Podcast: NPR: Culturetopia

I am a huge fan of NPR, and I believe that listening to their programming on the radio provides only half the story. NPR's website houses all their current programming, as well as archives of all their past programs and specials. As soon as I saw the podcast assignment I knew I would end up on the NPR Podcast Directory in order to find my podcast. I really enjoy listening to the Culturetopia series and I think the possibilities are endless for its use in the English Language Arts classroom. Each Culturetopia podcast covers the best arts, movies, books and culture events from that week and combines news coverage with interviews and commentary.

I chose the Culturetopia episode that aired on August 11th, 2010. I thought that this episode provided a great glimpse into exactly what this program has to offer; a weekly roundup of all the big news in the arts. I believe that students rarely get the chance, or take advantage of the opportunity, to find out about all the amazing things that are going on in the world of media and the arts. I do not think I would have my students listen to the entire episode each week, but I do like the idea of using specific stories as stepping stones for discussion points in the ELA classroom. The story from this episode that I really felt would hold value in the classroom was about a new movie La Mission , which centers around a latino gang member who finds out his son is gay. The popular actor Benjamin Bratt stars in the movie as the father who discovers his son is gay. He comes on the episode to speak about why he and his brother decided to make this film. He talks about the issue of homosexuality in the Latino community and how it often sparks abuse, both verbal and physical, against the homosexual child. A classroom discussion on acceptance and power in society could easily be facilitated after listening to this part of the podcast. I thought that this provided a great way for these types of podcasts to be utilized in the ELA classroom.

Global Learning: This could be for you

The ePals website was a lot of fun to explore, two of it's features - in2Books and SchoolBlog - really grabbed my attention though.

The SchoolBlog feature seems like a great answer to the safety and accessibility issues that often arise when educators attempt to use blogs in the classroom. It provides classroom only and parents only access, search capabilities to easily sort though past posts and material, multimedia hosting ability, as well as calendar and survey tools. I think the best way to incorporate this tool into the classroom is to have it set up at the start of the school year and use it as an outline for what the rest of the school year holds. There can be sections for different texts, discussion boards for students to respond to one another, a FAQ section for parents and contact information for the students and school. All handouts could be posted on the blog so students can easily keep up-to-date with lessons if they are out of class. Blogs are definitely not a passing fad in education so I think it's important we embrace them, as meaningful and responsibly as possible.

As an English teacher, how could I not focus on the in2books feature? With this feature, students are matched up with adult pen-pals that they "meet" by writing introductory get to know you letters. Students study five different genres (realistic fiction, social studies, biography, folklore, science) and read one book from each of those genres. The students then discuss the book with their pen-pal while learning about it in their own classroom. I absolutely love this idea. It would be so much fun to have students reading a canonical text (like Shakespeare) and have the opportunity to communicate their thoughts and opinions and learn more about the text from an adult (who they've had time to get to know) perspective. The teacher could assign the same questions to the students and the pen pals and see how their answers match-up or differ, it then provides the opportunity for learning to take place on both sides. It also gives the students the chance to feel like an "expert" and they're opinion is being heard and understood. It could be an extremely empowering experience for students.

Bubblr: Poetry in Photos

I thought that Bubblr was a very cool tool, that could easily be utilized in the English Language Arts classroom. My first thought was to use this tool to help students better comprehend poetry. Students often have a tough time deciphering the imagery that fills poetry and this tool would allow them to illustrate their understanding in a creative and personal way. Students can find pictures that illustrate each line of poetry and create a slideshow to demonstrate their understanding, or even create deeper meaning for the poem. Bubblr easily allows you to embed these photo slides, which would work great for putting them on the class blog to share with others. I love the fact that students can use photography without fear of copyright infringement or other issues. I created a sample using the poem The Red Wheelbarrow by William Carlos Williams. There are so many ways you could use these tools in the ELA classroom, but this is the first one that came to my mind.

If you would like to check out the non-embedded version of my poetry in photos click below

Poetry in Photos by Nathan Thoma

Creative Commons Licensing: Flickr

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You should never Tweet in class

After browsing few some of the articles about microblogging I became a bit torn on how to view the situation. On one hand, I was very impressed with the possibilities of digital storytelling and how it could be utilized to allow students to read and write in English class without having to stare mindlessly at a 30 lb textbook. Students compose in so many rich ways beyond traditional pen and paper essays that it becomes almost natural to invite digital literacy into the classroom. There are so many uses for microblogging in the classroom: tweeting in the voice of major characters for whatever text is being read, using tweets as a way to gather the class’ thoughts before a discussion, having students follow certain hash-tags or people in order to research a topic or argument. One thing that I like about Twitter is the character limit, this is extremely useful in the English classroom to help take away the intimidation factor that many struggling writers face. Short concise writing can be a way to get struggling writers comfortable expressing their thoughts and ideas through writing.

As much as I love learning about all of these educational tools and hope to incorporate them into my classroom, this article on academic tweeting addressed some concerns I have about all of this. I think there's a danger in taking all of these things that students enjoy, and learn from on their own, and making them "school". One way to avoid that is to not bombard students with these new things. During student teaching I made the assumption that of course all my students were using MySpace and Facebook and tried to incorporate them into a few of my lessons. This turned out to be false and some of the lessons fell a bit flat. As educators we have to consider why we are incorporating these things into our classrooms and make certain we are using them in meaningful and purposeful ways, not simply using them for the sake of using them. I would hope that we wouldn't teach a text just because "everybody was reading it" and we should be careful to approach technology the same way.

Students vs. Learners

The blog post that I found most interesting from my Google Reader endeavor was ARE THEY STUDENTS OR ARE THEY LEARNERS?. This article was written by David Warlick and comes from his blog 2 Cents Worth. This article focuses on the differences between students and learners and how as teachers we help to create the divide between the two. Students are treated almost as employees that are forced to come into our classrooms and "learn," while learners have a desire to learn new information on topics they are interested in. Warlick's argument is that by treating our students as capable "learners", and not lazy "students", we can begin to change the culture of our schools. Warlick argues that we need to, "teach in order to make ourselves obsolete." What he means by this is that we cannot spoon feed our students information and expect them not to be lazy and unmotivated to find new information on their own. Instead we must begin to place more and more responsibility back on the learner, in order to better motivate them. I thought that this was a great blog post for any classroom teacher to read, no matter their opinion on this issue.

It's a NING, man

I have used a Ning in a few graduate classes and have enjoyed the experience. Our classes used it as a discussion board, a place to upload, share and comment on one another's writing pieces, post podcasts we created and upload links and videos we thought related to the class. It is very user-friendly and would be a great way to extend your classroom onto the web. Students and parents would be kept updated, discussions could continue and a community of practice could be created.

A Ning that I have been a member of and find extremely useful and interesting is the University at Buffalo's English Education Ning. There are discussion boards that involve my content area as well as what is going on in the world of education, people share job openings, and you can network with current and past students of UB's English education program. One of the best things about this Ning is that it is constantly being updated and added to, it is never stagnant. I have used this NING as a way to see what others are doing in the classroom, as well as look for job openings.

The only problem I now have with NING is that it has gone to a pay model. There is a sponsor that will pay for your educational NING to stay active, but I have heard talk that the guidelines to qualify are a bit stringent.

The Old Lump of Clay?

The learner of today is like a lump of clay. The learner is like this raw, unshaped form that is not yet aesthetically pleasing but through outside instruction and guidance as well as a learner's own internal desires and goals, the clay can be shaped into a masterpiece. Siemen's article explains connectivism as a way to "provide insight into learning skills and tasks needed for learners to flourish in a digital era". I was hesitant to use clay as an analogy because it has little relation to our technologically advanced world but he also goes on to describe learning as "a lasting charged state brought about as a result of experiences and interactions with context or other people". A lump of clay will have gone through several transformations before turning into a final product. Learners are always being molded and shaped through their interactions in their own minds and the ones they engage in through the various networks available to them.

I initially struggled to wrap my head around Siemen's theory because I couldn't think of a time where learning ever lacked "connectivity". Listening to Siemen explain in his video of The Changing Nature of Knowledge helped clear a few things up for me. Technology is changing so rapidly in our world today that I agree that we have "to continue to stay current...as knowledge changes" and that we have to utilize our "network of knowledge" because "the network becomes the learning". Students will come into our classrooms with a variety of networks - home, family, friends, social, digital - to ignore these vital networks and not incorporate into the classroom would be a huge disservice to our students. Technology will only continue to advance and we must stay as current and connected as possible.

Actung!

Pay Attention made me do exactly that. I consider myself a student of technology as well as a user but have never thought of myself as a teacher of technology. That realization gave me pause. Is it enough that I'm aware of all these technological tools that are out there that my students may or may not be using? The answer is no. I not only have to be aware of them but be aware of the vital role they play in my student's lives as well as how to use that technology to engage them in the classroom lessons.

The video provided shocking statistics on the hours adolescents will spend engaged with different aspects of technology, it is an absolute waste to not take advantage of the digital literacies our student's will have and begin to incorporate them into our classrooms. The video found herehelps show how vital technological awareness will be to our student's future success. It is time for the educators of America to wake up and utilize all the advantages technology has to offer us and our students.

Blog Saftey

• Make sure that the school, administration and parents are aware and on the same page about the role a blog will play in your classroom.
• Ensure that students can't be identified - use only first names or generic pseudonymous and make sure students know not to post any identifying details about themselves, friends or family, location and school.
• Clearly explain to students that they are expected to conduct themselves on the blog just as they would in the classroom - using appropriate language and responding helpfully and respectfully to classmates.
  
• If possible, enable some comment moderation so nothing unsuitable or inappropriate can be posted.
• Limiting blog access so only students, parents, teachers and administrators have access to the blog. If possible remove it from search engine features and make it private.
• Having students and parents sign a permission slip stating that they will not share or give out the blog address, user log-ins and passwords.
• Consider a class blog as opposed to individual student blogs, this will make it easier to monitor content.

My problem lies in the fact that my district blocks all wikis/blogs from use in the classroom. I can most certainly work around this with a quick meeting with my tech team, but I would first have to prepare a statement on their usefulness in the classroom.

Using Blogs in the Classroom

Before coming up with a few ways I could use blogs in the classroom I stepped back to really think about the why factor of blogs. As educators we can’t ignore emerging technologies. What our students are doing at home will always affect what happens at school. Students are using, and becoming proficient at, social networking, blogging, instant messaging and it would be extremely wasteful - and borderline irresponsible - to not incorporate student's out of school literacies into our classrooms. If we can embrace these technologies and can help students learn to use them responsibly we can add exciting new elements to our classroom lessons.

Blog Ideas

• One way I believe I could use blogs in the ELA classroom would be with literature circles. During the reading of a novel students are expected to summarize and react to the book and any other supplemental materials with their thoughts, opinions, ideas and critiques. Using a blog with this activity could help encourage students to read and revise their thoughts as well as comment on the work of their classmates. This helps to create more of an ongoing conversation that can constantly be added to and referred back to rather than a stagnant written response that gets lost and forgotten in a locker or binder. This activity would easily meet NYS ELA standard 2 - Students will read, write, listen, and speak for literary response and expression.

• A blog would be an ideal tool to engage in a collaborative project with another class. With the power of the web, classes across the hall or across the country from one another can work together. An English class can collaborate with a history class while they are reading a historical novel in order to learn more about the time period and significant people and events. Students can contribute to an online discussion board to help facilitate everyone's learning and encourage questions. This would help students develop a deeper and more complex understanding of the novel. This activity would meet NYS ELA standard 4 - Students will read, write, listen, and speak for social interaction.

• Thanks to many of my graduate school classes one of the first uses for a blog that comes to my mind is using it for a class discussion board. Time for discussion in class is limited and some students may not feel comfortable participating. Extending this process to a blog allows everyone to participate, often with more thought and a richness that’s not possible in real time. Students can explore and respond thoughtfully to the text in ways that aren't always possible within the confines of the traditional classroom. The discussion board can be used when the class is reading a novel in order to respond to certain passages, key quotes or general themes. A teacher can have a weekly question or prompt to get students thinking and constantly writing. The class discussions also become a sort of online portfolio for students to see how they've grown in their writing and responses. This activity would meet NYS ELA standard 4 - Students will read, write, listen, and speak for critical analysis and evaluation.