As I mentioned in the last post, I ran into my usual problem and ran out of battery during the second session of the day. So, I had to resort to paper and pen. Thankfully I don’t work in the ’school of tomorrow’ and still had access to those ancient technologies! So here’s the recap as translated through my illegible handwriting.
The second notable session that I attended was presented by Dr. Sarah Kajder. She’s an 11th grade English teacher who’s students would typically be classified as ‘at risk’. Students that aren’t expected to succeed. I found it extremely interesting that she mentioned that she sort of flies under the radar, tries not to rock the boat and just use these new technologies without necessarily going through the proper channels. While I do understand why teachers might go that route, I do think it’s worth the journey. Administrators for the most part are trying to do what’s best for the children, it’s just that often they don’t know what that is. Anyway,. her presentation definitely lent a new perspective to the whole aspect of 21st century literacy skills.
Sara did make a point of mentioning that even though teachers do have to teach the scripted curriculum and accomplish the tasks needed to pass state tests, that’s not to say that they can’t do more beyond that. She doesn’t reccomend throwing the curriculum out, but to layer new methodology on top of it. Essentially teaching kids new skills in spite of the curriculum. Important changes are happening in the way that we read and write and we have to react accordingly.
She had her students list the tools that writers use. In the first 12 minutes, all they could come up with was pen, pencil, paper and computer/typewriter. That’s it. Eventually one girl volunteered weblog, but was immediately shot down by a peer. “That’s not a tool we use in school.” So she had them expand the list to ALL sorts of writing tools and with some encouragement added post its, blogs, wikipedia, cell phones, iMovie, digital cameras, videogames, stencils and highlighters. Quite a diverse list, but now they were thinking about writing in a very different way. It’s an interesting way to think about it. Writing is about more than just text now, it includes sounds, voices, images, video and so on.
Whenever she reviews a new technology and considers bringing it into the classroom, she asks herself two questions: What ar ethe unique capacities of it and how does this tool allow us to do something better? If it can’t fulfill those two, she doesn’t bring it in yet. Technology amplifies instruction, for better or for worse. It can make good teaching better, but it can also make bad teaching worse.
One thing I found interesting was that during one part of the presentation she asked how many people had a weblog and about half the room raised their hands. Then she asked how many people blogged with students. About a quarter of the room did. That’s amazing to me. Two years ago, she would have had to ask how many people had even heard of blogging and I bet only a couple people would have raised their hands. That definitely says something, I’m just not sure what.
In her opinion, a ‘good’ weblog has a clear purpose, is reflective, has a recognizable point of view, emulates expertise and exhibitis multiple modalities. “Classroom blogs need to reproduce the same conditions in which genuine affinity spaces can emerge and be supported.” I’m not sure that that means in hindsight, but it seemed profound at the time. I’ll have to ask her about that one later.
One other great example from her presentation. She mentioned that in her curriculum, they learn about Chinese society through a single book. That book basically represents everything her students might learn about China in class. So she found a cooperating classroom on a website in China to work with who were studying “What it is to be an American?” They were doing almost the exact same thing and using the Great Gatsby as their model! Her students couldn’t believe that the book was going to be the Chinese classes only idea of how Americans lived. They wound up using a weblog to write back and forth to fill in the gaps. She also mentioned that the Chinese class was correcting her classes grammar, causing her students to step it up a bit!
Pretty good presentation and I hung back to chat with her a little bit after the workshop was over to pick her brain a little bit. She really had some great ideas, not just about using blogs in the classroom, but why we should be doing so in the first place. It’s not enough for it to just be cool, it really has to serve a purpose. I definitely want to read more of her stuff.
If you want to learn more, her website is BringingTheOutsideIn.com
technorati tags:BLC06, BLC, literacy, blogs
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[…] One last little tidbit of shameless self-promotion. Sara Kajder who is here presenting on literacy and digital storytelling (see Steve’s blog) came up to tell me that the state of Kentucky (where she teaches) has purchased 2,000 copies of my book, one for every technology integrator in the state. How cool is that? […]
As another teacher of At-Risk students (in this case, a science teacher in an alternative high school in upstate NY), I found your comments about Sara Kajder’s work in a classroom right on the mark. I work with a diverse group of students who have a variety of backgrounds and academic/social needs. We are tasked with meeting the needs of those students academically with very little in the form of resources from time to time. The use of technology in the classroom is essential to the success of these students from two standpoints, and I am glad she finds a way to use it, despite the methods she must use to do so. First, today’s students are often more comfortable with a computer than the pen and paper many of today’s more “experienced” teachers used in school. This means it is relevant for them to use it in class as well. Second, and this may be more important than many of us realize, today’s society is becoming increasingly technological. The successful adult will be using computers/technology in nearly any career. Teaching students to use it and become comfortable with it is necessary if they are to be successful later in life. She is also correct in the her description of a classroom blog for students. It must be one that shows expertise and relevance. Just as in the classroom, we must keep our students on-task. When we keep our own blog, we need to be teaching through demonstration and keep ourselves on-topic and on-task.
7/21/2006
Thanks for posting this. This is exactly what we have been discussing over the past year. It gives us more to talk about. What conference were you attending when you heard him speak?
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