"It Makes It More Real": Teaching New Literacies in a Secondary English Classroom (Bailey)

I found this article to be an excellent look at what it means to actually adopt a "new literacies" mindset and curriculum.  While reading the first section of Bailey's findings, "Multimodality as a spoonful of sugar," I was cringing from guilt.  Using technology as a hook--and/or to make the material more palatable--is probably the main way I use technology.  Looking for irony in song lyrics and plot arch in a sitcom?  Those sound like delightful intos!  And not unlike lessons I've planned.  So when Bailey tore Carol a new one (no jk, she was actually p understanding) I was feeling pretty bad about myself:

While she thought it was important to include digital technologies and other means of expression, such as music, in her literacy lessons, she still considered these elements as separate and dichotomous when comparing each with print literacy.  She was asked in the first meeting of her graduate class what she hoped to accomplish by taking the course, and she wrote, "Use more technology effectively and enhance student literacy by using technology" [*gasp*]...Carol seemed to consider literacy and technology as separate, rather than"a mutually constitutive relation"...Additionally, assume that by using "technology"(meaning computer technologies, and also television, music, and film), students would be more likely to learn with and about printed texts because technology is often engaging and motivating for students. (216)

I am no stranger to using multimodal activities to "[prime students] for the traditional lessons in authorized knowledge that would follow" and Bailey is so right: it's never as effective as I want it to be (217).  I'll have a rad couple of days of intos where I have students look for literary elements in multimodal texts and get them seemingly engaged, but they never want to make the connection back once the "authorized knowledge" begins.  HOWEVER, I also realized that my goal in planning such lessons is more to tap into my students' cultural linguistic reservoirs and show how content functions in their lives, not to teach new literacies.  So I was very interested to read that Carol moved to "direct instruction about the various aspects and conventions of multimodality" (225).  For as much as we talk about the importance of being explicit, that would have never occurred to me.  I completely forgot that in new literacy instruction, students' knowledge about technology and multimodal texts is tacit, and that they probably lack the language with which to talk about it.  So that was a nice reminder.  Talk to the children about font and color!  Remind them that in the texts they encounter, EVERYTHING is intentional, as it should be in the texts they compose as well.

Another rad thing for me was hearing that:

Social constructivist theories that emphasize inquiry were also important for explaining Carol's emphasis on students' local knowledge in a new literacies curriculum...By allowing students increasing opportunities to use discussion and social interaction to raise and answer questions, Carol seemed to find in an inquiry model one effective 'organizing principle' for her curriculum. As she came to realize how rich students' experiences and questions were, Carol increasingly encouraged students to use what they knew in order to learn in her classroom. (210)

We haven't talked much about new literacies and inquiry in tandem, so I appreciated having in spelled out.  "Computers became tools to the students, affording them an opportunity to create multimodal texts, and the texts themselves became their motivational focus...when new literacies were the daily work of the class, students learned literary elements, poetic devices, rhetorical elements, and used reading and writing strategies in ways that previous classes never had before" (229-30).  For the first time ever, Carol's students were asking why.  They "were not only learning to identify the devices that poets use...they were also actually able to discuss them as subjects of their own inquiry" (219). That's the dream.

Project 3: On Becoming a Google Educator, a Google Certified Teacher, and Why (a Tutorial/Review)

There's no arguing with such understated graphics and inspirational music: education is going Google! In this post, I shall attempt to demystify what it means to be a Google Educator, and whether it's worth it.

Since I haven't actually gone to the professional development to become a Google Certified Teacher, my advice is going to be from a rather limited perspective, but when I got the idea to try to figure out what being a Google Certified Teacher entails, I discovered that Google's coverage of the topic is about as helpful as the above video.  It's also spread awkwardly across several different webpages, so I thought that at the very least, it'd be nice for y'all to have the information in one place.  Plus, this way you can watch me go through the process before you decide whether it's worth doing yourself.

----------- OVERVIEW -----------

The first thing I realized on my quest is that there are 3 different certifications you can get from Google: "Google Educator," "Trainer," and "Google Certified Teacher."  Trainers train other educators about Google, and I'm not going to focus on that certification in this post.

SO. To become a Google Educator, you take five free "courses"—four required ones (Gmail, Calendar, Docs & Drive, Sites) and one elective (either Chrome, Chromebooks, Tablets w/ Google Play for Educators, or Implementing Google Apps.)

Then, you pay a "small fee" ($15 a pop) to take the exam for each course and, after you've completed all five exams, Google mails you a certificate that says you are now a Google Educator.  Sounds a little bit like a sham, especially since it's not clear what you get out of being a Google Educator.  I imagine that having a certificate from Google certainly won't hurt your chances of finding a teaching job, and I have learned that it is strongly recommended that you become a Google Educator before you apply to be a Google Certified Teacher, a certification which seems much more marketable. (From where I'm sitting, I can't say I'm 100% clear on what the benefits of doing that are, either, but the training's definitely a lot more comprehensive and the people who have done it seem pretty pleased.)

To become a Google Certified Teacher, you have to be one of 50 lucky applicants chosen to attend Google Teacher Academy, a free, two-day professional development.  There's an upcoming one in Mountain View from July 30-31 for which the application is due May 14th—link to follow.

What's in it for you?  According to their website, "two free days of training... access to a private online community, opportunities to work closely with Google, a special GCT badge [for your on and offline personas] and more."  Is this Google trying to recruit people to go out and spread the gospel, thus getting Google into more schools?  Most definitely.  But I am pretty OK with Google as far as corporations go, and Google Drive-ing up classrooms has been pretty effective, as far as I've seen (I mean, did you watch that video??).

So for the rest of this post, I shall proceed to explore the steps it takes to become a Google Educator, as well as the application process for the Google Teacher Academy/becoming a Google Certified Teacher, and you can judge whether it's worth it yourselves.  

----------- GOOGLE EDUCATOR COURSES, PT. 1 -----------

The first thing I would like to point out about Google Educator courses is that they are FREE.  They don't even require signing up for anything.  So if you're of the "hell naw I'm not going to pay $75 for Google to send me a piece of paper" mindset (i.e. you don't care about the certification aspect) that doesn't mean you can't browse the courses and familiarize yourself with the finer points of Google, thus getting the same information you would sans exams/fees and, ideally, bettering your practice!  

There are two levels of courses, and you only need to take the exams for Level 2 to become a ~Google Educator~ (you actually don't even need to take the courses first—there's no credit for them, and nothing's stopping you from looking up answers while you're test-taking.)  I chose to ignore the Level 1 courses because I assumed they are for n00bs based on this description: 

I did, however, take the Basics Exam because I was curious.  Unlike the Level 2 exams required for becoming a Google Educator, this one was free.  If you're logged into Google, you don't need to do anything else.  It's 30 questions, took me ~5 minutes, and looks like this :

I got a 90% (maybe those lessons weren't for n00bs after all), was not shown my correct or incorrect answers, and Google emailed me this lil certificate which I am pretty sure is meaningless (but maybe I'll put it up in my future classroom anyway):

If you're interested in the Level 1 lessons, you can find them here (Gmail, Calendar, Docs and Drive, Sites, Search, and Chrome) but this blog is movin' on up.

----------- GOOGLE EDUCATOR COURSES, PT. 2 -----------

GMAIL: Classroom Application

According to Google, Gmail is "an essential skill in the process of learning and one of the core tools required for Google Educators. To effectively teach your students, you’ll need to understand how Gmail is applied for teaching and learning."  The course on Gmail has 5 lessons, in which you will allegedly learn:

-How to use Gmail to increase your own productivity 

-How to increase communication amongst all members of the school community 

-How Gmail can help foster student communication and collaboration

Lesson 1 is an interactive tour of Gmail, which was an absolutely bizarre experience.  Talk about the end of the internet.  The information was great, especially if you aren't that familiar with all the crazy things you can do to your inbox, but that thing is seriously straight out of 1998.  Google suggests you take 10 minutes to explore whatever that is, but I was overcome with the urge to close it immediately.

Lesson 2 is called "Productivity and Classroom Management Skills," but seems to be a more aesthetically pleasing/helpful look at Gmail basics.  First you watch a video about composing an email (it does get into specifics, like shortcuts to create a bulleted list) and another about a search of your inbox.  Next, you learn why labels are better than folders:

Then you learn about priority inbox (which I swear by) and more about filters.  Then it's the Tasks feature, keyboard shortcuts, and labs (where you try out Google's experimental features.)  I've decided to stop linking to each of their videos because this is a tutorial about taking the courses, not about using Gmail, and you can find them all in one place here, in the Gmail Level 2 Course.

Anyway, my verdict on Lesson 2 is that is WAY more helpful than Lesson 1, which you should skip. Gmail has a lot of rad features that you have to either know about or go out of your way to look for, so I would recommend this lesson to anyone looking to optimize their Gmail experience, regardless of classroom application.  (Side bar, none of lesson 2 was about classroom management...)

Lesson 3, "Increase Community Communication," teaches you about contacts (pro tip: "You can add custom fields like 'Parents’ Names' or 'Graduation Year'"), chat (Google says: "This can be great in the classroom for one-on-one conferences with other school colleagues or parents," I say, meh...), and groups (wherein you create a list of contacts so that you can email a bunch of people in one step.)  That last one's useful for emailing a class list, so here's the tutorial on it if you don't already know how.

Verdict? Stop giving your lessons unduly exciting names.

Lesson 4, "Foster Student Communication and Collaboration" (I guess students aren't in the afore-mentioned community), exclusively covers using in-message Google Translator to allow for international pen pals.  Seriously? 

Lesson 5 is simply called "Advanced Gmail," and links you to even more activities.

In conclusion, if you're looking to become a GCT you could probably pass the Gmail exam without sifting through all this.  But if you aren't that familiar with all of Gmail's features, it's worth checking out Lesson 2 (and, I suppose, Lesson 5) to learn what's up.  There's not really much about Classroom application, however.  They also have this list of additional resources.

CALENDAR: Classroom Application

Calendar is an essential skill in the process of learning and one of the core tools required for Google Educators. To effectively teach your students, you’ll need to understand how Calendar is applied for teaching and learning. To begin, review each lesson and complete each video or activity. You will learn: 

-How to use Calendar to increase productivity and efficiency

-How to increase communication and collaboration amongst all members of the school community

-How to plan a course curriculum and schedule using Calendar

If this is really all it says it is then I guess we can disregard my entire Planboard tutorial!  Here's the course.  

Lesson 1: more of the same madness.  Just don't do that to yourself.

Lesson 2: "Google Calendar is an outstanding tool to leverage in your role as an educator or school administrator. This includes adding student assignments, copying assignments, attaching class or project files and creating work folders."  Okay, so I already knew that Google Calendar is pretty advanced in viewing/sharing.  You can create multiple calendars (like work and personal) and view them simultaneously or separately.  This is also great if you want to share a work calendar but you don't want your colleagues to see that you're getting a Brazilian on Tuesday at 4.  I did not know, however, that you could add attachments!  You could create a separate calendar for every class, and put in assignments like you would an event (Wed-Friday project, for example.)  Then you can attach your handouts, and if that calendar is shared with kids and parents then yay!  (Before one of the videos mentioned sharing with students and parents, I assumed it would be for co-planning with teachers, which you could do, too!)  Here are some more suggestions of how you could use group calendars at your school from Google:

-Class calendar for class-related events such as activities, class meeting times, testing schedules and lesson objectives 

-Homework calendar with detailed descriptions of homework assignments, links to relevant materials and due dates 

-School-wide holiday or academic schedule with in-service days, holidays and other scheduling anomalies 

-Group project deadlines and milestones for a group or team to track workload 

-School sporting event schedules that can be shared with the entire school

(Lesson 3): Sometimes it can be helpful to separate long-term project assignments from the general class schedule. For example, if there is an end-of-year research paper and presentation, it might be helpful to have a separate “Research project” calendar that has all the due dates and milestones for the project. Then the project calendar can be viewed on its own. It is easy to find the information because it won’t get lost in all the events scheduled in the class calendar. 

Another example of a way you could use a special project calendar is when working on a group project. Group members can collaborate and share a calendar together so everyone can have access to the project meeting times, project deadlines and milestones, and other project related activities (going out to do a survey/market research, conducting an interview, etc).

They also have really detailed information about all kinds of limited sharing that's worth checking out if you're unsure.  

Lesson 4: The curriculum planning, however, is weak.  I would definitely stick with Planboard for an online planner.  Sharing a Google calendar with teachers, parents, and students, seems like a really efficient way of keeping track of deadlines and events, but it's not really designed for lesson planning.  

Lesson 5:  Advanced Calendar

Once again, things you might find more interesting if you already know your way around Google, but presumably not things you would need to know to pass the exam.

Additional Resources for Calendar here.

DOCS & DRIVE: Classroom Application

Now we're getting to the good stuff!  This course has eight count em EIGHT lessons, in which you learn.....

Can I get a woot woot?

Lesson 3: Save time, effort, and paper?  Only the most compelling argument!

Lesson 4 (Manage Class and School Data) has a bunch of uses for Google Drive we haven't even touched on!

Skip to 0:50 to see examples of some classroom uses in this video:

Lesson 6: Forms

The best thing about Forms (which are basically surveys) is that the results are automatically tracked in a Google Spreadsheet.  Here's the best tutorial that Google has linked me to yet:

Lesson 7: Drawing in the Classroom? Sure.

Lesson 8: Advanced Drive

My Drive conclusions: everyone go onto the course and learn all about forms!  There were way more videos than the one I embedded, and lots of uses!  Other than that, most of it's old hat.

SITES: Classroom Application

If anyone wants to know how to make a School or Classroom website, the answers are here! Much more succinct than the other courses, and also something I didn't already know how to do.  

ELECTIVE!

As I mentioned, for your 5th course you have the option of taking Chrome (yawn), 

Chromebooks

,

 Tablets w/ Google Play for Educators

,

or Implementing Google Apps, which I have chosen!

Implementing Google Apps is like Google's big sell.  There's ~1 million videos in this course that are largely testimonials for why and how to get Google in schools.  Lesson 1 (Setting a Technology Integration Plan) addresses buy-in and links you to school launch campaigns.  Lesson 2 features "security comes first" and "your school's privacy is respected" (thanks, Google!) Lesson 3 is an extremely technical overview of how to get a school domain, and Lesson 4, Success with Professional Development Resources, tells you how to find teacher trainers.  

Bottom line?  If you're going to take the exams to be a Google Educator, pick Chrome as your elective. It has like one thing.  But if you're actually interested in implementing Google in schools, this course is quite comprehensive! 

----------- GOOGLE EDUCATOR EXAMS -----------

Here's what you need to know if you want a Google Educator Certificate: 

1.  You can skip straight to the exams without first sifting through the courses (and you can always refer to them as you're taking the exam.)

2.  Unlike with the Basics Exam, you need to create an account.

3.  Creating an account looks like serious business.  Apparently, some employers are interested in your Google status!

4.  Every exam is $15, so it's $75 if you want dat sweet, sweet, certificate.  There's also an option of a voucher code, though, so maybe you can find an employer to pay for you!

5. Word on the street is that although Google recommends allowing 2 hours per exam, you can knock them out in half an hour each.  So good to know.

----------- APPLYING TO BE A GOOGLE CERTIFIED TEACHER -----------

To become a Google-Certified Teacher, you need to attend Google Teacher Academy, a free, two-day professional development.  To attend Google Teacher Academy, you need to submit an application (which includes short answer questions and a video clip.)  Only 50 applicants are selected, and it's strongly recommended that you first become certified as a Google Educator.  They do, however, prioritize in-area applicants.  The deadline to apply for the July 30-31 GTA in Mountain View is 5/14.

The affordances of being a GCT that they name are:

-two free days of training

-access to a private online community

-opportunities to work closely with Google

-a special GCT badge and more

I'm going to go through the GTA Application questions for you, as there's no way to go through them ahead of time, or to save your application once you begin, but all of Google's information about becoming a GCT is here.  The application can be found here.

APPLICATION

The first few pages of the application ask for pretty straightforward information about you, what grades you work with, etc.  (On the first page, one required field is "Organization Website," and it took me awhile to realize they meant the website of the school or organization with which you are affiliated.) They also ask for a link to your resume in google docs, so it might be a good idea to have that up to date and ready to go before you begin.  

The next page wants to know all of this:

so what I get from that is a) know that info about your school before you start (because there's no way to save this application) b) don't fret, twitter and personal website are optional! and c) but obviously, they are looking for someone with hecka followers because, as mentioned above, they clearly want the biggest bang for their buck.  If they're giving you a free PD, you better go tell the world how great Google is.  Somehow, I doubt that with my 12 followers on Google + that they would want meeee.

Next there are two short answer questions: "Tell us about how you've navigated ambiguity or hardship" and "Tell us about what inspires you to be part of the GTA Program."  Each allows 800 characters, max.  

Finally, instructions for submitting the original, 1-minute video:

And then all there is to do is wait.  The whole thing would take less than 10 minutes to fill out if you have all your answers ready.

----------- CONCLUSIONS -----------

I just don't know, you guys.  What do you think?  Pointless, or the future?  Or both?  I can't really say without having attended Google Teacher Academy.  I have a feeling it's mind-blowing and life-changing and would totally make me wanna drink the Kool Aid.  But after going over the application, it seems like they have a very particular (well-networked) type of candidate in mind.  So my next question is, if I don't have a chance (for now) of attending the Google Teacher Academy, is it still worth it to become a Google Educator?  I think (for now) no.  Until I feel I would be a competitive applicant for a GTA (which, I think, would be worthwhile), I don't know that there's any value to being a Google Educator in and of itself. I may be wrong, and I certainly wouldn't be surprised if this changes in the next few years, but I don't think that many employers are looking for Google educator certificates.  For now, I think we are swamped enough that doing this can wait.  I would, however, highly recommend that you check out their courses, at least the ones on technologies you're less familiar with.  If you're a luddite, go figure stuff out and wow your kidlets with your Google magic next year. But I'll be saving my $75 for groceries, at least until I feel like it's time to join the Academy.

"Writing in the Wild: Writers' Motivation in Fan-based Affinity Spaces" (Curwood)

The authors of this article engage in a very thorough analysis of the fan-based affinity space framework, as well as all of its benefits and how best to translate them into the classroom.  They write that "it is imperative for educators to value students' out-of-school writing in online spaces and understand how these experiences contribute to their academic writing," with which I completely agree.  My chief concern while reading this article was doubt that many (or any) of my students engage in such spaces.   Certainly, they engage daily with "new literacies," but I don't know that they are involved in such affinity spaces or are the ones creating transformative work.  Curwood et. al. acknowledge that their study "focuses on the exceptional cases; namely, the 1 in 5 young people who are creating and distributing transformative works in online spaces," arguing that much can still be learned "when extrapolated to the students."   I'm just not sure that their steps for implementation would speak to my students.  They suggest that teachers "attune the practices" affinity spaces, but if students aren't experienced with fan culture in online communities then you would still practically be starting from scratch in establishing such a collaborative, transformative culture in your classroom.  Not that that's not worth doing; I have no doubt that a classroom where teachers "allow writers the space to remix and transform others' work, build portfolios that demonstrate their developing writing skills, and share their writing with an authentic audience" would be one in which students engage meaningfully with content.  I'm just not sure the extent to which this would be building on my students' socio-linguistic reservoirs, whereas in a more socioeconomically advantaged school it most certainly would be. 

Online Personal Learning Environments (Barrett)

Apologies for the delayed response, colleagues, this article was struggs-ville.  It was written in 2009--has the web really changed that much since then? Apparently so!  Who is the intended audience??  Is it, as I believe it is, attempting to describe what is now the cloud?  Or are we talking something more portfolio-y than just storage space?  If the author knew about dropbox and google drive would she be like "Aha, the dream has been realized!  Now we just need to tackle the 'sociocultural' aspect and get everyone to upload everything they've ever produced or needed to file from birth."?  I really have no idea.  I barely have any idea how this applies to us since e-portfolios are required of no one and do not seem to be the way things are moving.  However, I appreciated the potential that "In this type of system, students engage in learning experiences that encourage them to produce artifacts that can be stored in the working portfolio.  This process is interactive and reflective.  It provides a rationale for using artifacts as evidence of learning.  The artifacts become meaningful to the student as evidence of their own understanding and growth."  It's sort of hard for me to envision this since the whole article is a hypothetical.  Throughout middle school, and again throughout high school, our English teachers kept an ongoing portfolio of our work in a filing cabinet, to which we would file away our essays.  It never felt very cumulative or reflexive, although I do recall doing something like writing a reflection at "transition points," as is mentioned in the article.  Perhaps this never served as a rationale for using artifacts as evidence for learning, though, precisely because we didn't have access to it.  Looking back at three or four years worth of work was always interesting, but fleeting.  Maybe having a personal e-portfolio would indeed create more incentive to build it.  As far as practice, though, I think most of the benefits touted in this article would be lost if my class was the only one that required keeping a digital portfolio.  It might still be cool to do, though; the thing is, it would need to feel like a big cumulative, on-going project for the students.  It can't be as simple as having them keep digital copies of all their work.  The year would need to be thematically linked; there should be lots of revision and, when work needs to be assessed, there should be student choice (and perhaps a written reflection) of the strongest pieces.  I dunno man, that's all I got.

"Multiculturalism, Appropriation, and the New Media Literacies: Remixing Moby Dick" (Jenkins)

I thought this article was a super interesting read, although I have no idea what to say about it here.  It's not about a specific technology so much as it is about the "participatory culture" that technology fosters, one where:

there are relatively low barriers to artistic expression and civic engagement, where there is strong support for creating and sharing one’s creations with others, where there is some form of informal mentorship whereby what is known by experienced community members is passed along to novices, where each member believes their contributions matter, and where they feel some degree of social connection to each other. This description captures what is striking about a world where more and more people have the capacity to take media in their own hands and use powerful new tools to express themselves and to circulate their ideas to a public beyond their immediate friends and families. (99)

It was, however, a riveting discussion of appropriation and remixing (this one, I think, would have been good to read before the other article about remixing.)  I really appreciated Pitts-Wiley's remark, "before you take something, understand it" (110).  It was in line with Jenkins's first piece of advice, "to stay honest to the original text. Put a value on that, understand it, appreciate it, and then start the remixing process" (111).  The idea that in order to create an effective remix requires a deep reading and understanding of the source, that remixing falls within the literary tradition of allusions was for me extremely worthwhile.  I loved the idea that:

Seeing remix as another way into thinking about allusion suggests an answer to a question we often receive from teachers: How can you tell if a remix is good? How can you tell if an allusion is good? An allusion is good when it is generative, when it extends the original work’s potential meaningfulness, when it taps the power of the original source to add new depth to your emotional experience of the current work. The same claims would hold true for other kinds of remix practices: as a general rule, a remix is valuable if it is generative and meaningful rather than arbitrary and superficial... (109)

I also appreciate the dialectic between critique and creation that Jenkins puts forth.  He writes: that:  

Schools have historically taught students how to read with the goal of producing a critical response. In a participatory culture, however, any given work represents a provocation for further creative responses...we look at the world differently in a participatory culture; we look at it through the eyes of someone who can participate. Just as ...we read for different things depending on our goals, we also watch for different things depending if we want to use the experience of reading as the starting point for writing criticism or as a springboard for creative expression. At its worst, reading critically teaches us to write off texts with which we disagree. At its best, reading creatively empowers us to rewrite texts that don’t fully satisfy our interests. (112)

I know I'm going crazy with the block quotes (which, for the record, I was unable to indent) but I just found all of these KERNELS so compelling!  I was also really interested in how subtly they shifted from talking about the tradition of allusion and the new aesthetic of remix as creation or response into writing as a fan.  The idea that we might encourage our students to approach canonical texts as fans rather than critics blew my mind.  There was really only one mention of how we might use this approach in our practice but I definitely want to try it. Fans, Jenkins writes, "generally focus on characters and their relationships as their point of entry" and "look for worlds that are richer, have greater potentials, than can be used up within a single story. They are particularly interested in back story—the untold narratives that explain how the characters became the people we encounter within a particular story" (114-5).  That we, as teachers, might "find that students respond well" to looking at literature through this lens got me itching to try it.  Here's how Jenkins suggests approaching it:

-Encourage students to find examples of Kernels, Holes, Contradictions, Silences, and Potentials.

-Ask them to consider what purposes these elements play within the original novel.

-Invite them to speculate on how these elements might provide the basis for additional stories.

-Tell them to find other passages that shed insight into the core character relationships here.

-Discuss what elements would need to be in place for a new story to feel like it belongs in this fictional world.

-Have students write stories reflecting their insights.

-Share stories between students, especially those working with the same elements, so that they have a sense of the very different ways writers might build upon these same starting points. (115)

This is not only super rad, but hella rigorous.  Such metacognition would definitely require A LOT of practice, but if you worked to support students in using this lens from the beginning of the year, I think it could be enormously beneficial to our students' attitudes and approaches towards literature.