Fear of Blogs

The media blog was not one of the portfolio pieces I intended to complete when I submitted my portfolio plan. Honestly the word “blog” scared me! I was not familiar with blogs other than stumbling across them when doing an internet search. With that said, I am so glad I ended up using the blog. If it wouldn’t have been for this assignment, who knows when I would have ever learned to post a blog entry. To go with my last post…..this was just another accent that labeled me as a digital immigrant!

After using the class blog, I am embarrassed of my initial fears. It was so simple to post and I am hoping it is just as easy to start my own blog. In my first post I mentioned that blogs were one of the many things that are blocked on school computers. Although I don’t imagine all blogs will ever be unblocked in the school setting, I think my students could benefit from using a blog for educational purposes. As the new librarian next year I would like to incorporate a blog for our high school library where students could post book reviews. For Valentines Day the library had a contest. Students made valentines to describe a book they loved. There was an overwhelming response and I still observe students reading the valentines that are posted near the books they describe. This would be an opportunity for them to share the books they enjoy and use a blog at school!

Immigrant or Native?

When considering the words “native” and “immigrant”, digital is not the word that comes to my mind. By reading an article by Marc Prensky, Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants, I was challenged to consider myself an immigrant.

http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky%20-%20Digital%20Natives,%20Digital%20Immigrants%20-%20Part1.pdf

The faculty at my workplace was asked to discuss the article in our teams that we meet weekly with. I’ll admit that I quickly forget many of the articles we are asked to discuss, but this one stuck with me. As an 8th year Spanish teacher I will shamefully admit that I am teaching almost the exact same way I was when I started, with the addition of new activities and games to supplement the units that are in place. Even after receiving a Smart Board, many of the lessons that I had on the overhead projector are almost identical to the lessons on the Smart Board. They are just in a more interactive format. So I have made some changes but not nearly enough to accommodate the many changes that the students have endured as times change.

As one of the younger teachers in my building, I don’t feel like I am able to completely catch up with technology. I find myself wondering where I got lost. The article refers to digital immigrants having an accent. Examples that are given include printing out emails, printing documents for editing, and calling to make sure someone received an email. I find myself being tempted to print emails, I always print to edit a document, and I constantly worry about whether someone has received an important email if they don’t respond. As librarians it is our job to not only keep up with the digital natives, but also help those that we work with lose their accents!

Incorporating Media Literacy at the High School

At the beginning of the semester I had very minimal knowledge about media literacy and all that it entailed, beyond interpreting media messages on television and in the movies. When considering pieces for the portfolio assignment I immediately chose to do the participant observer piece. As a future school librarian I thought it would be a good experience. As I started asking around I soon found out that the schools in my area do not have established medial literacy programs. Living and working in a rural community limits my options for observations. I decided to still do the observations in a district that didn’t have a program and just include it as one of my blog entries.

During this semester I have spent 2-4 hours per week in a high school library. The library primarily serves its students for free reading and computer lab usage. The way the library is used is a direct reflection of how teachers incorporate library resources into their lessons. Most of the books that are checked out are for reading classes or to fulfill quarterly book report requirements. The computer lab can only be used if it is reserved for an entire class or if a student has a written pass for a specific assignment.

The librarian eagerly offers her services by teaching students that enter the building about how to utilize the online resources that are available in addition to a short tutorial on the OPAC. Generally these items are merely refreshers because the same resources and OPAC are used at the middle school level. Any other teaching that goes on in the high school library is either done on a one-on-one basis or by classroom teachers when their classes are in the computer lab. There is not a specific class or library program that focuses on media literacy.

After discussions with teachers about the classes they teach and with students about their experiences with media literacy, there are many aspects that are covered. Although a lot is covered indirectly, depending on the class, teacher, or time available not all students are receiving an equal amount of media literacy education. Students are being deprived of essential knowledge that will affect them for the rest of their lives in a digital society. The benefits of media literacy education are evident.

For example, I am currently doing a career exploration project for a final unit with my students. I gave them a guided web activity, much like a web quest, that helped them explore careers that matched their personality and interests. They had a series of questions to answer for each section of the activity so they had something they could look back at for the next part of the project. Many students were able to finish this activity in less than an hour, while others took an entire 85-minute period. Some of the time difference is due to reading levels and efficiency, but that was not the case for all. There are several students that struggle with navigating through websites. At the beginning of the year I gave very detailed direction for web activities, including step by step directions on how to access shared files on the public drive of our school’s network. Simple tasks like finding a document they needed to get started was challenging for some students. These are the same students that are not enrolled in classes that frequently use the computer lab. The second step of the project was to explore careers online without be restrained by the websites of the first activity. This gave them free roam to either explore an identified career more in depth or look at other options. The goal was to finalize three career choices to research and present. They were told up front that the presentations were only for display, but they had to convey to me that they were able to answer all three essential questions (what is the career, why did you pick it, how will you get there) in detail. Since this is a final project they knew I was expecting them to be creative and go above and beyond any other presentations that they had done throughout the year. As soon as we arrived in the computer lab the same two things kept happening over and over. They didn’t know how to search the internet and most of them immediately put any information they found into a power point presentation.

I came to two conclusions after this miserable experience. At the high school level they are so used to being told which sites to use that they don’t know how to weed out the junk on their own. As for only wanting to use power point, this is what is taught at the middle school level and what they are most comfortable using. There are a handful of students that are taking an introduction to business course that have had experience with different styles of presentation. These students are willing to go beyond power point because they have more knowledge, but not all students will take the same business course or any business at all. Where will the others learn about the vast array of presentation styles that are accessible to them?

Of course I have a solution! Every student that enters the high school is required to take a freshmen seminar course. In this course there are several areas that are covered in order to help prepare 9th graders for success in high school. Media literacy is not a formal component of the current curriculum. As both a freshmen seminar teacher and the future librarian at this high school, it could easily be incorporated without disrupting the curriculum in place. Although I believe a media literacy component is key to their future success and will not be questioned by the administration in a district where digital technology is being pushed!

Tech savvy kids

This is in response to Amy's post about kids not being allowed to use their knowledge about technology in schools. (I would have just responded in comments, but you can't post a link from comments--I don't think!) I completely agree with the point you make there. How are we supposed to help students attain media literacy if we have so many restrictions? Many students come to school equipped to learn on many levels, including in multimedia ways. While today's students aren't "naturally" media savvy as some assume, they are ready to handle learning on many levels and communicate in many different ways. Not only do schools' curriculum rarely meet their learning needs, but, as you described, the school acts as a huge barrier to their media use. Schools don't build on what students are capable of, and actually block their ability to use media successfully.

I found a report from the New Media Consortium, A Global Imperative that addresses some of these issues:

It comments that "schools do their students a disservice when they fail to teach literacy in the expressive new language that their students have already begun to use before they even arrive" (page 2). It also builds on what the Jenkins (MacArthur Foundation) paper touches on and what Carol mentioned in class about the way this generation approaches, uses, and views technology tools is "fundamentally different from the way their older counterparts approach using the same tools" (2).
I also like the image on page 9 (page 15 in my pdf viewer) of the enablers and barriers to multimedia literacy.

Are students allowed to be tech-savvy at school?

As I was preparing for class, When Libraries Get Social: How Tech-Savvy Teens Are Shaping Library Culture really caught my attention and made me stop and think. The school I work in does not allow students to bring laptop computers to class, I-pods and cell phones must be kept in lockers throughout the day, social networking sites and blogs are blocked, and they are not allowed to check email. (They are not even issued a school email account for educational purposes.) The quote by Linda stone in the Teen Reality # 3 slide, “Multi-tasking is a way of life – and people live in a state of continuous partial attention”, puts it all in perspective.

Educators are preparing students for their future. Many students will go on to college and others will join the workforce. Obviously I took the college route. As a teacher I spend my day taking attendance, constantly checking email for names of students that need to go to the office, finding the correct Smart Board files, entering grades, and making sure video clips are loaded! I do all of this while I am teaching a lesson and monitoring 25 students, and most importantly it is all done on the computer. My husband, on the other hand, tried college; it didn’t work out, and then he went on to the workforce. He now works for a company that makes plastic. His first six weeks were spent training in a conference room, mostly behind a computer. The funny thing is…..he is not training for an office job. He will be working in the packaging part of the plant, mainly filling hoppers and moving them with an engine. Even though this is a factory/production job that doesn’t require a college education, he still has to have the ability to multi-task and utilize technology. Logging in the hours he worked, checking email, keeping up with safety guidelines, and computing the amount of plastic that has been loaded for shipment are all aspects of his job and using the computer on a daily basis.

Are we really preparing students for their future? Whether they go on to the workforce immediately after graduation or go to college first, they are destined to be required to multi-task using technology.

When I arrived to work after 10 days off for spring break, my computer was out of commission. Next year all of the computers in the building will be replaced, but for now we are dealing with sporadic hard drive crashes. I was the latest victim! It was one of the worst days I have ever had at work. I felt completely lost without my computer for only one day. Although I didn’t have my computer, I could listen to my I-pod, use my cell phone, and go to the library to check my email and this class blog (only because they unblocked it for me) if I wanted to during my prep period. I couldn’t live a day without just my computer at work, and yet we are asking our students to live without all of their gadgets everyday.

I realize we have to have some guidelines or it would be complete chaos. I have been very persistent in suggesting that students should at least have school email accounts. There are many times I create a lesson, worksheet, etc. at home and email it to my school account so I can access it at work. I am sure you are all thinking – why doesn’t she just use a flash drive? I forgot to mention we can’t use those either! Email accounts would at least give students the freedom to pull up a project or assignment to present or print. As of right now they would have to email it to a teacher in order to access it at school.

This is just an example of one school that has forbidden students to be tech-savvy during school hours unless it is confined to a specific lesson that a teacher has created for students to showcase their multimedia talents. And in a school that only has one main computer lab outside of the two computer classrooms, it has to be a lesson that is prepared and scheduled at least a month in advance! We are asking our students to live outside of reality while they are at school. They have grown up in an era of multi-tasking using various forms of media and now we are asking them to give their full attention to science, math, language, and history without technology at their fingertips. It doesn’t seem realistic.

ML as school reform?

Here's an opinion question: if one were to want to implement media literacy into various parts of public school curriculum, should that be considered school reform?

What do you all think? Any comments are welcome!

Teachers and Librarians

I was reading Tyner, and she makes a connection between teachers and librarians that got me thinking. Tyner says, "Librarians are teachers first. Like their colleagues in the classroom, they understand that the power of information cannot be tapped without a human interface." I've heard this comparison before. In my reference services class, we discussed the similarities between the two. Tyner, however, got me thinking about Ivan Illich. Ivan Illich was a philosopher and radical education theorist. In his famous book Deschooling Society, he writes:

"If the goals of learning were no longer dominated by schools and schoolteachers, the market for learners would be much more various and the definition of 'educational artifacts' would be less restrictive...The professional personnel needed for this network would be much more like custodians, museum guides, or reference librarians than like teachers. From the corner biology store, they could refer their clients to the shell collection in the museum or indicate the next showing of biological videotapes in a certain viewing booth. They could furnish guides for pest control, diet, and other kinds of preventive medicine. They could refer those who needed advice to 'elders' who could provide it."

All of those tasks he mentions sounds like things a librarian does. Illich takes the idea of student-centered learning Tyner discusses to a whole different level. Maybe instead of "librarians are teachers first," Illich would say "First, teachers should be librarians."

If you are interested in Illich you can read the full text of Deschooling Society at:

http://reactor-core.org/deschooling.html

Visual Literacy

Earlier this week I was introduced to a piece of free software called Photostory that could be an extremely effective tool in the classroom. A new teacher at school used this software with a 7th grade language arts class and was so excited about the results that he had to share it. As I spoke with this teacher, he began to tell me about how he taught his students to use this software and how he focused his lesson on the effect that can be created by panning and zooming in on certain aspects of an image. Students learned how the mood of a piece can change by how images are used.

After my encounter with this teacher, I wanted to learn how to use Photostory and create a tutorial so that other teachers could capitalize on having access to it. The visual literacy aspects seemed crucial to me at that point, especially with the amount of exposure students have now to visual images. It wasn’t until this morning when I began reading for this week’s class when I realized how serendipitous this encounter was with this teacher. Here was Dondis’s point from A Primer of Visual Literacy in action - a teacher who recognizes that students need to be taught visual literacy skills. Having students create a piece that uses images and sound in a way to create a desired effect is much different from having students create a piece that includes images and sound with no forethought of how those two mediums can be used to sway an audience.

From my observations in teaching elementary and middle school, I would have to agree with Dondis’s statement that “the educational system is moving with monolithic slowness in visual literacy,” when we think of it as more than what was shared on the Visual Literacy K-8 Web site included in our reading list. This Web site highlights skills needed to read diagrams, tables, graphs, maps and many other pictorial images. Since I began teaching twenty years ago, this type of visual literacy has been taught. In fact, this type of literacy is tested. Much of one section of the Iowa Test of Basic Skills has students reading and applying what is depicted in the above mentioned images. What seems to be lacking in today’s classrooms is the analysis of visual images. Some art classes may address these skills; however, with the increase of visual projects and materials in the classroom, all teachers need to address it.

The activities described in the Getty Museum Web site have students describe what is seen, reflect upon it and then analyze or interpret the image. Having students focus on description of a picture will result in making students more aware of an image and its effect. Unless this step is taken, I have found that students will skip pictures in a text and not understand how they complement or add meaning to a text. When shown video, students tend to treat it like television and not become an active participant in this learning experience. They tend to accept what is stated and not become critics of what was presented. Dondis writes about the increase of visual educational material yet little has been done to evaluate its effectiveness. Often the adage of “people remember 10% of what they read, 20% of what they see…” leads teachers to incorporate visual materials in their lessons. Accommodating different learning styles is critical. Now with the increase of visual materials available, teachers are using them. With this increase, more emphasis on analyzing them should be made. (On a side note, as I Googled to find the exact wording of this adage, I stumbled across Will Thalheimer’s blog on learning that describes this notion as a fraudulent claim.)

One reason for this passive audience, I believe, is that not many teachers are asking students to critique what they see. In order to create lessons that have students doing more analysis, teachers need to be educated in this area. Learning the visual techniques used in visual communication that Dondis describes will allow teachers and students to abandon the subjective evaluation of visual pieces and begin to look at them more critically. We have moved beyond the typical student created PowerPoint aids to products of streaming video. To get students evaluating the effectiveness of their video works, ample opportunities must be provided for them to analyze other videos, drawing attention to the effects used to create a certain response in the viewer.

I would imagine that high school students have more opportunities to evaluate visual pieces. As more research is conducted on the effectiveness of presenting material visually to students, I would hope that visual literacy skills are identified for students at all levels master.