EME6414 Blog

 This week, the majority of my energy went towards my produsage assignment. For my project, I chose to focus on something that I can use at the middle school where I work: a lesson on literary analysis. This is a concept that can be difficult to teach, especially when you have students who hate reading. The traditional "assign a story and answer questions about it" is not engaging to this generation of students. Asking them to read independently can be like pulling teeth, depending on the class.  My project was created with the goal of combining traditional reading, writing, and analysis skills with the engagement of social media. Analysis can happen in so many forms, so I thought sites like TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook would serve as great mediums for showcasing their analysis. It gives them a choice in how they would like to present their analysis: they could create a TikTok from the perspective of a character, create a moodboard on Pinterest that reflects the theme of t...

  Link to Article This week I found an interesting article on the effects social media can have on student academics. The study uses a mixed methodology of interviews, literature reviews, and data analysis of found patterns.  Overall, this article found that social media has an overall negative effect on student's grades, focus, attention span, and classroom behavior.  HOWEVER.  I find that the educators and students identified and analyzed in this article are rooted in extremely traditional educational values and rules. I think it is rather obvious that social media would not be beneficial to the traditional classroom. These methods are generally rooted in lecture, work, and assessment, with little room for choice outside of what the teacher leads. Social media does not have to "undermine learning" in high school classrooms.  The world has changed so much in the last 10 years alone. I graduated from high school in 2013, and we were just getting to the point whe...

 Note: This blog post is representative of an example of the work students are tasked with in my produsage assignment. Utilizing the blogs throughout this semester is what gave me this idea. With my background in ELA, I knew I wanted to do something related to Literary Analysis. The assignment made it clear that the lesson cannot just be writing a paper within a blog. Though that is a part of this lesson, it is coupled with chunking concepts through the blogs, and social media posts are an integral part to building the literary analysis- it is not just writing a paper within a blog. The blog also serves as a great mechanism for peer review before the final assessment: a video-based literary analysis.  Example for Produsage:  Symbolism in The Masque of the Red Death Symbolism plays a central role in Edgar Allen Poe's The Masque of the Red Death. It is crucial to setting the story's dark and macabre tone, and it establishes the theme of the inevitability of death. The story...

 This week, I focused pretty heavily on Activism & Citizenship. One thing is abundantly clear to me: teaching digital literacy skills and incorporating Web2.0 tools into lessons is a sure-fire way to get learners engaged and possibly more involved in digital activism.  I found the #Eduresistance article to be particularly intriguing. The article made some great points about social media's ability to amplify marginalized voices, disseminate information at a rapid pace, and provide the energy to get people active within their communities. I have experienced this in my own life by following communities of action in Tallahassee, such as Tallahassee Action Community and Food Not Bombs. Seeing the events these organizations put on via social media gives me the opportunity to participate in-person as well as online by sharing links for community aid and protests happening around the city.  I also appreciated the limits that the article pointed out. There is a certain amount ...

  Youth, Digital Literacy, and Social Activism The link above is to a blog post from The Ocean Project website. I stumbled on this organization while looking for examples of youth-based digital activism and found this to be a great example.  The post touches on the link between digital literacy and social activism, touching on how teens (when teens were millenials) were different in how they learn and research due to the fact that they are digital natives. This is even more true for the teens of today, as Gen Z and Alpha are even more saturated in a digital lifestyle.  The Ocean Project is a great example of using digital literacy to enhance social activism. The following is their mission and purpose statements, taken directly from their website: "Mission, Vision, & Values Mission : We support and empower youth leaders worldwide to catalyze collective action for a healthy ocean and a stable climate. Vision : We envision young people worldwide leading the way and colla...

 I found this article to be the most intriguing of this week's reading. Working with middle schoolers, we are always looking for ways to engage them in the political process, especially in the 7th grade when they take Civics. Unfortunately, Civics is a really dense course and they have to tackle an insane amount of content to prepare for the end-of-course exam they take at the conclusion of the year. This is a very high stakes test and factors into their graduation requirements as well as the school's overall grade.  Due to the stress of prepping for this test, I have noticed many civics teachers going through the motions: delivering content via lecture, notes, and PowerPoint presentations to ensure the students get the info they need. Unfortunately, this makes for less than engaging lessons for the students. I think incorporating lessons based on media literacy could serve as an opportunity to make Civics more engaging overall. I think it would also provide opportunities for ...

 This week's focus on design spaces for communities and performance support was really interesting. Learning communities occur in basically every form of social media there is. I am part of multiple learning communities across Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and Reddit. Some of them focus on rather silly content, such as the Twilight universe and trashy reality TV, while others focus on real-life skills like cooking, baking, and exercising. These communities can offer a lot of support to their members, but it is vital that they are made to be safe spaces where people feel comfortable enough to contribute and interact.  Social media can also be used to support communities in a variety of ways. The article from this week's reading that focused on the library utilizing social media to become a more active member of the community is a great example of how social media can be used to support the community. Libraries are pillars of support for communities generally, and they were ab...

This week, I had the opportunity to use Miro for the first time. It is a tool that reminded me a lot of Padlet, but I think I might like Miro even more. I like how easy it is to personalize your contributions in Miro. There are so many options in how you can engage with the board, not just sticky notes and written contributions. Allowing GIFs, emojis, videos, and links are great ways to ensure engagement: learners love choice in their interactions. I also enjoyed how aesthetically pleasing the interface is overall. The boards are nice to look at and that encourages more interaction.  Obviously, I can see how this would be a great collaborative tool in the corporate world, but I think it could be great in the world of secondary education as well.  Examples: Brainstorming and Sessions: this tool provides a great collaborative online space to brainstorm on projects and academic work. I could see it working extremely well for history fair, science fair, and presentations across su...

 Being a middle school librarian myself, this article immediately caught my eye. I have always thought of the library as the "heart" of the school. It is a place where students and staff alike come together to collaborate and learn. Something you do not often see, however, is the use of social media in secondary-level academic libraries. There has been a huge shift in reading habits amongst the youth recently, being that they do not read and engage with storytelling like they used to. I think this shift started when I was in school, as YouTube and social media came into the limelight. We could suddenly stream anything we wanted from wherever we wanted. Books simply lost their flair for the younger generation, and with shortened attention spans, I find it to be a constant battle to get kiddos engaged with reading, especially reading for pleasure. I am hoping that the following takeaways from this article can help boost our overall reading engagement in the coming school year. ...

 This week really established the differences of secondary and higher education in terms of classroom social media use. I think social media is an excellent tool to use in higher education as these learners are more equipped to use it and can motivate themselves to learn from it rather than getting distracted. Middle and high schoolers, on the other hand, run a much higher risk of distractibility when using social media and there is a lot more room for legal trouble when using social media in a secondary classroom.  I have worked at a couple of middle schools and a high school in the last decade. Every single school had "tea" pages where the students went to spread rumors and say nasty things about other students and staff. Every school also usually has multiple fight pages as well where students go to post their "world star" style fight videos, often the ones that have taken place on campus.  This is a mess every. single. time. Especially when parents stumble on th...

I found this article from the readings to be very interesting. I love to examine all the ways professional learning communities can form, especially via social media platforms. Having the ability to learn from and engage with educators across the world, rather than just the bubble of your in-person community, is a huge game changer. I have examined the major takeaways of this study below. 1. Prior Engagement Leverage: using platforms like Twitter and Facebook served as a catalyst for teacher engagement. These are platforms that many already used and had an interest in, and it is easier to engage with a platform you already know how to use or use on a daily basis. This kept interest levels high.  2. Facilitator Role: facilitators were vital to ensuring discussion was based in pedagogy and that discussion was effective and meaningful. Good facilitators ensured that social media did not become a burden to the process of the CoP.  3. Development of CoP: Social media served as a ...

 I. Love. Padlet.  I've used Padlet before as both a learner and instructor, mostly as a way of collaborating and communicating in the midst of a lesson. It is a great way to stop and allow everyone to share their ideas and thoughts in a course without the discussion going off the rails. Sometimes, it is so easy for class discussions, especially those held amongst the middle school population. I have found that Padlet is a great way to ensure the conversation stays focused. I wanted to explore some of the ways Padlet can be used in the classroom and I found this great blog with a ton of ideas! 30+ Creative Ways to Use Padlet   Below, I have listed the top 5 I found in this list that I would like to implement in the coming school year.  1. Live Question Bank:   This could be a great way to implement a web-based "parking lot." Many teachers have large anchor charts in their classrooms where students can leave questions they did not get to ask during class, usually...

 I enjoyed this week for a number of reasons. Last weekend I went through a rather arduous ordeal, so this week it was very fun to simply be in my house and dive into my novel for the Goodreads challenge and learn about network knowledge activities.  I particularly enjoyed Salomon's article It's Not Just the Tool but the Educational Rationale That Counts. This article really resonated with me because I have seen first-hand what happens when tools are chosen because they are sparkly and new, but educators don't know how or simply cannot effectively integrate them into their classrooms. This can happen for a number of reasons. Instructors all have their own style of teaching, and it is important to allow them the autonomy and support to find what works best for them and their students. Give them the space and ability to choose what will work best for them based on their desires as well as their knowledge of their students, but also give them the resources they need to effecti...

 For the Goodreads challenge, I decided to read the novel Normal People  by Salley Rooney. I had seen the show and remembered social media being a relatively prevalent catalyst in it, and after some research found it was the same in the novel. The novel specifically utilizes Skype (though not really social media, still a form of technological communication) and Facebook. The novel takes place in Ireland from about 2011-2015, so I was surprised that only Facebook was used, but concluded it was a specific choice made by the author. I believe that only using Facebook ensures that the intimacy between the characters is felt deeply by the reader- it is not lost to the noise of Instagram and Twitter.  There are a few instances throughout the course of the novel where Facebook is utilized. One of the most powerful instances is during the death of Marianne's (one of the two protagonists) friend Rob. Marianne finds it absolutely disturbing how people use his personal Facebook page...

 I have always adored a game of Exquisite Corpse. I am a huge fan of surrealism and think the collaborative aspect of the game is enjoyable while presenting a challenge. When I made my account on FoldingStory, I was delighted! This is something that I think will be very fun for me, in my personal life. I am hoping to use it as a way to get back into creative writing, just for fun and stress release. In terms of secondary education, I think FoldingStory is a tool that can be used to amp up engagement with writing, something that is almost as hard to get secondary students into as reading, and it could establish rigor in a collaborative online environment.  Unfortunately, with Florida's standards and expectations, there is not a lot of room for creative writing in the standard ELA classroom. Many educators have to find quick and easy ways to incorporate it into their lessons, if at all. More often than not, their hands are bound by the looming state-mandated writing test (FAST) ...

 This week brought with it a lot of fun and useful tools and concepts. I have used Flickr (I participated in the Flickr challenge and am considering making some more photo essays out of my trip to Bonaroo this week) and I pretty regularly use Goodreads- when I'm not in a reading slump.  I was also very interested in the content curation resources. I usually help the students at my school with both history and science fair. We generally use Office365 to keep a running document of shared resources, but a site like Pocket would be incredibly helpful to the kiddos as they would be able to keep all of their resources in one place. Middle schoolers are notoriously bad at keeping track of literally anything, so having an easy to access and simple user interface will make all of our lives easier.  This week also made me think a lot about Intellectual Property Law. The educator in me wants information to be accessible to the general masses- information is power and power belongs t...

 Our Goodreads challenge this week got me thinking: Who doesn't like to read? The answer is SO MANY MIDDLE AND HIGH SCHOOLERS.  I will be entering my 9th year working in secondary education at the beginning of the 25-26 school year, something truly crazy to think about. My background has always been focused on ELA education and every year I am tasked with that battle of reading engagement. I have heard IT ALL.  "I haven't read a book since I was like 5 Miss." "I just don't like reading." "There are no interesting books out there." Once, upon assigning the short story The Lottery  by Shirley Jackson, I received this email from a student: "Please miss, don't be like all of the other teachers that assign us boring and pointless stories that don't mean anything blah blah blah who wants to read about the lottery?" I was genuinely baffled. How was this kid not intrigued by a story where the main character is stoned to death for the ...

  Since this week's readings focused on the concepts of intellectual property, privacy, and ethics, I decided to dive into a YouTube search focused on these topics. In this search, I stumbled upon this lecture from David Koepsell. I was intrigued by the points Koepsell makes on the concepts of ownership versus possession. When I first began the lecture, my immediate response was "how on earth can we function with intellectual property law? What is to stop anyone from taking anyone else's intellectual work as their own?" but this does not seem to be the point that Koepsell is trying to make. My understanding is more that he believes intellectual property should be free and available to the masses- we should not be met with paywalls to access information. He has a few key points he makes throughout his lecture: Commons by Necessity v. by Choice: commons by choice are things we intentionally keep public, such as national parks. Necessity refers to things kept public beca...

  Week 4 Reflection: This week touched on the subjects of tags and folksonomies, digital badges and gamification, and crowdsourcing. Although I was relatively familiar with these concepts, it was fun to dig into how they can be utilized in terms of the learning environment.  Folksonomies and tagging had the majority of my interest this week. I think it is a great method that can assist with building online learning communities. Although I do not utilize tags in my personal social media I can absolutely see how they can be effective in ensuring content reaches an intended audience. Obviously, there is a reason "Instafluencers" (the internet is a weird and wild place) end their captions with a bajillion different hashtags: they're working to make sure they reach as wide an audience as they possibly can. For me, the real magic of tagging and folksonomies comes from the information organizational method that comes with it. I love the idea that every bit of the web can be cate...

 For my readings, I chose to read the article Stolen Snow Shovels and Good Ideas: The Search for and Generation of Local Knowledge in the Social Media Community. I found this article intriguing as it got me thinking about the online communities built within my hometown, Tallahassee, and how much I participated in them without realizing what I was doing. I have compiled a list of the ones I found helpful, as well as ones I enjoyed after stumbling upon them going over my Facebook, below: Are we Dating the Same Guy? TLH:  I have participated in this group as a lurker for about a year now. I have not seen any men I know on there personally, but it is a relatively supportive group of women who try to look out for one another amidst the dating scene of Tallahassee, Florida. It is not a group without its flaws, but I have seen a lot of uplifting comments and have even seen some of my friends turn to the group when they needed information on bad relationships they had experienced. Mos...