Course Three

Let’s Get Visual, Visual.

April 29, 2012 – 1:07 pm

I read a blog post on infographics recently that reminded me that the idea is not a new one. We have seen visualized information our entire lives in newspapers, magazines, and textbooks. Perhaps the reason for the rebranding is e fact that anyone can now create and distribute one to a wide audience with relative ease.

And there is the point when it comes to visual literacy. Visuals are everywhere and created by everyone. Our kids must be equipped to vet the deluge of informations they consume on a daily basis. The. Visual Literacy White Paper, a report commissioned by Adobe, contends that images are becoming the “predominant form of communications.”

Beyond needing the skills to comprehend images and videos in this increasingly visual world, students need to be able to create products that communicate effectively as well. That is where the skills learned in the visual literacy COETAIL class really helped me in my instruction.

We must prepare our kids to create better presentations, a process that keeps the ideas of presentation zen in mind. It has already begun to guide presentations I make in class and the way I teach and support students as they create themselves.

The Pecha Kucha style of presenting can help students with the skills necessary to employs the ideas of presentation zen. It is quite impossible to have a slide full of text and only speak on it for 20 seconds. I saw fruits of this in my class as I experimented immediately following the COETAIL class on the subject.

Digital storytelling has become incredibly important toady. The presentation zen article about Dan Pink’s book highlights the importance of meaning in presentations. Helping students discern meaning and create it in their own work is a skill that needs to be focused on.

For all the talk about the importance of visual literacy, I hope that we don’t forget the meaning behind. It would be easy to teach how to make beautiful products without any substance. I also hope that educators won’t scrap all their writing assessments in favor of digital stories – the writing skills must be developed first. Still, the visual medium of communicating is growing and our students need to be prepared for that.

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Course Three

The Story of Power

April 24, 2012 – 7:37 am

For the final project for the visual literacy class, we were tasked with creating a digital story. This should have come easy to me, but a great idea seemed to elude me. My class already does digital stories, though I want to improve some things when teaching them this skill next year. I wanted to create a worthwhile project that I could actually use; this is easier than it sounds with an already packed curriculum. Inspiration finally hit and I think I have created something worthwhile.

Task Sheet

Digital Story Treatment and Outline

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COETAIL Course Three

It’s Pronounced Peh-cha Koo-Cha

March 28, 2012 – 6:12 pm

Funny name. Serious presentation style. (schlotzskys)

I don’t know that I would ever use Pecha Kucha to present to students, but I would and already have asked students to do so. By doing one myself, I realized how valuable it is terms of selecting images with a purpose and preparing a talk.

Last week, I asked students to select one image that represented their thinking on the subject we had been studying (terrorism). The students put the image into a Google Presentation that I shared with all of them. Then, the slides were set to a 30 second timer. As soon as one kid finished, the next kid stood up, began speaking and walked to the front of the room. A cool thing to come out of this was getting kids to speak from different parts of the room and not talking to the screen. The kids were really proud of themselves and gave themselves a genuine round of applause at the end.

Fun and meaningful. Jason’s and my presentation for class on the NETS standards is below.

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COETAIL Course Three

Get Zen…Then Sleep

March 21, 2012 – 4:27 pm

I consider myself to be pretty savvy when it comes to design. Still, thinking about presentation zen has caused me to be a little more deliberate about the way I create visuals, not just presentations. The presentation below is for my 6th grade health class on the importance of sleep.

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Course Three

Infographic

March 14, 2012 – 7:54 am

My class is currently studying Power and Conflict. I wanted to create a graphic that showed that the Holocaust was not something that happened overnight, but was actually a process that started with removing power from the Jews (and Roma and homosexuals and disabled and Communists and…).

The students were impressed with the graphic and were able to grasp the idea. They were able to tie back into a discussion on genocide from the previous class to see just how the process of dehumanization and segregation occurred.

One valuable experience for me was seeing how long this exercise took to complete. This could be a very valuable project for students, but it is time consuming. I used Microsoft Publisher to create and found it easier to use and more powerful for my needs than piktochart. All of the images used are from Microsoft clip-art or in the public domain.

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COETAIL Course Two -EDC 601

More Copyright! This time for kids.

March 4, 2012 – 5:56 pm

At the start of the start of this course, I never would have thought that copyright would have been the most interesting or informative part. As it turns out, I found it to be both and very applicable to what I am doing in the classroom. At the bottom of this post is a UBD “unit” that strives to teach students about copyright and fair use.

I really thought about how my views changed on the subject while in class. I think one of the hardest things about teaching is that you never remember how hard something was to learn once you actually learn it – because then it is easy. So when planning this unit about copyright and fair use, I really looked back to some of the things we did in COETAIL class.

I wanted to include some videos for several reasons. First, they are funny and catchy. I still sing that stupid “Copyright, What’s Copyright” song at random times during the day. One of main takeaways I want for students is that they are AWARE of these issues. Look no further than my post Teaching About Copyright to see how unaware my students are. Second is that they do a good job of getting some basic ideas out there. The videos are good discussion starters.

Another trick I borrowed from COETAIL is to have students use CC images and give attribution in their blog posts. I was kind of doing this before, but only because I had seen some COETAIL discussion on Twitter and professional blogs before taking the course.

Although I plan to run this mini-unit in the first semester next year, I am hoping to sneak in some of the ideas with my classes this year too. If I really believe it to be valuable (and I do), then I should be able to find the time. These issues are important.

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COETAIL Course Two -EDC 601

Collaboration: More Than a Buzz Word

February 26, 2012 – 6:54 pm

I challenge anyone to read an article, or listen to a talk, or watch a video on 21st century learning without hearing how important collaboration is as a skill for students. It is so important, it even gets its own NETS standard! So do you really want to read another blog about why collaboration is so important? Lets both agree that it’s a biggie.

Technology can help our kids collaborate. We use it all the time, most often in the form of Google Apps, or Prezi, or Wallwisher or a number of other online tools. Technology though, shouldn’t become the sole method for collaboration. I get to see a class full students everyday and I would hate to have a class full of students collaborating together everyday without saying a word. There are, of course exceptions to this.

I Am Collaboration (And So Can You!)

Twitter might be the coolest tool for teachers since chalk. This past weekend, at the one-to-one technology conference, ASBUnplugged, I heard some version of, “If there is one thing you get from this conference, join Twitter” about ten times. If you are not on yet, I am guessing that you have been “resisting.” I heard that quite a few times too. I’ll let you in on a secret, you are going to join sooner or later, so you might as well get started.

Teachers on Twitter are always sharing. And asking for help. And giving help. I have seen Google Docs sent out where teachers could go in and add what they were doing regarding the topic. I have personally shared and used linked information that has directly help shape my understanding or instruction. It is a powerful tool.

The Web Is Brainy

Image: Flickr John & Mel Kots

Written text is like driving in America; you stay in your line. Web text is like driving in India; you can go in any direction at anytime. Everything is linked. Even the stuff that isn’t linked is now linked. On certain websites, or with the right browser app, any word you highlight is instantly searchable or defined or both.

One great tool that could really help kids to understand how concepts and words are interconnected is Tag Galaxy. Here, you can plug in a word (tag), or multiple words and it instantly connects other words. If you click on one of those, it takes you to a new level. And if you click on the center inside any of those levels, photos from flickr with that tag are displayed.

The non-linear nature of the web should be an easy conversation to have. In Humanities, I don’t let kids get away with linear thinking, because in my subject, that is simple thinking. As we use these web tools, the conversation needs to happen there. Teachers must take the time to make sure students are not just clicking links. They need to know why they are clicking them.

 

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COETAIL Course Two -EDC 601

Protecting Students Without Fencing Them In

February 19, 2012 – 3:58 pm

Image from Flickr user woodleywonderworks

When I first started the readings for this section of the course I thought I had it figured out. Cyber bullying in schools is an obvious issue, I thought. The readings showed something different though.

The Pew survey results show that kids are in fact being bullied online, but it is not really any more widespread than bullying that is happening in person. This was somewhat surprising to me. In my personal experience and from the readings, it is much easier to be bold through a computer. I see “internet tough guys” all the time when I am online. Does this translate into more bullying online? What should educators do about these issues?

It seems quite apparent that both parents and schools must take an active role in help kids understand cyber-safety. This is illuminated by the Pew study regarding teen internet use, and there are several important lessons to be learned.

  • According to the survey, almost half the teens online said they lied about their age in order to join a website. This is an oft overlooked problem that I face as a middle school teacher. As our school moves to iPads next year, the COPPA 13 y/o agreement will be a major issue that we will need to solve. This affects many tools that we use – Prezi, iTunes, Glogster, etc.
  • One third of teens have shared their password with a friend. Do we file this one under the “mistakes you half to make in life” column? It seems that no matter how much teachers or parents or friends repeat the dangers of an issue like this, it takes getting burned for someone to actually learn.

One of the most interesting items I found was regarding who teens learned about online safety from and who they ultimately turned to when faced with an issue. Seventy percent of teens learned about cyber safety from teachers (eighty-six percent from parents), but when it came time to seek advice, only three percent sought out a teacher. Fifty-three percent went to peers while thirty-six percent turned to parents.

OK, a blow to the ego maybe, but not entirely shocking. So does this mean that we are wasting out time? Of course not. Schools play an essential role in preparing students to give sound advice. When it actually happens, a teacher might not be the one to give direct help, but the kid who is in that position needs to have the skills and knowledge to help their friend. And isn’t that the business we are in anyway. We are trying to prepare kids to make good decisions and provide sound council in these situations.

Who’s job is it to teach these skills?

Lectures by uncool old people like me aren’t going to make teens who are engaged in dramas think twice about what they’re doing. And, for that matter, using the term “bullying” is also not going to help at all either. We need interventions that focus on building empathy, identifying escalation, and techniques for stopping the cycles of abuse.

The Dana Boyd quote from above comes from an article on “cyber-bullying”. When it comes to thinking about how to teach online saftey, I think she nails it. Can I also add, we shouldn’t call it “cyber-safey”, as I have several times throughout this post. We are teaching kids about solving problems and making good decisions. I do think thereexplicit discussion about these issues has to occur, but I would agree with her when she says, “technology is not radically changing what’s happening; it’s simply making what’s happening far more visible.”

As technology changes, teachers must face the issues our kids are dealing with head on. We cannot pretend they do not exist. Banning Facebook and Twitter is not an option; we must teach students how to responsibly use these tools and how to troubleshoot when problems arise.

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COETAIL Course Two -EDC 601

The Line Is Moving

February 8, 2012 – 7:26 pm


I have a personal blog. In this blog I often post pictures of friends without their consent. Some of them might never know that these images were posted online. I guess this puts me on the liberal side of the online privacy line. The problem for the people on the other side of the line, and perhaps me, is that the line is moving.

This article from The Rebel Yell was written in 2009, and already some of the wonderings from the article are begging to show up today. The author wonders, for instance, what we will do when companies start changing user agreement. Sound familiar?

I suppose this is what happens when every phone is a camera and every picture you take is instantly uploaded, like with Instagram, Google+, Hipstamatic, not to mention taking the time to post it to Twitter or Facebook. We want privacy, but we also want to share our lives.

This becomes more true as families spread further across the globe. For expats, online sharing is incredibly important for maintaining relationships. But this shouldn’t mean that we have to share everything with everybody.

That is why social sites are getting smarter. Google+ has circles that allows you to choose who you share with. And even cooler, you can make it to where people you share it with cannot share further. This eliminates some of the problems that occur when you are friends with someone online who is friends with someone else who you might not want to have access to your pictures.

Managing what you put out there is the easy part. The more difficult piece comes when you have to be concerned about what others are putting out about you. And that is where education comes in.

As the world changes, we have to adapt to those changes. We have to be aware of our actions when we are in public places. We also have to educate our students about how to navigate the waters of online privacy. We are not going backwards. Kids, and adults and me for that matter, are not going to give up their phones, their online connections, their social networks. We just have to prepare them how to share what with who, a lesson my parents and teachers taught me long ago. The wisdom is the same, the application is what is changing.

 

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COETAIL Course Two -EDC 601

Saving Face, Digitally

January 31, 2012 – 9:17 pm
When I think about managing my digital footprint, it all seems like common sense. Don’t put anything on the internet that you wouldn’t want your employer or future employer to see seems like a pretty good rule. But that view is a little simplistic. Take the case of Rick Santorum, who should be out of elected office because of the things he has said, not because of a websites attempt to make his name synonymous with, er, lets say poop. We must now be aware of what other post and what can be linked back to up. Somethings as simple as a joke with a twitter @mention could come back to haunt you.

Katie Lewis at youturn.com put together a rather complete guide to managing your who you are digitally. One of the most interesting ideas about managing your online presence is that we have to make sure we post more good than bad. I’ve been teaching Animal Farm with my 8th graders, and I can’t help but think we have to all get in touch with our inner  Squealer to manage our image.

That view is probably a little dark though. I think that people, myself included, are a little squeamish about the idea of shaping how people see you online because it seems fake. Disingenuous. My view on this is evolving though. Don’t we shape how we present ourselves in person? Of course we do! The difference is that what is online is there to be seen by all, so we can’t put on different faces like we can in real life. I certainly act much differently in front of my students than I do with my colleagues, friends or family. And it always takes me time to warm up to people and show the looser side of my character until I have a certain level of trust.

Interestingly there was an article going around Facebook this week, What teachers really want to tell parents. Even though I might agree with some of what was written in this article, I wouldn’t want it linked back to me for fear that some parent my stumble across it, read only the title, and make a snap judgement.

The other side of the coin here is that managing your online presence can actually help you land a job. As more schools press onward with technology, a teacher with no online presence could find themselves in a less than stellar position. Conversely, look no further than COETAIL instructor extraordinaire, Dana Watts, who secured employment at AES on the strength of her digital portfolio.

Finally, since we are educators, we need to think beyond ourselves to how we can help students make wise choices about their online lives. Of course, we cannot make decisions for our kids; they are going to make mistakes. But we can try to limit those mistakes by making them aware of how the image they portray online will stay with them. I read a story last week about a big-time football recruit who had scholarship offers from Michigan and Notre Dame pulled because of offense remarks he wrote on Twitter. Sharing these types of stories is important to help students understand the consequences of what is said online.

I know more than one adult who have said “Thank the Lord there was no Facebook or Twitter when I was growing up.” At least as kids we could burn our embarrassing pictures; now you have to flood your digital profile with better representations.

All images mine.
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