At Fairmont State University we have a diverse population for the area, but are predominately white middle-class. While developing an online Introduction to Oceanography class, title of the class is still tentative, we have had a white female go through the modules and complete the assignments to give us feedback for improvement. The course integrates a variety of technology to keep the content from being repetitive and to take advantage of the technologies available. There is now an "escalating dependence of work and other daily tasks and processes on computer-mediated texts is associated with prominent references to technological literacy and technologized curricula in education reform pronouncements, Indeed, according to Aronowitz and Giroux (193: 63), 'The whole task set by contemporary education policy is to keep up with rapidly shifting developments in technology.'" Which leads us to wanting to use more current and also useful tools that the student can use in the future.
The problem is when a student does not see the same vision with the technology as the instructor, or doesn't know how to use the technology at all. I provided, what I thought were clear, instructions for how to turn a PowerPoint into a video that they could then voice over and post onto YouTube. The assignment was the create a public service announcement (PSA) to educate the general public on Tsunami's and what to do if one is headed their way. I recommended that they filmed themselves like a news caster, but gave the option for just a voice over if they were camera shy. What I ran into the first time she sent in the assignment was that she could not figure out how to voice over the video. PowerPoint does have a built-in system to do this, but I am assuming she could not figure out how to use it properly. I then gave her detailed instructions on how to use windows movie maker and sent her links to videos and documents on how to complete this task. Though this pushed back the due date, I was still happy to see the final version sent in.
The finished product got the job done, but was BORING! It was like listening to Siri read me the powerpoint slides. Where is the enthusiasm? What makes me want to finish this video? Why don't I just read it myself if you're going to just read what is on the slide? I wonder if giving more detailed guidelines to what I want would be enough. Even though I could tell them not to read exactly what is on the slide, have a word limit per slide, or have them put in videos; what will give them the drive to want to do more than the minimum? These are technologies I thought were current and could definitely be used in the work setting. I thought this would be fun and I know when I had to do a similar assignment I had a ton of fun with it. So what can I do to push the students? What can I do to make them care and see the relevance of the technologies they're using?
At the end of the day I think I might just need to have more examples of what a good PSA is and how the student can make it more than just reading a PowerPoint. I am still unsure of how to instill this craving for an exciting PSA video, but examples is probably my best shot. I wonder if showing them my PSA video would make the students feel more comfortable knowing their instructor has already fully embarrassed themselves. My goal is to use new and exciting tools for learning, but maybe I'm just not using the right one.
Monday, March 28, 2016
Chapter 9 & 10
Chapter 9: "That is, effective teachers will always go beyond the standards and benchmarks to enact meaningful and richly conceived literacies in their classrooms."
Though teachers are, at this time, forced to teach towards the standards and benchmarks, effective teachers do go above and beyond for their students. Finding new ways to reach out to their students is how we get students to do more than what they think they can. In this case study there was a students that needed that extra step to relate the content to their life. Being able to embed the content was vital to this students learning. Standards and benchmarks are important, but they are by no means the final say in a students achievement level.
Chapter 10: "Engaging in critique of new literacies should also be taken as an invitation to examine our own mindset as much as an invitation to judge a practice."
I am reminded of how we look at different scientific practices. It is a way to help the person being critiqued and the person performing the critique. We can critique what the other person is doing by making suggestions on how to do things differently, but we take away what they did well and we might use that in our own experiment. Do this enough times and eventually we have a refined process. At the end of the day it is jut another type of collaboration and is important to any type of research.
Though teachers are, at this time, forced to teach towards the standards and benchmarks, effective teachers do go above and beyond for their students. Finding new ways to reach out to their students is how we get students to do more than what they think they can. In this case study there was a students that needed that extra step to relate the content to their life. Being able to embed the content was vital to this students learning. Standards and benchmarks are important, but they are by no means the final say in a students achievement level.
Chapter 10: "Engaging in critique of new literacies should also be taken as an invitation to examine our own mindset as much as an invitation to judge a practice."
I am reminded of how we look at different scientific practices. It is a way to help the person being critiqued and the person performing the critique. We can critique what the other person is doing by making suggestions on how to do things differently, but we take away what they did well and we might use that in our own experiment. Do this enough times and eventually we have a refined process. At the end of the day it is jut another type of collaboration and is important to any type of research.
Monday, March 21, 2016
Chapter 7 & 8
Chapter 7: "Escalating dependence of work and other daily tasks and processes on computer-mediated texts is associated with prominent references to technological literacy and technologized curricula in education reform pronouncements, Indeed, according to Aronowitz and Giroux (193: 63), 'The whole task set by contemporary education policy is to keep up with rapidly shifting developments in technology.'"
This has become more clear to me as my career has progressed. I have noticed that many students are not as technologically advanced as I had presumed. I had always thought they would have more knowledge in this area than I do, but it does turn out that they lack in the areas of technology tools that can help them with day to day tasks and organization. Things like Google Drive, Dropbox, and even email are not in they're sights and if a teacher doesn't show them the benefits of these tools they won't have the advantage that is almost a standard in the working world. Staying current is important for the teacher to show the students current methods that they can then utilize.
Chapter 8: "As with the issue of access, however, this does not mean holding back on demands for more and better professional development and inservice teacher education -- or, for that matter, preservice teacher education."
Now I am not in the public school system, but I often wonder if this is what is holding some teachers back from not participating in technology professional development or if it is just them not being comfortable with the technology. Having this training and information can help teachers find ways to get these new technologies into the classroom and many times the technology is free. Putting more efforts into applying for grants and helping teachers get these technologies is just as important and training them. I think having a more well rounded professional development for all teachers is what is needed.
This has become more clear to me as my career has progressed. I have noticed that many students are not as technologically advanced as I had presumed. I had always thought they would have more knowledge in this area than I do, but it does turn out that they lack in the areas of technology tools that can help them with day to day tasks and organization. Things like Google Drive, Dropbox, and even email are not in they're sights and if a teacher doesn't show them the benefits of these tools they won't have the advantage that is almost a standard in the working world. Staying current is important for the teacher to show the students current methods that they can then utilize.
Chapter 8: "As with the issue of access, however, this does not mean holding back on demands for more and better professional development and inservice teacher education -- or, for that matter, preservice teacher education."
Now I am not in the public school system, but I often wonder if this is what is holding some teachers back from not participating in technology professional development or if it is just them not being comfortable with the technology. Having this training and information can help teachers find ways to get these new technologies into the classroom and many times the technology is free. Putting more efforts into applying for grants and helping teachers get these technologies is just as important and training them. I think having a more well rounded professional development for all teachers is what is needed.
Friday, March 11, 2016
Chapters 5 & 6
Chapter 5 – “Not surprisingly, critical media literacy is
being heralded as a counterforce to this postmodern logic that, like the
growing emphases on network relations, presents serious challenges to
maintaining and reconstructing Discourses of active and informed political and
civic involvement.”
This is a perfect time to bring this quote up since we are
currently in an election year. Critical media literacy does play a large role
in how informed the public is about candidates. It allows people to look beyond
what a candidate says and for them to see what they are actually doing. Being
able to look back on what a candidate has said in the past and compare it to
what they are now saying in a matter of minutes. Critical media literacy is a
new driving force for education and for the public to use as a tool to educate
themselves.
Chapter 6 – “Practicing a powerful literacy, so defined, can
provide the bases for reconstituting our selves/identities and resituating
ourselves within society.”
I think this quote speaks volumes because it eludes to how
we, as a civilization, are reconstituting our selves/identities. Powerful
literacy is not more accessible and affects everyone because we all have access
to the literate. Resituating ourselves within society means that we are able to
better ourselves and bring ourselves to a higher level within the society, once
again being able to achieve the American dream that has been seldom heard of in
recent years.
Saturday, March 5, 2016
Making the Connection
How might your case reflect/illustrate/or counter the ways in which working class people have responded to attempts at making them "improperly literate".
In my case I am also attempting to make the students (working class people) become "improperly literate" to the information and concepts in the modules. I too have to adjust the wording and level of readings in the module and on directions so that the students can understand the importance of the topics and why they should even care at all about them.
How might your case reflect/illustrate/or counter the ways in which teachers are complicit in creating "improperly literate" students.
The subject of the modules in the course are directed towards Oceanography and how humans have impacted the oceans. This starts the bias by giving students the ideas that we are causing climate change and not everyone on this planet believes that (though it is pretty safe to say that we are). So the assignments assess how the students take in an process the information that we give them and how they respond to our questions about the situation. Since we give them all this it is safe to say that we are steering them to agree with our bias, but in the modules I develop I always leave the assignments open-ended. This was the student may rebuttal what they have read and as long as they give good sound reasoning against what is the typical answer they will receive full credit. This is a hard concept to convey because students often just try to give the teacher what they think the teacher wants to hear so they can get a good grade. When they move to authentic response they can go past the "improperly literate" stage because when they are at the "improperly literate" stage they are more or less regurgitating what they have heard from their teacher and they do not need to develop the literacy themselves.
Consider anything you damn well please.
In my case I am also attempting to make the students (working class people) become "improperly literate" to the information and concepts in the modules. I too have to adjust the wording and level of readings in the module and on directions so that the students can understand the importance of the topics and why they should even care at all about them.
How might your case reflect/illustrate/or counter the ways in which teachers are complicit in creating "improperly literate" students.
The subject of the modules in the course are directed towards Oceanography and how humans have impacted the oceans. This starts the bias by giving students the ideas that we are causing climate change and not everyone on this planet believes that (though it is pretty safe to say that we are). So the assignments assess how the students take in an process the information that we give them and how they respond to our questions about the situation. Since we give them all this it is safe to say that we are steering them to agree with our bias, but in the modules I develop I always leave the assignments open-ended. This was the student may rebuttal what they have read and as long as they give good sound reasoning against what is the typical answer they will receive full credit. This is a hard concept to convey because students often just try to give the teacher what they think the teacher wants to hear so they can get a good grade. When they move to authentic response they can go past the "improperly literate" stage because when they are at the "improperly literate" stage they are more or less regurgitating what they have heard from their teacher and they do not need to develop the literacy themselves.
Consider anything you damn well please.
Everyone has a bias, and by that I mean everyone has their own opinion. No matter what the socioeconomic status of the person they have their own opinion. Cobbett knew this and his goal was for people to see his opinion as the correct one. Isn't that what we are all trying to do? Make our opinion of something be the right one. We throw ideas at each other until most of us can agree on an idea. So if this makes our society opinion driven, why is it teacher must be neutral and be the ones who do not seem to have an opinion? I guess that's because we are suppose to be the one's who give students the knowledge to form their own opinions instead of insisting they choose ours. How to decide the content that is taught so that students can best form their own opinion? That is decided based on the opinion of a whole group of people. This rant seems pointless, but all in all we appear to just be a culture that is based on a opinions and we just want our to be heard. Whom ever has the loudest opinion, is the one we look to and call our leader. (Not sure if a random rant was what we were suppose to do for this part, but there it is.)
Wednesday, March 2, 2016
We've got a case!
Fairmont State University is a school with a diverse population in a low to middle income area. The classroom is online and there is one student and the professor that is working with me on developing the course. It is titled Physical Geography and focuses mostly on oceanography on Blackboard. The student is given modules to complete on different oceanography concepts and current events. Te class is self paced so it has a relaxed environment with readings, videos, experiments, and application assignments.
The problems comes in with directions and phrasing the application assignments. Since what the student reads is the only thing they have to go on it needs to be extremely clear. The way questions and directions are phrased can become confusing and if a student is having trouble understanding what they need to do they are likely just to abandon the assignment all together. If the student has to send a message to the educator to clarify it takes away valuable time that student had planned to use completing the assignment.The professor I am working with also needs to understand what is needs to be done so that know how the lesson flows and connects the content. This has been plaguing me because it is hard to keep directions at the level required for the college level while also making the objective easily understood.
The only way I could figure how to do this is that we are having a preliminary run of the course with the student who keeps a journal of what they think of the assignments and if they understand how to complete the assignment. From these journal entries I am able to adjust the directions until they are easily understood. The student is a current university student so they would be the type of person who would take this course. Of course I had a lot of help with this from the professor I am working with. They have expertise in this area from teaching at this level for a long time and can help with suggestions on how to improve the wording.
This case is always open because this is the type of thing that can always be improved in a course. There is always someone who may interpret the directions different from others. As I have adjusted the diction the student has had an easier time understanding what they need to do to complete the assignment. I would like to think that I am satisfied with how the directions are, but I always feel like there is a way I could tweak them to be more clear. I would definitely recommend doing a trial run of any lesson or online course so that when it is delivered it will be at the best it can be. This method of course does have a name, formative evaluation, and is used largely for testing museum exhibits, but works wonders for online courses and lessons.
I would say that functional literacy comes more into play here because that is what a student needs to use to figure out how to complete the assignments. "Rather, it is acknowledged that the symbols--words, texts, primers--employed in teaching and learning communicate ideological values to the learner that very process of their becoming literate." I view the reading of directions to be the learning of symbols to communicate ideological values of what the assignment needs for completion.
I would say that functional literacy comes more into play here because that is what a student needs to use to figure out how to complete the assignments. "Rather, it is acknowledged that the symbols--words, texts, primers--employed in teaching and learning communicate ideological values to the learner that very process of their becoming literate." I view the reading of directions to be the learning of symbols to communicate ideological values of what the assignment needs for completion.
Functional vs Authentic Literacy
Preface - "As a person's circumstances change, so it is likely that the arguments they follow and the places they follow them to will change."
This statement makes me think about the arguments that I have followed through my life. As I got older and my interested started to focus in more towards education, it seemed to be the area where I cared the most about the arguments be had. If anyone has been following HB 4014, it has been my main argument focus for the past couple of weeks. I think the reason for the focus is because it seems to be a threat, to my livelihood and to what I care about most. Sure there were a lot of things in that bill to care about, but of course I focused in on the education portion of the bill because that's where I am in my life. This is a very powerful quote indeed.
Chapter 1 - "The most likely consequence of this is that the focus of their self-evaluation will then shift to these other (material) considerations, where they are objectively 'inferior.'"
Self-esteem plays such a huge role in a persons life that can even keep them from doing things they want to do. If someone does not think they are smart enough to be literal and are constantly put down it can make it to where they never want to even try. In this age people can feel this inferiority when they see someone with more material things than them. This is not how it should be, but in this world that is how intelligence and wealth because of that intelligence is shown. Even though a lot of people with the material objects are not deserving of them when it comes to intelligence, but because they have them they get a self-esteem boost to make them believe in themselves more. If the person who thinks they are inferior was put in a position like that I am sure they would perform as well or better than the person who is in that position.
Chapter 2 - "Rather, it is acknowledged that the symbols--words, texts, primers--employed in teaching and learning communicate ideological values to the learner that very process of their becoming literate."
This quote gets me thinking about words, texts, and primers and what they truly stand for. It's like how some languages don't have words for what another language is taking about. It is a value or feeling that is unique to the culture and language. A way to describe something that only they can truly understand because that is where it was born.
This statement makes me think about the arguments that I have followed through my life. As I got older and my interested started to focus in more towards education, it seemed to be the area where I cared the most about the arguments be had. If anyone has been following HB 4014, it has been my main argument focus for the past couple of weeks. I think the reason for the focus is because it seems to be a threat, to my livelihood and to what I care about most. Sure there were a lot of things in that bill to care about, but of course I focused in on the education portion of the bill because that's where I am in my life. This is a very powerful quote indeed.
Chapter 1 - "The most likely consequence of this is that the focus of their self-evaluation will then shift to these other (material) considerations, where they are objectively 'inferior.'"
Self-esteem plays such a huge role in a persons life that can even keep them from doing things they want to do. If someone does not think they are smart enough to be literal and are constantly put down it can make it to where they never want to even try. In this age people can feel this inferiority when they see someone with more material things than them. This is not how it should be, but in this world that is how intelligence and wealth because of that intelligence is shown. Even though a lot of people with the material objects are not deserving of them when it comes to intelligence, but because they have them they get a self-esteem boost to make them believe in themselves more. If the person who thinks they are inferior was put in a position like that I am sure they would perform as well or better than the person who is in that position.
Chapter 2 - "Rather, it is acknowledged that the symbols--words, texts, primers--employed in teaching and learning communicate ideological values to the learner that very process of their becoming literate."
This quote gets me thinking about words, texts, and primers and what they truly stand for. It's like how some languages don't have words for what another language is taking about. It is a value or feeling that is unique to the culture and language. A way to describe something that only they can truly understand because that is where it was born.
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