New tools are being created for harnessing the internet and all of the information available on it.  One new tool is being created by Dr. Mark Wagner.  The web tool is in development and will allow users to search on a topic they want to learn about – results will include many different resources (that are acceptable for writing a research paper) – even video and images.  Users will be able to create an annotated bibliography and even share their search with friends, fellow students, and/or teachers.  If you are interested, you can go to his blog and test the first phase of the project.  He is asking for feedback and suggestions.

I think that this is a really great idea.  I love the fact that students would be able to create an annotated bibliography online.  I was reading an article in English Journal (from the NCTE) about a student and teacher who worked together to create a more computer savvy method for all of the parts of a research paper.  The student kept all of her notes in an excel spreadsheet instead of on note cards.  Beyond this, she even figured out how to keep all of her sources in order and reference them in her outline.  This tool would be another step in making the research paper an experience in using technology – something that most students would go for!

So, there are some things that I will absolutely not put up with in my classroom.  Bullying, agressive behavior, sexually insulting or agressive behavior, and name calling are the big ones.  Some of these have strict school guidelines in regards to how to handle the issue.  But, name calling seems to be something that teachers have to create and enforce rules about. 

Cruel name calling is an issue that permeates our culture.  This article in the NYT describes a new ad campaign aimed at ending slurs against gays and lesbians, especially gay and lesbian teenageers – A Push to Curb the Casual Use of Ugly Phrases.  While many teenagers use slurs as a joke or to make fun of others, many don’t realize how close to home those remarks can be.  The campaign is being released in conjunction with a report by the Gay, Lesbian, and Stragight Education Network.  ” The survey will report that 9 in 10 teenagers who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender said they were verbally harassed during the last school year. Almost half said they were also physically harassed because of their sexual orientation.”

I think that this is a great step in trying to curb this kind of language.  I think that we as teachers can go a step further by ensuring that this language does not enter our classrooms.

Now, there are so many different ways to go into this question, but an article I found on Education Week’s website looks at how the digital environment has effected student’s ethical code.  The article, Project Probes Digital Media’s Effects on Ethics, focuses on a research study being conducted to try to determine how students are dealing with the ethical challenges that technology and media present.  The entire article can be found at the end of this post if the link isn’t working. 
Howard Gardner, the man behind the multiple-intelligences theory, is leading the study at Harvard.  The study is looking at students between the ages of 15 and 25 who use internet media in some way.  I read the article and a was a little nervous, until I got to the very end, that there would be no mention of the fact that we as educators now have a responsibility to bring media ethics into our classroom.  This is such a huge issue today.  These students are delving into a world that most of their parents and teachers know nothing about, leaving students unprepared for dealing with the ethical concerns.
But, the research being done will lead to resources for teachers…”With the Harvard researchers, he and others at MIT’s Project New Media Literacies are developing multimedia curricular materials and an ethics casebook that educators can use to help students grapple with the ethical issues arising in their digital-media experiences outside the classroom.”

Project Probes Digital Media’s Effect on Ethics

Howard Gardner Leads Team Studying Youths’ Web Norms

It’s a familiar scenario: A teenager snaps a picture of underage classmates drinking alcohol at a party. The photos go up on a social-networking Web site and land on the desk of an athletic coach or a school administrator. The students pictured are suspended from school or booted off their teams.
Researchers here at the Harvard Graduate School of Education say stories like that one illustrate one of the ways new digital media are raising distinct ethical challenges and temptations for young people today.
“Even though many young people may not be ready to participate in the wider communities that digital media open up to them, there is no controlling information about yourself or others that gets posted,” said Howard Gardner, the project’s co-director. “It’s a situation that’s foisted upon young persons who are not ready for it.”
Mr. Gardner, an eminent psychologist best known for his multiple-intelligences theory, is working with a team of researchers at Project Zero, the research center he helped create at the graduate school, to study how students’ use of digital media affects the development of their “ethical minds.”
Known as the GoodPlay Project, the study is being financed with a grant from the Chicago-based John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. What researchers hope to do through the project is fill a gap in the burgeoning research literature on young people’s use of digital media, including social-networking sites, blogs, online games, Wikipedia, and virtual worlds, such as Second Life.
While most studies are mapping out what young people are learning and doing in their digital lives, the GoodPlay Project is probing the ethical contours of those electronic worlds in an effort to better understand how digital technology shapes young people’s character.
“What’s interesting about the GoodPlay Project is that, while it is taking a broad look at the common fundamental issues that involve youth and digital media, it is also taking a qualitative look at the idea that these young people are actually developing social norms that are quite different from adult values and behavior,” said Mimi Ito, a cultural anthropologist at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.

From Cronkite to Palin

The Harvard researchers last week shared a first cut at their findings from GoodPlay with Education Week, and the results point to a nuanced view of how young people see their role as Internet citizens and technology users.

The first is privacy, the issue that rears its head in the teenage-drinking-party scenario, followed by authorship—or ownership of intellectual or creative property—an issue that comes into play when young people share content with others or cut and paste paragraphs into their school work. The other issues are credibility, or how students determine who or what sources to trust online; identity, which refers to how students present themselves to others on the Web; and participation, or how students conduct themselves online and the responsibility they feel to their digital communities.
With regard to privacy, for instance, the interviews suggest a paradox. “Overall, students say privacy is an important aspect of online life,” said John M. Francis, a research assistant on the project, “but they do things that undermine that concern. They put information online that we might consider oversharing.”
Seventy-five percent of the high school students, for instance, said their privacy was important to them, yet half keep their social-networking profiles open to the public and more than half say they have “nothing to hide.”
Part of the problem, the researchers said, is that students often underestimate the size of the communities that have access to their personal information online, or they have difficulty mastering the controls on social-networking sites that prevent unknown visitors from seeing that information.
“We still want to unpack some of the paradoxes that we’ve uncovered,” Mr. Gardner said.

Keeping It Real

Another one: While students show a healthy distrust of the strangers and the content they find online, they rely on information sources, such as Wikipedia, a Web encyclopedia that allows visitors to add or edit content, in writing academic reports and research papers. Forty-five of 56 subjects inverviewed on that topic said they use Wikipedia for school-related research, although 80 percent of that group said Wikipedia was primarily the starting point for their information searches.

“They admit their teachers have told them not to use it but they still use it,” said Carrie James, the project’s research director. “Some see it as the starting point and the end point for their research, especially if they don’t care about the assignment.”
Likewise, all but five of the students acknowledged they illegally download music online. The exceptions were students who have a personal stake in or some experience with the harmful consequences of Internet piracy—musicians, for example, or students with friends or relatives who’ve been caught engaging in it. A few students also voiced confusion about what kind of content was legally off-limits, Mr. Francis said.
Also, while the Web and multiplayer computer games afford students opportunities to experiment with new identities in the digital world, most said they portray themselves honestly. “If they do experiment, it’s in a low-stakes way,” said Ms. James, “Maybe they might be a little more flirtatious.”
Students were asked, for example, to imagine that they were an experienced college soccer player participating in an online forum on the sport. If other participants ignored their counsel on diet and training, would they take a friend’s advice and portray themselves as an expert trainer? Only two of 24 subjects said they would take that route, project data show.
An accurate self-representation was also important to bloggers, who saw it as key to keeping their semi-professional reputations. Apart from bloggers, though, few students felt a sense of responsibility to the communities they encountered online, the GoodPlay researchers found.
Also, they said students had a harder time naming mentors they had found online than “anti-mentors,” users whose negative behaviors served as an example of how not to act in the digital world.
Although the GoodPlay study focused on a small group of Boston-area students, researchers said the findings are consistent with what they’re seeing elsewhere.
Ms. Ito, for example, identified similar practices in an ethnographic study involving 800 students, most of whom are from California. That study, which consists of case studies of students’ informal learning in 22 kinds of digital activities, is due out Nov. 20.
Both Ms. Ito’s study and the GoodPlay Project are part of a $50 million research effort funded by the MacArthur Foundation that aims to fill gaps in what is known about young people’s interactions with digital technology. (“Projects Probe New Media’s Role in Changing the Face of Learning,” Dec. 5, 2007.)
“I think we’re arriving at a shared vision,” said Henry Jenkins,the co-director of the comparative media studies program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and another researcher in the MacArthur network.
With the Harvard researchers, he and others at MIT’s Project New Media Literacies are developing multimedia curricular materials and an ethics casebook that educators can use to help students grapple with the ethical issues arising in their digital-media experiences outside the classroom.
The idea, Mr. Jenkins said, is “to force students to think about the choices they make and the consequences of those choices.”
The potential application for the lessons could be enormous. Recent surveys by the Pew Internet Project, show, for example, that 97 percent of teenagers nationwide play computer, Web, or video games, 55 percent have created a profile on a social-networking site, and 64 percent have created some sort of online content, such as a music remix or a blog.
“I think educators are aware they can’t afford to not pay attention to students’ play online,” Ms. James said.

Vol. 28, Issue 13, Pages 1,12

After taking a Native American Literature course during my undergrad years, I have had an interest in that culture.  Not only do I think that we as Americans all too often forget that there are those who were here long before us, a culture that, despite the best attempts of the American government and society, have survived.  As we entered the new millennium, many Native American tribes set out to save and revive their culture and language.  The problems they face in trying to do this come from generations of persecution and genocide that has resulted in a declining and scarred population that has been forced to leave tradition and language behind. 

This article in the New York Times, Its Native Tongue Facing Extinction, Arapaho Tribe Teaches the Young, describes one of the ways that a tribe is trying to resurrect itself.  Using a whole immersion method, students will be taught a state curriculum in thier tribal language.  Tribal leaders hope that this will be one step in helping the young gain pride in their culture.  “Language-immersion schools offer an environment that goes beyond teaching the language…It provides a safe place where a child’s roots are nurtured, its culture honored, and its being valued.”

There are very few who still speak the language, and other attempts to teach the language have shown only some success.  Because of this, leaders and educators have chosen to start with 22 pre-kidnergarten through first grade students – those who will be around to ensure the continuity of the language.  “If we lose that language, we lose who we are.”

I found this article about a month ago and saved it to my desktop because I really wanted to post about it – Latin Returns From Dead… .  This article, from the New York Times, is about a resurgence in Latin language classes and in ancient culture clubs.  I thought this was really interesting.  In one of my other classes, Latin was described as a dead language (i.e. it is no longer changing and adapting with the times) that was falling out of favor.  But, this article shows not only how Latin is becoming popular again, but also how it can help students.  Since so many of the words we read are based on Latin roots, these students have a huge leg up in regards to vocabulary.  I think this will slowly become a more popular class to take since so many of the tests high school students have to take revolve, in large part, around vocabulary – the SAT, ACT, MME, etc. 

What I wonder, though, is whether these students need a full on Latin language course, or whether they would be better off learning a second language that they could actually use in the real world – Chinese, Spanish, French, etc. – and get their dose of Latin in thier other courses.  Learning latin roots and certain words can be useful for science, math, english, and on and on.  So, students could still benefit from learning Latin, but do it in a more concise manner.

I found a great article and broadcast from PBS – Language Mysteries Explained - about a book by humorist Roy Blount, Jr.  His book is called Alphabet Juice and explains how words, their sounds, and meanings relate.  The excerpt from his book is great fun and really interesting, but the best part is the interview.  If you go to the link, you can listen to the program. 

I saw this and immediately thought about how I would use it in a classroom.  Now, I have been warned that this will start to happen all of the time – anything I do will end with me trying to figure out how I can use it in class or relate it to something my class is doing.  Back to the topic at hand though, I think this would be a great book to use in a classroom.  Not only is it funny, but Blount does some great analysis. 

The way he links the words, their sounds and their meanings is interesting and memorable, which I think could help students.  I would use this for vocabulary building – the definitions could help students with retention.  And some fun in the classroom is always a good thing!

The excerpt on PBS web page   section about the noises animals make.  The main example is the pig and how that sound is described in different languages: “oink, oink” in English, “noff, noff” in Norwegian, etc.  This leads to Blount’s assertion that words and their meanings are represented by their sounds – you’ll have to go and read to get more…

Alright, so I do care about grammar – just not enough to be so frickin’ picky – Lay vs. Lie - is just too picky for me.  I don’t even use the words correctly – should I expect my students to?  I found this article after class last week and really began to cement my (current) view about the teaching of grammar.  There are some things that are just so commonly misused that they are now the norm.  If this is how language is used today, why should students be penalized?

I guess, for me, making sure that they are getting the big picture and are able to put that big picture into words is the main battle I want to undertake.  Grammar is important, just not important enough for me to penalize students who are getting the concepts of a lesson because they make grammatical errors that are found throughout today’s literature, advertising, newspapers, magazines, and speech.  If these “errors” are made so often, doesn’t it seem more reasonable to begin to consider them to be acceptable grammar?  Yes, this is a very descriptivist point of view – but for me, at least, it makes so much more sense.

So my last post was about using comics as a way to get kids to write, and as I was once again surfing my google reader, I found an article about new ways of getting kids to read —- VIDEO GAMES!  Now, I am pretty liberal in how I view literacy – I personally believe that anything that gets kids involved in their world and thinking is good.  There are, however, different levels of “good.”  I, for example, love to read Nora Roberts books – I hate to admit this, but I hope that it will help me make my point.  I don’t consider them to be ”literature” – I know that every time I read one, not only do I know how it will end, but I can almost always predict how it will come about.  The thing is, they really are just a quick fun read, I don’t have to think much to get through the book.  So I’m thinking about this as I read “The Future of Reading: Using Video Games as Bait to Hook Readers” from the New York Times.  Between my liberal view of literacy and my own personal reading habits, I really think that video games might be a really great way to get kids to read. 

If kids are interested enough in the video game, extending that world beyond the television and controller could create an interest.  If that world is done in a way that involves more than just looking up a clue for the next level, I really think that there could be some “good” thinking and learning going on.  Literacy today isn’t just about being able to read a book or a newspaper – it is about being able to interact with one’s environment – and this involves technology. 

Now, I definitely don’t think that this will work for every kid, but the fact that it may help us reach some makes it worth at least researching.  Yeah, I do think that this would be on one of the lower levels of what I would consider “good” reading material – but honestly it goes back to what is becoming one of my personal mantras – anything to get them reading!!  If this might work, then why not?!?

I found a great blog, Digital Writing, Digital Teaching and was really intrigued by a post about using comic books as a way to get students to write.  The post focuses on a website, http://www.makebeliefscomix.com/ , that provides users with blank comics to fill in.  They are now including writing prompts, such as:

Many teachers are using this site as a way to make writing and reading fun.  The site is also recommended for ESL students, for parents, and for anyone who wants to be creative.  I checked the site out and it was easy to use.  The prompts offered were interesting and definitely provided great starting points for some great stories.

I think that this would be a great way to get students who are having trouble writing.  It could be used as a starting point, as a pre-writing exercise, or even be used as the actual assignment for some students.  I really like the idea of linking different methods of expression together.  This would be a great lead-in for a graphic novel or a project.

There are several ways to put a link in your blog.

1) Copy and paste the link into your blog – this will not be a live link though.

2) Put the title of your link into your blog, hightlight it, then click on the link button – it looks kind of like an infinity symbol and is along the top of your post with the other editing options.  When you click on this, you will paste your link into the link section – make sure there is only one “http://”.  When you have finished this, click insert.

3) Write your blog in HTML (available along the top of the post above the editing options).  When you do this, you will write your link as:  <a href=”http://your link here”>title<a/>

4) Go to WordPress Link FAQ and choose one of the links available – there is even a video to show you how to insert links.

Happy linking!!!