"A Good Idea!": April 2006

Newsflash: Holocaust Survivors Struggle to Survive in Israel

Holocaust Survivors Grow Poorer in Israel

Quote of the Day

(re: World Wars)

"You can't say civilization don't advance -- for in every war, they kill you in a new way." -Will Rogers

For Class: "Channel Firing"

Re: WWI - "Channel Firing" by Thomas Hardy

UPDATED: "Creating the 21st Century Classroom" in the Blogosphere!

(This post accompanies Michelle Laughran's April 25th Davis grant brownbag seminar for SJC faculty...)

Multiple literacies key for 21st century adults, according to "Creating the 21st Century Classroom", including...

"Aural Literacy"
"Visual Literacy"
"Ecoliteracy"
"Financial Literacy"
"Emotional Literacy"
"Cyberliteracy"
"Media Literacy"
"Multicultural Literacy"

What I realized as a part of this workshop was that a successful curriculum unit at any grade level cannot focus upon just one of these literacies as a goal in itself.

Lacking meaningful context, it just won't "stick" (either for the student or for the instructor...)

Thus, while one or another may be a main focus of the lesson, it must be supported by as many as is naturally possible to be as effective as possible! So, needless to say, "cyberliteracy" not fully integrated into the course material will be useless (and perhaps even a hindrance!)

Q: How to start, even if we weren't born "instant messaging"?

A: By utilizing (and often letting them teach us) what students already know like the back of their hands, technology!

In fact, at last count, apparently over 20 million teens are online and 57% of them - 12 million - are already creating content on the internet!

"Fifty-seven percent of teens online are 'content creators,' building Web pages for themselves and their friends or for a school assignment or an organization. One-third of these savvy tech heads share original content -- writing, artwork, photos, and videos -- on personal blogging Web sites such as LiveJournal and online social networks like MySpace. Eight million teens read blogs, while about half that many have created one."¹

Talk about active learning!!

Blogs are perfect media both to start teaching for multiple literacies and to teach through them!

What are "blogs"?

"A blog is basically a journal that is available on the web... Blogs are typically updated daily using software that allows people with little or no technical background to update and maintain the blog."²

At the beginning of 1999, only about 2 dozen "blogs" were known to exist.³

By April 2006:

"Technorati now tracks over 35.3 million blogs"
"The blogosphere is doubling in size every 6 months"
"It is now over 60 times bigger than it was 3 years ago"
"On average, a new weblog is created every second of every day" (about 75,000 daily!)
"Technorati tracks about 1.2 Million new blog posts each day, about 50,000 per hour"⁴

Blogs are highly valuable both inside of the classroom and out, by fostering "cognitive apprenticeship"⁵ (which can go both ways!)

Post Images, maps and websites shown during lessons (and available "after hours")
Track assignments
Keep course material "up-to-the-minute" and the learning "in context"
Chronicle discussions all semester
Students' journaling
Students' supplementing, commenting and annotating of instructor's posts (not least of which lending me the strengths of their own literacies that I'm personally less strong in!)

Indeed, "collaborative weblogs promote the idea of learners as creators of knowledge, not merely consumers of information."⁶

And it's actually teaching that makes the best learning!

Percentages of material retained when taught via...⁷

(More on percentages of material learned via "active learning"...)

WebCT does the same thing! But I find it works best for functions in a private (i.e., password-controlled) environment, like...

Submitting assignments privately
Conducting a private class discussion
Assigning copyright protected supplemental reading in a controlled environment, like articles in Adobe format

While there are several free blogging sites out there, from personal experience, I find the free site "Blogger" great for public functions, like collaborating with other faculty, or even global collaborations, like...

(Excellent also for encouraging among both students and instructors the ever-important "mental habit" of communicating course material online...)

Why?

Fast!
The very handy "BlogThis" button!
Advanced users can take advantage of the RSS function!

In conclusion...

The Internet is "new and improved"! It's gone beyond being merely interactive to being collaborative, what experts are now calling "Web 2.0". (The most popular "Web 2.0" applications are listed here!)

It's unprecedented... and it can take our teaching to the next level! See you there!! :-)

Footnotes:

George Lucas Educational Foundation, "Edutopia: 12 million"
Concept Websites Ltd., "Common Terms"
Ralph E. Luker, "Were there blog enough and time..."
David Sifry, "State of the Blogosphere, April 2006"
Christopher D. Sessums, "A blog is more than a communication tool"
Christopher D. Sessums, "Collaboration and Teacher Reflection"
Annie Shaw, "Creating the 21st Century Classroom" Workshop, 2 March 2006.

Selected Additional Resources:

Elizabeth Castro, Publishing a Blog with Blogger : Visual QuickProject Guide (Peachpit Press, 2005). $12.99
Educational Bloggers Network
Blogs/Weblogs in Higher Education
Technology and Learning magazine
Edutopia magazine
The Diary of Samuel Pepys Blog

UPDATED 5/3: Apparently even the Vatican's new website, currently in the works for a Fall release, will also be collaborative! :-)

UPDATED 6/2: Pew: Nearly 50 MM Americans Create Web Content

UPDATED 6/21:

To help tell the players with a scorecard... the Giant Blogging Terms Glossary!
Plus, a video introduction to blogs!

Newsflash - Los Angeles woman hospitalized with bubonic plague

Yikes!

USATODAY.com - Los Angeles woman hospitalized with bubonic plague

Calendar for April

Tuesday, April 25th: Total War - World War I

Reading Assignment:

Hunt, pp. 863-873 & 878-885;
Lualdi, pp. 87-91;
Weisner, pp. 321-322 & 329-330.

Thursday, April 27th: The Rise of Totalitarianism and WWII (+ quiz!)

Reading Assignment:

Hunt, pp. 918-930 & 933-949;
Lualdi, pp. 91-99 & 102-106;
Weisner, pp. 351-352;
Browning, "German Killers in the Holocaust," in Social Dimensions.

Tuesday, May 2: Is there such a thing as a Cold War? (Discussion & Essay due!)

Reading Assignment:

Hunt, pp. 874-878; 951-960; 984-989; 1012-101 & 1043-1054.
Weisner, "Berlin and the Crux of the Cold War;"
Essay on the following questions from Weisner, p. 373: "What were the origins of the Cold War? How did the Berlin Crises develop out of wartime agreements? What strategic considerations made Berlin so essential to both the Western allies and the Soviets?"

Thursday, May 4: September 11th and the Post-Cold-War World

Hunt, pp. 1054-1068.

FYI: Robespierre & French Revolution chronology

"Robespierre had neither holy book nor Christian god, but a revolutionary god who had made men equal. Sounds oddly familiar today... more» "

(from Arts and Letters Daily)

Plus, French Revolution chronology

Calendar for April

Tuesday, April 4 - Social Change and the Enlightenment

READING ASSIGNMENT:

Hunt, pp. 557-559; 571-621;
~~Lualdi, pp. 33-34 (plus consider questions)~~

Thursday, April 6 - Countdown to the French Revolution

READING ASSIGNMENT:

Hunt, pp. 642-651;
Friedrichs, "Poverty and Marginality," in Social Dimensions
McManners, "Death's Arbitrary Empire," in Social Dimensions
Darton, "The Great Cat Massacre," in Social Dimensions

Tuesday, April 11- The French Revolution

READING ASSIGNMENT:

Hunt, pp. 653-683;
"A Day in the French Revolution,” in Discovering the Western Past;
Lualdi, pp. 45-47 (plus consider questions)
Dominique Godineau, “Political Culture and Female Sociability in the French Revolution," in Social Dimensions

Tuesday, April 18: Napoleon and the Aftermath of the French Revolution

READING ASSIGNMENT: