Pinterest . . . ehh

So it's official, I have been accepted into the elite (or so I tell myself) world of Pinterest.  I thought I would be excited, feel some sort of weight lifted off my shoulders because now NOW!!! I can keep all of my interests, DIY Projects, recipes, tips "pinned" in one place.  However, I have to say that I don't feel that way at all, actually not even close.  I enjoyed virtually thumbing through pages of interesting things to do with wine corks for house decoration, or the 10 commandments of putting on nail polish (actually quite helpful), but I would have to say that there was no weight lifted from me in any way shape or form.  Instead, I felt anxiety after I realized I had spent over two hours wandering aimlessly through pages and pages of ideas, suggestions, and thoughts.  For those who, like me, were blind to this website called "Pinterest" I will briefly explain what I have found to be the premise and purpose (If I can call it that).  First of all you have to be invited to the website by someone who is already a member or else, if you don't have any friends who are enlightened in the world of Pinterest, you have to buck up and request an invitation GASP! The Horror!!!! Well, needless to say I was the later.  After being accepted - not quite as fulfilling as a college acceptance, but oddly enough still brought a giddy satisfaction - you are open to a world of possibility of making a giant virtual pinboard of things that are interesting to you.  For example say you are planning a wedding, which I am not but for demonstration sake, you can go through pages and pages and pages and pages of wedding ideas, dresses, themes, color schemes, flowers, DIY ideas, music suggestions, gift ideas, and guest book ideas and basically bookmark all of the pages into one central location aka your pinboard. You are then able to write a little something special about the items to let your gaggles of friends, family members, etc comment on the ideas.  Now,  say the wedding is drawing near and now comes the time to think of home decoration, recipes, party ideas, etc, then you can go through even more pages and "pin in" to your page and then (here's the best part) ORGANIZE IT into categories.
     In my opinion, Pinterest was not all that pinteresting except that it helps you wander aimlessly through webpages planning weddings that are not on the horizon, decorating a house that you are no where near owning, and finding meals that are not even close to possible in that tiny kitchen with no counter space and horrible ventilation.  For someone who likes to keep everything organized and in one place Pinterest is a helpful tool and it can be argued it is a very helpful tool for the chronic procrastinator - unfortunately both of these describe me . . . sigh.  For those that feel the bookmark feature of their web browser is enough Pinterest is mediocre at best.

Me in 6 words or less

Hello Animoto

Olympics

   As I sit to write this post, watching the swimming finals of the Olympics, I am struck by how these very events are a reflection of the very ideas we are talking about in class.  The implementation of new technologies in the classroom is something that many teachers, myself included, are hesitant to partake in.  Contrarily, at least from the outside, the Olympics embraces the implementation of new technologies throughout the event.  Let's take for instance swimming. Years ago hand timing was the way to go, relying entirely on the stop watch and the accuracy of the timer.  However, as years passed and new technologies were introduced - touch pads, starting systems, alternative timing and pacing computers - the Olympics always had the best and newest technology no matter the event.  Now, we don't necessarily see it failing as the technology in our classrooms seem to always do at that pivotal moment, but we do always see new camera angles, new split calculations, new statistical technology implements, and no one ever complains about it.  In fact, we, as viewers, are thankful for the implementation because that means we get to be there, well almost be there.  Looking back at my experience in swimming and track, the technology was always failing, and it wasn't something that angered us competitors by any means, it was just part of the game.  So why, then, am I so afraid to let go and try out the technology.  Obviously in the world of sports the technology has failed, but it didn't keep them from trying it again.  In the classroom, failed technology means have that "OH S#!+" moment and quickly finding a different activity to fill the time.  But in the Olympics, failed technology means controversy means perhaps false results, incorrect award distribution, barely missing out on going down in the record books.
     I think what I have taken away from the past week the most is to not be afraid to fail, to not be afraid to have things go less than perfect.  I am always telling my students that they shouldn't be afraid to fail because you learn from more from failure than you do from success.  Why don't I listen to my own advice? Why don't I just say "you know what if it doesn't work it doesn't work and theres not much I can do about it?"  Perhaps it's because I get so wrapped up in getting through the material or not letting on that I, too fail.  I think as teachers we think we need to be as close to perfect and seamless and flawless as possible that we freak out and hide ourselves from any chance to have flaws or failures or seams.  I'd like to say that from now on I will take all the risks, I'll be unafraid of what may happen and just go with it, but I wouldn't be true to myself or honest if I said that because it's going to take a hell of a lot to get to that point.  But, what I can say is that I will try and that I will be (a little) ok with failing in some respect.  I will still get frustrated when the technology doesn't read my mind and produce exactly what I am thinking.  But, I will try.  I will take a risk and if, say, audacity doesn't work for me again tonight - yes, I am in the seemingly impenetrable ring of file formats and inability to figure out how to get it uploaded - I will take a deep breath and say something along the lines of, "(Expletives) - Ok, I'll try this another time."  I think this is what is required of me at this moment.  If they can do it at the Olympics, why can't I?

Back To Grappling with Lankshear and Noble

    Thinking back on the last week, grappling with literacies of various types is something that I have become very acquainted with. Whether I was trying to figure out if I agree with Lankshear and Knoble's proposal of literacy and literacy practices or attempting to become literate in other ways that pertain to medicines, make-up work, and insurance, I was surrounded by a variety of literacies begging me to become proficient in them.  I've realize that I am also working to get this whole blog thing down - and by thing I mean the lingo, the catchy title, writing in a way that I don't feel awful making people read - and this has proven to be much more difficult than I had anticipated.  When I started college, participation meant participation in class, no exceptions, but as the months ticked away, Courseworks came onto the scene as did the requirement to participate online.  For some, this inclusion was great, their fears of participating in the classroom had been alleviated and they no longer possessed fear for their participation grade.  However, for others, this inclusion of a web-based participation piece meant two things, more participation was being required, and the fear that the submission wouldn't make it to the proverbial mother board, that the intellectual genius you had spent hours writing would be lost in cyberspace never to return again.  So, while I was reading Lankshear and Knoble's discussion of this "'participatory' cultural creative," I had to take a deep breath and tell myself that everything was going to be OK because I am genuinely concerned about what this entity being termed cultural creative means, what it's implications are, and how it will affect our society for better or for worse (65; excerpted copy).  
    However, I do feel within myself a push to be more open to using the Internet in the classroom.  As of this moment, I am whole-heartedly in support of using multiple modalities and media to present ideas to students, but when it comes to using the Internet, I shy away and run for cover.  Perhaps this stems from my own discomfort using the Internet, my own uncertainty with what "Big Brother" is tracking, who is gaining access to my own information, and the fear that I don't know who I am dealing with because I can't see them.  Maybe I am old-fashioned in wanting face to face interaction, with the desire to not be connected 24/7, but I think there is something left to be desired when I am constantly attached to something with a WIFI or 3G connection.  I apologize for the tangent, I had to get that off my chest. Anyway, like I was saying, the use of the Internet and technology in my classroom is something that, ideally I would love to have, but I fear that I will not be confident enough in my abilities to be able to lead my students in the use.  I think Merit wrote something very captivating in her blog post from July 19th, 2012 "Notes from Henry Clay: Determining Technology's Place in the Classroom." In the post she writes, 
     I think it's dangerous to base any pedagogy completely on computer screen or print text.  Students should learn the nonlinear thinking required of them on the web by participating in fast-moving chats and moving from article to article by clinking on link after link.  However, they should also learn to immerse themselves in a good book for an hour, two hours, even five or six.  They should learn to listen to a multitude of others' voices, then sit quietly and listen to themselves.
I found this to strike at the very essence of my feelings regarding technology in a classroom.  As educators we want to prepare our students for the spaces that the will be occupying for the remainder of their lives.  Therefore we must provide them the opportunity to explore various types of thinking and expression in order to see what fits them best in certain situations.  Perhaps for some, the creation of an animoto best fits the needs of that which they are trying to present, and for others it may be a handmade collage or storyboard.  Regardless of the medium, we, as teachers and as citizens of the world, must provide our students with the opportunity to know what it is like to hold a book, to turn its pages, to smell that old book smell and at the same time feel the gratification of finding the answer to a question immediately online. 
      In chapter 2 of Lankshear and Knoble they discuss how different people read different texts in different ways.  Just as we are reading and interpreting the texts that we are working with in this class in different ways so, too, will our students, "read academic texts very differently, and the practices of bloggers and online social networkers can differ enormously in 'look and feel'" (38).  That is what makes education possible, what makes the world exciting, without variation and difference, things would be boring and routine and the exact same.  In a way, our education system is reinforcing this sameness through its reliance of standardized tests and the push to get everyone on the same playing field, but I wonder if perhaps we are saying more about conformity through this method of education than we are about advancement and opportunity.  

Grappling with literacy ... What is it exactly?

At first ponderance of this word literacy, I thought the definition was quite simple - literacy is being able to read, didn't we learn that a long time ago? But, as I read Lankshear and Noble's piece as well as Richardson's chapter on the use of photographs as literacy through Flickr, this idea became much more complicated. To say that Lanshear and Noble's idea that literacy is "always and everywhere," is quite confusing, at least in my opinion. Isn't literacy the ability to be able to glean information from some form of text and then use that information to inform a decision? So then that would mean that being literate extends far beyond the reach of textbooks, poetry, prose, journalism, and other written genres. Literacy, if it indeed as Lankshear and Noble proclaim, comes in all shapes and sizes and forms and modalities. In order to access the innumerable pages of information and pictures about a particular subject, one must be literate in using the computer, pulling up the correct website, finding the proper location of the information on the website and then accessing the information that one sought out to find in the fist place. I think that literacy in this sense is quite overwhelming because it implies that The bounds of literacy are nonexistent and there is no chance for us to master this thing called literacy. However, on the other hand there is a sense of excitement that there are multiple literacies possible. The way I see it, literacy becomes akin to a linguist. This person has a mother tongue but is able to communicate and be 'literate' in a sense in multiple other languages. The same can be said for our students today. This code switching of sorts between academic jargon in classrooms, the casual dialect in conversations with friends, the abbreviated texting language, the acronyms used in video games and social networking sites are all forms of languages that our students are speaking, albeit not necessarily always verbally. I think that Patrick brings up an interesting point in saying that he is unsure if these new literacies, "are 1) of much importance and 2) will even be around in some years (imagine if you'd been a teacher in 2008 and used Second Life in the classroom!) from the traditional definition, which is (rightfully so) tied to reading and writing and language.". While I do feel some resistance to accepting these new literacies as important and able to withstand the test of time, I feel as though we must be willing to at least consider the possibility of these new literacies as being legitimate and important because they are the very languge through which the people of the world are communicating with one another. In negating the importance and/or legitimacy and importance Of Internet based media, I feel as though we are, in a way, negating the social identities through which our student identify themselves. I'm not saying I completely feel as though we have to accept these Internet media literacies wholeheartedly, but I do feel as though we need to give them a chance to prove their worth the same way, I am sure reading and writing, at some point had to prove its worth. Literacies will alway be developed and reinvented and redefined, but I think what holds true for each stage of this process is there must be some willingness to give it a shot, to figure out if literacy is confined solely to the bounds of readin, writing, and language in the traditional sense.

Grappling 2.0

                                                             I

Reading the selections for this week was definitely an interesting experience.  I say this because I have never read any scholarly article about technology, let alone the use of such in a classroom.  So, for me, these readings were enlightening in the sense that it stretched my thinking beyond the standard terminology that I am accustomed to reading about in readings for my English education classes.  Allison, Lankshear and Knoble, and Richardson all presented perspectives of technology that I had never thought about.  The Allison selection made me question if I would be able to successfully implement the use of a blog into my classroom.  I feel what struck me the most about the piece was how there was no discussion of a student not doing the work, and, although I am sure the students were excited at the opportunity to use the internet as the foundation of the class, I couldn’t help but think what about the student(s) that resist? 

Allison posited, “No longer am I assessing them; shift the students assess themselves, and decide what to do next,” and at first I thought how wonderful it would be if all of the students contributed whole-heartedly, but I kept coming back to what about that student that just doesn’t do it (Allison, p. 79).   Perhaps I am being cynical or maybe event pessimistic, but I struggle with this idea of the students assessing themselves because I have never been in a setting where my students or I do such.   In every classroom that I have been in I have always had 1 student that I am unable to access regardless of how hard I try or how many options I come up with, and I fear that this student will be further marginalized if given the opportunity to have their learning be entirely self driven.  Who knows, they may surprise me, but I feel that it is necessary to give the students multiple opportunities to succeed in multiple forms, and I felt like a blogging classroom alone wouldn’t provide such.  

However, what I did find incredibly valuable and promising about the use of blogging in the classroom was the development of multiple skills simultaneously.  On page 82, Allison noted, “in a one week period, students are asked to work on these modes of expression with four different habits of work: participating (collecting), producing (drafting), perfecting (revising and editing), and publishing,” all of these are vital skills that when taught in this platform would, undoubtedly be much more engaging. I found this idea of teaching habits of work to connect nicely with Lankshear and Knoble’s discussion of literacy.  Not only does the use of technology allow the students to gain the skills in a medium where they are, presumably, more comfortable, but it also makes them more digitally literate – and therefore, more culturally literate as well.  This idea of a “three-dimensional” model of literacy – the operational, the cultural, and the critical – is one that enforces the need to not only access the information in order to be literate but also possess the tools necessary to implement the skill and evaluate its impact.  In essence, at least in my understanding, to be digitally literate is to be conscious that there are more sides to the story than what is found in an article or a picture, and it is left to the viewer to piece together the impact, meaning, and significance of the piece in the greater society. 

            II

 I think this is what challenges my security and confidence in technology.  When we post something to the Internet, it is accessible to just about anyone, for better or for worse, and the threat of something I post being used against me is a very scary prospect.  Now, I am not saying I am posting awful things, but throughout high school and college we were warned to be careful what we post online because it will follow us forever, and could keep us from being hired.  What’s to say an employer won’t find this blog, read it, disagree with what I said and then not hire me because of it.  This is what I fear for my students.  Technology is a playground of sorts, we must become familiar with the pieces that are there to play with before we take risks, but sometimes when we take that risk, we get hurt and are affected by it for an extended period of time.  The last thing I want is for a student of mine to grapple with ideas in my classroom through the use of technology and then be penalized for it in some way shape or form later in life.  But at the same time, becoming digitally literate is no longer recommended, it is required and isn’t that what we want for our students? To be as prepared as possible for what they will encounter in the future?   Now I feel like I’m rambling, but in conclusion I just need to take a deep breath and take that leap to discovering the balance between being digitally literate and happily disconnected simultaneously. 

There is nothing to fear but tinkering itself . . .

     As I sit here trying to figure out what to write for my very first assignment for this class, nay my first blog ever, I am finding myself oddly facing writers block.  What do I write about? How do I make my stamp on the blogging world an interesting one? Haven't I been grappling with this technology stuff all along.  I liked to think that I was relatively savvy when it came to the internet - I take pride in my ability to look just about anything up and find the answer to my question in no time flat - but I am quickly realizing that I really don't know anything about what the internet can do.  As a person I think this is an ok state to be in because I am not so sure I want to be "connected" all the time.  However, as I teacher I feel like I have been letting my students down in a way because the internet is something with which they are so comfortable and familiar with.   I am a firm believer that the ability to use the likes of the students to inform the class is a quality that all teachers need to have because otherwise the students and the teacher are uninterested.  The challenge that comes with figuring out this technology component of education is the unending frustrations and swears under ones breath - I apologize in advance for any and all utterances of such - because for me, at least, every time I get close to cracking the code something else fails.
     Over the last couple days I have realized that there is so much that the internet holds to be explored, but it's nearly impossible to figure out how to gain access.  Yes, I have explored blogger, PBWorks, and google reader more carefully, but I honestly can't say I have done more than that.  It is definitely not out of lack of willingness or desire to go out into the deep dark unknown cyber world, rather it stems from my need to feel somewhat secure in at least 1 aspect of the internet.  I have been searching tirelessly through the settings and features of the blogger to try and make mine perfect, and that's really all that I have done.  There are been perusals through forums of people, like me, trying to navigate the world of the blog.  Looking back on the last couple days all I can honestly say I felt was frustration and a touch of anxiety over having to figure out the blog.  I already feel overwhelmed at the prospect of having to weave my way through formatting, word choices, ideas, and course requirements when it comes to using Word, now add in the internet component and I feel like I am quickly sinking.
     I wish I could write about some cool website that I found or something that I found intriguing and useful on the internet, but I can't.  All I found was frustration so thick it could be cut with a knife, and comfort in the only blog I have ever visited - postsecret.  I think what I find so consoling about this site is not only that people are letting go of their secrets, but that they are doing so in print form and it is then being converted to cyber lingo.  Maybe this is what I want, what I hold most dear, the relevance of written pieces, and by written I mean handwritten.  Perhaps what makes me so anxious about this blog is the feeling that I am letting go of my tiny grasp on the tradition of handwriting something, making that much more susceptible to disappearing forever.