I plan to use Ning and Wikispaces in my comp classes plus Blackboard but I might be over doing it. And, I forgot, students will also be going to Pearson's MyComplab, to get instruction and examples on good grammar, style, etc. Then I thought we could do Twitter, too. Well, what I will do instead is give students the choice to do their project in/on Twitter and then have them persuade others in the class to participate with them instead of having everyone do it. That way I can also encourage collaboration among my students. I want them to work together on projects although they often don't want to. Studies of work in the future provide evidence that they will have to collaborate to do their jobs. Why not begin now. Creating interesting projects is the key: projects where everyone has a stake in the work.
About the technology I want them to use in the class. I will introduce it based on some near term assignment (e.g., the wiki for the Literacy Narrative) and then leave it up to them if they want to use it further in their other assignments and the course project. Should I allow cross-class groups to work on projects together? They will be making these groups in Ning. I should probably make it an option to work in teams or individually. But I want to highly recommend that they work together. The sad fact is that I don't worked as a part of team in academe (except perhaps on committees), so I can hardly model it for them. Yet I envision a class where "co-creation of knowledge" takes place(see Will Richardson's "work" link above) . I am at the very beginning of understanding what "co-creation" means for me and my students.
August 26, 2007
August 23, 2007
Assessing Network (Ning) Play
I sent my students all an invite to start accessing the class academic network, Ning (CANN).
Question: How can I assess their work in CANN? Hmmm. I have asked them all to join this network to work on academic issues related to writing and the web among other things. They expect grades. Although the course will try to leverage their already substantial investment in social networks (i.e., facebook, et al), I'm not naive enough to think that CANN will operate like their friends' network. I am hoping that it will operate like a network made up of individuals who have common goals and interests. Businesses like IBM have massive networks that connect their employees around the world and help them do their work. I want CANN to help my students do the work of a first-year writing class.
Since I have two populations of students to work with in my courses (f2f and online), I need to have two strategies for giving credit for work in CANN. I propose that both groups compile an e-portfolio of the work they do in the network and present it at the end of the term. Each week we will have a CANN-do day (ha!). A day, in my f2f classes, where students will work in the network and a "day" where my online students will post to the network. This will be a minimum requirement and more points for further, more substantial engagement, will be possible.
Examples of posts: an intriguing and helpful addition to one's homepage, an insightful post to a discussion in a forum, a new website (w/ annotation) added to an interest group, a helpful comment posted to a class member's wiki.
And, might it be too much to ask to have the class think about work in CANN as play? Even serious play? I wonder. More about the CANN e-portfolios soon.
Question: How can I assess their work in CANN? Hmmm. I have asked them all to join this network to work on academic issues related to writing and the web among other things. They expect grades. Although the course will try to leverage their already substantial investment in social networks (i.e., facebook, et al), I'm not naive enough to think that CANN will operate like their friends' network. I am hoping that it will operate like a network made up of individuals who have common goals and interests. Businesses like IBM have massive networks that connect their employees around the world and help them do their work. I want CANN to help my students do the work of a first-year writing class.
Since I have two populations of students to work with in my courses (f2f and online), I need to have two strategies for giving credit for work in CANN. I propose that both groups compile an e-portfolio of the work they do in the network and present it at the end of the term. Each week we will have a CANN-do day (ha!). A day, in my f2f classes, where students will work in the network and a "day" where my online students will post to the network. This will be a minimum requirement and more points for further, more substantial engagement, will be possible.
Examples of posts: an intriguing and helpful addition to one's homepage, an insightful post to a discussion in a forum, a new website (w/ annotation) added to an interest group, a helpful comment posted to a class member's wiki.
And, might it be too much to ask to have the class think about work in CANN as play? Even serious play? I wonder. More about the CANN e-portfolios soon.
August 22, 2007
The Literacy Narrative Assignment
I'm going to have my students write a literacy narrative for their first assignment. They will be asked not only write about themselves as writers but also say how the things they view--TV, movies, the Internet, video games, etc.--contribute to the sort of writers they are. I'm especially conscious of the fact that these students don't read as much as past generations and get most of their information on screen, but they nevertheless need to be good writers because the academy and the workplace demand it. That is why my class is going to write for the increasingly read/write web (Web2.0); the perfect lab for them to learn to be this new writer. I've come to this conclusion in several ways.
The conundrum for me as a writing teacher is that I learned to write by reading so it's hard to put myself in their shoes and ask them to participate in a classroom that is read-to-write when it should be one where we read/view-to-write. That's my goal, then, to provide a read/view-to-write writing classroom. And the first step is to get them to tell their read/view/write literacy stories.
I am going to use DeRosa's article "Literacy Narratives as Genres of Possibility: Students' Voices, reflective Writing, and Rhetorical Awareness" to jump start the discussion. She maintains that a course based on literacy narratives as reflective heuristics gives students a better way to subvert what she calls "literacy myths" that encourage labeling and discourage improvement. What she calls literacy narratives, I would simply term personal rhetorical analyzes. Her students are a model in how they learn to see their public writing positioned rhetorically. She denigrates the first and done literacy narrative that serves as a soft diagnostics at the beginning of a course. I see it more as a beginning that can be built upon.
My literacy narrative assignment needs to shock students out of the usual school-doesn't-have-anything-to-do-with-my-life syndrome by letting them read/view and be critical about how they learn in their day-to-day lives. I want to use this awareness of the read/view/write process to have them write the other assignments in the course. They will learn that writing has always been about reading and now it is also about viewing, too. And, if they want to be better writers they have to identify themselves as a reader/viewer who can more clearly write in this new era where the demands of communication are the same but they have changed as learners and writers. Knowledge of how they have changed can allow them to become better writers.
The conundrum for me as a writing teacher is that I learned to write by reading so it's hard to put myself in their shoes and ask them to participate in a classroom that is read-to-write when it should be one where we read/view-to-write. That's my goal, then, to provide a read/view-to-write writing classroom. And the first step is to get them to tell their read/view/write literacy stories.
I am going to use DeRosa's article "Literacy Narratives as Genres of Possibility: Students' Voices, reflective Writing, and Rhetorical Awareness" to jump start the discussion. She maintains that a course based on literacy narratives as reflective heuristics gives students a better way to subvert what she calls "literacy myths" that encourage labeling and discourage improvement. What she calls literacy narratives, I would simply term personal rhetorical analyzes. Her students are a model in how they learn to see their public writing positioned rhetorically. She denigrates the first and done literacy narrative that serves as a soft diagnostics at the beginning of a course. I see it more as a beginning that can be built upon.
My literacy narrative assignment needs to shock students out of the usual school-doesn't-have-anything-to-do-with-my-life syndrome by letting them read/view and be critical about how they learn in their day-to-day lives. I want to use this awareness of the read/view/write process to have them write the other assignments in the course. They will learn that writing has always been about reading and now it is also about viewing, too. And, if they want to be better writers they have to identify themselves as a reader/viewer who can more clearly write in this new era where the demands of communication are the same but they have changed as learners and writers. Knowledge of how they have changed can allow them to become better writers.
August 07, 2007
Web 2.0 sites I want to use in my first-year comp classroom
First, I will stick with Blackboard to do my gradebook but that's about all.
Second, my website will still be the place where they will access the course schedule and syllabus as well as all the assignments and other ancillary documents that go to explain the assignments and course procedures.
Third, I will have my students get a Google acct. w/ an IGoogle page if they don't already have one. It will be my start page for my class. Linked off their IGoogle page will be the social network (Ning), the blogging portal (21Publish), and the wiki (Wikispaces) that we will be using.
Second, my website will still be the place where they will access the course schedule and syllabus as well as all the assignments and other ancillary documents that go to explain the assignments and course procedures.
Third, I will have my students get a Google acct. w/ an IGoogle page if they don't already have one. It will be my start page for my class. Linked off their IGoogle page will be the social network (Ning), the blogging portal (21Publish), and the wiki (Wikispaces) that we will be using.
Students and web 2.0
Beginnings are hard so . . . here goes. I want this blog to be a reflection of my thoughts as I prepare for the new term at MU where I will be back teaching freshman comp. I am creating this new course (3 sections--two f2f and one online) based on the interactive free web resources lumped under the title Web 2.0.
My idea is to get students engaged in the ideas that construct and control their world. The first task, therefore, is for them to tell me what their world is like. My first assignment in the course will be a text/visual literacy narrative where students will bring in the writing, the visuals, the music, the videos, etc that define who they are as they transition from high school to college. More about this later.
My idea is to get students engaged in the ideas that construct and control their world. The first task, therefore, is for them to tell me what their world is like. My first assignment in the course will be a text/visual literacy narrative where students will bring in the writing, the visuals, the music, the videos, etc that define who they are as they transition from high school to college. More about this later.
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