Teaching Writing in the Digital Age

Let's talk about the elephant in the room, teaching writing to today's students. Teachers of today's students have students who have been texting, tweeting, and tumbling for what feels like forever. Well, forever to them. Pen and paper is "ancient" technology, so how do you go about teaching "writing" to generations who have always had digital technology available to them? While we're discussing this challenge, how many of your students would consider a pen technology? Mine didn't until I had them look up the definition of technology in the dictionary. To them, technology had to be something with gears, gigabytes, bluetooth, or anything digital.

The Pew Research Institute survey about 2500 Advanced Placement (AP) and National Writing Project (NWP) teachers and found that the majority of these teachers find digital technology to be useful in the teaching of writing. Students are able to share their work with more people and a wider variety of audiences, collaborate with other students (in their class and outside of their classroom), and it encourages creativity and personal expression.The teachers found these things caused students to have a greater investment in the writing process. If you think about it, we all (most of us anyway) are more careful with what post on the Internet. We take the time to carefully craft our message so we can fully convey or point in the limited characters available to us. Think about how text messaging evolved. We had to get creative so we could get our message sent without an extra charge for having too many characters. Our students probably do not know this pain, but they definitely know the frustrations of post on a message on Twitter. Sometimes 140 characters is just not enough!

On the flip side, this creativity often causes frustration as it makes its' way into formal writing. This generation, and future generations, will not know what it is like to not be connected to the world on some level. To them, all communication is informal as the entire world can read their tweets or status updates at anytime. It is important that we teach our students why informal communication is not always the appropriate way to express themselves.

Some other obstacles are the idea of digital technology as toys instead of tools and equal access to digital technologies. My four year old niece can operate my mom's iPhone better than she can. My eight year old cousin is also handy with his iPad. He probably knows more about it than I do, and I'm pretty handy with technology. Tablets, smartphones, laptops, and gaming consols are standard equipment for most students these days, but not all. I can remember being excited about going to the computer lab in elementary and playing Oregon Trail on the floppy disk. I can also remember it took my brother and I several years to convince our parents to get us a Super Nintendo for Christmas. Some families simply cannot afford to have the latest technology, and not all school districts can afford to provide each student with it either. 

Another large obstacle is plagiarism and fair use. Most of my students thought that if it was on the Internet, then it was common knowledge so they didn't have to cite their sources. I had to explain to them that it didn't work that way. I also had to explain to them that just because not everyone on the Internet cited their sources, doesn't mean they didn't have to cite their sources. 

Since we have all these digital resources, what constitutes as "writing". According to the Pew survey, writing (in the eyes of teens) is basically anything students do for school. This can be short essays/responses, daily/weekly journal entries, research papers, narratives, plays, etc. These can be hand written or digitally written. Most teachers assign some sort of short response weekly and longer written responses on a semester or annual basis. English and History/Social Studies teachers are more likely to assign longer writing assignments and mixed-media (using more than one media format to complete the assignment) assignments while Science and Math teachers assign more specialized writing such as lab write-ups and mathematical proofs.

One of the crucial questions I found from this survey was if longer formal writing is still important. Students are fairly good at informal writing as the text, tweet, and post on Facebook constantly! Formal writing, according to the teachers in the survey, require students to think at a deeper level and organize their thoughts. As a former middle school History teacher, I would have to agree. I had students who write in circles, students who assume I know exactly what they are talking about and shouldn't have to write more than a sentence, and just about everything in between. I also spent the entire first six weeks each year reminding them how to write using complete sentences. As the spend more time texting and posting on social media, the more they want to slip into informal writing in the classroom. To them, they will never have to write formally outside of the classroom because they currently to do not need to. They've never had to turn in a budget analysis, a grant proposal, or even a letter of intention for a job. Formal writing to them is what they have to do for standardized tests, so it won't be needed outside of the classroom. Those of us who know better, have to give them some real life uses or we will not be able to convince them that formal writing is important.

Since some social media platforms, such as Twitter, limit the length of a post, we have to get creative with how we spell things, so often times students will bring this "creative spelling" into the classroom. My friends' daughter is even being taught this in her dual language classroom. I am not a fan of this, but I am also not a fan of limiting creativity. There is a time and place for creative spelling just as their is a time and place for correct spelling. 

With the importance of formal writing comes grammar and spelling. Teachers have been fighting this battle for years, but technology these days provides students with an out for not knowing how to spell words correctly. When I was in middle school, one of my teachers gave use a paper showcasing why relying on spell check was not a good idea as it did not catch mistakes like using their instead of there when talking about going somewhere. Back then, word processing programs did not pick up on those type of grammatical mistakes. Today, you see a blue squiggle under words when you use the wrong word, so learning the difference isn't a big deal to most students. 

On the whole, digital technology is getting students interested in writing. As with any advancements, the digital age brings forth new challenges as it solves others. We have to embrace what we have and learn to adapt the technology we have so that we are educating students to be productive citizens in this digital age.

Purcell, K., Buchanan, J., & Friedrich, L. (2013, July 16). The Impact of Digital Tools on Student Writing and How Writing is Taught in Schools. Retrieved November 30, 2014, from http://www.pewinternet.org/2013/07/16/the-impact-of-digital-tools-on-student-writing-and-how-writing-is-taught-in-schools/#

Brittany

Mining PEW Progress:  69/150

The Future of the Library

With the Technology Age booming along, many people wonder what will happen to the library. In fact, I have been told I'm crazy for wanting to be a librarian since, and I quote,"You can find everything online, why do you want to be a librarian?" You and I both know that librarians are needed, but the world seems to think that the Internet is the only place answer can be found. 

The good folks at PewResearch Internet Project have created a presentation to let us know the future of the library. It is centered around the public library, but there are many points that school librarians can use too.

The Next Library and the People Who Will Use it:

Where libraries currently stand in the public eye.

Overall, people view libraries as valuable parts of their community, and would be upset should their library close. If we translate this to the school library, parents and students value the school library. To keep the value, we must make sure we know exactly who our patrons are and what they need.

Who patrons are and what they want.

Women, particularly college age or mothers with young children, use the library the most. When you look at the breakdown of who uses your school library, you will probably find that girls are the ones most often in the library outside of class library time. They are also going to be the ones accessing the library's website.

Who are they?

High Engagement: Library Lovers & Information Omnivores

Medium Engagement: Solid Center & Print Traditionalists

Low Engagement: Not For Me,Young and Restless, & Rooted and Roadblocked

No Personal Library Use: Distant Admirers & Off the Grid

What do they want?

Collaboration between public and schools/school libraries to provide more resources to children and early literacy programs.

Defined and comfortable spaces for various uses (work stations, reading nooks, etc), more and broader ranges of ebooks, workshops on various interest such as how to digitize their lives (pictures and paper files), more online access to services, and the ability to self checkout.

These demands definitely translate to the school library as students want comfortable spaces to work, workshops, ebooks, online services, and the ability to self checkout. Teachers would also like to be able to take their students to the library to use computers or have a large work space than their classroom. I know I found it hard for students to work on group presentations sometimes in my classroom, and having a defined space for working (not necessarily quite work) in my school's library would have been nice.

How technology is changing the flows of information.

When the Internet first came to the public sector (1995), the vast majority of people did not use it. It was this new thing that was scary and fascinating all at the same time. This new frontier needed trail blazers before society as a whole would be willing to accept it as an ok place to be. In fact, the Internet is still not used by 100% of people even though it may feel like everyone is on the net. Cell phones, smart phones, and tablets have made the Internet more accessible to more people. Eventually, we will reach a point in which the Internet will be old hat. The researchers at Pew call it our "third skin" since we will be so comfortable with it, it will be like our own skin. 

As the Internet and its use grows, society will experience better health, convenience, safety, and more useful information. We librarians know that useful information is the crux of the Internet for many of our students. Being able to find good sources for projects is something our students struggle with as search the net is not always as simple as typing a question into Google.

With this growth, we will also experience privacy issues, people/students who have a hard time adjusting to new real life scenarios, and the complexity of the net. We are already starting to experience some of these issues, so it is important that we are proactive in finding ways to overcome these pitfalls.

While the Internet is gaining in popularity, the libraries oldest service is still valued today...books. 

Where new needs are surfacing in communities.

As mentioned in previous sections, patrons are wanting more and more from their libraries. It is important that we poll our patrons to see what they want so we can use what resources we have effectively.

How the concept of "library" can change to meet new realities.

People: The library staff need to serve the community by keeping up with new technologies as well as current trends and sharing this knowledge with their patrons. 

Place: Just like the staff, the library space needs to reflect the needs of the patrons. As much as we librarians may want to hold on to our rows of books and silent reading, it is important to update our spaces to reflect today's user versus yesterday's user.
Platform: We need to be a community resource and advocate. The library, either school or public, is one of the few places that everyone will go to.



Overall, the future of the library is that we will still be needed and valued as long as we adapt to our surroundings. We are no longer the only sources of information, so it is important that we remind our communities that we are useful. Just because someone has gotten along without us, does not mean that we could not have helped him or her do better.
If you would like to view the slideshow, I have included it below. 

Brittany

The Next Library and the People Who Will Use It from Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project

Rainie, L. (2014, November 13). The Next Library and the People Who Will Use It. Retrieved     November 25, 2014, from http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/11/13/the-next-library-and-the-people-who-will-use-it/

Mining PEW Progress: 62/150 page

Instafame: A Look at Instagram and Vine

I came across a great example of how to use videos in the library this afternoon that I wanted to share before going into this post. You will not regret watching it!



I've talked about several different social media apps over the course of this blog, but I've got two more that I think you'll enjoy using personally and in the classroom. They are Instagram and Vine. Instagram is primarily for pictures while Vine is for short looping videos.

Instagram: a digital scrapbook

I've used Instagram for over a year, but it took me a while to post regularly to it. I am a fairly private person, so sharing little bits of my life with the world is not on the fore front of my mind. My primary reason for getting an Instagram was so I could keep in contact with a friend of mine who doesn't have Facebook. Once I got into the habit of taking pictures, it became easier to share them. I also set my account to private, so only the people who I have approved can view my pictures. I have temporarily set my account to public so you can view my pictures.

The first thing you will need to do is download the Instagram app for your phone and create an account. You can either set yours to private or public. If you are going to have student work on your Instagram, then you might want to set your account to private so only your students/parents can see it. There are a few ways you can upload pictures to you Instagram. The first way is to simply take a photo using the camera on your phone, and then upload it to Instagram. You can filter the image, add a caption, tag people, and then upload it to Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, or Flicker. Here's a picture of my dog Goofy that I uploaded using this method. 

The Goof wants to cook out tonight...

A photo posted by Brittany Hensley (@hensley221b) on Jul 7, 2014 at 4:23pm PDT

After a view posts, I realized I could take a picture while in the app and post it. This is pretty useful since you are going to open the app anyway to post the picture.

I mentioned that Instagram is a digital scrapbook, but you'll notice that my pic here doesn't have a cool frame to give it that "scrapbook" feel. This is where a companion app comes in handy! I use LiPix (formerly Insaframe) to add text, frames, or to upload multiple pictures at once.

Done! I can't wait to give this away!!!!! #DoctorWhosurprise

A photo posted by Brittany Hensley (@hensley221b) on Jun 6, 2014 at 7:09pm PDT

There are other apps you can download, but some come with a cost. I like using a companion app so I can filter the images and give them a special touch. Most of my recent pictures are of my knitting projects. I am teaching myself how to knit, so I post the pictures to show my knitter friends my progress.

Made quite a bit of progress today! #knittastic

A photo posted by Brittany Hensley (@hensley221b) on Nov 11, 2014 at 7:58pm PST

How can you use this in your classroom or library? You can post pictures of student projects, field trips, athletic events, concerts, or participating in classroom activities. If you're wanting to get them in on the posting action, you could have them temporarily change their handles to a historic figure or literary character's name. Have them post pictures as if they are the person or character. The pictures could be true to the time period the person or character lived in, or they could be the person's or character's reaction to living in today's world. 

Another way to use Instagram is to have your students run a campaign. Divide the class into two-four groups, have them decide who is going to be the candidate and who will be campaign workers, and let them experience some of the aspects of campaigning for office. This assignment can be limited to Instagram, or you can expand the assignment to other social platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, or any media site you feel comfortable using. The more platforms you have your students use, the more sites you have to monitor. A project like this would need parent permission as you are requiring their children to get on social media. If a student does not have permission to have their own social media accounts, you might see if it is ok for them to help create posts for others to post to their accounts. These students could also be in charge of creating posters, buttons, and other campaign swag.

Vine: Looping Videos

Looping videos are not videos of loops, but videos that automatically start over thus they are on a continuous loop! Your video can be done in one take, or as many as you want. All you do is point the camera on your phone at what you want to record and shoot. That's it. You then share them with the public. You can add categories such as comedy, food, travel, etc. I've linked my Facebook and Twitter accounts to Vine, so I can upload the video to them when I share the video on Vine. As with Instagram, there are companion apps you can download to get a bit more creative with your videos. 



Some ideas on how to use it in the classroom would be reenactments, contests, book trailers and advertisements. 

For reenactments, you could assign students, or groups, an even or scene from a novel/play for them to reenact and have them post their reenactment to vine. Then have the other students try to guess what event or scene is being reenacted. 

To use Vine for book trailers, you can have students pick their favorite books and quickly tell why others should read it. You could also use Vine for an alternative to written book reports.

As for advertisements, you could use them to remind students of upcoming due dates, events, or test. You could also have students create ads for the events and share them with their friends.

Another idea would be to show what you are doing in your classroom. I like John Schu's and Colby Sharp's videos because they are doing fabulous things with their students!




If you have any other ideas, please share them in the comments!

Brittany

Screencasting: From My Screen to Yours

Flashback with me to the days of yore when recording something meant waiting until the radio or TV station played your favorite song or program.

You quickly hit record hoping you hit the button at the right time to get all of the song but none of the D.J.'s obnoxious talking or the TV commercials. Annoying right? We've come a looooooonnnnnng way since then. Now we can set up recordings of our favorite shows that will record the show even if the time or air date changes, but what about our computers? How can we record what we are doing on our computers? The answer is simple, we screencast. Screencasting is when you use recording tools to capture what you are doing on your computer. 

One website you can use is Screencast-o-Matic. This site has a free and Pro version that cost $15 a year. With the free version, you can record for up to 15 minutes each video, but you can only upload one video at a time. If you want to record a new video, you have to replace your old one. The Pro version does not have these limits. If you are having issues with the website, you can download the software to your computer. Either way, all you need to do is push the record button to create a video of what you are doing on your computer. Check out this screencast of a presentation I created on library advocacy.


After you are finished recording, you can upload the video to Screencast-o-Matic or YouTube. If you have a YouTube account, you will need to add your account to Screencast-o-Matic. It is really easy, and takes very little time to do. Both options will give you a code to embed the video, so if you do not have a YouTube account you can still embed videos recorded to your website. This website is great for longer videos since you can record up to 15 minutes.

The next site you can use is Screenr. I had quite a bit of trouble getting Screenr to work because it requires the most up-to-date Java, and the most up-to-date Java is not compatible with Chrome (my preferred browser).  Fortunately FireFox supports the newest Java, but I was still having trouble getting Screenr to work. I would click on record and get a message saying my browser was blocking the cite because it had an invalid or expired certificate. Long story short, you have to go into your Java control panel and add an exception to the security level. I'll screencast how to do this on a Mac.

Just like with Screencast-O-Matic, it is really easy to use once you add the exception. You can upload videos to YouTube, or you can upload them to Screenr. This site would be better for short instructional videos, short presentations, or announcements.

Why would you want to screencast? Easy! How many times do students or teachers ask you how to do something on the computer? Or how many times do you wish you could record a presentation you gave so you could post in on your website? On the flip side, have you every wished you could share your students oral presentations, but your video equipment isn't all that great, or your you do not have enough time in the unit for them to present to the class? Screencasting would rectify these situations. What you screencast is really only limited to your imagination. The sites are easy enough for students to use, and they can use them on any computer as long as Java (a free download) is up-to-date. I prefer Screencast-O-Matic because it was really easy to use, and I didn't have any issues with it like I did with Screenr. I also like Screencast-O-Matic better because I can create longer videos with it.

If you know of any other sites for screencasting, let me know in the comments!

Happy Screencasting,

Brittany

Laugh Riot: Creating Comics and Comic Books for Your Classroom or Library

Have you ever wanted to create our own comics or comic books, but your artistic ability never really made it much further than 1st grade art class? Me too! I'm a pretty crafty person, but drawing is not something I'm good at. I taught U.S. History and my drawings of the United States usually resembled a polar bear or a baying wolf.That's where the Internet comes in handy. There are many websites you can use to help those of us who are artistically challenged to create our own comic masterpieces.

First up is ToonDoo. This site is free and allows you to create comics, comic books, and characters. You can use the images they provide you, or you can upload your own images. If you select this option, remember to check copyright before using pictures found on the Internet. The images can be manipulated to make them larger or smaller and change expression or orientation. The toons you create can be public, private, or shared with a few friends. If you chose the public option, other ToonDoo users can redo your toon. This could be a great way for your students to demonstrate their creative juices. You could create a toon and have them redo it to show how images can be interpreted many ways. The toon below took maybe 15 minutes to create. Yours probably won't take that long because I watched Gotham while working on it, and I played around with various buttons to see what they did. If you have used Comic Life before, then this site will be easy for you to use. The one thing I did not like about it is I could not add an extra box after I realized three would not be enough to make my point.

By Hensley221B | View this Toon at ToonDoo | Create your own Toon

ToonDoo is great for quick cartoons, but it doesn't provide as much control over the outcome of the cartoon . That's where Pixton comes into play. Pixton allows for more manipulation than ToonDoo does. For example, ToonDoo allows you to move whole objects while Pixton allows you to move whole or parts of an object. Say you want to move a characters arm, Pixton will allow you to do that. Pixton also offers subscriptions for schools. A teacher can purchase his or her own account that allows up to 200 student accounts, or a school/district can purchase accounts for students. Depending on the scope of what you are wanting to do, the school/district pricing is probably the best option. I signed up for the personal account (non teacher one), and somehow managed to get a 7 day free trial of Pixton+. Fortunately it did not ask for billing information, so I thinking I won't magically be charged for it once my trial is over. I hate it when companies do that.

After many attempts to create a comic using Pixton, I have finally had success! It seems that logging in with Facebook was not the way to go when creating your account with Pixton. I had to delete the first account I created, and then make a new one because I would get about halfway through the process and be timed out. This doesn't have anything to do with the ease of site, but more friendly advice for setting up your account. Unfortunately the code provided so I could embed the image doesn't want to work. You will need to click on the word success above in order to view my comic.

My inspiration for this comic came while scrolling through the various setting options provided by Pixton. I saw the ball pit and immediately shouted BAZINGA! when I saw it. If you are not familiar with The Big Bang Theroy, then I suggest you watch this clip. I used the basic option when creating my comic, but there is an advanced option that allows you more control than the basic. The advanced option would be great for a vocabulary project or having students demonstrate understanding of a concept. You could also have students create their own political cartoons.

A third online option is Make Beliefs Comix. This site is very limited in what you can use to create your comic, but would be great for making quick comics or using with young children because you do not have to create an account to use it. It's also good for students who can't seem to remember a password longer than a day. Here's a sample of a comic I created using the site.

You can't save comics to a profile like you can Pixton or ToonDoo, but you can print and email them. I took a screen shot of this one in order to upload it.

Of the three, I found ToonDoo to be the site I enjoyed the most. It was easy and I had enough control over the objects for my needs. I think Pixton might actually be better, but my trouble with getting it to work and the embed link not working has left me with some sour grapes. 

If you do not want to use a website for your comedic creations, you can use apps. Earlier in the post I mention Comic Life. This is a computer app you can use to make great comics. You will have to pay for this, so I recommend convincing your principal or district to buy licenses so all students can use it.

Tellagami is an app for your smart phone that will allow to create animated videos. These would be great for video announcements or as an updated oral book report. There is a free version and an education version that cost about $5. This one will allow for longer "gamis". They're pretty easy to make. Here's a link to one I made.

https://tellagami.com/gami/CCV12S/

Go forth and tickle some funny bones!

Brittany