A good reason to convert

At the beginning of this class I was somewhat focused on how I wanted my classroom to operate. One thing I was absolutely positive on doing was journals. I believe journal entries create an opportunity to practice writing skills and reinforce content. While reading Wilbur's chapters on Blogs, Wiki's, and Digital Stories, I couldn't help but thinking how much more efficient it would be to have students keep their journal as blogs. The most influential quote that got me to jump on the bandwagon was on page 66 in chapter 4, "In fact, I tell them to only use their first name and last initial, and I keep a list of their Gmail accounts with their full names so I know whose blogs and comments belong to whom and I can keep track. This protects their privacy online while still allowing me to create accountability. In addition since blogs are public, parents, other teachers, and even administrators may be invited to read what students have been writing about a particular topic." This stuck a huge chord for me because the number one priority I have learned since student teaching is to keep a paper trail. With new programs and adaptations to teacher assessment, teachers are constantly being challenged to prove that they are doing their job. The best way to do that is to keep a paper trail of everything and anything that goes on in your classroom. By forcing the students to create a blog instead of a paper journal your entire paper trail for who is participating and how they are participating is located in one convenient spot on the internet. Of course there are always cons. The largest problem that a teacher would find in implementing this strategy is the availability of computers and internet. If a student does not have access to a computer or internet how can he or she be held accountable for keeping a consistent blog? Wilbur definitely turned a light on in my head and I will continue to try and find ways to perfect this journal keeping strategy. Any questions, comments, criticisms, or concerns are welcome.

A Possible Solution

So I was a little disappointed in my presentation about ted.com. I realized that while I displayed a website that promotes forward thinking, I did not apply it to our specific classroom. Therefore, I went on a search to find a video that would better represent how ted.com can aid teachers. What I found was a video that more applied to the general sense of the class. We have discussed at length that literacy has found many new definitions, and one of them that is in constant debate is technological literacy. It turns out that technological illiteracy is a larger problem that I thought. Aleph Molinari discusses this problem in "Let's Bridge the Digital Divide." In the video Molinari makes some very relevant claims such as, "The only thing that can change or break the cycle of poverty is education, and we can use technology to bring education to these economic communities." He also makes some rash claims such as, "Internet is a right not a privilege." While I'm not sure if internet should be a right, he supports his argument by making it clear that in a modern world it is necessary to be connected technologically. I hope this video inspires those who watch to try and make an effort to become more technologically literate and to use technology, efficiently, in their classrooms. Any thoughts, questions, criticisms, concerns are welcome.

If you can't beat them, join them, and then beat them.

TPCK, technological pedagogical content knowledge, may be the best building block for a culture since communism, but the fact of the matter is that the amount of possible positive outcomes warrants placing it in the curriculum of running schools. I have yet to find an educator that denies they chose the field of education to work for the students. If that is the case as educators we must play to their wants, as well as their needs. The traditional, conservative, whatever-you-wanna-call-it way of teaching is undoubtedly successful when addressing a traditional, conservative, whatever-you-wanna-call-it way student. However, students differ in social, racial, political, religious, economical backgrounds, and because of that, an educator must prepare his/herself to give each student the least restrictive learning environment, to achieve the best results. According to "Extending the Conversation: New Technologies, New Literacies, and New English Studies" research proves that "...new technologies (and the literacy they engender) are change agents whose affects are so pervasive they influence or thinking and ideologies..." If this is the case affecting future generations of students, fighting the change will prove fruitless. The only way to combat an institution is to spread as much information as possible. Use the TPCK that you have attained and apply it to a traditional, conservative, whatever-you-wanna-call-it way curriculum that your district promotes. If the methods have positive results it will be obvious to the stubborn that change is not a synonym for negative. That being said I am currently teaching a scripted curriculum in the Pittsburgh Public School District. In my next unit, I plan on requesting to use a film biography of Bob Marley to supplement understanding for the book The Color of Water. Undoubtedly, a biography of Bob Marley will contain content involving the illegal drug of marijuana. For a person to analyze the biography with a negative connotation, without watching it, due to the presence of marijuana is ignorant of history and by doing so turns his/her back on providing students material containing the potential to spark interest in themes  attempting to be taught. To conclude, I leave you with these questions...Does a loss of value in printed-text, as a teaching tool, mean a loss of value in the standard for educating? If students can absorb the content of education earlier, faster, and more efficient through using TPCK, would it not then benefit our society to allow the new generations to improve present, flawed practices and ideas. How will we solve current problems if we continue to employ failing practices?

Supplemental Material

My co-operating teacher has decided to hand her 11th grade English class the next unit. I will be teaching The Color of Water. A short summary for anyone who has not discovered this book: The author, James McBride, accounts his childhood as a mixed race youth growing up in New York City. Interwoven into James' memoirs are excerpts from a biography of his immigrant, white, Jewish mother Rachel Shilsky. I am suggesting to my teacher that because I have an extra day in the plan, to show Marley, a biography on Bob Marley. It is available on Netflix and is a biographical account of the mixed-race Jamaican that became the loudest voice in a growing counter-culture. I believe that learning a music icon conquered a similar struggle will add relevance to the novel and importance to their analysis. Any thoughts, critiques, concerns?

What are we waiting for?

As I read "I Just Need to Draw" I could not help but thinking, "Here we go again." I mean this with the least negative connotation as possible, but I feel like intertexuality is a subject that has been researched and proven to increase learning. So what is the hold up with putting it in the classroom. I have talked to my co-op and other teachers in the building, and they have told me that the curriculum is not built around bringing in supplemental sources or activities. This does not stop those teachers from adding intertexuality readings and activities to their lesson plans, but why should they have to decide to do that on their own? When will districts begin to take the research to heart and make intertexuality practices the norm in their curriculums? Short, Kauffman, and Kahn discuss how students can find new ways to represent ideas and signs in classrooms across the board. On page 162 the article explains, "Math is the one sign system that many teachers don't believe is connected to literature response. When Leslie taped her students' discussion about literature, she found many examples of the use of mathematics to understand books." In almost every case I have read about researchers are finding that when students are introduced to content area through a variety of methods and practices those students learn more effectively. So I ask again, what are we waiting for? When will administrators and curriculum writers for our districts use literature response, intertexuality, and other various methods of bringing subjects together to study curriculum across the board.

I am currently student teaching at Pittsburgh CAPA and will most likely use this blog as an opportunity to test drive possible lessons or ideas for things I could bring into the classroom. The first idea I had was an activity I would use to keep students busy while I had one-on-one meetings with each student about their cumulative projects. The cumulative project will be for their current unit dealing with the theme of stereotypes and how they affect how we shape ourselves. The next unit will be on speeches with the theme of shared human experience. I wanted to show a speech that the students could analyze for the stereotype theme they had just finished, while also giving them opportunity to look forward to the next theme. What I came up with was playing a speech by Aesha Jaco. Aesha Says (Intro) is used as the introduction to Lupe Fiasco's: Food and Liquor II: The Great American Rap Album Part 1. For those that do not have audio capabilities here are the lyrics. I would provide the students with prompts such as "Using specific examples, describe how this speech addresses stereotypes through figurative language," "How does the speech's structure or syntax affect the theme," and "What examples found in this speech can be used to describe differences in cultures, but shared human experiences." Any and all criticism is welcome.

Intro

Hi, my name is Geoff Bagnato and I am writing this as a test post for Writing for Non-Print Media