DigitalLiteracies

Where I'm From

2010-02-23T06:25:00.001-08:00

I am from a mountain town,

where big snow falls with plum flower blossoming.

I am from a lake as blue as sapphire,

where a little girl giggled in a pedal boat.

I am from seven splendid waterfalls,

which hide within clouds and rainbows and rocks.

I am from bed-time folk stories,

where a fairy meets her earth lover on a magpie bridge,

I am from Heidi's straw bed and Alps village,

from a drop of golden sun and a long long way to run.

I am from Gone with the Wind,

where Scarlett winks --

Tomorrow is another day.

I am from a Chinese Youth Palace,

where a little girl was practicing "penguin dance".

I am from dreary violin classes,

with neighbors wearing earplugs.

I am from painted faces in Chinese operas.

I am from sketches of apples, aliens, and giant pandas.

I am from grandpa's warm study room,

with moments of laughter and moans

I am from mom's chrysanthemum garden,

with all colors budding in ardor.

I am from steaming rice cakes and dishes of nostalgia.

I am from a continuous apprenticeship,

challenged with academic practices.

I am from my world of equity and love,

from a universe of discoveries and believes.

I am from where I stand,

with you all.

We Will be on Stage!

2009-11-12T13:46:00.000-08:00

An Autumn Morning

2009-11-12T12:01:00.000-08:00

Trends in Ed, 10. 27. 09

2009-10-27T07:12:00.000-07:00

Economy and Internet Trends

Mary Meeker delivered a presentation to Web 2.0 conference recently looking at the state of the economy and the Internet. This presentation quickly looks back over the last few years:
2004 – China Internet – Opportunity is Immense 2005 – Broadband – Becoming Pervasive, Driving Growth in Communications / UGC
2006 – Online Video – Building Momentum
2007 – Social Networks – Proliferating, Driving Platform Changes
2008 – Economic Recession – Creates Challenge + Opportunity for Web Companies
2009 – Mobile Internet – Is and Will be Bigger Than Most Think

It further forecasts the huge growth, and increased integration, of internet-connected devices (see the following slide). The iPhone and social media sites (Facebook, Twitter) figure prominently in her assessment.

The Theory of Connectivism in an Information Age

George Siemens recently presented “Roots of Connectivism” to an open graduate course named Social Media & Open Education, at the Faculty of Education, University of Regina. Based on a basic understanding of various theories of knowledge & learning (e.g., behaviorism, cognitivism, social constructivism, constructionism, neuroscience), the presentation briefly introduces his theory of connectivism. Siemens and Stephen Downes have developed this theory which uses a network as the central metaphor for learning, focusing on knowledge as making connections.

Roots of Connectivism

View more presentations from gsiemens.

Getting tired of phone calls? – Try Google Voice

Yesterday Google announced that we can now use Google Voice with an existing phone number. Also notably, we can now add Google voicemail service to any of the mobile numbers linked to our account. It is a bit like Gmail for voicemail.

Trends in Ed, 10.20.09

2009-10-20T15:00:00.000-07:00

ScribbleLive, is a free tool for live blogging with audio and video embeddings. This tool can be accessed via any of your accounts in Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, MSN, etc. The content of live blogging can be further embedded on multiple interfaces such as personal blog site.

Mobile Blogging in WordPress

Writing and viewing blogs have become even more convenient via mobile devices since WordPress just issued two new mobile themes. Check here for more details:

For smartphones with top notch mobile browsers, like the iPhone or Android devices, the theme will be a tweaked version of WPtouch, while other devices will sport a variation of the WordPress Mobile Edition.

Call for Session Proposals - 1st Annual Digital Media and Learning Conference: "DIVERSIFYING PARTICIPATION"

February 18-20, 2010

Submission Deadline: October 30, 2009

Details of the conference can be viewed here.

Henry Jenkins is the Chair of the Digital Media and Learning Conference and our Keynote Speakers will be Sonia Livingstone and S. Craig Watkins.

We encourage sessions that describe, document, and critically analyze different forms of participation and how they relate to various forms of social and cultural capital. We are interested in accounts of the challenges and obstacles which block or inhibit engagement to different forms of online participation. We also encourage session proposals that engage with successful intervention strategies and pedagogical processes enabling once marginalized groups to more fully exploit the opportunities for learning with digital media. Conversely, we are interested in hearing more about how marginal and subcultural communities find diverse uses of new and emerging technologies, pushing them in new directions and navigating a complicated relationship with "mainstream" forms of participation.

E-books and the Reading Debate

2009-10-19T14:18:00.000-07:00

Check out this great NY Times piece which gives voice to several sides of the debate around reading and the influences of e-books:

Right now, networked digital media do a poor job of balancing focal and peripheral attention. We swing between two kinds of bad reading. We suffer tunnel vision, as when reading a single page, paragraph, or even “keyword in context” without an organized sense of the whole. Or we suffer marginal distraction, as when feeds or blogrolls in the margin (”sidebar”) of a blog let the whole blogosphere in. - Alan Liu, English Professor

Paper retains substantial advantages, though, for types of reading that require flipping back and forth between pages, such as articles with end notes or figures....The reading speed reported in academic studies does not include delays induced by clicking away from the text to see the new email that just arrived or check out what’s new on your favorite blog. In one study, workers switched tasks about every three minutes and took over 23 minutes on average to return to a task. - Sandra Aamodt, Editor

For my greatest concern is that the young brain will never have the time (in milliseconds or in hours or in years) to learn to go deeper into the text after the first decoding, but rather will be pulled by the medium to ever more distracting information, sidebars, and now,perhaps, videos (in the new vooks). - Maryanne Wolf, Child Development Professor

I assume that technology will soon start moving in the natural direction: integrating chips into books, not vice versa. I might like to make a book beep when I can’t find it, search its text online, download updates and keep an eye on reviews and discussion. This would all be easily handled by electronics worked into the binding. Such upgraded books acquire some of the bad traits of computer text — but at least, if the circuitry breaks or the battery runs out, I’ve still got a book...The tools (as usual) are neutral. It’s up to us to insist that onscreen reading enhance, not replace, traditional book reading. It’s up to us to remember that the medium is not the message; that the meaning and music of the words is what matters, not the glitzy vehicle they arrive in. - David Gelernter, Computer Science Professor

I wonder about young people, who do not know of a life before the Internet, and who, growing up “digitized,” might not prefer reading online where they are the pilots of their own information pathways. More and more, studies are showing how adept young people are at multitasking. But the extent to which they can deeply engage with the online material is a question for further research. - Gloria Mark, Informatics Professor

Does a class divide exist in online social networks?

2009-10-14T06:20:00.000-07:00

Latest research suggests yes to the above question asked by CNN.

Check out this article regarding the specific statistics.

Almost 23 percent of Facebook users earn more than $100,000 a year, compared to slightly more than 16 percent of MySpace users.
37 percent of MySpace members earn less than $50,000 annually, compared with about 28 percent of Facebook users.
MySpace users tend to be "in middle-class, blue-collar neighborhoods," said Mike Mancini, vice president of data product management for Nielsen.
Even more affluent are users of Twitter, the microblogging site, and LinkedIn, a networking site geared to white-collar professionals.
Almost 38 percent of LinkedIn users earn more than $100,000 a year.

The Revolution of Email is Coming?

2009-10-13T17:05:00.000-07:00

Google Wave (see a previous post) released an updated version with photo and video embedding functions at the end of last month.

The new open-source Google application -- open to 100,000 users for testing on a wider scale -- which a Googler describes as "magical" in the video below -- promises to offer a new way for people to interact and work on the web.

Google Wave blends e-mail, instant messaging, social networks, and workplace collaboration. by CNET.

Google is granting access to the Wave to 100,000 users, although more than 1 million people clamored to be in the test group.

Interesting Update: A Google Wave invite was found for sale on eBay, and had attracted 19 bids, pushing the price up to $70, according to Mashable. If you want to try this new version, please feel free to let me know. =)

Trends in Ed, 10.13.09

2009-10-13T06:28:00.000-07:00

Solar Powered E-book Developed by LG
After the release of the world's first solar powered cell phone (by Sharp), LG has recently unveiled the world's first solar powered e-book reader.

Parallel Archive - A Place for Digital Scholarship

Parallel Archive is a space where scholars and students in the humanities and social sciences can upload, store, study, and share their digitized archival sources. It is designed to facilitate individual scholarly research and publication; cross-border and cross-disciplinary collaboration; and a critical approach to documents. Compared with Mendeley which helps to store and share academic references, Parallel Archive is not only an academic networking site but also envisioned as an alternative space where scholars can store online and make public their digitized copies of material from archives (at this point similar to PocketKnowledge).

Weebly - The Creation of More Personalized Blog Entries

Weebly has recently become the new favorites of a large number of bloggers. One salient feature of it is that users can freely design their interface during blogging without any technical skills required. It also offers a few interesting user-friendly design functions. The following video will give you more details:

The Release of New ELA & Math Standards

2009-09-29T06:45:00.000-07:00

The new standards for English language arts (ELA) and mathematics were announced last week:

The Common Core State Standards Initiative is a joint effort by the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA Center) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) in partnership with Achieve, ACT and the College Board. Governors and state commissioners of education from across the country committed to joining a state-led process to develop a common core of state standards in English-language arts and mathematics for grades K-12.

I had a glance at the ELA standards which are further divided into categories of reading, writing, and speaking & listening. In general, I feel the standards are specific, practical, and well written, from a pedagogical standpoint, trying to promote more scientific/logical thinking and argument skills in language arts. I cited the following standards which seemed interesting and “controversial” to me and began with some questions:

Reading:

Support or challenge assertions about the text by citing evidence in the text explicitly and accurately.

Q: What evidence is determined to be “explicit and accurate”?

Discern the most important ideas, events, or information, and summarize them accurately and concisely.

Q: What content in a fiction book is determined to be the “most important ideas”? Is it test-oriented content? How can the “standard content” be set for every book/reading?

Writing:

Use technology as a tool to produce, edit, and distribute writing.

Q: What types of technology will be included? The traditional WORD or ways of online publishing?

Speaking & Listening

Make strategic use of multimedia elements and visual displays of data to gain audience attention and enhance understanding.

Feedback on the standards is welcome until October 21st.

DE Announces Student Video Contest

2009-09-28T13:28:00.000-07:00

To get students invested in their education, President Barack Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan have announced a new video contest, asking students to "inspire" them with their stories. Advocates for educational technology say the contest is a great way to reach the digital generation and help students develop key 21st-century skills.

Check here for more details.

Leveraging Online Professional Development

2009-09-24T07:38:00.000-07:00

The recent issue of the Teacher Professional Development Sourcebook: Leveraging Online Professional Development is now available on Education Week. This issue looks at the potential of digital technology to enhance teacher learning options and increase collaboration and knowledge-sharing.

Here are some interesting highlights:

MetLife Inc.'s 25th annual survey of educators found that the proportion of teachers saying they are “very satisfied” with their careers increased from 40 percent in 1984 to 62 percent in 2008, while more teachers today (66 percent) feel respected by society than their counterparts did back then (47 percent).
the percentage of teachers agreeing that they can earn a “decent salary” has nearly doubled since 1984, to 66 percent, and far more teachers today (75 percent, compared with 45 percent in 1984) say they would recommend a career in teaching to a young person.
two-thirds of today’s teachers affirm that they were well prepared for the profession, compared with 46 percent in 1984.
Some other survey results:
Have you ever taken an online course for degree or professional credit?

Recommended Teacher Groups on Ning:
Classroom 2.0
The English Companion Ning
3-D Fieldtrips

A Recent MIT Report on Tech-integrated Instruction

2009-09-22T15:24:00.000-07:00

A recent report (Klopfer, Osterwil, Groff, & Haas, 2009) issued by the Educational Arcade at MIT presents very interesting (teaching) examples regarding the utilization of video games, social networking, and simulations in classroom. The full report can be viewed here which includes:

• the background and affordances of Simulations, Digital Games, and Social Networking;

• the cognitive implications of these technologies;

• specific challenges with using these tools in the classroom, as well as strategies for overcoming these challenges in order to achieve successful learning experiences; and

• the future of these technologies and their impact and learning and teaching.

Here are a few highlights:

Video Games

(e.g., Civilization, World of Warcraft, Lure of the Labyrinth)

In addition to developing new cognitive abilities, it solves traditional classroom teaching challenges:

the skill of negotiation
solve problems collaboratively
be mindful of their actions/impact on others
“Games don’t teach the content… it teaches [students] the conceptual knowledge and sets the environment for you to teach what you want.” (p. 8)

Simulation

(e.g., StarLogo TNG)

The report mentions an interesting 3D programming software oriented at K-12 students. StarLogo TNG is an open-ended tool that allows the user to create simulations, developed by MIT Scheller Teacher Education Program. As a 3D modeling and simulation software, StarLogo TNG is a user-friendly programming language represented by colored blocks that fit together like puzzle pieces.

Social Networking

The heart of social networking technologies -- social cognition.
“almost all involve social skills developed through collaboration and networking. These skills build on the foundation of traditional literacy, research skills, technical skills, and critical analysis skills taught in the classroom” (Jenkins et al., 2006, p. 19).

Digital Storytelling Update

2009-09-22T11:01:00.000-07:00

Digital Storytelling Webinars

Free Digital Storytelling Webinars will be offered by TechSoup as follows:

Event Schedule:
9/30: Event Day 1 – TechSoup forums event discussions and expert webinars

10/1: Event Day 2 – TechSoup forums event discussions and “How to Create a Digital Story” webinar

10/1: Digital Storytelling Challenge kickoff webinar

10/1-10/16: Digital Storytelling Challenge submission period.

10/19-10/20: Challenge submissions judging

10/21: Winners announced and movie screening party in the virtual world of Second Life and live from San Francisco at the TechSoup headquarters

Storybird is “collaborative storytelling for family and friends.” From further investigation, I found some interesting features. In addition to a number of extraordinary online story books, Storybird helps you create a tale with an intuitive book-like interface and a selection of artwork, which are high-quality images from some of the most talented but less well-known children’s illustrators today, like Irisz Agocs and Victoria Usova. The whole story creating process only involves picture selection and text making, which is suitable to younger children to start a trial of digital storytelling.

Based on previous exploration of this topic, I have created the following "glog" to map low-cost tools which can be used in classroom:

21st-Century Literacy Teaching: Multimodal Texts and Meaning Making

2009-09-14T05:59:00.000-07:00

The recent reading of Hall (2003) and Hammerberg (2001) let me think about the requirements and challenges of literacy teaching in the 21^stcentury.

While Hall (2003) from the perspective of teaching focuses on reviewing elements of effective teaching and perceptions held by effective literacy teachers, Hammerberg (2001) weaves three perspectives (i.e., the changing relationships between texts and images brought by media changes, the changing children’s literature, and the teaching of writing) together to discuss how to include multiple perspectives into the teaching of multiple texts with children. From Hall’s (2003) review, echoed with the Hallidayan Theory – “meaning is the driving force in literacy growth” (p. 320), effective literacy teaching should embrace: (1) reading as the priority of teaching (with all literacy activities connected to reading); (2) small group differentiated teaching (with an appropriate common evaluation system); (3) a culturally responsive curriculum; and (4) literacy skills applied to everyday life with authentic meaning making. The above requirements for effectiveness pose challenges for our teachers today. First, the first national study of elementary classrooms after NCLB tells us that unbalanced classroom instructional times have been observed in thousands of elementary classrooms in the U.S.: English literacy takes up a big amount of the instructional time while math and science take much smaller percentages. How to balance the instructional content/time across subjects and better weave reading into daily science and math instruction is something that needs to be considered by teachers. Second, differentiated teaching might be easily realized in a classroom with less than 25 students and a teacher aid. However, in many less privileged classrooms, such as some schools in Harlem with class sizes of 30-40 and most classrooms in China with common class sizes of 40-50, the strategy of differentiated teaching might need to be adjusted, from individuals to small groups, with a carefully crafted evaluation system. Finally, the culturally responsive approach and the increasing diverse student population further pushes teachers to reach out to families, knowing more about students’ family and ethnic cultures, which further poses lingual and cultural challenges for teachers today. Furthermore, Hall (2003) gives interesting summarization of effective teachers’ perceptions: (1) high expectation for students; (2) continuity of theory and practice in classroom teaching; (3) strong self assurance/confidence; and (4) optimistic view towards students’ growth. Some of the perceptions seem to be not only about believes, but also about personalities.

Hammerberg (2001) initiates the discussion of new formats of children’ literature brought by changing media. For example, some unconventional books discussed by Hammerberg embed children’s kinesthetic involvement and extra meaning making in book reading. I would love to read Black and White and Meanwhile when I get a chance. The media changes bring technologies (e.g., web, mobile, animation, etc.) and new interfaces of reading, including “handheld hypertext” (p. 208). Children’s literature in the 21^st century will give them more ways of interpreting texts, more ways of seeking for meanings, more ways of looking at authentic texts, as well more ways of communication and self expression. They learn reading and writing in social, cultural, media contexts together with instinct cognitive processes. The teaching of writing with younger children, according to Hammerberg (2001), should consider children’s multiple perspectives and voices, through specific approaches such as shared writing and interactive writing, help them on “the technique of filtering many voices into a planned and systematic product” (p. 212).

From 2001 to the current year of 2009, there have been further changes/innovations in children’s literature. School students today are familiar with computers and mobile devices. They have access to multiple reading resources, including comic books, video/mobile games, and animated online/video stories. While consciously noticing the changing literature, we need to catch up with the digital age, be open to new possibilities, and cater to students’ 21-century literacy needs.

Future Publishing: E-Book Builder Trials

2009-09-11T18:35:00.000-07:00

I have been trying several e-book building tools at the EdLab this week, including formal online publishing tools and informal personalized tools.

I want to pull them out here to initiate some comparisons.

MagCloud -- The above four-page trial magazine was created via MagCloud, incorporating partial material from the TC Assets Project. It is actually an online magazine converter, via directly uploading your PDF documents to the website. The PDFs must be created according to certain page formats it requires (e.g., templates in Adobe InDesign). It costs nothing to publish a magazine on the website. It only charges for printing and delivery. It is a nice website to publish and promote a magazine. Potential readers/buyers can see a preview of the magazine on the website.

formatpixel -- It is a formal online publishing tool which enables users to design the book online from scratch compared with MagCloud. However, it only offers 512k to free users, so I am not able to further try it out after uploading two pictures.

Sophie -- As said in a previous post, it is a promising tool for publishing multimedia book, with the function of embedding audio and video files. Originally developed by the Institute for the Future of the Book, the development of Sophie has been continued by University of Southern California which owns an avant-garde digital academic journal named VECTORS. Sophie currently is used by Carnegie-Mellon University’s ETC Press and the Computers and Composition Digital Press at Utah State University. Sophie is not easy to use during my trial, because it is a relatively complex and professional tool which needs the devotion of time to get familiar with, like the Adobe design series. It is a free open software and Sophie 2.0 will be issued in mid-October! Currently, I am exploring how it can be embedded online.

SmileBox -- It is a popular tool suitable for informal personalized publishing. Its products include photo albums, crapbooks, calendars, and e-cards, with hundreds of templates. A lot of schools use it with lower graders to design school-life books with simple pictures and texts. This software is also completely free and can be posted online.

ComicLife -- It is also a popular tool, with users such as teachers and students. Compared with SmileBox, it is more like a book builder and it involves more design work without temples provided. Its focus is comic book. See here if interested in knowing more about what a comic book via ComicLife might look like. This tool is not free. It offers a one-month free trial.

Adobe InDesign -- This is probably the most commonly used book design tool known to the publishing field. Its functions are definitely more refined than any of the above tools. MagCloud, formatpixel, and Sophie all have the online publishing function. It seems to me so far that a book/magazine designed via InDesign can only be published via MagCloud.

About the Writing of Qualitative Dissertation Proposal

2009-09-10T20:44:00.000-07:00

Kilbourn's (2006) publication on Teachers College Record helps me better organize my understandings of the writing of a dissertation proposal. As a graduate student interested in English literacy, I am relatively familiar with various teaching methods and writing styles in English. However, I need to be conscious of the style of academic writing: straightforward, succinct, and coherent. Qualitative dissertation requires very high-quality writing skills, which is the main reason I want to keep my written inquiry going here. This blog site will witness my reflective writing journey. It will also record my on-going growth in understanding the education field in the U.S., the teaching and learning in English literacy, as well as my "joyous and tortured" journey of doctoral dissertation.

President Obama's Speech to Students

2009-09-08T07:14:00.000-07:00

The white house has released president obama's prepared remarks that he will deliver to school children today.

Overall it seems very much in line with Obama's campaign speeches and recent statements on education, in which he urges individual responsibility and innovation. But there are a few interesting points which should be pointed out here, like the reference to media and culture artifacts:

"I’ve talked about your parents’ responsibility for making sure you stay on track, and get your homework done, and don’t spend every waking hour in front of the TV or with that Xbox."

and

"Maybe you could be an innovator or an inventor – maybe even good enough to come up with the next iPhone or a new medicine or vaccine – but you might not know it until you do a project for your science class."

He also tells his expectation for the children, including thinking skills and fields they need to fight for in the future:

"You’ll need the knowledge and problem-solving skills you learn in science and math to cure diseases like cancer and AIDS, and to develop new energy technologies and protect our environment. You’ll need the insights and critical thinking skills you gain in history and social studies to fight poverty and homelessness, crime and discrimination, and make our nation more fair and more free. You’ll need the creativity and ingenuity you develop in all your classes to build new companies that will create new jobs and boost our economy."

He weaves his personal story into the address to make it more vivid, trying to deliver his messages in an illuminating way. I think it is a great opportunity for schools to share his speech with teachers and students on different formal or informal forums (e.g., Twitter, classroom blog, wiki, etc.) to engage discussions, and to decide what need to be further improved in their educational concepts, rationales, and practices.

My colleague at the EdLab passed me the following 4th grader's video response to the speech, which is quite interesting:

Latest New Yorker Issue

2009-09-02T17:03:00.000-07:00

Enlightened by today's EdLab seminar on digital publishing and Prof. Siegel's class about Teaching Literacy in the Early Years, I explored the digital (beta) edition of the latest The New Yorker. Currently, the online registration is free and every newly-registered online viewer is given four issues (the latest September issue and the next three to come) for free, as one of the magazine's promotion strategies.

The magazine's web version also offers multimedia content supplementary to its hard copies. For example, the following is additional multimedia content of the current issue:

Audio: The Texas execution that may change the death penalty debate.
Video: David Grann discusses the flaws of the Cameron Todd Willingham investigation.

The cover presents a compelling cartoon image about a child teaching a class of grandpas and grandmas "new literacy". How many words on the blackboard do you know? The types of literacy in the contemporary world just keeps updating. Teaching of literacy shifts from the elder generation to its younger counterpart. What's the next step? The blackboard in the image looks traditional, but a lot of public schools in New York are installed with SmartBoard. Would it be possible that in the near future our younger children are going to produce a multimedia story on their own and show us what meanings they want to convey?

As teachers and educators, let's just turn our lifelong learning on, communicating with avant gardes in our field and constantly learning from peers and also from our students.

Digital Storytelling Tools

2009-08-31T20:57:00.001-07:00

The following is a "glog" about potential tools for a DST trial at a local elementary school in the fall.
Click each tool for details.

Book Trailers: Moving toward the Future of Digital Publishing

2009-08-27T06:56:00.000-07:00

Have you ever seen a book trailer? Nowadays, the traditional book selling activities such as book talks in multiple cities are not very attractive. Instead, with the advances in technology and the belt-tightening economy, publishers and authors are actively looking for web alternatives to promote their books.

Especially in the world of children's literature, things are changing fast.

Award-winning storyteller Dianne de Las Casas has created a Ning community for sharing and discussing kidlit book trailers. Authors can post their trailers and other videos (such as activities with children during school visits). Bibliophiles can discover great reads by watching those videos.

Here’s a gorgeous one from the site: Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by author/illustrator Grace Lin.

Newly Issued Pearson Film Series: Visionaries in 21st-Century Education

2009-08-26T11:25:00.000-07:00

The film series newly issued by the Person Foundation, named "A 21st Century Education," highlights twelve innovative and compelling school-reform leaders from around the world and cases they presented in the field of education. The series was produced by the Mobile Learning Institute, a co-funded effort by Nokia and the Pearson Foundation.

All movie series are black and white. They are downloadable, each lasting for 10-15 minutes.

The first set of films profile and explore the following:
· Steve Barr and the Takeover of Locke High School in Watts
· James Dierke and Leadership Models for Urban Middle Schools
· David “T.C.” Ellis and Essential Learning at Hip Hop High
· Randall Fielding and Designing Schools for 21st Century Learning
· Stephen Heppell and Empowering Young Learners
· Jean Johnson, Notschool.net and Online Learning for Disaffected Youth
· Doug McCurry and the Success of Achievement First
· George McKenna and Personalizing Public Education
· Alan November and the Myths and Opportunities of Technology
· Larry Rosenstock and Project-based Learning at High Tech High
· Elliot Soloway/Cathie Norris and Educating the Mobile Generation
· Yong Zhao: No Child Left Behind and Global Competitiveness

I just had a brief look at two of them and got very impressed:

Disaffected youth’s experiences with multimedia
NCLB and global competition from a Chinese professor’s perspective

Textbooks Go Digital in California

2009-08-26T10:37:00.000-07:00

As reported by eSchool News, California State has approved a new initiative on digital textbooks, which aims at encouraging all public schools in California to use free, open digital textbooks.

The recent state report tells that the main subjects covered in this initiative are math and science (e.g., geometry, biology, chemistry, earth science, etc.) for high school students. The main publishers selected include CK-12 Foundation, Pearson Education, Curriki, Connexions, Dr. H. Jerome Keisler, etc.

The report doesn’t mention how the state will apply those textbooks in public classrooms, in the aspects of available devices, technologies or web resources involved, teaching methods, and curriculum development. In my opinion, this initiative will first of all demand “one desktop/laptop per child” in the classroom, which will definitely cost a lot.

I also wonder how the state will expect teachers to use “static” digital textbooks in various grades. I have a few questions in mind:

Can students manage the readings on a computer screen?
Is it appropriate to demand teachers use textbooks to teach math and science instead of showing students hands-on examples/experiments in classroom teaching?
Will those textbooks be accessible to other states?
How can teachers track students’ readings of digital textbooks?
How can students make notes of their readings?
Will the digital textbooks bring a radical change (see the picture above) to the physical environment of classroom?
...

The books will be issued in the coming months and the state officials are also going to review potential digital textbooks in other subjects (e.g., English literacy?) as reported.

Under the current information age, it is a good strategy for schools to keep updated with technology. However, as for digital textbooks, is the current technology mature enough to bring the engaging literacy experience, activities, and processes of thinking that teachers and educators expect?

About Chinese Valentine's Day

2009-08-25T13:04:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is the Chinese Valentine’s Day which is also called Qi Xi or Qi Qiao Jie. It happens on the seventh day of the seventh month in the Chinese lunar calendar. So the date varies every year in the lunar time zone:

Year 2010 is on August 16, 2010
Year 2011 is on August 6, 2011
Year 2012 is on August 23, 2012

According to Chinese folklore, when you look up in the sky on this special day, you can see the Vega Star crossing the Milky Way to meet the Altair Star. Chinese believe that the girl (weaver) will cross the Heavenly River to meet her lover (cowherd) over a bridge physically built up by magpies on this Valentine's Day once a year.

There are two legends around the origin of this day.

The first legend is about the freedom of love.

It is a love story about the seventh daughter of the Heavenly Father and an orphaned cowherd. The Father separated them. She was forced to move to the star Vega and the cowherd moved to the star Altair. They are allowed to meet only once a year on the day of seventh day of seventh lunar month. The story began from the good-looking poor orphaned boy living with his elder brother and sister-in-law. After his parents past away, his brother inherited the house and the land. The boy only owned an old ox. He needed to work on the farm's field with the ox everyday. So he was called a cowherd. His daily life was just like in a Cinderella story…

The second legend is about love and responsibility.

On the east bank of the Heavenly River lived a weaving maiden. The Heavenly Mother made her work day and night weaving cloth for gods and goddesses. Since the weaver lived all alone, the Heavenly Mother took pity on her and allowed her to marry a cowherd boy who lived on the west bank of the Heavenly River. The weaver enjoyed her marriage so much that she stopped weaving. This angered the Heavenly Mother, so she kidnapped the weaver, took her back across the river, and allowed her to see the cowherd only once a year over a bridge formed by magpies.

One of the most famous poems about the legend was written by Qin Guan in the Song Dynasty (960-1279).

FAIRY OF THE MAGPIE BRIDGE

Translation by Kylie Hsu

Among the beautiful clouds,

Over the heavenly river,

Crosses the weaving maiden.

A night of rendezvous,

Across the autumn sky,

Surpasses joy on earth.

Moments of tender love and dream,

So sad to leave the magpie bridge.

Eternal love between us two,

Shall withstand the time apart.

Compared with love stories in Western stories, such as Romeo and Juliet, the story of this Chinese couple seems not as intense and passionate. Love doesn't kill or end up by breaking up the barrier between them. They just wait patiently on each side of the Milky Way, believing that their love can fight against their time apart. It is faith and emotional liaison instead of physical attraction and desire that are emphasized and appreciated in the story as well as in many other Chinese folk stories about love.

Both unmarried and married lovers can celebrate this Qi Qiao Jie. It is a great occasion to show love and care to your beloved or your significant other. Traditionally, for unmarried girls, they will gather together and pray for a better personal skill and good luck in finding their lovers. A noble lady’s praying words usually would look like: 1) wish her country great prosperity, 2) wish her parents good heath, and finally 3) wish herself a good husband. The last is the most important.

Wish everyone a happy happy Qi Qiao Jie tomorrow!

New Development of "Green Programs" in the U.S.

2009-08-24T11:16:00.000-07:00

As reported by Technical Education, five states -- Georgia, Illinois, New Jersey, Ohio, and Oregon-- have committed to developing green career and technical education initiatives. In collaboration with the United States Department of Education, the states will create secondary and post-secondary programs that will lead to certificates and associate and bachelor degrees.

"Green means healthier learning environments for students and adults, plus lower energy costs and a stronger economy," said U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, also in a statement released this week. "Green programs of study support the administration's goal of expanding a green workforce by preparing students for high-skill, high-wage jobs in a clean energy economy.

Among the five, Oregon has been pioneering in its industrial construction and development in this field. It has developed a pilot solar-powered high way, the first of its kind in the nation, installed with a 104kW system comprised of 594 panels.

Its annual production is about 128 megawatt-hours – enough to power about 10 typical homes for a year. However, The Oregon Dept of Transportation (ODOT) is using it to power the lights at the I-5 & I-205 exchange.

Meanwhile, earlier this month, Austin announced its pilot program called Sunflowers, An Electric Garden.

Designed by public art team Harries/Heder, the installation consists of 15 flower-like solar photovoltaic panels located on a pedestrian and bike path between the village of Mueller and Austin’s highway I-35.

Global warming and decreased non-renewable energy resources have become the most crucial issues faced by human beings. While, secondary and post-secondary schools have started to pay attention to bring "green" to their program design, mainly focusing on cultivating future "green" engineers/technologists, however, "green" ideas are missed in most of the K-12 curricula. Additional content orientations in arts and aesthetics are mentioned a lot in the educational field, but the idea of applying "green" in daily life are not integrated into K-12 curricula as well as most teacher education programs. While we want our children to be knowledgeable, artistic, creative, critical, and thoughtful as individuals, we also want them to be aware of global and social issues: we really need to work hard to make our living places better, for ourselves and for the next generations.

July School Visit

2009-08-24T09:52:00.000-07:00

I got a chance to visit a school in New Jersey with my colleagues at the EdLab in July. The school was reconstructed from a chocolate factory. The new space is featured with a roof garden and its "green" utilization of the old resources. How to work "greenly", eat "greenly", and design "greenly" is one of main focuses of the school curriculum.

An Integrated School Curriculum on History, Ecology, and Space

One of the main questions we brought with us during the visit was: How do environments/spaces influence teaching and learning at St. Philip's? As introduced by Ralph, the main designer and member of the school board, the school believes in a school curriculum built on student-centered real-life experiences. The redesigned space and the “green roof” extend the school’s options in its curricular development. It integrates the following curricular focuses (from space redesign) into teaching and learning:

History

The display of new interior design and elements of old building (i.e., an old chocolate factory) gives teachers a curricular focus on the history of Newark as a major industrial zone in the East Coast. Students will be able to reflect on the history through their daily hands-on experiences in the space.

Ecology and Sustainability
The new space lets students learn about how to utilize old buildings and how to work “green”. The design utilizes as many old resources as possible, including ceilings, walls (of the stairways), and old desks and chairs. It also pays attention to energy saving devices. Every classroom is installed with sensored lights and there is a solar-energy panel on top of the school which provides a small portion of energy for the building.

“Green Roof” Integration
“Green roof”, the school’s roof garden, is integrated to most of the academic subjects, including math, science, literacy, and social studies. Every class has got a spot on the roof and they do seeding, planting, and harvesting there. Lower-grade students use the garden to learn counting and recording numbers, while higher-grade students can learn and write about biological life cycles and geographical origins of the plants.

Nutrition
Meals served by the school’s dinning room are connected to the “green roof”, too. During the harvest season, students eat food from the garden and learn about nutrition as well as how to eat “green”. The nutrition program has a big impact on students’ lives, as told by Charity, students take “green” ideas home and “teach” their parents how to eat healthy.

Aesthetics, Design and Engineering
The color scheme of the school is “From Earth to Sky”, with each floor assigned with a main different color ranging from light yellow (earth) to light blue (sky). The redesigned space (with all the details in colors, interior display, and ecological devices) gives students a great opportunity to learn about aesthetics, design, as well as engineering from the angel of how to work “green” -- How to design a new space from an old building, how to do “green” interior design, how to match colors, how to design and put energy saving devices within the building?

***********

More School Information

History of Newark Schools
As introduced by Ralph, Newark is a traditional industrial zone. Almost 85% of the products of the East Coast are produced from this city. However, the public school system failed in the last 40 years, thus a huge number of private and charter schools have been established. The neighborhood of St. Philips is close to Hispanic town. The neighborhood is also one of the roughest areas in western New Jersey. It gets high racial attention and a high need for new schools. The new St. Philips is located close to three higher education institutions (e.g., Rutgers and NJIT) for the purpose of getting the resources of those institutions’ secondary-school support. The location of St. Philips housed a chocolate factory and the school design started about three years ago.

School Information
St. Philips was established in 1988 with a first-grade class. In the recent 20 years, it has relocated three times from downtown area to a small piece of land close to Newark Museum before moving to the current “warehouse”. “It has tripled the size where we came from”, as introduced by Ralph. Currently it is a private k-8 school, with two classes per grade and 18 students per class. Though as a private school, it grants scholarships/financial aid to about 60% of its student population. The school’s ethnic information shows that 96% of the students are African American students, while Asian, Hispanic, and Caucasian American students constitute the rest of the student group. Most students are from lower or lower-middle socioeconomic classes.

Admission
The admissions are considered for families in need, as given by Ralph, the school believes that the admissions should consider more about students who can take the ability to learn rather than students with parents have the ability to pay. Besides, potential students need to go through a testing process. For younger students, the test is relatively subjective, while for older students, there are entrance tests prepared for them. As further introduced, most of the St. Philip’s graduates have been doing well in their high schools. For example, 80% of them take advanced math courses in the first year of high school.

School Redesign
The process of school redesign has involved Ralph and the main administrators of the school since January 2007.

Technology
Every classroom has a projector, a desktop computer, a SmartBoard, and a stereo radio/CD player. However, there is no separate media lab or computer lab at the school.

A Tour with a Group of High School Students
We were touring around the school with a group of 11 local high school students. We noticed that though students asked limited questions, but the garden and the gym were the places where students frequently talked to each other and raised the most questions (to Ralph). The following may reflect the part of school redesign that interests them most:

• “Did you get a good pay as a designer?”
• “How much is the project?”
• “Can the building be fully solar powered?”
• “What is the cost for electronic coil?”
• “Does every floor have a restroom?”
• “What is the cost of the grass?”
• …

Students seemed very interested in Ralph’s job, they asked several repeated questions about it at different places. However, when Ralph asked them about their future job plans, most students said they were not certain and only 1-2 of them answered that they would be interested in getting a job related to sustainability and environment. This observation indicates that students are interested/concerned about getting jobs, and education of design, sustainability and ecology at local high schools is to a large degree ignored.

First National Study on American Elementary Classrooms after NCLB

2009-08-20T13:49:00.000-07:00

In today's keynote, Stephanie also introduced this article published in Science about the quantity and quality of instruction and the relationship between teachers and students in American elementary classrooms. It is the first national study of its kind after the implementation of NCLB.

Here are a few highlights important to look at:

• The study is based on direct observations of first, third, and fifth grades in 1000 elementary schools and 400 school districts.
• In fifth grade, children spent most of their time (91.2%) working in whole-group or individual-seatwork settings. Students spent little time (7%) in small-group instruction (two to five students).
• In fifth grade, 37% of instruction was in literacy and 25% was in math; in first and third grade, more than 50% of instruction was in literacy and less than 10% was in math.
• Very little instruction or classroom activity was given in technology.
• Few opportunities were provided to learn in small groups, to improve analytic cal skills, or to interact extensively with teachers.
• Typically, over the course of a 20-minute period, instruction involved only one method or mode (e.g., vocabulary worksheet or watching the teacher do math problems).
• Teachers most of the time gave generic feedback on correctness rather than encouraging extension of student performance or discussing alternative solutions.
• Classroom dynamics were not related to teachers’ degree status or experience.

The most surprising finding for me is the ineffective elementary-level teacher education in the U.S. Being at an educational institution as prestigious and progressive as TC let me ignore an important fact that not only that no child should be left behind but also no teacher should be left behind. On one hand, the national DOE and a number of professors in higher educational institutions keep proposing that all K-12 teachers should have master's degrees. However, on the other hand, the quality of teacher education programs is doubtful. The spread of higher educational degrees doesn't mean a spread of high-quality teaching. The findings of this article imply that the quality of teaching, the allocation of instructional periods across subjects, and the classroom climates created by the U.S. teachers are not satisfactory at all.

The unbalanced instructional periods across subjects imply that our elementary teachers either ignore or are lack of confidence in teaching subjects such as science, math, and technology. Even within the relatively larger trunk of literacy instructional, teachers spend too much time in drill and basic teaching such as asking students to fill in blanks and doing multiple choices instead of helping students look for meanings within texts.

Prof. Calkins mentioned in the first-day keynote: "the access to a good teacher is the most likelihood that can increase children’s success." It seems that our teacher education and professional development are not influential and in-depth enough. I wonder how many schools are actually applying TC's literacy teaching approaches? what are the percentages in NYC and the nation at large? How to make this project be more widely accessed and how to revolutionize the teacher education programs in a large number of universities?

Furthermore, under this new digital age, to cater to students' needs for 21st-century skills, our literacy teaching should not be limited to traditional static texts. As Prof. Calkins argued, today's children are growing up in an age of blogs, wikis, videos, games, etc. We as teachers should keep ourselves updated to the changing outside world. Literacy teaching can happen with comic books (e.g., The Comic Book Project), Twitter (e.g., community writing contributed by thousands of children around the world), videos (e.g., use video conversation tool VoiceThread to make textual/video/audio/visual comments to a video story), classroom blogs and wikis, etc. We should know how to appropriately use technologies to bridge children's literacy learning and their 21st-century skills.

The Importance of Active Thinking in Reading

2009-08-20T12:57:00.000-07:00

In today’s keynote, Ms. Stephanie Harvey talked about the importance of active thinking in reading. It reminds me of the keynote given by Prof. Calkins on the first day. She mentioned as teachers we need to explore our self-consciousness and be aware of our own reading preferences as well as when and why our learning levels reached sky high. The process of “pushing” students to have higher-level thinking is stressed in the teaching of reading. “Comprehension is an on-going process of involving thinking. It is the thinking that happens…all readers are developing readers,” Stephanie further mentioned.

A teacher at the beginning of the reading institute told me that she would prefer to ask students just read without putting down their ideas in the middle. She argued that when students started to write while reading, the writing would take for ever. Is that true? I wonder what questions the teacher might ask students before and after their reading, and what she might expect students to learn from their reading. Like Stephanie said today, even we as professional readers are often running our eyes across pages and often times need to go back to the previous pages. So, it is important to keep our young reader conscious and active in the reading process. After they learn envision (visualizing the texts in mind), prediction (predicting the incoming plots), connection (looking for the relationships among characters and chapters as well the connections between the book being read and books read before), interpretation (explaining their findings in the book, e.g., relationships, hidden plots behind conversations, features of characters, etc.), and critical thinking (recognizing the pressures around characters, social stigma on characters, marginalized aspects of the main story, etc.), they will be constantly thinking. The process of thinking while reading will further help improve their comprehension skills.

Keeping different strategies in mind and putting down ideas in the middle of reading, like the teacher said, may hinder students’ reading speed. However, as teachers, we need to think about the ultimate goals of teaching reading. Are we teaching students to merely understand the story plots? Are we teaching students to be speedy readers? Are we teaching students to be thinkers?

Students in China are used to filling blanks and doing multiple choices for reading comprehension after reading articles/books. The nationalized test-oriented instruction has caused many children losing the joys of reading. Furthermore, if a teacher wanted to punish a student, he/she would ask the students to read/write more. What a bad method that extra reading and writing has become painful punishment, instead of something fun and motivating! For teaching upper graders, one feasible way to adapt TC approaches to classrooms in China is, based on the nationally scripted curriculum, to develop topics related to the textbook. Maybe I can connect students’ book-club reading to the national curriculum. For example, when teaching a unit on traveling in foreign countries, we can gather books on foods, sceneries, festivals, people, etc. in other countries, and ask groups to read these books and come back to act as a tour guide to introduce the features they learned from the books… Meanwhile, reading strategies of envision, prediction, connection, critical thinking, etc. can be introduced regardless of the content we will be teaching.

Philosophically speaking, what is the essence of teaching? Teaching for interest? Teaching for motivation? Teaching for “proximal development”? Teaching for lifelong learning? All the strategies will serve for eventual realization of the essence(s) of teaching and learning that we believe in.

Book Club, Book Leveling System, and the Application in China

2009-08-20T09:30:00.000-07:00

One of the methods to help children grow interests in reading is to set up book clubs. As introduced by the TC Reading and Writing Project, we can match students at about the same reading levels and with similar interested genres together. Members within the same book club can “monitor” and motivate each other’s reading. Book club members meet several times a week, discuss moments in the book that make them excited, touched, and passionate, and decide how many pages they will be reading in the next a couple of days. They also talk about their findings and understandings after applying certain strategies towards the book they are reading. Book club members are selected and matched first according to their reading levels. Reading levels, according to both Fountas & Pinnell and TC standards, ranges from A to Z which is mainly aiming at students from kindergarten to the 8^th grade. 8^th grader is expected to reach adult-level reading proficiency. To my knowledge based on a previous TC course in children’s literature and experiences in a number of public school classrooms in NYC, most teachers are familiar with the Fountas & Pinnell leveling system and their classroom books are leveled by this system. While many books are published with a labeled F&P level, TC’s book leveling standards are not in conflict with the F&P. TC’s standards further complement the F&P system with specific guidance about features of each level in vocabularies, sentence patterns, punctuations, grammar, story flow, picture flow, etc.

While I love the structure and strategies given by the Reading and Writing Project, I have been thinking that how I can apply these good methods to classrooms in China, a place without a recognized leveling system in teaching English. Textbook so far is the main formal resource in K-12 schools in China. Students learn English through reciting vocabularies and practicing pronunciations and textual conversations. Students in bigger cities like Beijing and Shanghai are fortunate to have more after-school resources, including after-school English drama club, CDs and software in English stories and plays, English movies, and TV and audio broadcasting devices. Given the facts that there is no leveling system so far, English/bilingual picture books in China are insufficient, and there is no custom of having a classroom library, what can I do there? Can I develop a leveling system for learners who are learning English as a second language in China? Can I promote the idea of having a national English leveling system in China and connecting it to all the English picture book in the market and to be developed in the future? Students in China now start to learn English from 1^st grade (while fifteen years ago students in my generation started to learn English from middle school), with at least one-hour instructional time per day. One possible and feasible way to apply the book-club idea in upper-grade classroom is that: first, establish a classroom library by utilizing English books at school and local university libraries; second, ask several students to manage the classroom library, collecting students’ requests for books and returning books to the libraries; third, match students with similar English reading levels (based on evaluation) and interested genres to book clubs; fourth, ask students take turns to lead their book clubs and produce weekly report to the teacher reporting their reading progresses, questions, and problems encountered; fifth, ask each book club to present what they have learned from their books to the class on a monthly basis; the last but not the least, ask parents to attend students’ monthly book-club presentations, or videotape students’ presentations and post the clips onto classroom web log on a monthly basis.

The process of teaching should be creative and differentiated. Even with limited resources, we can still make a difference. I am enthusiastic about applying and adapting the literacy teaching approaches I learned here to students in China in the near future.

The TC Structure of Teaching of Reading

2009-08-19T14:09:00.001-07:00

The following map may give you an overview of the TC method of teaching of reading in upper grades (3rd-8th grade). More details are provided towards the language used with students. For example, students are addressed as "reader" in reading workshops, while they are addressed as "writer" in writing workshops. Teachers are required to use specific language to start a conference with students, for example, "what are you doing as a reader?", "what have you learned from this book so far as a reader?", etc.

You can move any part around on the map to view details.

Smilebox: A Tool for Online Publishing

2009-08-18T14:02:00.000-07:00

I want to introduce Smilebox, which is a terrific tool for personalized online publishing. Compared with Sophie which I blogged about before, Smilebox has several differences: (1) the system can "intelligently" display the photos/videos within the electronic "book". You can upload all the photos and videos at a time, select the background, and then the system will generate a designed book for you. You can further adjust the design and add texts; (2) While Smilebox doesn't have the function of getting feedback from readers, it offers more publishing formats (e.g., online book, online album, e-card, etc.) with various background choices. It can also be sent out via email or posted onto blog.

You can take a tour by clicking the yellow bar on this page.

The website says that over six million people have downloaded the software. The software is free. The process of uploading/inserting videos, audios, and texts as well as linking to the web space makes personal publishing become more creative and promising.

Self-Consciousness in the Teaching of Reading

2009-08-17T20:37:00.000-07:00

In today’s keynote, Prof. Lucy Calkins asked the audience (who are about 760 teachers/graduate students from 38 states and 11 countries) a question -- “When was your learning curve sky high?” In addition to this question, we were also asked to think about our own journeys as readers. The process of recalling our own journeys as learners and readers is important to make our teaching better. Being self-conscious about my own learning curve can help re-affirm myself what good teaching might look like. Being self-conscious about my own favorite English books can help recognize my preferred genres, which further ensure me to make a better decision in selecting literature across genres to teach.

Looking back on my learning journey during my formative years in China, I started to learn English as a second language from middle school. At that time, mathematics, rather than English literacy, was my favorite subject. My passion in mathematics never reached such a high level that math was my first choice in doing homework and I often couldn’t help discussing math problems with boys in my class, although at a sensitive teen age that boys and girls didn’t talk much to each other in class in the early 1990s in China. I set up a high expectation in math for myself and I was the top one female student in the subject who won district math prizes together with all other boys for our school. Why? There was a secret behind. I adored my math teacher Ms. Tang. She was a smart, artistic, humorous, but also rigorous middle-aged lady. I never saw a female math teacher as smart as her. The instruction she gave was succinct. She had the “magic” ability which could change complex problems into simple and clear interpretations…As Prof. Calkins mentioned in the keynote that U.S. DOE’s recent report showed that the access to a good teacher is the most likelihood that can increase children’s success, I was fortunate enough to enjoy the “sunshine” from Ms. Tang through my middle-school years, however, I was unfortunate to experience an ignorant math teacher in my high-school years who most of the time tried hard to “feed” students with textbook knowledge, like most teachers in China did/are still doing today. The big contrast directly caused my decreased interest in math which eventually influenced my choice of future career. Coming back to the discussion at the beginning of this reflection, what is good teaching about? Good teaching should come from the facilitator of the classroom, the teacher. Good teaching should be succinct, guiding, motivating, and involving. Good teaching should be interesting and creative in a predictable way (Calkins, 2001, The Art of Teaching Reading) so students can be self prepared. Good teaching should be constructive and social. Good teaching should be collaborative, differentiated, and open to new possibilities…

I read limited English literature before coming to the U.S. My favorite ones in mind include Gone with the Wind, Pride and Prejudice, and Little Women. Jane Austin is always my favorite author whose writing style influenced me a lot. The conversations she wrote were models of succinct but powerful writings. I noticed that my favorite books were all fictions and all feminine. As an individual, I admired some glittering points of the female characters within the books: Scarlett’s undefeated spirit and persistence, Elizabeth’s intelligence, confidence, and courage, and Jo’s independence and pursuit of personal life goals. All of them conversed with me and created a beautiful world, full of imagination, colors, and lights, during the later stage of my formative years. I realized that I tended to use the limited flexibility (under a national curriculum) to do storytelling about fictions and fantasies with elementary students I taught in China. Being aware of my own preferences, as a teacher/educator, I need to pay more attention to other book genres and make sure that students will be able to read across genres in their English class. I need to develop more passions in other genres to facilitate students’ learning.

Ten Transformative Ideas to Create a Richly Literate Classroom Culture

2009-08-17T19:10:00.000-07:00

By Mary Ehrenworth

1. Talking passionately about books (example book described: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins)

Instead of saying the book is good, make specific recommendation/introduction of the book (e.g., personal connection, etc.) Try to reach genres and authors when talking about the book. Further suggestions for teachers: A need to develop passions across genres.

2. Being visible as a reader

Physically carry the books when they are running around.

[Ting's comment: How does this happen? Can we allow students to bring classroom books with them to the dinning room and recess?]

3. Create communities around books (another way to keep readers visible)

Fox can be read with every grade.

4. Create an online experience: goodreads.com, which can help to make a book club and keep track of books they read.

[Ting's comment: An online book club is a great way to involve parents and students. Students can see what books other peers are reading/ have read. The options of leaving comments and keeping track of the books they are reading will be very motivating. It would be interesting to have a comprehensive investigation of the users on the website and specifically see how students interact with their peers through these digital literacy activities.]

5. Seek books (in classroom; another classroom; school libraries; public libaries) – the capability to search for books

[Ting's comment: This will cultivate students' research skills: How to search for information they need and how to utilize potential resources.]

6. Reading across the day – out of school

"We are going to try reading at different places: on the train, sitting in an art museum, in a park, etc."

This will help students to get a sense about carrying books and reading across the day.

[Ting's comment: This approach will definitely benefit students' life-long learning experience -- Reading can happen anywhere and reading is a joyful experience.]

7. Form book clubs

E.g., every adult at the school leads a book club.

[Ting's comment: How much time and energy does each teacher need to devote for the book clubs?]

8. Parent workshops/book clubs

Most parents don’t know that most of the children in the country drop two levels in the summer because they don’t read.

[Ting's comment: This is a good approach to get parents involved in classroom literacy activities and let them be aware of the literacy approaches applied by teachers.]

9. Book clubs that test “hot literature”

A mixture of parents and students who will test that “who will be appropriate to read the books”.

[Ting's comment: It will be very motivating to be part of the "test" group.]

10. Read, read, read and read

If you read, your students will be reading too.

Three essential elements in teaching of reading: Visibility, Passion, Integrity

Thoughts on Digital Literacy

2009-08-17T14:16:00.000-07:00

Today's August Reading Institute mentioned a popular website called Goodreads which is used by a great number of young students and adults today. I had a trial on the website and found many students use it to keep track of their own readings and let their friends on the site to monitor their readings. They also comment on and rate books and post book-related videos. I was told that some schools use the Goodreads as a collaborative online book club for students, parents, and teachers to leave comments to books they read or have been reading.

Students can limit their group discussion to their friends. One interesting thing happened recently was about a book named The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. A group of students were discussing the book on the site and opened the access to their classmates, teachers, and the author. One day, they surprisingly found the author left a passionate comment to a student who wrote a poem for the book...

Digital Literacy Project Design

This online book club drove me to think further about my potential digital story telling project with a class of 5^th graders in P.S. 199 in the fall. The classroom teacher has given me great flexibility in co-creating and co-working on this digital story telling project. Our original idea was about teaching children basic movie editing skills and guiding them to convert photos and pictures into a video story/book with different texts inserted. So students will, based on the books they will be reading in the fall, make reflective video works or create books in their interested topics. They will in the process additionally learn design skills and 21^st-century media skills. However, this original idea has potential uncontrolled challenges: (1) potential difficulties of managing Windows Movie Maker as 5^th graders; (2) limited space and time to show texts within a video story/book; and (3) a potential website to house these digital stories.

Goodreads is a great “online book club” to share, monitor, and keep track of books. But how can I connect it to the digital storytelling project? How many students in the class have internet access at home? Is the website allowed within the school? Since videos can be uploaded to personal profiles, how many videos can be uploaded for each individual and what is the upper limit?

Idea Two is, instead of trying a fancy video project, to let students publish their works/reflections and make comments to others’ entries through a classroom blog. Small-scale videos, images, and mind maps can be posted on the blog.

Idea Three is about Twitter. Twitter is a place we can use for collaborative writing and also individual publishing.

…

Before making a final decision, I need to think more about the classroom facilities, students’ internet access, and the main publishing activities students will be involved in the fall.

August Writing Animoto Clip

2009-08-14T14:30:00.001-07:00

August Writing IE Group Photos

2009-08-14T08:35:00.000-07:00

Final Piece of Adult Writing

2009-08-14T07:58:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Josh for proofreading my piece. And thanks to Sandi for listening to my rehearsal.

I was asked to read my adult writing piece to the audience at the closing ceremony of the Teaching of Writing Institute this afternoon. The following is the final version for this afternoon:

This is a story about my grandma, happend in the 1940s in a small village in southern China.

“What happened, Mom?” Lin asked as she walked to her Mother.

“Oh, my little sweetheart,” her mother couldn't help crying before her daughter. “Your father will have you marry into the Wu family next month.”

“M...Mom,” she stammered with her black eyes opened wide, "which…which Wu family?"

“My poor girl, my baby, you will marry the oldest son of the Wu family in the Kim Village...He is ten years older than you. How could I live without you?” Lin's Mother looked at Lin as her heart was breaking.

“Mom, I don't want to get married. I don't want to leave you! Let me go to talk to father,” as Lin was about to walk out of her room.

“My silly girl, are you crazy? You will be beaten to death. Oh, my poor little girl.” Her mother held Lin in her arms and kept sobbing.

Lin rushed back to her room and cried hard in her bed. “I hate him. I hate this suffocating family!” The hatred and pain soared in her heart, “I hate the fact that I have to follow and accept everything arranged by others. Why do I have to follow father and why do women have to always follow men's decisions? Why could a woman as kind and noble as Mom never be well treated by father? Why? Why?!!!”

“No, this is not what I wanted.” Lin wiped the tears on her face.

Suddenly, there was something glittering in her eyes. “Why not run away from this family and never be controlled by father or any other man in the world?” She recalled, “Lu mentioned that there were jobs for women in the nearby city Yichun...Yes! I should go to Yichun.”

“But I can't leave Mom...” Lin hesitated.

Lin walked to the window and stared at the light from her mother’s room. Everything around seemed frozen and there was no other sound heard except for her own heartbeat.

Finally, Lin walked back to her bed with the decision made.

The next morning, before dawn, a girl sneaked out of a big house and walked towards the mountains faced by the village. On the other side of the mountains, there was a city called Yichun. The girl started to climb the first mountain. The sun was rising. Bright sunshine started to cover the peaks. The girl’s face became as rosy as the dawn. She continued climbing, without stopping or even glancing at the house which was becoming farther and farther away.

...

Teaching via Picture Books

2009-08-13T21:49:00.000-07:00

I have been immersed in a big number of children’s picture books these days, which I feel supper happy about. To become a children’s book editor and writer is one of my career goals when I get back to China in the future, in addition to academic life. All the recommended picture books by different speakers are interesting in a special way. They offer various teaching points for classroom writing workshops.

This is a book I like very much which is fun to read and of multiple teaching points.

Teaching points:

1. Punctuation is the craft (e.g., …)
2. A sentence can be written across pages
3. Use speech bubble to add conversation
4. Use text in boldface and exclamation mark to express strong feelings
5. Write words into different shapes (to match pictures) (e.g., a curvy shape)
6. Use repetitive format
7. Dialogue can be added by people not shown in the picture
8. Use pictures to show emotions
9. …

Minilesson and Conferring

2009-08-13T21:30:00.001-07:00

The teaching of writing institute is intense especially when it conflicts with my final week of another going-on research methodology course. I have really got a CRAZY week... But fortunately it is a high-quality week-long class that is far beyond my expectation. I never thought about that writing can be taught in such a well-structured way which is full of fun. I feel excited about the processes of teaching: (1) the 10-minute mini lesson for building up connections to fit into students’ works, demonstrating strategies for writing, engaging students by asking students to practice the strategy just taught, and linking the going-on lesson to content/strategies taught previously; and (2) the ways of conferring with students individually and in a small group.

In a writing workshop, the min lesson which takes the first 10 minutes of the workshop is very important to support students’ independent writing. It will provide students with strategies for writing and students will be the ones who take the choices of strategies with them through their entire life in writing. The strategies may not help students to shape their main work that they need to complete on that day but will get students familiar with different meanings realized via different strategies. The processes of practices will enable students to build up a rich writing repertoire for their increasing growth. Since there are only ten minutes for the mini lesson, the instruction needs to be very succinct, and the demonstration of writing needs to be very detailed.

Conferring with students is another important component in teaching of writing. Conferring gives good moments for differentiated teaching. A conference consists of research (finding out what students are working on, where they are, and what problems they might encounter), compliment (encouraging students’ going-on work and support the strategies students already used in their works), teach (what further help they might need and what strategies they can apply to make their writing better), and link (link the aforementioned teaching to the mini lesson or the previous strategies/content).

The processes of both the mini lesson and the conferring well match the Constructivism learning theory. Students are continuously learning from new strategies and their own practices while being linked to knowledge already or previously acquired. These approaches assist students to write, rather then restrict the content students want to write about. Teachers are more like facilitators rather than instructors. I wonder can this structured set of approaches (for teaching of English writing) be applied to students learning English as a second language? And can it be also applied to other languages, for example, for teachers teaching the writing of Chinese literacy in China? Actually, I have a strong and positive feeling about applying the structure of teaching to the teaching in China. I would love to experiment this teaching method in the English teaching in China when I get back home in the future.

Power of Poetry and the Aesthetic Literacy

2009-08-13T19:53:00.000-07:00

“Sometimes I think that what we want to make possible is the living of lyrical moments, moments at which human beings (freed to feel, to know, and to imagine) suddenly understand their own lives in relation to all that surrounds.” -- Maxine Greene

The second keynote in this Teaching of Writing institute was about poetry. Poetry gives children a new way to look at the world and transform pictures in their minds into words. Some teachers think that teaching of poetry should happen in secondary schools. However, poetry writing actually can be conducted by elementary students, too. The “poetic” lecture given in the morning further reminds me of the way of teaching poetry writing in Prof. Ann Sabatini’s class last spring. Teaching of poetry is an indispensable part of aesthetic education. Maxine Greene (2001, Variations on a Blue Guitar: The Lincoln Center Institute Lectures on Aesthetic Education) defines aesthetic education as “an intentional undertaking designed to nurture appreciative, reflective, cultural, participatory engagements with the arts by enabling learners to notice what is there to be noticed, and to lend works of art their lives in such a way that they can achieve them as variously meaningful.” Teaching of poetry can happen anywhere, not limited to space, time, and traditional formats of poetry writing. As Maxine Greene put in her book, which echoed with aesthetic ideas given by a Chinese educator and artist named Zikai Feng in the 1930s, we as teachers should render students the capability of seeking for beautiful moments in the daily life. The beautiful moments are moments that they can appreciate, share, reflect on, and write about. The beautiful moments can be found from regular scenes, such as patterns on an old wall, scenes through a classroom window, breeze felt after a thunderstorm in a scorching summer, a blossoming rose in the backyard, etc. Students will have “trained” eyes of looking for beauty in every corner of their lives. Yes! The beauty of life lies in the seemingly unchanged daily life, as said by the old idiom “Beauty is but in the eyes of the beholder”.

I once did a trial with Prof. Ann Sabatini and some other classmates. I observed the Bancroft building across the street through the window of a classroom in Grace Dodge Hall. The observation took about five minutes. After that, we came back to write about what we saw and felt from the observation via free-style poetry writing. I wrote the follow lines:

Clouds move gently
Under the blue sky
An old building
Stands there
For decades
It has a red and blue roof
With delicate carvings
At the base of each window
Moving shadows are reflected
On the glass
In the color of sunset

This might be a bad example of poetry writing, but it is a good way of letting students “fly” with their minds to write about the beautiful moments they have seen. For lower graders, they can practice this approach of writing and let’s forget about the grammar as well as the rigid formats and rhymes of poems.

Finally, I want to share a well-known example of beautiful moments found in daily life which worth writing and appreciating. It is my favorite piece which I first time fell in love with when I was a high school student learning English in China:

The Sound of Music
My favorite things
Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens
Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens
Brown paper packages tied up with strings
These are a few of my favorite things

Cream colored ponies and crisp apple strudels
Doorbells and sleigh bells and schnitzel with noodles
Wild geese that fly with the moon on their wings
These are a few of my favorite things

Girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes
Snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes
Silver white winters that melt into springs
These are a few of my favorite things

When the dog bites
When the bee stings
When I'm feeling sad
I simply remember my favorite things
And then I don't feel so bad

Techniques of Revision

2009-08-12T11:10:00.000-07:00

Most writings can be polished multiple times. One of the important strategies to make revisions is to add actions to conversation. The actions can make storytelling more specific and vivid.

In the process of drafting, one option to convenient the future revisions is to write only within one half of the paper and at the same time skip some lines (esp. for those who like writing on hard copies).

The following is my revised draft (see revisions from the second page).

Revised Draft of Grandma's Story -

Ways of "Rehearsal"

2009-08-12T10:51:00.000-07:00

Part of yesterday's session presented ways to help students develop their seed ideas for writing. The seed idea here is about a short moment to be focused on for beginning "writers" to practice how to "scaffold" the main ideas and how to "dig out" details.

As introduced by Celena, the following pictures are about two options to make a structure for and enrich the writing of the seed idea. They are also used for students' "rehearsal" (which is part of the writing processes: Rehearsal >> Draft /Revision >> Further Revision >> Editing >> Publishing).

The four-page booklet made by a piece of folded paper is a convenient option to work with younger children to plan their stories. The booklet, in a typical R&W literacy lesson, is also used for students to "rehearse" their ideas to peers. The process of "rehearsal" will help students enrich their writing structures for the seed idea and gives them the opportunity to "tell" the story before the formal drafting starts.

The above "timeline" is another efficient option to write down ideas on one side and further add details to the other side.

The First Draft from the Adult Writing Session

2009-08-11T16:57:00.000-07:00

In the 40-min adult writing workshop, we were asked, based on yesterday's "timeline", to generate a seed idea.

The short moment I chose to write about was a moment taken from my grandma's brave story happened in the 1940s in China. I drafted the "moment" with a background narration and an ending scene, with the thought that they would help to explain the complicated historical and cultural background of the short moment I wrote about:

Background

Lin was born in the late 1930s in an extended rich family in southern China. At that time, China was still a country under the transformation from a feudal society under wars and invasions to a new China. Lin's father was one of the most powerful landlords at the local village. Everyone in the family followed the decisions made by her father, so did Lin and her mother.

Lin was an active girl, good at climbing trees, and also mazed people by her embroidery work, one of the essential skills girls were required to grasp in that age in order to get a good marriage. Lin was close to her mother. From her childhood, her father seldom talked to her graciously. Lin knew that in his mind, like many old-style Chinese males, girls were just “wastes” that would sooner and later belong to another family.

Lin's peaceful life was suddenly stirred one day when she became 14. Her mother ran into her room with tears. Lin never saw mother act in such an anxious way. She was brought up in an aristocratic family and she always behaved peacefully and calmly.

The Beginning of the Conversation (Optional Focused Moment 1)

"What happened, Mom? " Lin asked.

"Oh, my little sweetheart," Her mother couldn't help crying, "your father will let you marry the Wu family next month."

"Mom", she stammered, "which…which Wu family?"

"My poor girl, my baby, you will marry the oldest son of the Wu family in the Kim Village...He is ten years older than you... How could I live without you?"

"My godness!" There was a moment of blankness in Lin's mind, "why father would arrange this marriage for me? Just because the Wu family is rich and powerful? What should I do? I don't want to move to the Kim village. I don’t want to leave Mom. I don't want to marry a guy whom I never met. "

"Mom, I don't want to get married. I don't want to leave you! Let me go to talk to father."

"My silly girl, are you crazy? You will be beaten to death. Oh, my poor little girl." Mom held Lin in her arms and continued to sob.

************************************

Focused Moment

Lin rushed back to her room and cried hardly in her bed. "I hate him. I hate this suffocating family!" The hatred and pain soared in her heart, " I hate the fact that I have to follow and accept everything arranged by others. Why I have to follow father and why women have to always follow men's decisions? Why women as kind and noble as Mom could never be well treated by father? Why? Why?!!!"

"No, this is not what I wanted." Lin wiped the tears on her face.

Suddenly, there was something glittering in her black eyes: "Why not run away from this family and never be controlled by father and any man in the world?" She recalled: "Lu mentioned that there were jobs for women in the nearby city Yichun".

Lin's face turned red because of excitement and she could hear her heartbeat: "Yes, I should go to Yichun. I will find a job in Yichun and lead my own life there! " "But how about Mom?"Her face turned back to pale and another voice was heard in her mind, "Who will take care of Mom? I will miss Mom very much. If I escaped from home, father would blame on her and beat her again..."

"Oh, Mom," Lin felt hopeless, hesitated, and painful again, "I don't want to hurt Mom...I don't want to get married...I have a lot of dreams I wanted to try and I even haven't really seen the outside world...God, please help me."

The Ending of the "Moment"

Lin walked to the window and stared at the light from her Mom's room. Everything around seemed frozen and there was no other sound heard except for her own heartbeat.

Finally, Lin walked back to her bed with the decision made. "I love you, Mom. But I have to pursue my freedom. I will save you out of the prison once I get settled," Lin muttered to herself.

****************************

The Ending Scene

The next morning, before the dawn came out, a girl sneaked out of a big house and walked towards the mountains faced by the village. On the other side of the mountains, there was a city called Yichun. The girl started to climb the first mountain. The sun was rising. Bright sunshine started to cover the peaks. The girl’s face became as rosy as the dawn. She continued climbing, without even one glimpse of the house in the back which was becoming farther and farther.

Mapping Strategies for Teaching of Writing

2009-08-10T21:12:00.000-07:00

Interesting Children's Picture Books

2009-08-10T20:13:00.000-07:00

Wave: A wordless book

I have fallen in love with this book upon a first glance, as it was shown via a projector this afternoon. It is the first "silent" book I have ever known. It "tells" a story about a little girl walking, thinking, and feeling the waves at a beach. The book shows great closeness to nature, and presents a limpid and bright world, combined with reality and imagination, in the eyes of the little girl.

Walk on! A Guide to Taking the First Step: A humorous book

This is book of vivid pictures showing how babies learn to walk. It is a funny book to read and to be shown to younger students.

A Flavor of Teaching Strategies

2009-08-10T20:03:00.000-07:00

Instructor: Celena Larkey, 10 am -12:00

After the keynote, we came back to TC to join a smaller group to focus on a specific grade. I chose to participate in “first-grade” group. Recalling my own writing experiences during all my formative years in China, I felt that the first grade was one of the two crucial moments in my life for learning writing: (1) the time when I began to learn to write as a first grader, and (2) the “bottleneck” period when I was full of emotions but lack of systematic techniques to write. The R&W approaches for first grade here will further illuminate the ways of English teaching for students in big cities in China who take English as a second language from kindergarten, and may also shed light on the approaches of teaching Chinese literacy. Though English and Chinese are two languages having extreme differences, I believe, the concept of being a writer, a fair number of teaching strategies and learning principles, can be shared and co-discussed.

*What is good writing?

The Best Story

Celena asked us what should be the good writing for our students. I wrote down the key words given by peers: confidence, connection, choice, relaxed environment, organized, etc. Before perceiving the answer at the end of this week (the end of the writing institute), I’d like to add more thoughts:

The joys of writing first come from choices. For younger children, especially those who just begin to write, it is not appropriate to give them many restrictions. Let’s forget about connection, paragraph, and grammar. Let’s just write for fun, for something they feel interested, meaningful, and/or something which can help them create a wonderland in their mind. Free writing gives more options for imagination and creativity.

Every child has a palette in his/her mind. They use a mind brush to paint on the palette. How can we as teachers add colors to the teaching of writing? It is our responsibility to elicit their imaginations and guide them to "paint" their beautiful images via texts, pictures, music, and/or other possible media formats.

* Teacher as adult writer

Celena also told us that we would spend about 40 minutes per day this week to practice adult’s writing, to experience ourselves as adult writers. I jotted down ideas for possible topics: my first successful writing experience, my grandma’s brave stories, a story for my beloved, a poem for an only child, etc. I finally decided to write about my grandma's brave expedition in the 1940s, which I will blog about in the later entries.

* The use of "timeline"

The “timeline” here as consulted with Celena is about mapping the ideas you want to use for writing. It can be about breaking up a big idea into small ideas, or selecting special moments within a small idea.

The First Morning of the 16th Annual August Institute on the Teaching of Writing 8.10-8.14

2009-08-10T17:58:00.000-07:00

I’m currently taking two summer intensive courses offered by the TC R&W Project. The history of this “project”, a research and teacher development institute housed by TC, can be traced back to approximately 25 years ago. Every summer, thousands of teachers from all over the U.S. come to TC to attend the well-known week-long sessions in teaching of reading/writing for different grade levels of students. I have just started this huge “feast” today.

Reflection on Keynote by Prof. Lucy Calkins, 9 am – 10 am

*Teacher as writer
Teacher was often addressed as “master” by ancient Chinese people. It was not just about showing respect but also about that teacher stands for the one who masters a great degree of expertise in the area they wanted to learn. So, when it comes to our teaching field today, what expectations do we have for a writing teacher? First, the teacher needs to be a writer. The teacher knows strategies for writing. The teacher knows how to develop good writing skills. The teacher knows how to dig out interesting writing topics. The teacher also knows how to make writing meaningful, interesting, and regular, like daily life.

*Processes of writing
Rehearsal >> Draft /Revision >> Further Revision >> Editing >> Publishing

The processes of writing sometimes are not linear as told, especially when we work with younger children. Influenced by ways of design thinking, I also think the processes of writing sometimes involve one more stage -- the process of presenting draft to others/peers and collecting feedback.

*The teaching of writing: how & why?
The teaching of writing is not only to let students know the procedures of writing but also to address the meanings behind. Writing should be a way that student can make meaning for themselves, for their life, and for a bigger society eventually. Teachers should help students understand “why” in the processes of writing. “Why it matters to you” is important, for the meaning children perceive and the meaning they make.

*The ultimate goal of teaching
The ultimate goal matches the TC perspectives for teacher education: Be reflective, be critical, and the pursuit of social justice. Prof. Calkins talked about that we, as teachers and educators, should think about bringing social changes eventually, to help those who are in need of help and to think ourselves as “bottom-up” social reformers.

*The changing media of literacy
One more aspect that I want to mention in this entry is that Prof. Calkins at the beginning of her speech talked about the importance of teaching literacy, including the Obama government’s educational initiatives and the changing media of literacy brought by the changing 21st century. The latter part is actually related to a heated new research area – digital literacies, which I am interested in.

Hi there!

2009-08-10T14:41:00.000-07:00

The purpose of this blog is to record, share, and reflect on my learning journey at TC, in the roles of an international learner, a teacher, a researcher, a "writer", as well as a future educational reformer. I want to share my experiences with not only friends and colleagues in the U.S. but also professionals and teacher-learners in the field of education in China.