"These are old fond paradoxes"

This quote from Shakespeare's Othello demonstrate the complicated and contradictory nature of eBooks and the type of learning it engenders.  Let's explore further.

Does this mean the death of the printed book and its replacement by the eBook?  The BBC is quick to remind us that such a conclusion is not clear at all.  In fact, for the general reading audience it appears that something complicated is happening with eBooks.

Some teachers have had immense success in integrating eBooks into their classroom and empowering their students to become published authors.  Mr. Jon Smith (who provided a great presentation to our class) is one of these teachers.  He demonstrates very well how eBooks can change the whole writing process.  In fact, a challenge can start to become:  Any subject, any grade, any student can write a book.

Mr. Smith demonstrated through his work with autistic and special education children how the process of writing an eBook for publication can re-position  a student's feelings about writing.  His first class of fifth grade special education changed from not caring at all about writing (including what Mr. Smith thought were fun prompts like writing about pizza) to excited to come to school.  One of the biggest things that helped change their minds was the idea that with eBooks it changes from an audience of one (the teacher) to a worldwide audience.  In fact, Mr. Smith's newest project is to try to collaborate on an eBook with students from all 50 states and many nations of the world.  Not only did his students become more excited about writing, but they also became critics of each other's work.  Things had to be 'good enough' to be included in the eBook.  The student peers were harder on work than Mr. Smith would be.

Mr Smith also talked with his students about legacy (similar to what Garth had done in a previous week).  It is about positioning students beyond doing this as busywork or just for a grade.  They need to see their work as part of something larger.  Also, for those worried about covering standards, Mr. Smith demonstrated that creating an eBook can cover up to 72 of them.  It also made engaged and motivated students as they wanted to see how many downloads they received and from what corners of the world.

Beyond early readers, technology can even help autistic students engage.  Mr. Smith has shown some great success with this.  By using online technology, students can connect with the wider world and even have the opportunity to connect with each other.  This post shows how Mr.Smith's class has influenced another class far away.

E-books can actually motivate early readers more than traditional books.  They are more interactive with animations and interactivity.  (See Brueck and Leonard.)  The books can also provide more scaffolding because it can read to students and even provide instantaneous pronunciation and definitions of words for struggling readers.  Many teachers do not know how to integrate ebooks into their curriculum - TPACK can assist with this.  Teachers need to move toward the meeting place of all three circles.  Students are coming in steeped in all of these technologies.  Master teachers can even use more traditional literacy strategies like Reader's Theatre or Read Alouds with eBooks. Opportunities exist to have professional development through Twitter and Pinterest.  More interactive opportunities can exist through Google Hangouts or SKYPE.  This on-air hangout shows how something like this can work.

However, we must take a word of caution.  The technological divide can continue to plague troubled students.  Additionally, the surest foundation of an avid student reader is a reading culture at home.

My own teaching will be influenced by all of these ideas.  As a future high school social studies educator, I think it would be great to let students write their own textbooks or give advice to students for next year.  I really like that eBooks can contain lots of different kinds of media from text to pictures to videos.  It certainly makes for a richer environment than just a traditional textbook.  It would be great to take tired social studies standards and let students really make them exciting, interactive, and more inclusive.

I think the main considerations about potentially using this in a classroom are: (1) availability of technology; (2) ability to publish to a wider audience (even if just for other students or future students); and giving good direction (for what purpose).  I think it would be great to jigsaw with eBooks and have an AP US History class write their own review textbook / guide for the exam.  Each group could be responsible for a chapter and providing good information in it not just for themselves but for the whole class.

I think the thing I learned the most from Mr. Smith's presentation was that publishing can help motivate struggling students and make them work harder.  It is so important that we not let education just become dominated by worksheets and tests.  Students need to see how their work can impact the world.

Disappointing but satisfying - Cool Tool #3 - Magisto

For full disclosure, I expected to be able to do something much different with this tool than what I was able to do.  I had selected this tool as a way of being able to document my current pronunciation of French.  Magisto touted itself as a video creation tool.  While this is true, it is not entirely true.  I would describe Magisto as a video editing tool.  If you have already created content, it can put it together into a slickly edited environment.

"London" by Anna and Michal licensed under CC BY 2.0

So, I had to pivot in the middle of my creation to do something different.   Instead, I decided to edit together some of the photos I took in England as a way to share with students.  I tried to pick my most inspiring photos as perhaps a way to launch a creative writing assignment with images as a starting point.

Magisto requires users to have an account; however, you can log in with your Google + credentials or your Facebook credentials.  Free accounts have limitations on what you can do.  For example, your edited video is limited to 10 photos and no more than 5 short videos.  Users can mix both photos and short videos into their edited video.

Putting the media could not be easier.   This is what the editing screen looks like:

Users just select which photos and videos to upload, a style for the editing, and a soundtrack.  Premium (paying) users get access to more types of editing styles and soundtracks.  With just these few clicks, the app automatically makes a video.  The app also crops and edits images to make the video.  As you will see, it did keep one of the photos sideways and, unfortunately, you need to have premium access to be able to edit the video.

Here is what the final product looked like:

This would be a great way for students to create slick multimedia reactions.  In a social studies class, it might be fun to give students a civics topic such as climate change or the history of Akron.  Students could mix pictures, pictures of primary sources, and short videos as part of their response.  As my example shows, it could be a great way to reflect on a field trip.

The best reason to use this tool is how easy it is to use and how high quality the final product is.  I think it would be great to be able to share these videos with a wider audience.  The best videos could be featured on the school's website or even a class's website.

The challenge to using this tool in the classroom will be the fact that students will have to use another app to create content.  So, they will have to take pics and video with their phones and then use this to edit it all together.

Overall, it creates a good product.  It just was not the product I was looking for.

"We must not make a scarecrow of the law."

I chose this quote from Shakespeare's Measure for Measure.  Much like the convoluted world that Shakespeare's characters inhabit, the world of copyright seems just as complicated and hard to navigate.  If we believe in giving people due credit for intellectual works, we must establish and enforce laws that protect it.  Hence, we must not make scarecrows.

"Creative Commons Globe Theatre" by Tracy Ducasse is licensed under CC By 2.0

If we want people to understand copyright, then we need to teach them.  This video, Fair use in a Digital World, shows how an English Language Arts teacher has integrated copyright law into her lessons.  She lets her students watch Youtube videos and then evaluate whether there has been a violation of copyright law.  She, as a good teacher should, is getting her students to think about fair use, copyright, creative commons, and public domain.  It is no accident that we use Shakespeare so much in high schools (He is, indeed, public domain).  Teachers can also find other lessons in the teaching copyright  collection and further explication of good practices to instill in students in this copyright friendly content.  Just as we teach students to cite sources as evidence in essays, we need to teach them how to cite copyrighted material.

Beyond teaching explicit lessons in copyright issues, teachers also need to model good behavior.  Certainly, I can make sure that I use Clip Art or my own photographs in class slide shows.  However,  I can also make use of the Creative Commons which makes fair use of copyrighted materials relatively easy.  Creative Commons and copyright makes it relatively easy to understand how to use their materials.  Artists can stipulate how a material can be used including restriction on profit and derivatives.  For your students who wish to create their own work, Creative Commons makes it easy for them to disperse and manage licensing as their Wanna work together?  video demonstrates.

"2012-240 #6WordMission" by Denise Krebs licensed under CC By 2.0

However, I am not sure that this world is entirely as cut and dry as all of this seems.  If we are to model this behavior, it may not be as easy as I think.  Educators are granted a fair amount of freedom of 'fair use' when using copyrighted materials in their classroom.  This guide provides some wonderful scenarios of what can actually happen in classroom and whether copyright has been violated.  There are great Youtube videos out there to use in classrooms; however, do they violate copyright?  What if they contain copyrighted material?  This video further demonstrates how re-mixing can make fair use a gray area.  What about if I watch materials I know are copyrighted on Youtube?  How many of us have found movies or television episodes on Youtube?  We are not in violation of the law of copyright (someone else has posted it) but we are violating the spirit if we do not pay to be able to enjoy the fruits of someone else's labor.

I think we definitely need to get our students thinking about how downloading music and videos without paying is a violation.  One of the best ways to do this might be to give them a project.  Have them work on an original song or video.  When completed, tell them to think about how much work they put into it.  Would they want others to use that without giving them credit?

Behind the Wheel French - Review

As mentioned in some previous posts, I have begun using a tool called Behind the Wheel French.  It is a set of CDs designed to help people learn a foreign language while they are commuting.  Here it is in all of its glory:

Each CD contains approximately 80 minutes of information.  The lessons are coordinated by a man who believes in immersive ways of teaching foreign language.  Each CD has a number of tracks that are individual lessons.  The structure is that the host will introduce a concept in English.  Then, a native French speaker says the equivalent in French.  The listener is to repeat after the native French speaker.  The first CD covers basic concepts such as numbers, weather, and months of the year.

So, far, I have found both benefits and challenges to using this method.  The benefit is that it is a convenient way for me to practice a language.  I have to commute to the University of Akron at least twice and sometimes three times per week.  On average, the commute is 40 minutes, so this provides a great way to multitask.  However, my fear is that the negative outweigh the benefits.  First, I have listened to the first CD three times and still have not mastered the content.  I fear that there may be too much material packed into each lesson.  Additionally, the native French speaker often says an entire sentence before pausing for the listener to repeat.  This makes it difficult for the listener to remember how to say all of the words.

Additionally, I worry about this as a good strategy for my project.  I am finding that I respond better to reading French than speaking it.  As I am trying to learn how to say the words through this CD, I am still trying to visualize what the word would look like in my mind.  I think other methods might prepare me better for the kind of translation I am hoping to do.

Cool Tool Review #2 - Porquois

So, I decided to try to multitask with this particular post.  I am hoping to start doing some serious work on my major project while also exploring a new tool.  One of the goals of learning French was so that I could better appreciate Moliere.  So, I was hoping to be able to translate a scene by the end of this class.  I found an online resource that provides texts of Moliere's plays.  I took the text of the play and fed it into an annotation tool so I could see how much I might be able to translate right now.

On to the tool...Annotate.  This is an online tool that allows for multiple users to annotate a particular text.  In this case, I have selected a scene from my favorite Moliere: The Misanthrope.  You must create a free account to be able to use the service.  Be aware that only limited functions are available for free.  There are limits to the documents you can create and the number of editors that can have access.  After creating an account, users will be greeted with a screen like this.

I created a document called Moliere project.  I inserted the text (which I had to copy to Google Docs and then insert - it could not be done directly from the website).  I set a timer for 20 minutes and went to work.  Here's my finished product with translation.  I have left the ability for folks to annotate as long as they have the link.  So, feel free to play with the tool as you click the link.  (However, with limits on the number of annotators, do not be upset if you cannot make changes.)

Different views are possible.  Here is one where the notes and annotations appear a bit more easy to follow.

The tool allows for one work station to be created and all the documents shared from that station.  Editors can insert comments, link to online resources, or even draw in the document.  It is also platform free.  Where Microsoft Word or Google Docs usually require you to have an account, this would not.  However, I am not sure that it outweighs the benefits of a Google Docs document.  The limit on the number of annotators and readers of a document for the free account really seems to be a burden.

I could see using a resource like this for primary source reading in social studies classes.  Again, with Google docs, a student could actually change the text of the source.  Here, students could leave notes that would be easily read by other students.  It would be a fun way for students to engage in layered reading of a primary source.  Students could either annotate sources provided by me or I could also ask students to excerpt sources and then feed them into Annotate.

My own use is similar to this primary source analysis.  I am taking an original text and trying to make sense of it.  This would also be of great use for Think Alouds in literacy.  Rather than a teacher lecturing at a class and talking through thoughts, students could read through them in annotated documents like this.

Finally, I do think that this would be challenging for students to use.  It does not have a required tutorial (i.e., before you can start using the tool you do not have to go through training).  A lot of the editing functions and buttons are not intuitive.  I basically had to just keep clicking buttons to see what they did rather than having a good idea of what they did based on the symbols.  Once you do learn how to use the functions, they are repetitive.  So, again, if all primary sources were shared this way, students would have familiarity with the tool and be experts within a few weeks.

Overall, this could be a great way to help students engage with primary sources.

Friends, Romans, Countrymen, Lend me Your Ears

This most famous quote from Julius Caesar begins a speech Marc Antony delivers in the forum to commemorate Julius Caesar.  The forum - the lifeblood of Roman public life.  A place where people came to buy goods, conduct official business, and share the news of the world.

Could the forum of our own world be the net?  I think that the answer must be yes.  Certainly, the video we viewed from Garth Holman shows how this virtual world allows for the free exchange of ideas.  It is how his students in Beachwood, OH have been able to inspire other students in Texas while using SKYPE to engage with topic experts in the field.  As the Nine Themes in Digital Citizenship reminds us, this goes beyond classrooms to almost all facets of our life.  This new online forum has changed the way we shop, the way we process information, and even our health (stained eyes and strained backs from spending so much time in front of a computer).  It has also altered the way we think about intellectual property.  We need to be aware of granting credit where credit is due.  It is so easy to post a photo or a song on to our blogs without thinking of giving the proper credit to those who created it.  Some places have dedicated resources toward connecting free multimedia to users.  For example, there are several sites dedicated to sharing music available for free to use in films and blogs.  This includes Free Play Music and CCMixter.  Though this may not seem a huge revolution, for those who create independent media, finding acceptable music is a huge barrier.  (I was shocked to learn that it can cost at least $1000 to include a licensed song in a film from this article.)

However, there are a rules of behavior for us as we participate in this new forum.  A whole field of netiquette  has built up designed to help us navigate this virtual world.  First, we must be aware of the dangers that we can experience.  We need to be aware of the presence of cyberbullying and how prevalent it is among teens as well as adults.  As future educators, we need to take steps to protect our students as they interact in this world wide forum.  For younger students, it can include bookmarking popular websites and blocking their ability to purchase apps.  For teens, it includes limiting the amount of information shared on social media sites.  However, we must not let these potential challenges outweigh the benefits of integrating online technological tools into classrooms.  There are steps we can take to help keep students safe.  Tell students not to respond to information requests or emails from people they do not know.  Encourage them to limit information shared with websites and use email address that do not identify their names.  Finally,  tell them to use you as a resource.  If something does not look right, have them send it to you to sort through it.

I have not had my feelings hurt by something shared online or (to my knowledge) I have not hurt anyone's feelings by what I shared online.  However, I have, at times, felt like my privacy has been invaded by the photos someone has posted on social media.  I believe that life is to be lived and I may be willing to do something 'in the moment' but not want that moment to live on in perpetuity on the internet.  However, phones with cameras and quick access to social media allow for fleeting moments to last a lifetime.  What I may be willing to do for a laugh at a family picnic I may not want to relive every day of my life.

Digital citizenship to me in my professional life means several things.  First, as a future educator, I think we have a duty to help transform technology from entertainment to powerful educational tool.  We need to have students see their smart phones beyond Snapchat.  Second, I need to seek out sites that show the exciting parts of the internet.  When you wade through a lot of the noise, you can find amazing things such as Back Story or History Today.  I also need to model good online behavior in what I post and choose to link to.

In my personal life, it is much easier.  I am not a big user of social media in my personal life, so it is relatively easy to keep it professional.  I much prefer face to face conversations and books you can hold in your hands in my personal life.

Cool Tool #1 - Staging It App by Shakespeare's Globe

Surprise, surprise.  I chose something related to Shakespeare for my first cool tool review.  Lest you think this is just an attempt to keep a gag going, this tool is amazing.

It is available to educators through the website for the rebuilt Globe Theatre in London.  It is part of a number of resources available to educators through their website.  The tool I am specifically examining is called the Staging It App.  

Users will be greeted with a screen like this

The idea is that students can use this app to direct their own short film version of a scene from Shakespeare play.  First, students select from five different scenes: 3 possible from Macbeth 1 from A Midsummer Night's Dream and 1 from Much Ado About Nothing.  Once a student selects a scene, they get to watch different clips of an actor or actors saying lines in different tones.  Each scene is broken into four subscenes.  For each subscene, a student can pick from one of four options for how the actor or actors deliver the lines.

The selection menu looks like this

In my example, I chose a scene from Macbeth.  You can see that I chose here that the actor should deliver this part of the subscene in a confident manner.  I chose this from options that included mastering courage, scared, confident or excited.  To help users in making an informed decision, the app provides students with copies of the script as well as additional background information such as mastering Shakespeare's verse.

Then, the student can download a video version of the four subscenes selected edited into a cohesive whole.  Here is what my final video looked like

This app has chosen Shakespearean plays most often taught in high schools like Macbeth and Midsummer Night's Dream.  Teachers could use this to support projects and readings around those plays.

The tool has many great uses for those who teach Shakespeare or drama in general.  To start, the tool demonstrates very well how the same line can be said multiple ways to give very different impressions.  In turn, those decisions about how a line is said add up over time to create the overall character that an actor and director create together.  Watching a fantastic Shakespearean actor helps demonstrate better how lines can vary with interpretation than just having students read aloud in class.

The tool would also be useful for classrooms because the final product contains shots of Shakespeare's Globe in London.  It would be a great way to discuss this unique space and how it mimics the performance space actually used.

Students should find the technology relatively easy to use.  Much of it is drag and drop technology which makes it easy to select an interpretation.  The hardest part would be finding a good way to share the final product video.  I had to download the video and post it to Youtube to be able to embed it in this blog.  I'm not sure that it would be easy to share this as an assignment in a classroom.  However, the extra step is really not that big of a deal.  I also think a challenge would be to find a way for students to see multiple videos (so they could understand varying interpretations) without getting bored by watching 25 videos of the same speech.  The teacher might consider breaking students into smaller groups.

Overall, I had a lot of fun working with this tool.

"Brush up your Shakespeare, Start Quoting Him Now."

Not quite a Shakespeare quote, but a Cole Porter quote about Shakespeare (from Kiss Me Kate).  Our presentation available through Springboard called those familiar with TPACK a triple threat.  The moniker reinforces  that those eloquent in TPACK have technological, pedagogical, and content knowledge.  I couldn't resist thinking about the acting triple threat: dancing, singing, and acting.  Hence, the link to Cole Porter.

I am still a bit nervous about using technology in a classroom.  As someone who is not always a technological expert, I am a bit nervous that things could go wrong.  However, Clare Kilbane's video put me more at ease.  She begins by explaining TPACK and reassuring teachers that they already have part of the Venn Diagram with pedagogy and content.  It is now just adding the interactivity of technology.  I also liked her metaphor of having the tools of technology in your bag.  You should use it when appropriate not just use it for the sake of using it.  Also, her concept of using TPACK as a plan for professional growth helped me see this as a process of continuous improvement.

When looking to use new content tools in the classroom, I think it is important to make sure that the technology supports the other pieces of good instruction (as evidenced in TPACK).  Just using technology for the sake of using it does not do much.  A boring lecture can easily become a boring podcast.  A poorly defined lesson will not improve because it is delivered through Google classroom.  In fact, TPACK itself can serve as an assessment tool to determine whether an activity is a good idea.  Is this a great PACKage where all the circles of TPACK meet?

The benefit of implementing such tools in the classroom is that we are doing our moral duty as teachers to prepare students for the future.  Though we are used to being in a print culture, Punya Mishra's video reminds us how we moved from an oral/aural culture to a print culture.  We are living in the midst of such change, again, and teachers need to be prepared to help students navigate this new world.

Even for those of us who are digital immigrants, we must keep seeing how technology can help us solve educational problems and not suffer from functional fixedness.  I also enjoy Mishra's observation that TPACK teaches educators how to be flexible and not search out easy solutions.  Finally, it is important that a teacher develop passion for technology. Indeed, even if I am not as comfortable with technology, TPACK through its guidelines reminds teachers that we must model good use of technology and building a sound online presence. Seeing the overarching importance of technology in good instruction, I will challenge myself as a future teacher to try to use it in places where it can support me.  We come back to Kilbane's toolkit as a great metaphor.

I think the biggest challenges to implementing TPACK will be overcoming my own technological difficulties and finding good ideas for how to use this in a classroom.  However, we, as a profession, have been struggling with how to improve education for many years through new ideas and technology.  I enjoyed how Nada Salem Abisamra anchored his arguments in quotations from John Dewey.  Further, using online tools such as blogging reinforces traditional pedagogical aims like literacy and higher order thinking skills.  Some sites have even taken this a step further demonstrating explicit skills and the technological tools that can support the instruction.  Then these new technological tools just become ways to reinforce what we have been doing in classrooms for years.  The Journal's article provides some great ideas for how to implement technology in a classroom.  1:1 environments provide a great space for students to use online collaborative tools that allow 24/7 access to resources such as Google documents.

I am very invigorated to begin using TPACK as a way of integrating technology into our pedagogy.  However, I worry about finding good sites for advice and methods on how to do it.  For example, the Digital History Reader seems very strong.  However, there are limitations (only a few lessons available on Europe) as well as the question of whether this is better or worse than reading a textbook.  Is there a difference in how students perceive a large amount of text whether it is on a screen or in a book?  These are my questions.