Media Literacy

Though a little dated, this clip gives a nice overview of media literacy in the high school classroom.

Poetry and Photopeach

This is a PhotoPeach.com collage to accompany the poem by Willie Perdomo. Katie McKnight introduced us to the wonders of this web 2.0 tool to build literacy in the classroom. Delicious.

"Where I'm From"

QR Codes as Reading Strategy

Isn't this exciting?!  You can insert QR codes into a book that students follow to a video that connects directly to the content of the book.

Ok, first: a QR code if short for Quick Response code.  It is a barcode that can be read by mobile devices and link the user to a URL, text, or other data (thanks, Wikipedia). There are both QR code generators and readers that can be downloaded to your smart phone or iPad.

So, to give your students another dimension to their reading of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, for example, make a code to link them to the author talking about her experience writing the book, photos of the Lacks family, or a link to a website that can explain the science further, for those who are interested.  Or, for an assignment, have students respond to the information the code took them to, then have them create their own code to leave for the next reader.  Or maybe students could write their own piece that includes the experience of such interaction with the internet.  The possibilities are wide; ask students what they would do and help them do it!

Videogames towards civic engagement

Keeping with last weeks' theme:

Brian Kotts Tweeted a Tweet that shows a connection between videogames and civic engagement.  Turns out, there's research that shows videogames lead students to look out and examine their society.  Kurt Squire is a videogame designer and Assistant Professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison.  He breaks it down for us:

Videogames are immersive.  They build skills of pattern recognition and problem-solving.  They also allow participants to shape your own social future; how often do we invite our students to do this?  They integrate generations, interests, and abilities so participation allows for and creates opportunities for considering multiple perspectives.  Shouldn't all of these things be in education?  The importance of multiculturalism is certainly a part of our global society, as well as shaping one's social future.

The civic engagement piece is illustrated with one of their games, called Citizen Science.  The game leads students through the real scenario that the lakes in Madison are in danger of becoming eutrophic in a few years.  Students navigate through the discovery of information about the condition of the lakes and then how to affect change and, if you play the game right, you fix the lakes and change the future.  Then what happens is students finish that and then look out and say, "ok, how can we do this for real?"  And then you've got them hooked to do some serious world-changing.  Awesome.


Find the video of Kurt Squire here.

The Video Game Model Classroom. Of Course.

Here's a really practical article on the educational benefits of video games by neurologist Judy Willis.

  She makes three points about the educational benefits of video games.  The first is that students enter at their  achievable challenge level.  A player starts at level one and if that come easily to them, they quickly progress to level two and so on.   The difficulty of the task meets the player where they are.

  Secondly, video games give the player "incremental progress feedback" and subsequent useful corrective feedback.  When the level gets the player to tasks that are challenging, at their achievable challenge level, the brain is engaged and having fun.  Instead of the assessment at the end of the week or quarter, the feedback is immediate.  And it's safe; no one is watching you take risks, so you can be free to try a number of times.

  Finally, instead of money or accolades, the rewarded after hard work is harder work- the next level.  This is the ideal model in the classroom- that students are rewarded by their own success.  And it is so important because this reward is self-perpetuating, much more so than candy or other merits.  When we teach our students to trust their creativity and curiosity, we will have all the academic gains we hope for.


  How do we do this in the classroom?  Differentiation is one answer.  We can group students into cohorts of students with similar achievable challenge levels.  But we must find ways to show students the reward of harder work and greater challenges.  What are your ways?

More Organizational Strategies!

I am a sucker for a fun way to organize in the classroom, and as a future teacher, I can't find too many to put in my teacher toolbox.  That's what hooked me on Cool Cat Teacher's recent Twitter offering via Steve Williams (@MrHSIE).  She launches a bunch of classroom activities off a standard three-component Venn diagram.  This one:



So your students need to know how to compare ideas or plots in a story.  Here's where you start, but how can we make it stick a little better?  She suggests turning it into a wiki- you might hyperlink to videos which illustrate each component.  Or you can, she says, turn it into a podcast "where an individual can become and reflect each element."  Or blow it up into the space of the classroom by dividing the room into three and hanging string to illustrated the characteristics of each element.  Maybe this is a permanent installation while the unit progresses and students develop it as you work through the unit.

Looking forward, the idea of the podcast is particularly interesting.  I love the idea of students creating a radio drama of a modern adaptation of Shakespeare, for example.  Just when I think I'm running out of ideas, my Professional Learning Network gets the ball rolling again. . .