Left Behind

I must say that this course has really made me feel the extent to which I am behind the times. With so many new forms of communicating and participating becoming available, I find that I am left behind--I am barely scraping by with a cell phone (an old one at that which doesn't even take pictures or play music) and email. This is my first blog experience and I find myself wondering if I would have ever had a blog otherwise. Although given this experience, I am seriously considering having a classroom blog for next year for my students to contribute to. I guess I am really becoming awakened to all the new literacy opportunities available and learning how much they are impacting our students. I am amazed at the level of knowledge elementary kids have about the Internet, IMing, MySpace, etc., so I can only imagine what middle and high schoolers are doing. If you have read my Network Literacy blog you know that I don't venture far from the most basic uses of technology. I don't participate in text messaging all that often (in fact I'm always surprised when I receive a text message on my phone), I barely IM one person and not that often (my best friend who I wouldn't talk to otherwise), I am not a gamer (with no desire to be one either), I don't participate on MySpace (are you kidding? I don't want students looking at my page), etc. I think a lot of the reasons I don't do these things have to do with the fact that I have NO time (work + school). I suppose there are other people with the same constraints who do find the time, it's just not a priority for me right now. I will say, however, that I am going to be more considerate of these new forms of literacy in the classroom, even if they aren't a personal priority, for the sake of my students.

Framework for 21st Century Learning

A look at 21st century learning sure made me excited for the direction education is hopefully going in, but also made me sweat a little--boy, we sure have a lot of work to do! Teaching the core subjects, learning and thinking skills, and life skills are obviously what we're used to doing--although at the elementary level I feel it's such a shame that we are not doing more for teaching foreign languages or the arts in particular. The 21st century content areas are definitely challenging to teach, simply because time runs out. This past school year my district implemented a health awareness program complete with textbooks and materials. I have to admit that those books sat on the shelf all last year and the TE remained with its plastic wrap around it--I simply did not have the time to use the materials. Sadly enough, with so much high-stakes testing, there is so much emphasis placed on reading and math as well as test-taking strategies that other content areas are pushed aside, such as global awareness. At the elementart level there just hasn't been that much done for Information and Communication technology literacy. I would like to think there is more done for this at the middle and high school levels. For the past 2 years my school had a technology specialist who ran a computer lab for our students to visit at least once a week. During this time students were able to learn computer skills, but we were just beginning to scratch the surface on getting them to think critically, solve problems, use information and communicate using technology. Now that we no longer have that position, or a computer lab, our students aren't getting the skills they need for new literacies. What's also problematic is the growing heap of computers which no longer function or have something wrong with them. Because we don't have a technology specialist to help keep up on the maintenace, the computers are sitting in corners collecting dust. I am glad to know that this website exists and that 21st century learning skills are receiving so much attention, and not just by educators. I feel like our work is very exciting in the way we might contribute to this development. I like what Randy Bomer said, "You cannot move into the new world with last-century teacher knowledge. Teachers are ready to learn, but they need acess to real innovation. They need to be asked themselves to be innovators." Just think of the implications this has for us as educators, but also for us as graduate students and future literacy leaders.

The "basics"

Wow! What are the "basics"? Sounds like the three R's need some modifiying. I found Siegel's article refreshing but also worrisome. Refreshing because she highlights some very innovative ideas (which I agree with)--"language arts education can no longer ignore the way that our social, cultural, and economic worlds now require facility with texts and practices involving the full range of representational modes." Worrisome because of who might NOT be listening! It is obvious that new literacies have made their ways into some classrooms but what about the TEKS? If the TEKS were to be altered to reflect the multimodalities of text, I can only imagine how some teachers would freak out: "What, I have to teach all that too? Now I really don't have time to fit everything in," etc... and of course there's the argument of, "How's that going to help my students pass the TAKS test?" When I say that some people might not be listening, I'm not talking about teachers, however, I am referring to policy makers and organizations like TEA that hold schools accountable. When I was reading this article, I kept thinking about those kids who are like Cliff--in the lowest reading group, struggle with school, some who have never passed any TAKS test--and I wonder how much these kids would benefit from a literacy which includes multiple sign systems. It is obvious that what we're doing with them (and have been doing and will continue doing with them) is not working! These are the kids who keep falling behind more and more. It's interesting to think about how these kids do situate themselves in literacy--whether through IMing, gang related literacy activity, My Space, etc.

Network Literacy Log

Here's a very boring log of how I use Network Literacy:

• email (number one use)
• asychronous discussions for Psycholinguistics course
• Blackboard
• checking account online
• paying bills online
• Microsoft Excel (spreadsheets for work)
• Microsoft Word
• checking the weather
• Fandango
• Austin Public Library
• UT website-course schedules
• this blog

IM, Power Point & Blackboard

Today I had an interesting conversation with some 4th graders about their home literacies. I will focus on one particular student, let's call her Desirae. Desirae informed me that she uses the Internet everday to search the web (she likes one of the wrestling pages), email, IM and uses My Space. She was going to show me her My Space page but the AISD server wouldn't let us go there. I was really fascinated with all she knew how to do and the prevalence the on-line world has in her life. She said she uses the Internet everyday afterschool. She described to me her My Space page and how she has 298 friends on-line! She explained to me the process of creating a page and how she had to lie about her age to get a page. She said she claims she is 16 and goes to Austin High School. She also told me about going to another website (hotfreelayouts.com) to get images to go on her My Space page. When I asked her about the text on her page she told me comments are posted by other people and she has a section called "About Me." I asked her if she has a photo of herself and she said she does. When I asked her how she got the photo on there she told me all about scanning in the photo and saving it to the computer, etc. I really think it's fascinating just how "advanced" she is on the computer, considering she's only 11 and is a "struggling" reader and writer.

Desirae also informed me about IMing. She explained that she communicates with her cousins and other family members as well as friends. She talked about the different ways of representing text (much like the students in the Lewis & Fabos article) including an abbreviation for boy (bi). It was really fascinating to have read the article and then hear these students talk about the same things. In the case of Desirae, her mother taught her how to do most of the stuff. When I asked Desirae if she ever worried about strange people, she acknowledged the chance of encountering strange people but didn't seem too worried. She said her mother worried a little. She said she never tells any one where she lives, she just says "East Austin." (At least she knows not to give out her address)

As a person who does not have a My Space page and does not IM very often (except to my best friend in NYC), I was so intrigued by my students' on-line lives. What is scary, though, is that Desirae reffered to another teacher at my school as having a My Space page. If I ever thought about having a My Space page before, well I definitely don't want one now. That's too weird for me to think about my students checking out my page (unless I were to gear it towards that specifically). I just think there should be a line between private and school life.

Now on the topic of Power Point. Power Point is a program which I did not use until graduate school. As an undergrad, it was just becoming popular and I still had psychology classes with overheads and art history classes with traditional slide shows. In my design classes, we never used the program, instead we used programs like Flash and Director to accomplish much of the same thing (and more!). As a design student, we were snobs about Power Point, thinking it too beneath us to use--for much of the same reasons given in the Adams article having to do with limited design options or everything looking the same. When it came time to use Power Point in grad school, I didn't have any trouble learning because I was so familiar with much more difficult programs.

My experience with Power Point is that it is easy and convenient to use. I guess I like this about it. I don't have to think too hard when using it. It was interesting though to read Adams's article and the things she points about it creating a habit of mind. Now that I think about it, it really does drive a way of thinking about putting information in bullets.

My husband is also a student and he takes a lot of science classes. He is always downloading Power Point presentations from Blackboard and so I asked him what he thought about Power Point. Some of the things he said are:
1) It seems to reduce class attendance because people can get the notes on-line
2) It works well for visual images like graphs and diagrams
3) They are always required for class presentations
4) It makes studying for tests easier, especially when professors say they won't test over anything not covered on the slides

One more thing I would like to point out: Blackboard seems to have really changed the way college classes are conducted too. When I was an undergrad we didn't have Blackboard, but now it seems to be a part of every class. How has Blackboard changed your class experiences?

Television

I don't watch a lot of television, so I was unfamiliar with a lot of the tv shows Steven Johnson mentions, but I agree with his argument that tv shows are more complex than the credit they receive and they require a lot of thinking on the part of the audience. I have watched most of the Sopranos episodes and part of the reason I enjoy this show so much is because of the complexity and multiple threading. I hadn't thought of this before, but it's a good point.

One thing that Johnson does not mention, but I think is worth noting, is that all of the shows he mentions have also done an outstanding job of character development. No story (on tv, in a movie or in a book) is going to be compelling or effective without its characters. Also, the characters are what drive the plot. When fans of Dallas (a show I have never seen) wrote to express the pleasure they take in the show, wasn't it the characters who they followed and possible identified with? Isn't our emotional attachement to such stories because of our love/dislike of the characters?

I think the same Sleeper Curve which Johnson referes to in reference to tv shows is also happening with movies. Look at some of the best movies to come out recently like "Crash" and "Babel." Of course then again, thank goodness for tv shows and movies which don't require a lot of thinking. There are times when I want to "plug-in" without having to use any mental energy. This is when shows like American Idol or chic flics (like "Bridget Jones's Diary") come in handy. There's a place for each kind of viewing.

Marxism & Reading Education

In response to "A Marxist Reading of Reading Education," a lot of what Patrick Shannon says really hits home with my experiences as a reading teacher. This is especially relevant for those of us who teach at a Reading First school. The entire time I was reading I kept thinking about the infamous Scott Foresman. I don't think Reading First has been an entirely bad experience. I think having a script and all the materials available is really helpful for some, especially first year teachers and alternative certification teachers. I cringe, however, at the thought that experienced teachers who know what they are doing are being asked to follow the script verbatim. Our school district has changed over the last few years in their expectations and strictness for the use of the Scott Foresman reading program. I remember a time two years ago when I taught 3rd grade--at that time we were expected to be using the TE for the same 90 minutes everyday. Basically, the expectation was that if certain people came into your classroom, you would be expected to have the TE open to the page you were supposed to be on based on the Scope and Sequence for that day of the week. If "they" came in during your 90 minutes, you were supposed to be reading from the script. If "they" came in at a different time the TE should still be open but on your desk where it was easily accessible and apparent that you were using it. I remember one day when we had a learning walk (a designated time for "them" to come in) and I had to read from the script while "they" came in. This of course felt so unnatural for me and really wrecked the classroom dialogue.

It seems that if reading instruction is going to be reduced to a commercial reading program, then we don't need to teach teachers how to teach reading. Universities no longer need to offer courses on reading because all that's expected is for teachers to follow a script. (This is of course RIDICULOUS!!!). In addition, why have any reading instruction from real books when kids are going to have to pass a test? Why not just teach kids to read from test-like materials all day long? Afterall, they just have to pass a test, right? (Again, totally RIDICULOUS!!!). I like what Shannon says, "The definition of learning as test scores separates students from the totality of their learning. Reducing teachers and students officially, emotional, cultural, and social attachments to the process of teaching and learning and to each other." Don't we know this already??? And deal with it everyday in the classroom!

One of my biggest frustrations as a teacher is that I agree with Shannon that teachers should be more political (and not take so much crap) but at the same time when do we have time to do our job AND be politically active? I know we have unions which help us with some of these things, but it is definitely apparent that we need to be doing much more. The question is HOW???