Sunday, April 14, 2013
David Crystal: Texts and Tweets: Myths and Realities
In this video, David Crystal speaks to some of the questions I had about digital literacy.
Some notes:
David Crystal: Teachers are the managers: internet management is rarely taught in school. The teachers are alert to the need to try to balance the two kinds of cognition needed to remain literate in both worlds. Use the technology so that the reading of the novel is made motivating to them. Book as central, technology as marginal. For young people it is switched around. Part of the curriculum, but part of English instruction in schools? yes, already happening... Also happening in English as a foreign language as well...major development in english language teaching curriculum over the past 20 years has been to inculcate into kids this notion of the appropriateness of language. replacing the older black and white, correct/incorrect concept of language by a more sophisticated notion that every style of language has its purpose, but you've got to see what the purpose is. The best way of seeing what the purpose is is by contrasting it with what it is not. A typical exercises in these schools that do this now, are ... take an essay and what would you have to do in order to turn it into a text message, and conversely, take a text message and turn it into an essay. And, are there certain subject matters that work for the one, but not for the other? The answer is yes, so let's find out what they are. What sorts of information are usefully communicated by text? What sorts of information are usefully communicated by essay?
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
Animated Digital Story
Click on the picture below. Click on arrow when it appears to go to the next page. This is my first try at making a flash animation.
Friday, February 22, 2013
Initial Questions Regarding Digital Learning and Fluency
Who is deciding what = fluency?
Whose values are reflected?
Whose values are reflected?
Some things I've heard about fluency: Fluency equals transparency, productivity, creativity--not just what tools to use and how to use them, but when to use them and why, and this is ideally developed through a boundary-less, informal, self-directed, socially-connected, collaborative, rhizomatic, explorative, and measured way.
But...
Sometimes...
learning is a discipline and content-driven...something which, if persevered through,
can produce depth in quality knowledge products
the lecture theatre is a good way to learn...the notebook and pen are the best way of learning something...
Sometimes...
learners need to engage with the unengaging...
and sometimes a textbook can be a very helpful and quick way to overview a topic.
But...
Sometimes...
learning is a discipline and content-driven...something which, if persevered through,
can produce depth in quality knowledge products
the lecture theatre is a good way to learn...the notebook and pen are the best way of learning something...
Sometimes...
learners need to engage with the unengaging...
and sometimes a textbook can be a very helpful and quick way to overview a topic.
Critical thinking and effective use of language are part of the traditional education as well.
Why create false dichotomies, valuing one type of teaching and learning over another? Each has value in its proper context.
Pedagogical Fluency=knowing what type of method, when to use it, how to use it and why what we choose is the best practice in a given context...
Digital Fluency -- whose language?
Who is determining the conventions, the grammar?
What is their SES?
What learning personalities and preferences are reflected?
Let's differentiate learners and learning types and appreciate differences of all kinds: SES, location, background, learning style, learning needs, gender, age, needs, etc.
Human fluency = making room for differences.
Let's not throw out good practices with the bad.
Traditional schooling has had both positives and negatives, and educational technologies also have these.
Context is everything when it comes to best practices.
Why create false dichotomies, valuing one type of teaching and learning over another? Each has value in its proper context.
Pedagogical Fluency=knowing what type of method, when to use it, how to use it and why what we choose is the best practice in a given context...
Digital Fluency -- whose language?
Who is determining the conventions, the grammar?
What is their SES?
What learning personalities and preferences are reflected?
Let's differentiate learners and learning types and appreciate differences of all kinds: SES, location, background, learning style, learning needs, gender, age, needs, etc.
Human fluency = making room for differences.
Let's not throw out good practices with the bad.
Traditional schooling has had both positives and negatives, and educational technologies also have these.
Context is everything when it comes to best practices.
Tuesday, February 19, 2013
Friday, February 15, 2013
So much to learn, so little time...
Love Jim Groom's assignment bank. http://assignments.ds106.us/assignments/sound-effects-story/
Thursday, February 14, 2013
Digital Storytelling--Attempt #2
I've transferred the story that I told through Storify into something closer to what I had imagined: animated wheels with googley eyes, lots of movement, play, and while the story is very basic, the action will hopefully engage the viewer. This format still isn't what I imagine, with the wheels actually animated. I will have to look for more information on that To make this video, I used the following steps:
1. Drew the story in InDesign
2. Saved the story as a .pdf
3. Extracted each page
4. Saved each page as .jpg
5. Cropped and added captions in Picaso
6. Transferred the jpgs to Microsoft Movie Maker and saved to computer
7. Uploaded to my own Youtube channel using Picaso
Some thoughts about digital storytelling: I've been pondering the question of why digital storytelling was included in this course. I've, at the same time, been researching Digital Fluency for a paper I'm writing for my grad course on Education and Technology. I think the two are connected. To move from being consumers, digitally literate, we need to become producers, digitally fluent. This exercise helped me consider tools that I might use to become a producer.
Saturday, February 09, 2013
Thursday, February 07, 2013
Digital Storytelling Using Storify
My first attempt at digital storytelling, using Storify. It isn't how I pictured this. I have in mind, black and white wheels, animated, moving, and each with a set of googley eyes. The back two tires are playing, and teasing each other, while the front tire solemnly pulls the load.
Here is my storify version:
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
Thursday, January 17, 2013
Open
I want to dedicate this blog post to the idea of "Open"
Open access--
Free
Available
Accessible
Online
Those are words that describe, that have described the concept of Open to me. But since participating in this MOOC, I've realized there is more to the concept than those words.
There is a feeling, and I can't say it is all positive. I feel the looseness, the difficulty that a lack of a definite space, like a classroom has, which clearly defines the learning/teaching space. I tend to organize my life visually--visual clues everywhere, reminding me of what I must do. But the online course is not something visible to me, unless I seek it out. It requires some new learning skills: organization and synthesis for example. I mentioned this in the first post. But, after the first blackboard, or should I say enjoyable whiteboard lecture by Alec, I realized when I saw the school classroom with the walls coming down, that there is something I treasure in the closed-in-ness of the classroom. Something that, I think, can be reclaimed in the open blogosphere/twittersphere, etc... if careful attention is given to centralizing, to focusing content, to the tools used in a MOOC. I think this MOOC is very well put together, and a blog aggregate is an amazing way to bring thoughts and people together. The synchronous sessions are another way to bring people together: blackboard sessions and timed tweets with question lead discussion, are convenient ways of bringing a large number of people together in discussion. The tweet sessions add a social dimension, and the blogging adds depth. I have really enjoyed this experience...despite the feeling that "the wind is at my back," in this climate of open learning.
Thanks so much to the organizers.
Open access--
Free
Available
Accessible
Online
Those are words that describe, that have described the concept of Open to me. But since participating in this MOOC, I've realized there is more to the concept than those words.
There is a feeling, and I can't say it is all positive. I feel the looseness, the difficulty that a lack of a definite space, like a classroom has, which clearly defines the learning/teaching space. I tend to organize my life visually--visual clues everywhere, reminding me of what I must do. But the online course is not something visible to me, unless I seek it out. It requires some new learning skills: organization and synthesis for example. I mentioned this in the first post. But, after the first blackboard, or should I say enjoyable whiteboard lecture by Alec, I realized when I saw the school classroom with the walls coming down, that there is something I treasure in the closed-in-ness of the classroom. Something that, I think, can be reclaimed in the open blogosphere/twittersphere, etc... if careful attention is given to centralizing, to focusing content, to the tools used in a MOOC. I think this MOOC is very well put together, and a blog aggregate is an amazing way to bring thoughts and people together. The synchronous sessions are another way to bring people together: blackboard sessions and timed tweets with question lead discussion, are convenient ways of bringing a large number of people together in discussion. The tweet sessions add a social dimension, and the blogging adds depth. I have really enjoyed this experience...despite the feeling that "the wind is at my back," in this climate of open learning.
Thanks so much to the organizers.
Sunday, January 13, 2013
#1
I've joined the ETMOOC to consider differences and similarities to the online grad course I'm taking through the web, regarding Education and Technology.
The learning management system at the university has been difficult for me so far. What is difficult? I find there are too many locations for following discussions, and I find following a set of step-by-step instructions as well as the syllabus, makes it difficult to comprehend, to synthesize, to bring it all together. Bringing it all together--people, content, interactions. Isn't that what technology claims to do?
I have taken the time now to add due dates on my Google calendar. As well, I'm integrating resources into one file on my computer. The links, while really advantageous in setting up a class, are not so easily brought together in my mind, so that I can be meta about what I'm learning. I need overview. So, I've begun a weekly file to which I add everything that I have read and thought as I read. I think synthesizing and organizing are skills required to make the most of online learning.
With ETMOOC, I find I must already be connected to Twitter, in order to feel connected, to follow the course. It is rather invisible to me, and I could easily forget that I'm doing this class. Technology would seem to need to be all-consuming in order to be effectively used. How am I attempting to feel connected to this group? I have bookmarked the #ETMOOC blog, created a blog of my own for the course, followed ETMOOC on twitter, and created an about.me profile. Then I logged into twitter and saw Alec's instructions about how to connect your blog to Twitter.
But I see this requires a big commitment to write, and to read, and to comment for the forum to be effective. All this could be quite time consuming, and yet in order to reap the benefits, it must be done. So I wonder how effective would this type of MOOC be with high school students, or even University students who have not experienced enough learning to really become proficient at it. To organize their learning, to synthesize information, to seek out the group. Is there something to be said for instructors and textbooks who deliver content, and classroom space that quickly and visually defines the space of learning, with face-to-face peers from whom and with to learn?
In my first week of my grad course, I'm feeling a degree of information overload, and a bit anxious about the pace of change driven by technology. Are what others are calling "entrenched ways of teaching" entrenched because they serve an important function? Are we in danger of "sawing off the branch that holds us up?" Should change occur at the pace of technology? And, while there is of course a great need for technology to be incorporated into teaching and learning, what will it cost beyond dollars be to do so? Always there is a centre, a hub, a model for learning, and is it sustainable to make technology the centre? What of the cost? And, what of inequities due to lack of resources? Technology has historically been the difference between the powerful and the powerless.
(And why doesn't Blogger have an English (Canada) option so that it doesn't underline my Canadian spellings? Just one small example of inequity in technology. )
The learning management system at the university has been difficult for me so far. What is difficult? I find there are too many locations for following discussions, and I find following a set of step-by-step instructions as well as the syllabus, makes it difficult to comprehend, to synthesize, to bring it all together. Bringing it all together--people, content, interactions. Isn't that what technology claims to do?
I have taken the time now to add due dates on my Google calendar. As well, I'm integrating resources into one file on my computer. The links, while really advantageous in setting up a class, are not so easily brought together in my mind, so that I can be meta about what I'm learning. I need overview. So, I've begun a weekly file to which I add everything that I have read and thought as I read. I think synthesizing and organizing are skills required to make the most of online learning.
With ETMOOC, I find I must already be connected to Twitter, in order to feel connected, to follow the course. It is rather invisible to me, and I could easily forget that I'm doing this class. Technology would seem to need to be all-consuming in order to be effectively used. How am I attempting to feel connected to this group? I have bookmarked the #ETMOOC blog, created a blog of my own for the course, followed ETMOOC on twitter, and created an about.me profile. Then I logged into twitter and saw Alec's instructions about how to connect your blog to Twitter.
But I see this requires a big commitment to write, and to read, and to comment for the forum to be effective. All this could be quite time consuming, and yet in order to reap the benefits, it must be done. So I wonder how effective would this type of MOOC be with high school students, or even University students who have not experienced enough learning to really become proficient at it. To organize their learning, to synthesize information, to seek out the group. Is there something to be said for instructors and textbooks who deliver content, and classroom space that quickly and visually defines the space of learning, with face-to-face peers from whom and with to learn?
In my first week of my grad course, I'm feeling a degree of information overload, and a bit anxious about the pace of change driven by technology. Are what others are calling "entrenched ways of teaching" entrenched because they serve an important function? Are we in danger of "sawing off the branch that holds us up?" Should change occur at the pace of technology? And, while there is of course a great need for technology to be incorporated into teaching and learning, what will it cost beyond dollars be to do so? Always there is a centre, a hub, a model for learning, and is it sustainable to make technology the centre? What of the cost? And, what of inequities due to lack of resources? Technology has historically been the difference between the powerful and the powerless.
(And why doesn't Blogger have an English (Canada) option so that it doesn't underline my Canadian spellings? Just one small example of inequity in technology. )
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