Literacy Now

In today’s world, the topic of using technology in the classroom can be intimidating. In this monthly column, join one teacher on a quest to discover the best way to meet the needs of her digital-age learners…moving beyond the technology tools to focusing on supporting each student’s learning. 

It’s the beginning of a typical day: there’s a hum of learning beginning in the classrooms, students are running errands to various parts of the school building, and announcements break in for current school news.  Then it’s discovered! Someone has gone into the restroom and written on the walls with a pencil. Outrage ensues and a culprit is quickly discovered. This type of behavior simply cannot, will not, be tolerated. From this point on, all pencils are banned from school grounds.

As teachers, we know that this is ludicrous. We understand that kids will be kids. Mistakes happen. We look for these opportunities to harness the power of turning a mistake, or lapse of judgment, into a moment for our students to learn and grow as individuals. Likewise, we know that we cannot deprive other students of other learning opportunities because one student misused their pencil. After all, a pencil is simply a tool; a tool with incredible potential to support not only content-area learning, but also creativity, collaboration, and problem solving.

However, in today’s classrooms around the world, some teachers are doing just that; they are banning a tool that brings a world of learning possibilities far beyond our imagination. That tool is social media. Those two words typically have a polarizing affect upon teachers. They either love it or they avoid it like the plague.  

Many teachers, parents, and administrators are afraid of the potential dangers associated with social media. Are there potential dangers associated with social media? Yes. However, do we ban scissors and physical education classes because there is a potential of danger? No. Within the safety of our classroom walls, we teach students safe practices until those practices become habits. That is also what we need to do with our students and social media.

Safety First

We have been using social media in our classroom for six years. When we started, I only had a vision of making our classroom visible to my students’ family. I wanted for my learners’ parents and relatives to become a part of the learning that was taking place in our classroom. So I approached my administrator and explained my purpose. I also explained I had put several safety measures in place for our students. After hearing all of my plans and knowing that many of our learners’ family members were all over the world, she agreed to allow us to use social media in order to bring home and school closer together as we worked to strengthen the community bond.

We began with Twitter. First of all, I would be the only one with the login information and my personal phone was the only device connected to that account. I would control everything going out of our Twitter account and filter anything coming into our classroom. We would only follow other classes of students, children’s/young adult authors, or educational resources.

Furthermore, we would spend the first week of school engaging in serious conversations about cyber-safety and netiquette. These conversations were not meant to scare students, but were intended to help open their eyes to all of the benefits of social media as well as the potential dangers. We used the Net Cetera resources from OnguardOnline.gov to guide the dialogue. What surprised me the first year we had this conversation is how many students were already using social networking sites with little to no supervision or guidance. Because we had these conversations, my students understood their online choices and actually made themselves safer when they were away from the filters and safety precautions at school.

Following our in-class discussion, students took the Net Cetera books (also available in Spanish) home to their parents. The students put on the teacher hat and led conversations with their parents about online safety. Parents contacted me in awe of their students’ ability to articulate the importance of making wiser choices when online.

Our foray into social media quickly grew as students began to realize and crave an authentic reason to share their learning, discuss their books, publish their writing, and create challenges for their global peers. They would share their successes and ask for help in overcoming obstacles. Since we had laid a strong foundation in understanding the place for this tool in supporting our learning and communicating with others, my students began connecting with experts who could answer their questions, writing mentors who could guide their writing development, and role models who provided inspiration in pursuing their dreams.

Speak Up

I knew for this to have long-term, successful ramifications, I needed parental support. My learners’ parents needed to understand that social media was more than celebrities sharing their mundane life choices; it was a tool that could connect students to a world of learning opportunities not available through other mediums (See Giving Every Student a Voice with Twitter).

All parents in our district signed a release form allowing photos of their students to be posted online. We would never post a photo with a child’s name.  However, I wanted for the parents to see the amazing potential social media afforded their students.

At our “Meet the Teacher” night before school began, I began sharing all of our plans and the role Twitter (later we added blogging , Skype, and Instagram) would play in our learning. I explained the safety precautions in place and how the students would be learning lifelong skills within the safety of our classroom.   In the six years we have used social media, I have only had one parent who didn’t want his child’s photo posted and after two months of watching our Twitter feed, he changed his mind. I attribute this to the fact that the parents became a part of the conversation. They were well-informed. Social media was never presented as an “extra,” but as tool to support their students’ learning and growth. It provided a relevance and authenticity to their learning while inviting parents to join us in learning adventures.

Going Beyond

When embarking on anything new, education is the key. Change is scary. The unknown evokes fear in many. As the teacher, we must be educated and able to articulate and support our practice. Our choices must be purposeful and support relevant and meaningful learning for all of our students.

It’s important to take time to communicate our ideas while validating and addressing the concerns of administrators and parents. After all, we are the ones leading the learning of all of our students. We need to be the ones advocating for what is best for them in today’s digital age.

It’s time for us to stop banning “pencils,” and open our students up to a whole new world of learning. The answer is not in banning practices or tools that can build our learners far beyond our classroom. There is a world that is overflowing with opportunities for them to grow and connect with their global peers all within the safety of our classrooms. It is our responsibility to pave the way where students can harness the power of different tools to support them on their path of lifelong learning.

Julie D. Ramsay is a Nationally Board Certified educator and the author of Can We Skip Lunch and Keep Writing?: Collaborating in Class & Online, Grades 3-8. She teaches ELA to sixth graders at Rock Quarry Middle School in Tuscaloosa, AL. She also travels the country to speak, present, and facilitate workshops in applying technology to support authentic learning. Read her blog at juliedramsay.blogspot.com. 

I vividly remember sitting in a graduate reading course where we were discussing Walt Whitman's poem “My Papa's Waltz” and feeling extremely uncomfortable. Usually, I was a very active participant in class and enjoyed engaging in discussions with my peers. This time it was very different. I felt like I wanted to disappear under the table, fearful of being called upon and not having the "right" answer. I worried that my interpretation of the poem would not be what the professor wanted or be the same as my classmates. I was scared of being different. I was reminded of this scenario just a few years later when I took a teaching position at an alternative school for students with emotional and behavioral disorders.

Students identified with emotional and behavior disorders (EBD) typically have been labeled as disruptive, insolent, disobedient, and displaying frequent behaviors that impede learning and interfere with the educational process, as noted by Michael Fitzpatrick and Earl Knowlton in Preventing School Failure. I understood that my student’s prior academic experiences were very similar to my experience with My Papa’s Waltz. I knew I had to create meaningful and engaging learning experiences.  

I chose to implement digital poetry as part of my writing instruction. Today’s students live in a multimedia world and my students were no different. They were very motivated to use technology and I felt that by integrating technology into a poetry unit, I could overcome the negative behavior of my students and engage them in the learning process. Jeffery Schwartz argues in Teach the New Writing that the understanding of writing and communication by today’s students has surpassed that of their parents. Furthermore, “to teach reading and writing in a global world, we need to follow our students’ lead into a new understanding of media text.”

I began the digital poetry project by having students create digital biography poems. The students began by using a template to compose "I Am" biography poems. Then using Windows Moviemaker Live software which comes standard on PC's, the students transformed their poems into digital poetry by adding images, audio, effects, and transitions to extend the meaning of their poems and create a representation of themselves. This was a very powerful activity for these learners because it allowed for them to share information about themselves and successfully engage in academic learning. They were comfortable sharing their lives through the digital poems and it brought us closer as a community of learners.

Building on the success of the “I Am” poems, we engaged in a deeper study of poets and poetry. Again the students would create digital poems but this time they would interpret their favorite poems. The students began by reading the poems of many notable poets and choosing their favorites. After some sharing time and discussion, the students chose the poem they wanted to turn into a digital movie. I provided them with storyboarding organizers and they planned their digital poems, screen by screen, integrating the text with images and audio. Next, they uploaded their images and text to Windows Moviemaker and completed their poems with adding transitions, effects, and audio. The finished poems demonstrated a level of interpretation that I do not think I would have seen from my students if we had just discussed the poems face to face. For example, Jenna, an eighth grader, chose the poem “Little Girl Be Careful What You Say”by Carl Sandburg. For her digital interpretation, she only used black and white images. When asked why, she stated that she really wanted to convey the mood of the poem which to her felt very somber. I do not think the students would have been able to share this level of interpretation without the aid of digital technology.

I have since moved on from the alternative school to my current position as a university professor where I teach undergraduate and graduate course in literacy. The digital poetry project has become a staple in my graduate language arts course. The feedback from my students has been extremely positive. They have enjoyed being introduced to this new medium and many have indicated that they plan to implement similar projects in their own teaching. They too have realized the value of incorporating digital technology into literacy instruction.

A sample of the poems created by students can be found on Facebook.

Dr. Kristin Webber is a veteran teacher with over 20 years of teaching experience. Currently, she is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Early Childhood and Reading at Edinboro University where she teaches both undergraduate and graduate courses in literacy. She also serves as the Program Head for the Graduate Reading Program. While in the classroom, Kristin has taught at every level from preschool to high school. Her research interests include the New Literacies, instructional technology, adolescent literacy, and reluctant readers. This article is part of a series from the International Reading Association’s Technology in Literacy Education Special Interest Group (TILE-SIG).

Dear Online Concept Map,

I am sorry. I have ignored you for some time. I knew you existed but, as a time-poor teacher, your software seemed unnecessary. I assumed that having each student use pencil and paper to compose a concept-map in his/her own exercise book was a sufficient alternative to an online version. Forgive me. I didn’t realize your software had additional features to stimulate critical and creative thinking. And who would have thought that you sought to have students collaborate to compose each concept map, let alone that you wanted these students to share their maps with others? I promise to never dismiss your potential again.

Apologetically Yours,

High School Teacher

***

A recent encounter with the technical report “The Theory Underlying Concept Maps and How to Construct and Use Them” by Joseph D. Novak and Alberto J. Cañas (2008) provided this educator with the opportunity to recast concept maps as a central and meaningful, rather than a supplementary, learning activity. Novak and Cañas’s report triggered a new appreciation for online concept maps due to their suitability for collaboration and ability to trigger critical and creative thinking.

The benefits of online concept maps over their offline equivalent:

• Multiple students can collaborate in real time to create, edit, and debate their concept map’s construction. Screenshots can be taken or URLs generated to enable sharing with other students.

• Online versions of concept maps may be edited, refined, and enhanced at all stages of their construction. Concepts initially placed in one part of an online map can be dragged easily to a different section should the students recognize a more appropriate or additional relationship.

• Some online concept mapping tools allow users to see a step-by-step animation of the concept map’s construction. This feature can prompt revealing conversations between teachers and students about their cognitive processes and understanding of the topic.

• Some software packages allow for URLs, images, and annotated notes can be hyperlinked to each node (the shape containing a single concept within the map). Other tools allow for students to link an individual node to a separate, but related, concept map. Following such links allows students to dive deeper into concepts of personal interest or need.

• While concepts can be provided by the teacher, or identified by the students, the appropriate cross-links lines and arrows interlace the concepts to show a relationship. Cross-links can include linking words/prepositions (is, has, enables, implies, produces, is reliant on, raises the issue of) must be determined and applied to the concept map. Critical thinking skills are essential at this stage of the map’s construction to ensure the cross-links selected convey their understanding of the topic accurately.

Nicole Timbrell is a high school English teacher at Loreto Kirribilli in Sydney, Australia. In 2013-2014 she took a year away from the classroom to complete graduate study in Cognition, Instruction and Learning Technologies at the University of Connecticut. Follow her on twitter at @nicloutim.

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.