Picky about wikis

Hello, my name is Lisa. And I do not like wikis. I apologize, Rick. Despite your many attempts to demonstrate the potentials of this medium, I still have not become a fan. I have created wikis, joined wikis, edited wikis, imported images and videos to wikis, but I still have not been won-over.  I would even insert hyperlinks to my previous wikis for you to critique, but I guess I deleted them out of sheer embarrassment and frustration.

I can certainly see the benefits of wikis. They can be used to collaborate and share information. You can add images, links, and all kinds of other fabulous things.

Here are the reasons I do not like wikis:

1. Because multiple people can edit a wiki, something that I might not want changed or deleted could be modified by someone else.
If I do not allow others to edit a wiki, I might as well just create a website. Maybe this is the controlling, only-child side of my personality coming out, but I think it is a legitimate concern. It might be valuable to look at previous comments, edits, or dialogue. This is an option for email, blogs, and websites that allow comments. This is not an option for wikis, at least not that I am aware of.


2. The pbwikis that I have worked with are cumbersome.
Wikis have so many links and pages within pages, that they are often difficult to navigate.  It can be overwhelming and confusing.  Maybe I just haven't seen--or created--one that is organized in a way that suits me.

3. The pbwikis that I have worked with are unattractive.
I can't help it.  Any website, blog, or wiki MUST be visually appealing and reasonable to navigate.  If not, I generally will not bother with it unless I have no choice.  Yes, this can be harsh.  However, I believe that an inherent quality of digital media is that it should be user-friendly and appealing.

4.  I don't trust the content on wikis.
With so many people contributing information, I do not trust them as sources of credible information.  Wikipedia is the best example of this.  Yes, there is a lot of information on this site.  Yes, it can be helpful.  No, you should not trust everything you read on it.  No, you may not use this as a source for your research paper.

That said, I still think I might create a wiki for my final project.  I might also create a website or do something entirely different.  I'm still not quite sure.  Like I said earlier, I think there is potential for wikis; I just need to figure out how to make it work for me.

I have started a wiki that may or may not turn into something more for my final project.  I've been thinking all week about what I could create a wiki about that would be helpful to me or others.  So far, I have not come up with any great ideas.  Tonight I was hoping to spend more time sorting it all out, but I'm stuck using the computer in the lobby at my hotel (I'm traveling for work this week).  The computer is ridiculously slow and has frozen up several times on me.  Fortunately, I set up my wiki and wrote most of this post before I left.  Nonetheless, I was hoping to have a base of the wiki started tonight.  Alas, I am at the whim of technology.  I PROMISE I'll work on it next weekend when I get home.  I'm thinking I might use it as a way of gathering, organizing, and possibly presenting information and ideas for my final project.  I'll keep you posted about that.

Minneapolis, Myself, and I

I love Minnesota.  I found this vlog about Minneapolis and why Mayor Rybek, among others, loves the city.  I enjoy watching this vlog because I think that the passion for the area is obvious and contagious.  I especially like when the little kid says, "It's in my blood."  Awesome.  The audience for this vlog is more than likely Minneapolis residents, or at least people who are familiar with the area.  Although the vlog highlights some of the sights and activities around the area, it does not go into the kind of depth that would be required to help an "outsider" understand this place.  The sight of the Minneapolis skyline, wildflowers, and Lake Calhoun appeal to "insiders" because we are familiar with them. We know them.  Most of us have memories of them.  The video techniques are pretty basic and don't stand out to me.  I do like that the interviews are done close, so that I can see the expression on the interviewees' faces.  Most of all, I like that it is about a place that I love.



And now for a little bit more about me (myself?  I still can't figure that out...).  I created this vlog to introduce myself to fellow students the graduate class I am currently taking.  Enjoy!



One thing I did not mention is the inspiration for the title of this blog.  Olive was my hamster.  Indeed, she was a wonder hamster.  She was awesome.  She is the one and only hamster I have ever held or loved.  When I created this blog a few years ago, I looked over and saw her scampering away from my husband who had just given her a bath.  Yes, a bath.  She loved baths.  She was special.  She died in July 2009.  I did not change the title of this blog because I like how it makes me smile when I remember her.

I also thought I should include a photo of Jax, who is turning 1-year old on September 28.  This photo was taken when he was about 8 weeks old.

And this is Jax with his brother Scout, who is 2-months older.  Jax and Scout are not biologically related, but they are brothers and best-friends nonetheless.

Search sites and strategies for my final project

For my final project, I am considering doing something that involves one or more of the following:

• teaching writing in urban schools
• relevancy and/or validity of state test scores and/or internal exam scores as it relates to writing
• role of digital technology in student motivation or performance as it relates to writing

My ideas are very vague at this point.  I'm trying to think of something that will be useful to me in my current job, and something that relates to this course.

Currently, I work for SABIS Educational Systems, a company that globally manages many public and private schools, including several charter schools in the U.S. My focus is on curriculum support and development for the K-6 English program.  Among other things, I conduct teacher observations, write mock state exams, create teacher guides, review internal and external exam scores, and align our curriculum to state standards.
 Recently, our focus has been on improving student performance on both state exams and internal exams. I am convinced that one of the main problems that keeps our students from performing well on writing exams is that they are simply not motivated. My supervisor disagrees and believes that our teachers are not knowledgeable about how to relate our writing curriculum to state exams.  She put together a lovely and informative presentation that teaches teachers to review state tests and rubrics, and then incorporate that information into their writing units. While this is helpful and good to know, I do not believe that it will solve the problem that we are in.  Our students know how to write, they just don't want to do it. I suspect that digital writing will offer some type of solution. However, like most public schools, our schools operate on very tight budgets. Frankly, there is minimal technology available for teachers to use with their students. English classes never are scheduled for a day in the computer lab. Computer labs are booked for the entire year for testing and computer classes. Some classrooms have SMART Boards, though. I would like to learn more about how these can be used to motivate students.

All of this brings me to the point of this post.  What are some search sites, search strategies, and databases I could employ to collect information to investigate these topics? In the past, I have utilized the full text databases in the University of Minnesota library. These might prove useful, but I have not yet looked to see what is available on this topic.  I am quite certain that the National Council of Teachers of English will have information.  Some state departments of education might also have relevant information.  I expect these will be the places I begin looking for information.  They are reputable and have a vested interest in the field of education.  Another avenue might be to use Google to search for teacher websites, blogs, etc.  There are so many sites for and by teachers that address writing, student motivation, and incorporating digital technology.  The lack of resources at our charter schools is certainly not unique, so I can probably find information from other educators about they have addressed the same problem.

When evaluating websites, I look for several different things.  First, I look at the domain name.  Anything ending in .com tells me that I need to take a look at the site developers, authors, background, etc. Not all .com sites are irrelevant, but it is important to discover who is producing them and why.  A similar principal applies to .org websites.  Many of these have a particular bias that may or may not discount their credibility.  Sites ending in .gov are generally credible, but they might not have information as current as others. When looking at .edu sites, I note whether it comes from a K-12 or post-secondary school.  I also evaluate the look and feel of a site to determine whether or not I want to use it as a source.  If the site is poorly designed, difficult to navigate, or visually unappealing, I am less likely to use it.  If a site is easy to navigate, contains good information, and is credible, then I will use its links to outside sources to find other helpful sites.

I'm still learning how to effectively use Google Reader and Diigo tools, so I don't yet know how I will use them as I conduct my research.  The highlighting and notetaking feature on Diigo is appealing, and I would like to learn more about that.  Google Reader seems a bit overwhelming at this point.  I need to learn more about filtering and sorting all of the information as it comes in.

Let the journey begin!

Blogs are a fantastic medium for communicating with others.  In my personal life, I utilize blogs for keeping in touch with family members.  Specifically, my sister-in-law keeps a blog called Just a Blink about her family as well as inexpensive do-it-yourself projects she creates.  I love the blog since it helps to stay connected with the incredible things the kids do and say as well as become inspired by her homemaking skills!

My nephew and nieces, photo courtesy of Just a Blink

For a couple of years, I kept a blog as well.  My blog was focused primarily on the crazy experiences I had teaching.  It was an outlet for me to express things that I found funny, profound, frustrating, and exhausting.  For a variety of reasons, I stopped keeping up with my blog.  Since then, my life has shifted quite a bit. I now work at a job where I spend the majority of my day in front of a computer screen, so I'm not as likely to turn to electronic media for as a creative outlet.  Instead, I prefer to spend my time feeling the sunshine and wind on my face, dirt in my fingernails, and the incredible feeling of moving after sitting for at least 10 hours each day.

In this course, I hope to learn ways to inspire students to write.  Nearly all of the charter schools I support are in urban areas with high poverty.  Many of the students are English language learners and most struggle with writing.  When asked to write multiple paragraphs on an assessment, it is far too common that students will write only a few sentences.  I am convinced that our curriculum is not motivating them to write.  I am convinced that it is--truly--preventing any passion for writing from taking root.  This year I hope to find ways of motivating students to write and enough support that I can make some changes in our writing curriculum.  Since I am not in the classroom, the changes will not be as immediate, nor will have have the control of them that many classroom teachers do.  However, I am in a position to influence curriculum decisions that impact thousands of students.  For that, I take this responsibility seriously.  Given the lack of funding for our schools as well as lack of computers in most of our students' homes, I'm skeptical that blogs or wikis will prove to be the answer.  Nonetheless, I am quite sure that I will find aspects of digital writing that can translate into our schools.

Let the journey begin!

My sense of place - a visual essay

These photos show why Minnesota is important to me and how it affects my life. I cannot seperate this place from my family, my past, and my lifestyle.

Reflection

In composing this visual piece, I was surprised at how much thought I put into my choice of photos. Each photo symbolizes something very important to me about my home, so it was very important that I choose the perfect image. For example, I wanted to represent Richfield, my hometown. After looking through some web pages and seeing dozens of pictures representing the town, I was not satisfied with any of them. When I found the image of the water tower, though, I knew that it fit because not only did it represent the city as a whole but it also carries with it the meaning of: water (Richfield has the BEST water; it is a major source of city pride) and school (this water tower was on the grounds of my junior high).

Composing this piece also helped me think about visual impact. I had several choices for photo organization, but I chose this one for a particular reason. All of the images were important to me. I did not want one image to dominate the essay. Nonetheless, I did choose a color filter to highlight the central image and bring out specific colors in the other photos. I think that this creates a visual coherence to the photos since they are linked by similar colors. In addition, the highlighted central image is important because family is the main reason that I love Minnesota. That photo was taken during a day at the zoo with my nephew; if I lived somewhere else, I would not be able to spend afternoons like that one with him.

Like a new mom: excited but totally freaked out

After reading Beach's article about the wonderful uses of digital writing in the classroom, I am all fired up about the idea. Given the prevalence of digital media in today's culture, it is not only essential but also exciting that students learn how to navigate Web 2.0 applications. The idea of using blogs in the classroom as an alternative to the traditional journal notebook is very exciting. Thinking about my own uses of blogs, I put much more thought into pictures, titles, and audience than I ever would with a handwritten text that would only be read by myself and one or two other people. Many students are already using Facebook or MySpace, it seems like a great idea to hone those skills and interests. There are many students who will be extremely fired up about using blogs, wikis, and self-made websites to communicate with the teacher, class, and wider audience.

BUT...

My excitement is riddled with confusion, fear, and apprehension: like a new mom. I have so many hopes and dreams for using digital writing in my classroom, but I worry about the downsides of it. The dangers of online communication are frequently highlighted in the news, and I worry about letting my students put themselves out there under my direction. I worry that they will reveal too much about themselves--or too little because they are also worried about being metaphorically naked on the Internet. I worry that the "technology divide" will be even greater among students who do and those who do not have access to the Internet. My hope is that this would be the kind of thing that would close the gap, since students who might not otherwise explore Web 2.0 applications would necessarily do so, thus improving their knowledge, comfort level, and skills. However, I also recognize that some students will feel intimidated by the technology. I do not want to lose them. I hope that some students will get so excited about digital writing that they create their own blogs or wikis for personal use, but I worry that some of them will go too far, using it inappropriately or irresponsibly. I worry that if students do this, the literal or emotional blame will be placed on me. I worry that parents will be freaked out by the idea of their students having their own website. I worry that I will dig too large of a hole for myself and not be able to keep up with the students' online work.

Whew!

Resource Link: Many of us explored www.teachertube.com last semester for our fantastic Technology for Teaching & Learning class, but I'm not sure how many of us looked at the site for how we might actually use it. The Writing Channel within this site provides videos and other resources for incorporating writing--including digital writing--in your classroom.

Squirrels in the Springtime

"...our observations of the grading phenomenon in writing classes echo those of researcher Paul Diederich, who says that the classes he visits are 'fantastically over-evaluated,' with teachers 'piling [grades] up like squirrels gathering nuts.'" (page 182)

~Dornan et al. (2003). Within and Beyond the Writing Process in the Secondary English Classroom. Pearson Education Group, Inc.: Boston.

I absolutely love this quote. It evokes so many images in my mind. First, I imagine Kelly Gallagher carrying the boxes and boxes of student journals to his car when he assigned journals. I imagine the teacher at Caribou hanging out with me at 10pm on Friday night while she graded student essays. I imagine us in about two months as we cope with the first inundation of grading student papers/projects. And I imagine the students who toss said papers/projects into their lockers, never to be seen again.

Initially, I disagreed with authors' stance that only a fraction of writing assignments should be graded. Generally, I do not like to write and would be--okay, am--one of those students who do not put any effort into the in-class, on-your-own, not-for-credit writing assignments. So, I was thinking that my students would also slack off on writing assignments if they knew that they were not to be graded. And then the light bulb came on.

It is okay to slack off sometimes! Wait, that doesn't sound quite right, at least not coming from a teacher. Let me try again: We should allow room for students to struggle, relax, or really get fired up about writing. No person can produce consistent, quality work on anything. We all ebb and flow with our output. Looking back, even though I despised the freewriting time during my undergraduate creative writing class, a few of those pieces evolved into a portfolio-worthy product. Not everything was graded and I didn't always put in a lot of effort, and that was okay. That is what the writing process is all about. Alas, my guilt over writing about my irritation with the class during all of those freewrites has subsided.

Now, let's bring this back to my original quote: not everything needs to be graded. We do not need to feel like terrible teachers if the trunks of our cars are not weighted down with student work each and every weekend. While there will be some students (like me) who do not try hard because they know that the writing will not be graded, there will be others (like Paw from the ELL book?) who write more because it is not assessed.

Resource link: This is a lesson plan from http://www.readwritethink.org/ about using a multigenre approach for making personal connections with literature. This seems to be a summation of the concerns addressed last week during our group's presentation as well as the desire to bring in personal connections and reader-response to our assignments. This particular lesson plan focuses on using hypertext--or digital--mediums, but I think that it could be applied to a paper-based project as well. Here it is: http://www.readwritethink.org/lessons/lesson_view.asp?id=782

"Word Drunk"

Have you ever wanted to projectilly vomit up your last bowl of steaming spaghetti after reading an overly superfluous, obnoxiously obtuse and irritatingly descriptive piece of writing? I know that I have. As I was reading about how to teach students to write with more interesting voice and descriptives, I panicked at the thought of another generation overusing adjectives and adverbs. Beauty is simple. Sometimes the most powerful statements/ideas are only a few words long:

• "To be or not to be"


• "Jesus wept."


• I love you.


• Just do it.


• "Let it be"


• Mmmm...good

When Culham adressed on page 144 the dangers of students getting "word drunk" with their word choices, my heart skipped a beat. Alas! Someone who would put an end to this nails-on-a-chalkboard form of writing. Then, I realized the truth. Culham was essentially telling educators to let students do this through trial and error. Ugh. My hopes were shot down. As the chapter went on, my hopes dropped even further by Culham's suggestions. The examples offered in the text were classic cases of overdone description:

The cold is keeping my fingers from typing smoothly [...] The clock doesn't make any noise, but the second hand jerks its way through the minute. ~Culham p. 160

Really? Wouldn't it be more effective to say that your hands are cold and the clock is quiet? I think so. That passage actually goes on for seven lines, but I figured I would spare you.

Culham does offer some interesting good suggestions about teaching the concept of voice. It sounds very trendy to use music to introduce voice, but I think that would be more appropriate for teaching tone. In order to write with an interesting voice, students need learn how to use their language (i.e. word choice--note: these are two separate chapters). By listening to music, students will learn how different musical interpretations can lend different tones to the SAME WORDS in a song. How does this teach students how to use their language to create voice? Anyone? The same goes for using art. I like the idea of using these things in your class, but I do not feel that they are most appropriate for teaching voice.

Resource link: The Philosophy Department at the University of Miami sponsors a "Bad Writing Contest" each year. The nominees are from poorly written scholarly articles:

The Bad Writing Contest attempts to locate the ugliest, most stylistically
awful passage found in a scholarly book or article published in the last few
years. Ordinary journalism, fiction, etc. are not eligible, nor are parodies:
entries must be non-ironic, from actual serious academic journals or books. In a
field where unintended self-parody is so widespread, deliberate send-ups are
hardly necessary.

Passages found on this site could be used to show students that even Ph.D. professors--or especially Ph.D. professors???--can still write poorly. This also highlights the importance of readability and audience.

Ok, so I'm a little bit frazzled

Because I like you all so much, I'll be perfectly honest: I have only read one of the assigned articles so far. When I came home from class tonight, I found out that our phone line--thus our internet connection--is out of commission for a while. The repair guy cannot come until tomorrow night. Ugh. Do they not know that like 70% of my life is lived online?! Nonetheless, I have managed to hack into one of my neighbors unsecured wireless networks. The connection keeps going in and out, so I am going to take advantage of it while I can. I am pretty fired up after reading the Gillespie article, so I shall share my thoughts about that.

I am in one of the groups doing their "book lesson" on the Romano text, which Gillespie references in her article. After spending some time with the Romano book, I really was not too excited about it. I thought that the ideas were great and creative and fun, but I was a little bit bored by it all. Gillespie changed that. Personally, I am not very excited about doing "creative writing" and have put much thought into how I will incorporate or address it in my own classroom. After reading Gillespie, I cannot see how I could ignore it! Even though she basically summarized Romano's ideas, the way she did it really hit me. Her description of the A Single Shard multi-genre project was quite inspiring; I would like to be in her class! I really enjoyed reading what some of the students wrote in their reflections about their projects. The reflections give me hope that students do have intrinsic motivation when given an opportunity to choose the best type of project, writing style, and/or genre for themselves.


This Spring I will be teaching the book Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli; I am really looking forward to incorporating this multi-genre approach while we are working on this text. Stargirl is a novel about a very creative, free-spirited high school student and how she is accepted--or not accepted--by her peers. A multi-genre approach would be great since the character of Stargirl is too unconventional to be truthfully handled in a traditional 5-paragraph essay, or some other prescripted form of writing.

Woohoo! I'm back online! Gee, what prompt service Qwest has for fixing customers' problems: 24 hours. Really, what if that was my only phone line? What if I needed to call 911 but couldn't because they wouldn't come and fix my phone? Could I sue them? Hmmm...if this teaching thing doesn't work out, maybe that's how I'll make my millions. Okay, on with the assignment...

Resource link: Today I observed at my student teaching site and was a little frustrated by their lackluster social issues research papers. They writing 7-paragraph essays; he has given them a handout explaining what each paragraph should be about. Boring. Given this experience as well as Candance's suggestion in her comment, I looked into websites about combining a social issue research paper/project with the multigenre approach. This article, "Exploring the Past through Multigenre Writing" offers practical suggestions for making the traditional research paper more interesting and meaningful.