without necessarily becoming proficient in their use." Marc Presnky 2007

Marc Prensky (2007) raises the important point in the sidebar. As teachers, we do not need to be proficient in all the emerging technologies. We are responsible to know about the technologies and how they can be used in teaching and learning.

His second point is, "But what all teachers should learn to do comfortably, though, are those things we can do without "looking stupid". This (we certainly hope!) is to evaluate their students' uses of the new technologies, and teach our students the important lessons about those technologies. Teachers can and should be able to understand and teach where and how new technologies can add value in learning."

Instead of trying to be experts in everything, we should focus on teaching and learning. The key is that we are looking at how the new technologies can add value to what we do already. I recently read that the power of technology is doubling each year. This means that there will continue to be an explosion of new technologies.

I do not expect teachers to know every new technology; however, I do expect teachers to become experts at finding the best tools for learning. This can be done in concert with students. We can make learning relevant by including students in the process. Students don't have to just receive what we tell them. We can empower students to be leaders in our classroom and school. Should we respond in fear and block or ban new technologies, or empower students with a statement such as, "If you can show me the educational value of this new technology then you or we can use it."

This creates an environment of relevance.

If we block and ban, we create an environment of irrelevance.

Teachers that fear and don't understand a technology demonstrate not understanding the importance of new technology to this generation. That sends a clear message that learning in that classroom is irrelevant. In the end, teachers do not need to be proficient at all things technology. They do need to have an understanding and acceptance that technology has the power to add value to learning experiences. That understanding should stretch into classroom teaching allowing students to learn with the powerful tools available to them. http://partners.becta.org.uk/page_documents/research/emerging_technologies07_chapter4.pdf

Data Literacy

When looking at literacy, the tide is changing to understand text as oral, visual, and written language forms that we interact and construct meaning from. (Adapted from the new English Language Arts 8 - 12 IRP)

Does this include being data literate? I believe so.

Last year I heard a student that had been using computers in school for 6 years and not used a spreadsheet. I find this just amazing. I use spreadsheets and other data tools daily. The spreadsheet is not the solution to all data learning, but it is a broad tool for data literacy. Understanding relationships between data, calculating, summarizing, organizing, searching, sorting, are all concepts teachable through spreadsheets.

An extension and even more powerful tool are databases. Many schools have access to online databases.
Here is an example:http://www.sdst.org/shs/library/catalogs.html

I realize there is too many things to learn everything; however, we are responsible to prepare to be self-directed learners. If we donít provide students a foundation of data literacy, how will they be able to be self-directed learners later. I can only imagine trying to learn what I know about spreadsheets and databases from scratch. It would turn me off and I would see a different solution.

An example for me recently is that I was learning InspireData a new product from Inspiration.com. †This software tool is a student friendly spreadsheet, database and survey tool. †Trying to learn this without background knowledge would have been difficult for me. †I was able to learn the software in short order and make it do what I wanted it to do. †
†
I was able to be self-directed because I have a firm foundation. †I would not have stuck with it to create the surveys I needed trying to learn all of it new.
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