NCTE presentation: Defining Purposes for Using Web 2.0 Tools in the Classroom

Rick Beach, University of Minnesota, rbeach@umn.edu

Handout on Google Docs: http://tinyurl.com/yjbc2jc

Jeff Uteckt: Literacy Curriculum Jeff Uteckt: Literacy Curriculum ModelsModels

NCTE Poll: 900 language arts NCTE Poll: 900 language arts teachers teachers Top three abilities for student success

seek information and make critical judgments about the veracity of sources

read and interpret many different kinds of texts, both in print and online

innovate and apply knowledge creatively

NCTE Poll: 900 language arts NCTE Poll: 900 language arts teachers teachers 62% reject notion that basic language,

reading, and writing skills must be mastered before critical 21st century literacy abilities can be cultivated

Acquiring and subscribing to/sharing information Social Bookmarking and sharing links/tags Sharing links in class Diigo groups adding annotations to online literary texts

for sharing responses to literature

Using Diigo for adding a sticky-note response

QuickTime™ and aTIFF (Uncompressed) decompressorare needed to see this picture.

Uses of mapping in studying identity construction Visually portray performances according to

three units of analysis: Events

| Spaces

| Social worlds/systems

Use maps to prompt interview reflections “Pointing” prompts: talk about maps

Event as unit of analysis: People act and react to current and future acts to

create an event or context Utterances have consequences Uptake of speech acts or lack of action

Events have boundaries People “in” the event People/forces “outside” the event but still

influencing the event “the elephant in the room”

Space as unit of analysis Spaces as gendered, raced, or classed Gendered worlds as mediated by language use

Thorne: children on playground space: practices not necessarily gendered

Teacher: tells children to group up by “boys” and “girls”

Playground space becomes gendered as a binary space

Social Worlds/Institutional Systems Social worlds/systems

schooling, workplace/economic, family, health care, justice, government/political, media, etc.,

Driven by larger objects or outcomes School: enhanced students’ literacy Workplace: higher profits

Using Maps to “Connect the Dots”: Food <--> health care Raising livestock

70% of water consumption in the West 21% of global gas emissions 1 gallon of gas to produce 1 pound of meat “Grass-fed” cows produce 21 times the

methane of grain-fed cows

Connecting the dots Agri-business/corn lobby campaign

donations government farm policies Manufactured food lack of urban grocery stores with fresh vegetables/fruit fast food restaurants/advertising High fat food obesity increased health-care costs

Collaborative Construction of Knowledge: Wikis PBWorks (http://pbworks.com), Wikispaces

(http://www.wikispaces.com), or Wetpaint (http://www.wetpaint.com)

Rhetoric and Composition wikibook: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Rhetoric_and_Composition

Virtual collaboration: Literary Worlds site http://www.literaryworlds.org (Rozema &

Webb, 2008).

Students ngage in synchronous chat about frequently taught texts such as Brave New World, Things Fall Apart, Of Mice and Men, The Great Gatsby, and 1984.

Creating multimodal texts: Digital Creating multimodal texts: Digital comicscomics

Comic Life/Bitstrips Brent Eckoff, West Jr. High:

“I had students to a rough storyboard of what they planned to create. Some of the speech bubbles and text boxes they wrote were both surprising, and innovative. The students then exported the Comic Life presentations as quicktime files, uploaded them to YouTube, and then embedded them on the class wiki.”

Culture-jamming/remixing Remix America (remix historical

speeches/words with contemporary events)

Adbusters spoofs/parodies

QuickTime™ and aTIFF (Uncompressed) decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

Using VoiceThread for critical analysis of media representations Select a topic: female athletes Find Flickr images and import into

VoiceThread Add voice or written comments about

patterns of

Formulating arguments using online role-play/games

Using a Class Blog: Using a Class Blog: "Fighting Sioux" mascot debate

Issue: Internet policiesIssue: Internet policies

Blocking of websites NRA site blocked

Administrators accessing Facebook Determining if students are drinking Violation of the state’s athletic code

Read Cory Doctorow’s Read Cory Doctorow’s Little Little BrotherBrother

17-year-old Marcus, a computer hacker, takes on the Department of Homeland Security’s attempt to control society

Issues of Internet privacy/control

  

Ning: Blocking “educational” sites/administrator snooping

Ethos: EmoGirl: Critique Ethos: EmoGirl: Critique of school Internet of school Internet policiespolicies I think the internet

usage policies are ridiculous. The policies are almost impossible to find. I spent half an hour trying to find them and I'm a young, computer savvy person. 

““Strict Father” cultural model: Strict Father” cultural model: Charles HammersteinCharles Hammerstein The issue with sites like

YouTube is that it is a helpful site when used correctly, but the ratio of students who would use it to the students who would abuse it would greatly favor the later of the two. R-rated sites are not ok because they usually contain information and content that may be considered offensive. The internet policies are very clear, if your grandmother would not appreciate it, then you probably shouldn't be doing those kind of things at school.

Bubbl.us mapping to identify roles and Bubbl.us mapping to identify roles and relationships between rolesrelationships between roles

Students reflect on:Students reflect on:• Use of arguments• Comfort in role• Targeted audiences/alliances

• Who has power?o Reasons: strategies

• Sense of potential change

Students reflected on the role-Students reflected on the role-play:play:• I think it was a valuable learning experience

because we actually got to argue back and forth with other people.  If this had just been a writing assignment, it would have only been one-sided.  You can use persuasive arguments in a paper but you can’t have a back and forth conversation on it.  I really felt like it helped me get into someone else’s shoes and think like someone different from myself. 

Change-based assessment: Change-based assessment: Determining effectivenessDetermining effectiveness Assess students on their use writing to

attempt to affect change in actual audiences’ beliefs Framing of the status quo Their own and others’ beliefs Their sense of agency to make change

Need for objective criteria Problem: teacher’s own preferred changes

Developing a Sense of Voice through Podcasting

Book talks Spoken word poetry Readers’ theater productions Radio shows Skype interviews

Feedback and Self-reflection

Audio files as feedback to writing VoiceThread comments VideoAnt: annotations for video

productions E-portfolios

VideoAnt: feedback to videos VideoAnt: feedback to videos