Let's Tweet

Originally, as I began brainstorming for this blog, my first idea was about social media safety for students and teaching them to think before they post anything.  This idea finally came to a close when I could not find a good example of a social interaction in education dealing with this problem and I realized that there are posts all over the place about social media safety, such as 12 Things Students Should Never do on Social Media and Teaching Safety on the Virtual Playground.  So I'm going to take another approach and talk about live chats and how they could encourage participation in the classroom. This is an example of a conversation during a live chat among educators:

This interaction happened during a live chat for #edchatMENA, which is the educational hashtag for educators in the Middle East to share ideas and comment on topics.  This is similar to the #engchat that Hicks discusses in the text on pages 143-144.  In this particular instance, the #edchatMENA live chat begins with the topic of Next Generation Science Standards (#NGSS) and how they have begun showing a phenomenon in the classroom and instead of just telling students how this phenomenon occurs, they allow the students to dig, think, and find out for themselves.  What is so amazing about this opening tweet is how short and concise it is while saying so much.  Let's break down the MAPS heuristic and see how this interaction holds up.

Mode- The genre for this Tweet would be education.  Teachers are getting ideas out there in the form of digital media to encourage others to incorporate the ideas in their classrooms.

Media- Obviously this is a digital text in the form of a tweet with 140 characters or less.  

Audience- Teachers in the MENA region would be the most common audience for this tweet and for all the tweets in this live chat.  The posts are targeted for these teachers in order to share ideas with each other but since Twitter is public, anyone could view and/or participate in these chats.

Purpose- The author of the first tweet began the #edchatMENA conversation for the day.  Just as Hicks stated that the #engchat happens on Mondays at 7, the #edchatMENA has a certain meeting time as well, so the author had time to think about a topic to propose during this chat before actually posting it.

Situation- The Common Core Next Generation Science Standards are probably a big topic of discussion at the time and this situation called for ideas of how to implement these standards in the classroom and these teachers are doing just that.

Now that we've gone through that, I think interactions like this should be shared by teachers with their students so that they can see how live chats work, how to appropriately comment, and how adults use social media in a professional manner.  This could start a conversation in the classroom and then continue in a live chat with a classroom hashtag.  

Hicks states on page 140, "If we simply have students sign up with a social media service and then use it in the same way we use other web-based tools- distribute assignments, have students randomly reply to each other in discussion posts- we are not inviting them to think deeply and creatively about how to craft social media texts."  This was a profound statement that really jumped out at me.  Submitting assignments and posting once or twice on social media to meet a requirement is not fulfilling the potential of the social media in the classroom.  Using a live chat to continue a classroom discussion could be a fantastic way to get every student to participate, especially those who would rather write than speak out loud in class.  

Why is it so hard to incorporate social media in a way that students will benefit from and not use it in the same way we would use any other web-based tool?  Thinking outside the box is something teachers will have to do to incorporate social media in a way that is helpful to students and encourages them to participate.  Submitting boring assignments via social media does not get students excited.  Another reason I think it is so hard to incorporate social media in the classroom is that teachers are scared, myself included.  Since the outburst of social media within education, I have been hesitant and afraid that students would get out of hand on a class page or encouraging social media could lead to cyber-bullying but the more I read, the more I am inclined to use social media when I have my own classroom.  After reading these chapters, I am starting to think using social media in the proper manner and teaching students how to be effective digital citizens could actually improve their social media skills and decrease cyber-bullying since they would be given expectations about what is appropriate.  

When to Use What?

“Even with all these possibilities, the most difficult part of crafting a video/multimedia text—as with crafting a print-based text—is knowing not only what to put in but what to leave out.” 

–Troy Hicks (Crafting Digital Writing, p 110)

     When we speak, we can use as many words, phrases, hand motions we need to get our point across.  In writing, it is not as simple since there is often a word limit or just the fact that most people these days do not want to read an excessive amount.  The information we put in and the way we put it can make or break a text.  Same goes for videos.  If the speaker rambles, if too many visual effects are used, or if the video is overwhelming, it can lose its purpose.  “You can put in transitions, sound effects, and captions, for instance, but are these the best media elements to help tell your story?” (Hicks, 110). 

     I think having the resource to include all these elements can make students want to use every single one.  Even as I was recreating my video, I had a difficult time trying to decide what effects to use or leave out.  Since I was learning how to use the media, I wanted to show my skills and put all of them into my video in some way.  Obviously I knew, from reading the chapter that using all of the editing tools would not necessarily create the best video.  I withheld and tried to choose media that would complement the video footage I was using. The MAPS heuristic helped me think about who my audience was and what purpose it had. You can view my video below: 

     When I write, I constantly think about how my sentences are worded and how others might read the text if they could not hear my tone of voice.  I never realized this, but  “The various visual and audio effects serve in much the same way as word choice, sentence structure, or punctuation do in print texts: each has a different rhetorical purpose and effect.”  (Hicks, 110).   I have never attempted to create a video presentation before, so this was new to me.  As I dug into the effects, I could see how very true this statement is.  Just as you might not use a semicolon, a text block, and/or a quote in every single piece of writing, you probably will not use every single visual/audio effect in your video. 

    The critical part of making a video is deciding what to use and what to leave out.  The students should look at their videos in a strategic manner, determining what would be the most appropriate effect (if any) for a particular shot.  The list on page 111 of the text gives a list of effects that could be used and questions to ask to find out if each would be beneficial to use to create a certain feel.  Some effects do not even have to be edited in; framing, lighting, and audio are great tools to use as well.  These days, so many people have smart phones with a camera readily available.  Students can use their smart phones to create awesome videos.  Here is a link to help students learn how to frame shots and use appropriate techniques when filming.  

Sources:

Hicks, T. (2013). Crafting digital writing: Composing texts across media and genres. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Creating Effective Classroom Presentations: To Prewrite or Skip?

“Often mind-numbing, the reality that students barely do any research below the surface, then copy and paste big chunks of text and images onto a series of preformatted slides and regurgitate them in front of a class of their bored peers should make any educator angry” (Hicks, 2013). 

Yes, this does make educators angry, but what has anyone done about it?  The presentation below briefly outlines some steps to creating an effective presentation using the guidelines presented in the text. The steps include 1) Prewriting/Drafting, 2) Revising/Editing, and 3) Publishing/Assessing.  

Are all of these important?  Who really prewrites anyway?  These are legitimate questions that we as educators should be addressing in the classroom.  The pre-writing stage is often overlooked by students because they do not understand the importance.  Educators often do not require any sort of pre-writing to be handed in, so why not just skip it?  Creating an effective presentation in the classroom revolves around the prewriting/drafting stage.  Modeling this process would actually teach students how to compose their own effective presentation by thinking about their ideas, what information to gather, and how to organize.  Without this instruction, students who know they will be creating a presentation will go straight to designing, skipping the research and thought of purpose for their presentation. 

So where to begin?  Pencil and paper.  Just like writing an essay, students should jot down ideas and get their thoughts organized before they start creating their presentation. Prewriting Practices is an article I found that provides multiple prewriting strategies and techniques that teachers can use for students throughout lessons to ensure practice and get students in the habit of prewriting.  When pre-writing specifically for a presentation, remind students to think about not only on information they’ll provide, but also the way in which they will present that information; they should get an idea of what tool they would like to use to present such as PowerPoint, Prezi, or Glogster, etc.   Then the students can begin to let their thoughts flow on what types of media to use alongside the information they have gathered.

Students also need to understand that “Spending too much time on the design takes away from the overall effect of delivering the message” (Hicks, 2013).  While the design is very important, students can become consumed with the way their presentation looks and spend less time researching the information that will be provided.  On the topic of design, educators should teach students how to properly design a presentation during the prewriting/drafting stage.  Students need to know that using a template, multiple fonts, and lots of animation does not make a presentation great.  Rather creating a new template, using complimentary fonts, and few transitions/animations is a better route but should focus on the main idea and ensure aesthetic appeal.  The presentation above lists some other prewriting/drafting points that should be covered when students create a presentation.

As educators in the current shift into the digital world, these are things we can be teaching students on how to create these effective presentations rather than expecting them to already know how.  Now I know what you’re thinking, when will you ever have time to teach prewriting for presentations on top of all the other content standards and information you are expected to cover?  I have an idea.  After covering a topic/lesson, rather than doing some sort of review game, walk through creating a presentation on the particular information the students just learned.  Obviously, this would not be done after every single lesson or topic, but could be done a few times at the beginning of the year using the modeling strategy, I do-We do-You do.  This would show students the in-depth thought process that takes place behind a good presentation, specifically focusing the prewriting/drafting stage.

Sources:

Hicks, T. (2013). Crafting digital writing: Composing texts across media and genres. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Trupe, A. L. (2001, September 07). Teaching Writing: Prewriting Practices. Retrieved March 05, 2016, from http://people.bridgewater.edu/~atrupe/ENG315/prewriting.htm

Digital Writing: Convenience or Enhancement

     The difference between digitally convenient writing and digitally enhanced writing is that the former is a piece that does not necessarily have to be online, while the latter uses online tools to make the work better.  Teachers have their own methods of essay, paper, and assignment submissions but the question to ask is: Are the students submitting online for the convenience of not having an overwhelming stack of papers to grade?

    Troy Hicks, in Crafting Digital Writing, states that digitally convenient "texts are online only because we want students to have an audience or we want to assess their work easily" (Hicks, 2013).  This means that the text could have just as easily been written by hand or submitted in paper form.  Convenience for the teacher is always a plus because it can give them more time to grade, easily ensure that all students submitted the assignment, and reduce the stack of papers that tend to cover the desk.  When using wikis or other software for assignment submissions, a teacher can easily see what needs to be done without feeling overwhelmed by the stack of papers piling up.  Below is an example of this effective organization from MoodleDocs.

Source of image: https://docs.moodle.org/24/en/images_en/1/1e/grading_table.jpg 

          With the increasing transition to digital assignments, one does not stop and realize the fact that convenience is a top priority.  There is nothing wrong with digitally convenient texts, since as Hicks mentioned, students will have an audience, which can lead to discussion about the writing and comments giving positive criticism about areas to improve upon.  The downfall of convenient digital writing is that students are not taking the opportunity to enhance their body of text using multimedia that is readily available to them online.  When students are only producing digitally convenient texts, they are "shortchanging their opportunities as digital writers" (Hicks, 2013).

     Teachers are not trying to shortchange student opportunities but could be forgetting these opportunities exist.  With all the requirements teachers must abide by, such as state standards, testing, and paperwork, it can be easy to lose sight of important aspects of digital writing.  Having students submit written text online is a great resource for editing purposes and easy access, but is the writing living up to its potential?

    This brings me to digitally enhanced writing, which incorporates multiple forms of media or outside sources through hyperlinks, images, videos, and other embedded content to build on the piece of writing, as one would assume, to enhance the text.  The tricky part about enhancing digital writing is determining "whether the text needs to be enhanced" (Hicks, 2013).  Requiring students to use hyperlinks or other media does not ensure that the work will be better because if it is not done appropriately, potentially "it could be worse, because the additional links or images could be superfluous and distracting" (Hicks, 2013).

     Sometimes a text can stand alone in the original alphabetical form with no special features or extra media and fulfill its purpose.  Other times, having outside media can enhance the topic, provide resources, or even defend the writer's viewpoint.  The problem with this dynamic is that students are not specifically taught how to choose media to incorporate within their writing.  Using content appropriately is the goal in digitally enhancing web-based texts so that there are no pointless links or distracting graphics.  The article 15 Types of Content That Will Drive You More Traffic is targeted to content marketing, but provides fifteen types of media used to enhance digital writing.  The article includes a short description of each type, how to incorporate the media, and gives things to keep in mind when determining whether or not to use each type.

    When requiring assignment submissions online, teachers should evaluate whether a text needs to be digitally convenient or digitally enhanced.  Knowing the difference can help teachers expand instruction on the difference between the two for their students.  Teachers want students to perform at their best, so ensuring that their digital writing is using the proper web-based text dynamics will create better digital writers.

Sources:
Hicks, T. (n.d.). Crafting digital writing: Composing texts across media and genres.