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MILI- remembering the community… March 8, 2011

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It’s fun to find old projects. I dusted of the Glogster account today to start preparing for our PDLA class titled, “Reflective Practice in Action”. I am creating a Glog to visualize how I am a reflective educator and use that as a sample project for teachers who sign up for the class. We’ll be using York-Barr, Sommers, Ghere and Montie’s second edition of Reflective Practice to Improve Schools as a book study and spring board for reflection on and for action.  Should be a blast!  I’ll post my Glog here when I’m finished.

MILI was such a rich learning experience.  I certainly complained about the dark computer lab, the late nights and the cold, hard chair we sat on for a few hours at a time, but I do not regret it in the least.  I still use my MILI tools and the Ning as a resource frequently, now when I am teaching teachers I am prepared with a comprehensive set of tools and skills to help them become the best they can be for kids.  Enjoy my Glog!

Helping, by Edgar Schein January 18, 2011

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My administrator gave me the book Helping, by Edgar Schein a while back when we were discussing the nuances of work relationships.  Instructional Coaching has really pushed my mental capacity for in-action reflection when having dialogue with so many teachers and colleagues.  I’ve been interested to learn about my own feelings and responses to the new role I’m playing with the staff, but also very curious about how the staff feels and responds to our dialogue.  For the most part, I think things have gone smoothly, without too much pressure and I’ve alleviated a lot of the stress teachers felt about Q-Comp just through being personable, consistent and kind.  However, there are teachers who are seeking more feedback, who ask for help and what I’m realizing is that this enters us into a new relationship, one where I’m “one-up” and on stage while they have put themselves “one-down” and I have to be very careful in how I maneuver through.

What I like, so far, about Helping is that Schein spends time in the Preface to set up his background so you  have a frame of mind to read his theories- he connects his work to “Symbolic Interactionism” from the Chicago School, sociology, anthropology, psychology and business consulting.  He’s helped me to understand the traps we fall into when we ask for help and when someone asks us for help.  His 5 traps for the client are particularly poignant for what I’m doing:

1. People might ask for help but only provide a hypothetical situation, a tip-of-the-iceberg scenario because of initial mistrust

2.  The client will feel relieved after sharing the story and look for you to solve it.  This is a trap because you may not understand the problem yet.

3.  Sometimes the client asks for help that sounds more like attention-seeking, or affirmation-seeking communication.  They do this because avoiding that feeling of being “one-down”.

4.  If the helper fell into the trap of helping too soon, the client might feel resentment and defensive when the problem remains.

5.  The client may project stereotypes, hold unrealistic expectations or transfer perceptions of helpers onto you and you will be trapped in a role you are unaware of.

I found a video on YouTube of Schein talking about the guiding principles for his book.

School is redefined December 20, 2010

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The more I learn about learning, the further I want to stray from the American public education system.  It becomes harder and harder to ignore the failure of this institution to truly provide the public with relevant learning.  And why isn’t the traditional pedagogy relevant today?  I’ve heard many different answers to this question, but today I latched on to the ideas one teacher gave at a TEDtalk.  This video was shared with our staff by our principal, Dr. Bill Sommers, as a “requested view”.

In this TEDtalk given by Diana Laufenberg, an 11th grade American History teacher at the Science Leadership Academy in Philadephia, she defines the current reality in our society as an age of “information surplus” but we’re still teaching from a paradigm of “information scarcity”.  She asks, “Why do you have kids coming to school if they no longer need it to get the information?”  A very good question!  Her response opens the doors to all kinds of playing and failing through learning.  She encourages us, the teachers, to make learning relevant again by shifting to experiential based practices.

In writing this post, a teacher dropped in to invite me to visit his Air and Space class tomorrow because he is having students give presentations to a guest from NASA.  He’s excited because the class will be presenting to an authentic audience about their findings for which NASA facility is no longer sustainable, and should be shut down.  I’m excited to see this lesson, and even more excited for the students who have at least one class in their day where they get to participate in something real.

Digital Writing and Digital Is November 30, 2010

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I just joined Digital Is, a web resource put out by the National Writing Project, after listening to a podcast on EdTechTalk titled “Teachers Teaching Teachers #225″.  In this podcast Christina Cantrill, Senior Program Associate for the NWP Technology Initiative and Digital Is project, talks about the inspiration around the site.  According to her, the purpose of this site is to bring educators together in a digital space where they can share and collaborate around digital writing in its many forms.  There is no one way to write, or teach, digital writing, and the unique set up of this site invites students and teachers to define and redefine the genres of writing in a digital age.

Educators from across the nation and within any area of education have opportunities to become curators on the site.  The curators create a collection around a topic or theme, which looks like a front page of an article in a magazine.  The collection’s resources are articles, blogs, digital narratives, videos, databases and other uses of digital writing on that topic or theme.  These resources, sometimes created by students, can become information for a reader/teacher to be inspired to further create.  The site is very new, and exciting, and I am looking forward to discovering how it will impact my approach to teaching writing.

This video, made by a digital writing teacher named Joel Malley, is an inspiring walk through the writing workshop- digital style.

Writing in the Digital Age from Joel Malley on Vimeo.

Cursor Twin Cities Edition March 6, 2010

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Cursor Twin Cities Edition.  A great resource for looking up media content that pertains specifically to the Twin Cities, MN.

I have such big plans for using a media literacy unit.  It’s like all planned out and I’m dying to put it into my Honors 10 classroom…why is it so difficult to convince everyone else of the importance of this?  Hopefully next week’s community meeting with the district will be a first start.  A group of community members, administrators, union representatives, teachers, parents and students are coming together this spring to collaborate on bringing our district into the 21st century.  I’m thrilled to be a part of it, but hope I can contain my excitement to not appear a technology zealot.  I don’t want to turn anyone off from some great opportunities for our district.  I do believe some of what we can do does not require any financial resources, which is good because we just lost a few million.  Fingers crossed!

5472: Pedagogical Agents June 29, 2009

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In the “When Sex, Drugs and Violence Enter the Classroom” article I mentioned in my post last night (see previous post for a link to the article) the researchers found that two classes of 25 and 26 middle school students mistreated a pedagogical agent (a digital woman who was created to answer questions about a mapping assignment using google earth).  The researchers were stunned at the vulgar nature of the students’ questions, and particularily shocked by the fact that only 5.1% of the 745 interactions with the agent pertained to the social studies assignment.  45% of comments were sexually explicit both days of the study, and it wasn’t just a few students making lude remarks, 10 of 26 on the first day and 11 of 25 on the second had conversations with the agent that were sexual in nature.

So what does this mean?  The researchers conclude that the anthropomorphism of the agents and the nature of the internet lowers student inhibiitions and motivates students to abuse the agent.  The students did not see the agent as an authority figure, perhaps because of Asimov’s Laws of Robotics, particularily that robots are never the authority figure, they must be viewed as servants to the humans.  One thing is certain, the previous claim of the media equation lense made by Reeves and Nass in 1996, that humans treat media as if they are also human, is no longer relevent.  I see more need for the theories of Scheehtman and Horowitz in 2003, that there are social rules when interacting with digital media, but there is a different cognitive, emotional and motivational process that happens.  The problem in this research study, that a few of my classmates have hit on already, is that those social rules were not established for the students.  They are learning how to socialize with their world in middle school, and it is crucial for them to have models of how to interact with people and digital agents, particularily when a new social interaction is introduced, like the pedagogical agent.

How do we respond as teachers?  I think the danger of this article is the clear emotional response on the part of the researchers.  I think there is much to be discussed, observed and studies further and I am very curious if there have been other studies done on students and pedagogical agents.  It is too soon to react with alarm, pulling all experimentation with digital personalities, instead we can be more aware of how we introduce pedagogical agents to students, setting clearly established perameteres for conversation and more accountability on the part of the student to make better choices.  If we look back at the original aim of this study it was to experiment with the claim of recent trends in pedagogy that digital media leads to excitement in the classroom.  The researchers asked the question, is the use of pedagogical agents increasing student learning, or merely student motivation?  What they found was that it did not motivate them to learn, a different interaction took place.  This is something to spend more time with, both inside and outside the classroom; how do we interact with digital personalities in a new social network with unclear perameters and I would argue, unclear moral and ethical codes of conduct?  How will our online interactions change our interactions with others in our lives?  What rules and models for behavior work for improving online interactions?  I am curious to spend more time with these questions and seeking out further studies on the use of pedagogical agents.  I see the answers to some of these big quesitons to give us insight into how best to prepare our future citizens for success and happiness in such explosive times.

5472: A somewhat surreal experience! June 28, 2009

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I have spent far too much time on my mad creation…as wells as a significant lack of time on my post for this evening.  For our final assignment we read an article in the Interdisciplinary Journal of Human-Computer Interaction titled, “When Sex, Drugs, and Violence Enter the Classroom: Conversations Between Adolescents and a Female Pedagogical Agent.”  Here is a link to the article in PDF: Pedagogical Agent.  After reading an article about this study done in a middle school social studies classroom where students abused the female digital personality created as an aide for their mapping assignment, we were charged with the surreal task of creating our own digital selves.  Please folks, refrain from abuse, especially of the sexual variety.  Much appreciated.  I have a LOT to say about that article, but I will need to wait to express my many views until morning considering I spent the last few hours uploading photos and playing with hair styles and I have not a brilliant hair left on my head.  This would go much faster if I got that duo processor I’ve been pining for.  At any rate, enjoy the avatar and await my much more coherent post with anxious anticipation.

5472: Critical Analysis of TV Advertisements June 25, 2009

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The following two lessons have been prepared to be used in a media literacy unit in my honors 10th grade classroom.  These two lessons could be used near the beginning of the unit, but after students have done some film analysis and have an understanding of the vocabulary needed in which to complete an analysis.  They should be used back-to-back as the first lesson introduces the process of analysis and provides some background information, while the second lesson goes more in depth with the problems advertising has introduced into our world and society.

Lesson One: Introduction to TV Advertising Analysis

Learning Targets: Students will understand the roles of persuasive techniques, professional persuaders, and consumers in the construction of an advertisement.  Students will analyze the persuasive techniques and the elements of a television advertisement.

Intro:  I’ll begin the lesson with a discussion around the images parodying popular images of products and branding on the False Advertising Web Site.  I’ll start with the humor effect, because some of these are very clever and pay attention to how students react to these false advertisements.  Then I will ask them, “Why are these so funny?”  “What do we know about the products or companies represented in these ads?” “How does the maker of these ads manipulate the techniques of advertising to sell a different message?”  “What message is being sold to consumers with these ads?” “Why do people make parodies like these?”  “What advertisements could you parody?”

Lesson:  Hand out a copy of the notes sheet I created: advertising-techniques for each student.  I will also create a SMART presentation with links to examples of different advertisements and my own analysis of various elements.  This has yet to be created…usually when I create a new lesson I first create a document like this and if there is time and an idea, I will reformat it as a presentation or an activity or other method before teaching it the first time, but often I use my first time teaching something as a gauge for where to take the lesson. (I’m thinking this unit will be a prezi presentation before the beginning of the year.  When that does happen, I will post it to my blog as I’m sure I’ll be super proud of my first Prezi!)

Assessment:  The last page of the “advertising-techniques” document is a homework assignment for students to analyze TV ads using the techniques they learned in today’s lesson.  Usually I’d give students a few days to complete the assignment, no more than three or they forget about it.  On the follow up day I will ask students to share with a partner their findings, then in small groups, then reflect as a class on what we discovered when watching advertisements.  The assessment is formative at this point, collecting information on where students need more support with their use of the analysis techniques through the conversations, and collection of homework.

Lesson Two:  PBS “The Persuaders” documentary: interpreting the role of advertising in American society

Learning Targets: Students will critique, discuss and defend the roles of advertising in our culture.  Students will assess their own relationship with advertising in the media and evaluate it’s role in their life.

Intro:  Show the brief 5 minute teaser for the documentary Advertising and the End of the World from the Media Education Foundation.  Ask after viewing, “What is the message of the film?”  “What does it mean to be a commercial culture?”

Lesson:  The learning will happen through the viewing of the documentary titled “The Persuaders” put out by PBS’ Frontline in 2004, paired with breaks in the viewing to reflect personally in writing, through paired and class discussions, and the teacher presenting critical observations of how the information in the film is manipulated to only show one side of the issue.  The following list of discussion questions will help encourage critical analysis of the film and the role of advertising in our culture.  The goal here is to allow students to go in depth with their thinking, taking time to complete reflection activities every 15-20 minutes of viewing.  Some of these questions come from the study guide for Advertising and the End of the World, but have clear application here as well.

Previewing

1. Does advertising have any effect on you?
2. Why do you think advertising and public relations are such big business these days?
3. Do you feel that you have everything you need? Do you have everything that you want?
4. What factors influence your decision to buy something new?
5. Think of the last thing you purchased.Why exactly did you buy it? If you needed it,why did you need it? If you wanted it, why did you want it?
6. What makes you happy?
7. How do you picture your life 10 years from now, 20 years from now?
8. Make a list of the top 5 things you want in life.
9. The title of this video is “The Persuaders”.  What do you think about this title?
10. Agree or disagree with the following statement: I am very concerned about the destruction of the environment. Discuss.

During Viewing (Pulled from the Frontline Web Site)

1. “The Persuaders” begins by questioning the increase in the amount of advertising we typically encounter in our daily lives. How would you assess the amount of advertising you see? Too much? Too little? Just right? In your view, what difference does it make to know that people today see much more advertising in their daily lives than people 20 or 30 years ago?

2. What surprised you in the descriptions of how much demographic information marketers have about potential customers? What kinds of information would you be willing to share about yourself or your family in order to: enter a contest? Get a discount? Get online? Get a cell phone? Use a credit card? Would you be willing to reveal your name, address and phone number? What music you listen to or your favorite snacks? The grades on your last report card? How much your parents earn? What medications people in your family take? What kinds of information would you want to keep private and why?

3. In “The Persuaders,” marketer Kevin Roberts uses the term “lovemarks” to identify brands to which people are loyal even when devotion is not logical. Are there brands (or music) to which you are devoted? When you stop to think about it, is your loyalty to any particular brand logical or a “lovemark”? If purchasing a particular brand isn’t logical, why would you (or other people) do it?4. Douglas Rushkoff asks, “What happens when advertisers assume the roles of our writers, journalists, and entertainers?” How would you answer him?

4. Douglas Rushkoff asks, “What happens when advertisers assume the roles of our writers, journalists, and entertainers?” How would you answer him?

5. Advertising executive Douglas Atkins argues that purchasing branded merchandise now provides that same sense of belonging that was once provided by community institutions like schools, churches, civic groups, or fraternal orders. What provides you with a sense of belonging or identity? What role, if any, does marketing play in what you identify with or where you hang out the most?

6. Douglas Rushkoff asks, “What does it mean when we begin to merge our once separate roles as consumers and citizens?” How would you answer Rushkoff’s question? Given that the U.S. economy is based on consumer spending, is it patriotic to shop?

Assessment: (This idea came from the study guide for Advertising and the End of the World.  I’m not sure if I would do the assessment exactly like this, but as of right now, this is a working idea).

Sut Jhally says that advertising has colonized not only our space but also our lives – it is inside our heads, our relationships, our identities. The example he uses is the role the diamond engagement ring now plays in our love relationships. “A diamond is forever” is no longer just an ad slogan, it frames how we think about and act out engagement and marriage.

Find another example to illustrate this same point; an example of how advertising has leeched out from its role as mouthpiece for the selling of products to mouthpiece for how we should think, interact, live. This may take quite some reflection.  When advertising infiltrates the culture in this way its job is to influence our desires in a way that makes us think they are precisely that – our desires. It is difficult to separate advertising from culture because advertising becomes culture, but it is your mission to try to do just that!
Present your example to the class. Using a poster and/or video clips analyze real advertisements to illustrate how the example you’ve chosen has infiltrated our culture to such a degree that the line between  advertising and culture becomes blurred.


5472: Examining reality in the news June 21, 2009

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A rationale for taking a critical approach to news sources:

For class we read an article published in Americana by Anna kothe from the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez titled “When Fake is More Real: Of Fools, Parody, and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart“.  The author points out that “fake news” such as The Daily Show and The Colbert Report are becoming a source of actual news for the American public, even though these shows are not recognized by the mainstream media as news sources.  She argues that the way these shows parody and criticize the news media has a positive effect on the viewer’s trust toward Stewart and Colbert as news figures.  She notes that criticism and humor, as Jon Stewart has also made claim to, provide a space for rational reflection and balances the perspective of the mainstream news.  She also contends that figures like Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reily “humorize politics in order to distort, while The Daily Show responds by politicizing humor in order to clarify” and this act provides a greater source for trust in the viewer.  As a teacher of media literacy, it is important to include lessons on the use of these “fake news” sources just as it is important to provide students with the tools they need to be leery of the mainstream news by observing the effect it has on them as consumers.

The following two lessons are designed around the essential questions; What is real in the news and what is distorted to elicit viewer response?  How does mainstream and independent news affect me differently as a viewer?  What is the effect of humor in the news reports on me as a viewer? The first lesson reaches the following learning target: I can analyze the different techniques used in the news to classify mainstream and independent news sources as different mediums. The second lesson addresses the learning target: I can recognize the use of humor devices to elicit a certain response to the news media on me as a viewer.

A lesson idea: Mainstream verses independent visual news:

This lesson should be used in a greater media literacy unit, near the beginning of the unit, but after students have been given the vocabulary for visual editing techniques.  I will begin by having students read the article “Media, Politics and Democracy” put out by the Center for Communication and Civic Engagement at the University of Washington.  Here is a link to the article: media-politics-and-democracy.  This short article will provide a background to the types of news sources that we have available to us, and can serve as a springboard for the work of critically examining the news.  I will ask some reflection questions about how students view the news, where they get their news and to what extent they feel this work is important.  After reflection and some discussion, I’ll have students draw a table in their notes for viewing two news sources, one an independent source like the first video below, and then the same story from a mainstream source like CNN.  Students will watch for different elements (video techniques, tone of voice, message etc.) and record their findings, then share with their classmates to get a full analysis on the SMART board.  We’ll end the lesson with some discussion about how different news sources create different spins on the same story, and this changes how we feel about the content expressed.

This video comes from OneWorld TV- a public platform for journalism in an effort to change the way media is disseminated to the public.


This video comes from CNN. Here is a link to the video in case the embedded video doesn't work for some reason.

A lesson idea: “fake news” and use of humor devices:

As an introduction to the lesson and to get students thinking about TDS and The Colbert Report I’ll highlight some of the key ideas from the Kothe article mentioned in my rationale, especially the information about humor and how different news figures use humor for different purposes.  I’d also like to highlight the quote from Salman Rushdie about the clown who criticizes what everyone has become.  This lesson should also come after students have been exposed to the coorporations that own the media angencies and have a sense for the business of the news media.  After that, I will show video of TDS and have students reflect on the elements of humor including satire, hyperbole, metaphor, sarcasm along with the elements of the visual news.  After viewing, I’ll have students reflect in writing about what they remembered the most from the show and what struck them while viewing.  Also, to reflect on how they feel about the content expressed.  Then I will ask how many students are aware of the issues being discussed in the show.  If many students are not aware of the current events Stewart is discussing, I will provide them with another news source that presents the information in a hard news way.  Then I will ask them if TDS should be considered a news source.  I’ll have them build one argument with supporting evidence on their own, then with a partner.  I’ll end the lesson with a debate about what is news.  The hope here is that students will begin to recognize that what we call news is not always presented in an honest way, and what we call humor is sometimes more trustworthy because they are not serving a coorporate platform.

5472: News Media June 18, 2009

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Following is my original log of Channel 5 Eye Witness News broadcast of the 9:00 news.  While I was watching, I was timing each story, logging the story and story type, paying particular attention to how the news was delivered in tone of voice and language.

5 Eye Witness News  June 18, 2009  9pm

Stories, types of stories, time in seconds

Moon Probe Launch…ice in craters, scientific,18

Sudden death…plane crash Continental airlines, tragedy, 40

Explosion at a Slim Jim factory… North Carolina, tragedy, 5

Thunderstorms across the metro, weather, 5

Timberwolves, sports, 7

First commercial break

Iran protests, world news, 24

Governor and budget cuts…criticism of his commentary, job losses, disagreement over his plan to delay funding to school, political, 75

Paul Kohls state lawmaker…republican to run, political, 25

Consumer financial protection agency in loans…new financial oversight council, political, 30

Hilary Clinton’s surgery for broken elbow, canceled meeting with Angelina Jolie, political figure, 20

Tornado in Southern MN, tragedy, 85

Weather with Dave Dahl  severe storm warnings, weather, 200

Twins/Pirates 2nd game in the series, sports, 5

Gophers Hockey, sports, 30

Timberwolves  “crazier than Michael Jackson”, sports, 35

Second Commercial Break

Church burglaries, tragedy,14

Minnesota moms charged with illegal music downloads, scandal,10

Weather 26

Types of News

Time Spent in Broadcast in seconds
News:  Political

150
News:  Scientific

18
News:  World News

24
News:  Tragedy/scandal

84
Weather

231
Sports

77
Feature

0

Analysis:

The news opened with 5 quick teasers packed in to just over a minute of air time.  The female reporter opened with the longest blurb about the research done to locate ice in the craters on the moon.  She delivered her story with excitement, pointing out the possibilities of living on the moon if we have a water source.  Then it alternated between the male and female reporters with each short blurb.  The viewer has the impression the news tonight will be exciting, and each story will go into further depth “after the break.”

The first story after the break is entirely unrelated to the opening segment.  This is a story about Iranian protests that may or may not have been violent.  The story is a series of quick jump cuts between images of an impassioned speaker and the close up of angry Iranians and images of the mosque in Tehran.  The storyline does not clearly connect to the visual images.

Following was a significant amount of time spent on local political news.  The story they ran about the Governor’s proposed budget plan was extremely biased.  The news reporters changed their vocal tone from serious “hard news” to ironic upward inflection.  I found it interesting that the female reported this story.  This could have been coincidence, but I did wonder if a woman telling the story might have an effect on the lighter tone of the story.

I also observed how much time was spent on the weather.  I wonder if living in Minnesota during tornado season has anything to do with that.  I found this part of the news to be repetitive, tedious and very boring, even though Dave Dahl had all the fancy colors and graphic images and the whole touch screen thing that is sapossed to draw in the younger crowd…boring.  And a bit more interesting is contrasting the amount of detail spent on the weather to the significant lack of detail spent in the stories being delievered.  We never even got the full story of the ice on the moon blurb or the other two “engaging” stories that were alluded to in the opening segment.  I think that is the phrase I’d use to discribe this broadcast: alluding to the news.

Teaching Idea:

I have a number of ideas for how to teach the literacies we make use of when we watch the news.  I think I’d like to start my media studies unit next year with Kate Brigham’s “Decoding Visual Language Elements in News Content” as a way to engage students in a concrete way on what it means to break apart the elements of news.  I love how visual Kate’s interactive demo is, and it could be very engaging on my SMART board with a few students at the board manipulating the content and therefor changing the message for the class’ reflection.  I’m also interested in using student blogs as a way to read, analyze and discuss various online news sources.  I’m going to spend more time with  The Cursor Twin Cities Edition to check out the blogs, various cultural sources, special interest groups and popular news media to plan a new unit on how different mediums portray different social groups in their content along with how different mediums portray the same issue or topic.  This second ideas is much like the unit developed by the Media Awareness Network.  Also, I like the criteria developed by Beach on page 90 for analyzing news stories according to relevance, significance, sensationalism, practicality, and community impact.  This could be used as a concrete way to get students talking and thinking about the news.  Also, I’d begin the students online by setting up online readers as I’ve done before with Google Reader.  Then assign each student a different online news source as reading and reflection assignments throughout the unit.  We’d work together on analyzing different mediums in class, looking at specific techniques.  I wouldn’t stop the learning at just teaching the techniques however, I would like to bring students into a deeper questioning of the news as it pertains to themand the communities they are a part of.  I’d like to somehow tie this learning to the conversations we have surrounding race, culture and identity when we read TKM and Of Mice and Men.