Bzabek's Blog
Getting ConnectedEvolving Technologies and Standardized Assessment
Anne Harrington and Charles Morgan recognize the undeniable fact that, for the most part, teenage literacy has changed. The hours my younger cousins log on social networking sites, blogs, and other interactive internet sites is astounding. For my cousins, the single-author, print based text has been cast away for the multi-author, collaborative, visual text.
I agree with Harrington and Morgan that this change in literacy should be accounted for in standardized testing. The current use of technology for grading writing is ill-conceived. The idea that a computer can grade an essay for content and voice is laughable and certainly enforces a “reductive definition of writing.” Instead of utilizing technology on the assessment side of standardized testing, technology should be used on the generative side. Students should be assessed on their ability to create and interpret these multi-media texts.
While I appreciate this new form of literacy and applaud Harrington and Morgan’s efforts to rally for its recognition, I think they were one-sided in their article’s negation of print based texts. Print based texts are not the dinosaurs that Harrington and Morgan make them out to be. Depending on the genre, print based texts are often the best option. Take fiction and poetry, for example. Reading is an interaction between the text and reader. While the author may have had an image in mind when creating the novel, that image is going to look different for each individual reader. As a reader, the author has stolen this magical exchange if he/she strips me of the images I’ve created in my head and supplants them with his/her own. That is probably why I dislike graphic novels.
However, even I acknowledge that the graphic novel is a genre worthy of study. Similarly, multi-media texts are a new genre not only worthy of study but necessary to success in our increasingly linked world. As such, they should be accounted for on standardized tests. However, I don’t think they should totally replace print based texts and essays, but rather supplement a student’s knowledge and familiarity with many genres.
School District Technology Policies
Cherokee, Cobb, and Bartow County have all addressed the necessity of technology to varying degrees on their websites. Specifically, Bartow County’s technology website reveals its student computer ratio is 4:1. The website emphasizes the necessity of becoming technologically literate and specifies county goals, action plans, and benchmarks in their campaign to replace existing computers with newer ones, add computers, and achieve an even better student-computer ratio.
School 2.0
Tim Tyson has created a new age learning environment at Mabry Middle School. He calls it school 2.0. The difference between school 1.0 and school 2.0 centers on student contribution. In school 1.0, the role of students is to take in information. School 2.0 morphs the student role into that of creators of information. The internet has given students a global audience and increased the stakes of school projects. This has significant implications on the meaningfulness of schoolwork in that students can make significant societal contributions. Check out Tim’s keynote address to see some of the amazing videos about real social issues that students at Mabry have created.
Videocasting
English Language Learners may benefit from checking out the Jim and Jen show. Each show includes normal conversations with subtitles. They also have shows including picture and word associations, tricky words, and prepositions.
Podcasting
I recently stumbled across a podcast that students struggling with writing may find helpful. Grammar Girl offers free mini lessons such as “how to write better transitions,” using “although verses while,” and “when to use articles before nouns.” The only downside to the podcast is that you have to listen to a mini-advertisment. But… if you can make it past that, the lessons Grammar Girl offers are both humorous and informative.
Go Crovitz!
I agree with Crovitz that there is much merit in analyzing web-based content in our English classes. I’m reminded of what we’ve learned in our educational psychology class about teaching students with different learning styles. In analyzing web-based content, visual students will be able to apply their analytical abilities in a format that comes easier to them.
What I found very interesting in the article, and in the Wikipedia article, was the point made about analyzing content not only for what is says, but also for what it doesn’t say. I think that often I forget to look for what is intentionally left out. Looking at that gap helps widen one’s perspective when analyzing a piece and helps differentiate fact from opinion.
Wickipedia is Wicked!
Compared to Encyclopedia Americana and Britannica.com, Wikipedia wins first place for the most cumulative and extensive resource. It provides several categories of information for each particular entry including pictures, maps, external links, resources, and more! In fact, it offers hyperlinks that are easily accessed if a reader has a question about a particular term. Even though Britannica. com is online, it is not as current; it was last updated four years ago! Wikipedia, on the other hand, was last edited four days ago! As a lover of books, it is getting easier to forgo the familiar paper pages of the encyclopedia for the bright light and knowledge of wikis.
RichardCh4
I’ve been looking things up on Wikipedia for awhile now never knowing that is wasn’t a normal encyclopedia. I’d never heard of a wiki and just assumed that the name was short for “wicked” encyclopedia or something because it was so awesome. I feel stupid. However, I think Wikipedia is even more wicked now that I know how it really works! At first I was shocked and worried that what I had been reading might not have been the truth. But…Richardson convinced me otherwise by his argument on how individual vandalism is quickly corrected by the immense collective whole. This concept is so revolutionary I wonder what it will mean for publishing in general. The speed at which information is gathered and spread is so much faster than the printing press and the idea of limitless authors brings up the question of copyright. Our society has been so transformed by the internet just in the past 10 years I wonder where we are headed next.
RichardChapter 1-3
Although I hate to admit it, reading Richardson’s book was good for me. I am one of those anti-technology hold-outs that didn’t even get a cell phone until I was 24. Last semester, my first at KSU and my first back in school, I was surprised and frustrated that my teachers did not hand me a paper syllabus. However, it took me very little time to master Vistaview and I appreciate the lessening paper trail.
Richardson makes a lot of good points in his support of blogs. The fact that they provide a central location to archive student work, post class agendas and assignments, have conversations with primary sources, and get feedback from teachers makes blogs amazing resources that can be accessed anywhere. I agree that it is a truly constructivist form of teaching because it is ever evolving. Perhaps Richardson’s most persuasive argument is that blogging gets students excited about work, which is a triumph in itself, and helps students practice their analytic skills by reading as writers.
I’m a Booger, I mean Blogger!
I wonder who came up with the title for this type of public journaling. Surely they could have picked something that wasn’t so phonetically close to booger. It reminds me of my dad’s favorite saying:
You can pick your friends, and you can pick your nose, but you can’t pick your friend’s nose.
Thanks for the advice, Dad.
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