Literacy Now

As a former ancient history teacher, I occasionally receive resource requests from former colleagues. I was prepping a collection of my old materials for a friend this week and came across a WebQuest I designed several years ago. In it, students explore the achievements of four Mesopotamian empires and then design a proposal for a new exhibit at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. It was one of my favorite assignments, as it fostered the development of online reading comprehension and public speaking skills in a digital inquiry setting.

Now a second-year doctoral student, I’ve given quite a bit of thought to the inquiry process over the last year. One approach I like to use is the Inquiry Cycle, as highlighted by Ann P. Bishop and Bertram C. Bruce, which features five actions: Ask, Investigate, Create, Discuss, and Reflect. While depicted as a cycle, Bruce and Bishop are quick to note that inquiry does not take a neat, orderly process—the cycle is merely suggestive, not absolute. Sharing the WebQuest with a colleague allowed me the opportunity to reflect on the project with fresh eyes.

The challenge of inquiry-based instruction

Though proud of the task, I would revise it further as it reflects an issue that often comes up when using inquiry-based learning in schools; one I like to call the Bermuda Triangle of Inquiry.  For those unaware of the Bermuda Triangle, it’s an area of the Atlantic Ocean marked by geographic points of Miami, Puerto Rico and Bermuda, where planes and boats have inexplicably become lost throughout history.

In the Bermuda Triangle of Inquiry, tasks also can become lost, but in the Ask, Investigate and Create phases. Projects are sometimes unable to sustain themselves through to the Discuss or Reflect destinations. My Webquest project is a prime example of a task caught in the Triangle.  After moving through the first three phases, students shared their findings via the presentation, but I didn’t provide a space for discussion. Furthermore, students were not asked to reflect on their findings or given the time to think about ideas from their classmates.  After the presentations were given, the projects disappeared and, along with them, the opportunities for further thinking and exploration.

Shifting our inquiry-based instructional practices

We can begin to address this problem by making two shifts in how we approach inquiry learning. First, the creation portion of any inquiry could be viewed not as the end product of the Inquiry, but rather a jumping off point for discussion.  I’d suggest we look at creating from the constructionist’s vantage and see it as Pete Skillen wrote, part of “making one’s own mind.” Thus, the goal is not simply the creation of something, but also the sharing and discussion that follows, which allows us to “make” or “create” knowledge while reflecting on the conversation.

Secondly, we could change the primary goal of inquiry from finding the correct answer to finding one’s next question, as suggested by Douglas Thomas and John Seely Brown. Through discussion and reflection new questions can emerge. These questions can be shared and developed with peers for further discussion, reflection and exploration, which ensures that the cycle continues. Thus, the focus of inquiry becomes continuing the exploration, and not necessarily finding its end.

Possible Action Steps

So how might we change our practice to incorporate these fixes? Using my Mesopotamian Empire project as an example, I might have my students create a blog or a podcast asking them to reflect on their findings, choices and processes used to research and create their product. Their classmates would then be asked to read / listen and respond to their classmates’ work and ideas, providing suggestions or questions to consider for the next cycle of inquiry. In subsequent inquiry projects, students would be asked to use their peers’ feedback to guide their process. End reflection questions should ask students how they incorporated previous experiences and peer suggestions into their inquiry process. Texts like Teaching in the Connected Learning Classroom provide additional ideas for ways to enable students to discuss and reflect on their learning.

The second shift, from Inquiry as finding answers to Inquiry as finding questions, may be a bit more challenging. It requires teachers to provide students with more latitude on content and it also requires students to take ownership of their learning.  This autonomy necessitates open inquiry, but without navigation and critical evaluation skills, students will likely struggle to find answers and generate new questions. Most of all, it requires a teacher’s most precious resource: time. Frameworks like Genius Hour and Design Thinking provide useful frameworks that give structure and constraints for students to explore their interests organically. These approaches, combined with direct instruction in online reading comprehension provide the right supports and constraints to steer clear of our infamous Triangle!

Dave Quinn is a doctoral student in the URI/RIC Ph.D. in Education program. Previously, he was a history teacher at King Philip Middle School in Norfolk, MA and a member of the Seekonk School Committee. He can be reached at David_Quinn@my.uri.edu.

Teachers juggle so many important jobs in the classroom.  They play the role of mentor, mediator, and facilitator.  Often, they take on the job of confidante, parent, entertainer, and so much more.  But above all else, teachers are meant to ensure student growth and this growth is expected to be documented and demonstrated through student work.

In recent years, digital technologies have been flooding into the classroom environment and altering everything imaginable, even to the most basic of classroom procedures. Keeping portfolios of student work is by no means a new idea.  My own memories of school include construction paper folders tucked away in a corner of the classroom, bursting with homework papers and art projects. As time and technology have progressed, student portfolios have begun to evolve into something a little more sophisticated—and a lot more convenient.

As student work progressively includes more media-based formats, it makes sense that educators should find ways to electronically curate these examples of learning.  Aside from being able to store student work in its original form, digital portfolios have the advantage of taking up less physical space and can be easily shared with parents and colleagues, as well as giving the student the ability to safely keep their work as long as they may choose.  And let's face it, creating and storing an audio recording that demonstrates fluency or uploading and sharing a video a student created as a book report is a lot more impressive than a folder full of worksheets and test papers.

There are many options for digital portfolios.  Student blogs, Google Drive, and wikis are all possibilities, depending on the needs of the student and teacher and the technology available.  In addition, several mobile apps have been developed offering some advantages over these website-based artifact storage options.

Three Ring allows teachers to organize artifacts by student, class, or keyword tag.  Photos, videos, audio recordings, and text notes can all be added and stored within the app with no data limit.  Notes can also be added to media artifacts to record the purpose of a project, a performance assessment, the standard addressed, or anything else the teacher or student wishes to document.  Portfolios are not only accessible within the app, but also online, and sharing with parents is simple. The app is designed to be used by both students and teachers, which is a nice feature.

School Binder can be used by either teachers or students.  For teachers, a tab can be created for each student and artifacts can easily be organized and stored.  For students, the app can function as an organizer, with a built-in calendar and note-taking feature, or it can be used as a traditional portfolio to save presentations, photos, and documents.  The app has sharing options as well.

Teacher's Wire is designed for teacher use only.  Teachers can organize students into classes and document student work via notes and photos, though other media does not appear to be supported at this time.  This app also provides a place to store contact information for each student, as well as grades and behavior notes.  This information can be relayed to parents via email. The grade book and behavior options make this a nice multi-purpose app for teachers.

Easy Portfolio is perhaps the most impressive and well-executed of the portfolio apps currently available.  In addition to being able to upload audio recordings, photos, videos, documents, and notes, live urls can be added to link to outside sources, which would be extremely useful for student blogs and other online projects that are difficult to document within an app.  Student work is shared via email, or entire portfolios can be exported to Dropbox or Google Drive.  This is an excellent feature for allowing students to keep a copy of their own work.  The developers of Easy Portfolio appear to be continually working on more features, so this looks like an app that will stand the test of time.

As teachers and students increasingly utilize technology to demonstrate learning in the classroom, student portfolios need to keep pace and evolve as well.  These apps allow both teachers and students to document and share the incredible growth that is taking place in digital format, and give students, parents, and teachers the ability to save these artifacts for years to come.

Lindsey Fuller is a sixth grade teacher in Decatur, IL. Her interests are classroom technology integration, literacy instruction, and Common Core curriculum development and implementation. You can read more from Lindsey on these topics at her blog, Tales of a 6th Grade Classroom.

A university colleague and I recently spent time reflecting on how a local rural middle school teacher with whom we collaborated sought to shift her literacy instruction from less teacher-directed to more student-centered learning. Key in this transformation was the development of digital book projects by groups of students who had already read and discussed novels within small group literature circles. This was a quantum leap for students who had never imagined sharing or posting their thoughts and ideas online. Because this teacher and her students had no prior experience with collaborative digital composition tools, we suggested the use of VoiceThread for their maiden voyage. This Web 2.0 slide show tool allowed these students to feature text, images, or videos, and add written, audio, or sketched comments about archived content.

As in many rural school settings, this particular teacher had little tech support and no funding devoted to her new venture, so the recommendations we offered were chosen carefully. My colleague and I had both experienced past success with facilitating collaborative digital projects via the free version of VoiceThread in our own university teaching with students who were often novices with such technology tools. The middle school teacher we advised encountered similar success as students navigated VoiceThread’s features. Indeed, while she guided her middle-schoolers in the areas of digital image location and transfer, creation of PowerPoint slides, and then with initial uploading of their creations to VoiceThread, the students added self-scripted audio commentary to their book project content with surprising ease, enthusiasm, and excitement. While their final projects might seem simple and quite unsophisticated when judged by standards of seasoned gurus, students’ teachers, parents, and administrators in this rural setting were surprised and impressed at the outcomes shared on the big screen during a celebration of students’ efforts.

While reflecting on this digital book project experience, and particularly about our VoiceThread recommendation, we learned of other educators who had experienced success with even more challenging and diverse populations. Stein Brunvand and Sara Byrd of the University of Michigan-Dearborn highlighted multiple positive outcomes from integrating VoiceThread in learning experiences for special needs students. Identified benefits mirror many of our conclusions about usage with our rural middle-schoolers, including VoiceThread’s propensity for:

• Engaging students actively in meaning-making, including creation of content and the archiving of iterative commentary among multiple learners
• Supporting student creation and revision of archived digital projects from classrooms, computer labs, and/or any Internet-equipped setting
• Employing a simple core of technical skills that, once learned, can be used over and over again to communicate information and ideas across multiple content areas for a broad range of purposes.

Teachers Stein Brunvand and Sara Byrd further illustrated their success with VoiceThread through student profiles of three different learners whose challenges ranged from specific learning disabilities to Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.

In the midst of a global digital environment where Web 2.0 tools are commonplace and arrays of technology are at the disposal of some, microcosms exist where the use or existence of such technology is either not imagined, nor considered for students or within schools with a variety of needs or challenges. The use of free or low-cost, easy to navigate technology tools that offer the potential for a high degree of student success can open doors to virtual worlds for students who might otherwise remain unaware. VoiceThread is one such digital tool whose basics are straightforward and new features are cutting-edge, providing possibilities for collaborative multimodal digital learning experiences for all.

Terry S. Atkinson is an associate professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at East Carolina University, Greenville, NC.

This article is part of a series from the International Reading Association’s Technology in Literacy Education Special Interest Group (TILE-SIG).

As literacy educators return to their classrooms, some may look to online spaces for fresh ideas. Recent posts on this blog have suggested following Twitter hashtags or provided numerous sites for online professional development. Similarly recognizing that social networking tools can be a great source of learning for teachers, we offer this review of the English Companion Ning (ECN), an online community “where English teachers go to help each other.” ECN, first mentioned on this TILE-SIG blog post by William Yang, has become a valuable resource in our own work with university English language instructors in Pakistan (for Khan) and pre-service secondary English teachers in the U.S. (for Lammers).

With more than 42,000 members discussing all aspects of the English curriculum and contributing to numerous forums that offer collegial support, ECN is “a community dedicated to helping you enjoy your work.” Jim Burke, a high school English teacher in California, speaker and author of more than 20 books, created ECN in December 2008 to support novice and experienced teachers in developing their professional skills. In 2009, ECN won the Edublog award for “Best Educational Use of a Social Networking Service.”

ECN encourages English teachers to seek help from members in a friendly and informal way. Described as “a cafe without walls or coffee: just friends” (see the ECN homepage image), ECN is a free resource for connecting and sharing. After creating an account on ECN, teachers can chat, blog, upload images and videos, participate in existing forums, create their own discussion groups, join the ECN book club, and share lesson plans, activities, links, and other teaching-related resources. ECN offers online professional development from anywhere, anytime.

Being a new teacher can be overwhelming for even the best prepared in our profession. While beginning teachers may be hesitant to ask questions or request feedback from within their school building, ECN can help novices specifically due to the supportive nature of interactions between experienced and new teachers. For instance, one ECN member, a new teacher, posted that she needed help teaching Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. Her question yielded a variety of lesson ideas from experienced teachers who previously taught this text. Some members shared links for engaging activities regarding Julius Caesar, while others pointed her to existing threads on ECN about teaching Shakespeare, because their great ideas for teaching Julius Caesar came directly from this site. Similarly, when asked to teach a new course or text, even experienced teachers can seek mentorship by tapping into ECN’s vast network of teachers willing to help and share ideas.

The helpful and cooperative environment of ECN develops a sense of social connection and belongingness among community members. Teachers need not feel isolated in their classrooms, they can reach out on ECN to receive almost immediate support from others. In one of many such examples on the site, one ECN member posted she was stuck in the midst of a project with her class and asked for suggestions for completing it soon. She got seven replies to her post that very day, each with different ideas. ECN members took interest in her project and provided constructive feedback. In return, she shared the revised project plan she completed with the help of ECN members. As members ask and answer questions, ECN fosters a sense of connection and collaboration. 

ECN’s members teach in classrooms around the world. The global nature of ECN connects members to a network of international colleagues, which is particularly helpful for English teachers in remote locations without access to professional development by other means. In addition to providing curriculum ideas, ECN serves as a source for career guidance. For instance, an English teacher in Iraq received assistance from a U.S. teacher in developing his research proposal for admission to a U.S. university. ECN is an international English department, connecting peers all over the globe.

ECN discussions are participant-driven and focus on what teachers want and need. When they get tasked with teaching something new, run into challenges in the classroom, feel lonely or isolated, or want to share successful lesson plans and strategies with others in the field, ECN can be a rich online resource for teachers.

Asma Khan is a doctoral student at the University of Rochester. She studies English as a Foreign Language teachers’ use of online spaces and can be reached at asma.yousafzai@gmail.com. Jayne C. Lammers is an assistant professor and director of the secondary English teacher preparation program at the University of Rochester. She studies adolescents’ literacy learning and can be reached at jlammers@warner.rochester.edu or on Twitter at @URocProf.

This article is part of a series from the International Reading Association’s Technology in Literacy Education Special Interest Group (TILE-SIG).

Screencasting tools such as Explain Everything allow teachers and students to create and share content with a wider audience. These dynamic applications allow users to annotate, animate and narrate slides. Slides can be illustrated by drawing, importing images from the web, or taking pictures with a device such as a smartphone or tablet. Presentations can also be uploaded using PowerPoint, Prezi or Keynote. Next, users simply click on the record button to narrate and explain the content of each slide. After completing the slides, the application compiles a movie file that can be exported and shared via the Internet in a variety of ways, such as Dropbox, Evernote, Facebook, e-mail, YouTube, or saved on the device for future viewing.

Explain Everything can be used in a myriad of ways in the classroom including publishing student writing, illustrating audio journals, and creating book trailers. In this column, we share how Chase Young used Explain Everything with 2^nd graders to create book trailers to recommend books to their peers. Book trailers are similar to movie trailers in that students write a script and publish a movie that gives an exciting overview of a text, and leaves the audience in suspense. This link shows how 2^nd graders used the Explain Everything app to create book trailers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=se4qF3H6q2Q.

Here are two examples of 2^nd grade book trailers:

• Dumb Bunnies: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0PeQVzmsgc
• Maybelle in the Soup: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJRcvv6JVvk

This screencasting app can also be easily integrated across the content areas. In Social Studies, students can research famous people that impacted the United States. As a final project, students used Explain Everything to share their learning. Here is a second grader’s report on Betsy Ross: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZBhSGETfTY. Students can become experts in science by conducting inquiry-based research and publishing their expository writing using screencasting tools. For example, one 2^nd grader used Explain Everything to create a digital essay on butterflies: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juyHu0nZhWQ.

When considering the possibilities for classroom use, we thought carefully about screencasting’s capabilities and how we could utilize them to enhance our existing curriculum.  For instance, students can demonstrate learning in a variety of ways, such as digital storytelling or explaining mathematical procedures. These projects can be easily uploaded to a class blog to make sharing with family, friends, and a wider audience easier. Screencasting is also a great tool to use for flipped classroom design. For example, the teacher can record a lesson for students to watch at home before coming to class so in-class time can be devoted to hands-on learning, projects, and discussions.

Although there are numerous screencasting tools, we selected the use of Explain Everything due to its easy-to-implement design. With extended time to explore and utilize the app, the students became more proficient and successfully implemented the tool independently. Through this experience, students learned the benefits of using digital tools such as screencasting both in the classroom as well as beyond the four walls of the classroom. Listening to their peers’ book trailers inspired students to extend their reading plans and fostered a sense of excitement about reading and sharing about books using this digital application. We encourage you to try this app out with your own students and hope you’ll share about it using the comment feature below.

Katie Stover (katie.stover@furman.edu) is an Assistant Professor of Literacy Education at Furman University in Greenville, SC.

Chase Young (chase.young@tamucc.edu) is an Assistant Professor of Education at Texas A&M University at Corpus Christi in Corpus Christi, TX.

This article is part of a series from the International Reading Association’s Technology in Literacy Education Special Interest Group (TILE-SIG).