Final project description and reflection

Digital literacies are important. More than important, they are essential. Essential for our students to recognize the skills they are developing through the communication mediums they are choosing, essential for teachers to genuinely understand how to incorporate these tools to maximize our students' capacity to develop meaningful skills and powerful critical thinking tools. At LearningWorks we have really tried to develop ways to use technology to reach our students and our teachers.

For this past semester, we created a interdisciplinary unit for our Social Studies and English academic enrichment course. Focusing on Social Movements chosen by three different teams of teachers, the drive behind this unit was to have students work on writing skills, research skills, analytical thinking, and point-of-view/perspective. My teaching teams chose the 1992 LA Riots, the Stonewall Riots, and Hate Crimes.

The first section of the unit involved students examining media representations of the different Social Movements (SM) at exploration stations. There was music, video, news, journals, etc. for the students to look through together to try to determine what the SM was about - where it occurred, who was affected, why it happened/is happening, etc. Students had to think critically about who was communicating the the message and the validity of the information they were receiving so they could construct an objective narrative. Students then came back together to combine their narratives and understand what the SM is/was about. Originally they did this on the board as a class - I have modified the lesson so they will be doing this "group definition" via Google docs, with each small group filling in information to get a total picture of what the group knows about the SM.

The next section takes the knowledge students have gained about the basics of the SM an has them work on developing a sense of how different people would have experienced the SM differently - working on writing from different POV. They are given a photo from the SM and asked to examine what is going on in the photo, listing factual information and things they can directly observe. After, they describe the photo, in writing, from the POV of each person in the photo using "I" statements and incorporating the knowledge they have gained about the movement to support their writing.

Next, the students each choose a photo they find from the SM they would like to use to research more about the experience of a different person/group of people in order to create a VoiceThread with the photo. Once the photo is chose, the group conducts research from the "Guided Research" links on the wiki. This allows students to evaluate a number of different sites without having to try to find reliable sources - the teacher has chosen these to drive the questions on the research worksheet. This part of the lesson helps students learn how to critique information on the web by figuring out who is responsible for the content and what bias may be involved in the information they are sharing. As a result, the students have an opportunity to really understand how different POVs can communicate a SM in many different ways, highlighting the voice of some while eliminating the voices of others.

The final stage of this project involves creating a VoiceThread project using the photo the students chose earlier (there is an alternative choice of creating your own photo, if students wish). After working in small groups to analyze the experience of each person in the photo, the students participate in an activity called "Museum Hot Seat" in which they become a human model of the picture - in front of the class. One person, performing as a "museum curator" leads a "museum visitor" into the model picture and the "visitor" is able to tap alive people in the photo to ask them what their experience is in the scene, etc. This activity really gives students a chance to step into the experience of the person in the photo and develop their understanding of POV.

Following this, students work in small groups to write a dialogue that gives voice to the POV/perspective of each person in the photo. This leads to the creation of the final VoiceThread project, where they upload their photos and add their voices. The students and teachers really enjoyed this lesson and it was impressive to see the different skills students displayed in the final VoiceThreads. Right below this blog post are some of the VoiceThreads students created.

If we were to extend the unit further, I would have students continue with a video making project in which they made Public Service Announcements in relation to their SM. Students would continue to work on writing skills, speaking skills, dialogue writing, historical perspective, persuasion, etc. They would use storyboarding to create their movies, ultimately learning about setting, message, and audience.

Overall, the project went really well. The first group of students who created VoiceThreads made it very clear that EXPLICIT instructions were needed in order to complete decent VoiceThreads. Additionally, the first round of students to complete VTs did not do the Museum Hot Seat activity. As a result, the results of the first round mostly included VT projects with voice recordings that started with "I am the guy in the white shirt" or similar statements. The second round of VTs went much better after we developed a detailed checklist for students to work with as they completed their projects and added in the Museum activity so students could practice POV and receive student and teacher feedback. We will certainly be using VT for projects in the future!!

Film Adaptations - bringing text to life

Back in the day (er, when I was in high school) a "chill day" was when the teacher would pop in the video of the book you were reading and you would get to just sit back and relax. Substitute teachers were almost always relegated to the world of "movie monitor" when they would come in to sub, as there were no constructive activities planned around the "time killing" movie. But those days are no more!

I am so excited about the incorporation of film as text in the classrooms - from viewing to creating, this is truly a wonderful way to allow all students to access the text while still working on literacy and comprehension skills. There are many different opportunities to create skill-based assessments with rigorous objectives using film adaptations, iMovie, ComicLife and a variety of other methods.

An idea I had for using both iMovie and film adaptations would be to assign small groups to particular scenes in a book - ones that are prolific scenes in the film adaptation. Small groups would be tasked with creating a storyboard and script for the scene they have been assigned showing how they would turn the words into a movie. If there are cameras available, students would be asked to then videotape the scene as they have written it and edit the movie in iMovie. Groups would be assigned sequential plot points in order to create the entire story - the teacher would edit the different groups' videos together to create one film adaptation created by the class. Students would view the film and critique the different representations of character, point of view, honesty of the plot, creative interpretation, etc. Once this has been completed, students will watch the Hollywood film adaptation of the book and compare their scripts to the Hollywood version.

One other really exciting idea I would love to use in my classroom would be to create Digital Stories using VoiceThread or iMovie. When Liz Boeser was in earlier this semester, I was engaged with all of the different skills students would work on in creating perfect still photos. For this exercise, I would have students create a summer of the book (or maybe just a chapter) we have read and make a seven slide summary of the book (of course the number of slides could be any number - the less slides, the greater the challenge!). Students would need to identify the key plot points of the story, the main characters in each plot point, and the message each character is sending at that point in the book. For each key plot point (8 total), students will create a storyboard for the photo they will be taking. The photo should include people to represent each character involved and props to help communicate the message. Students will then create dialogue for each of the characters in order to communicate the main points being conveyed by the photo. When all of the storyboards have been completed the students will create their photos, upload them to VoiceThread, and then add the dialogue to the photos (in dramatic fashion). Voila! Seven Slide Summaries! Students would share their VTs with one another and critique the chosen key points, representation of characters, chosen photo setting/set up/design, etc.

Musical Genius - no lie.

If there is one good thing that has happened in my lifetime, it is Ani Difranco. She is - - well, so much. Musical genius - lyrics that are captivating and intelligent, that reach right into your soul and slap it around a bit; guitar skill - a master of rhythm, picking, and brilliant progressions; a feminist icon - a women with so much to say that is just so darn right about so many darn things. Ani received her fame only through sheer determination and commitment - and now her music and work has changed the lives of millions of people.

Above is the song "Your Next Bold Move" first was recorded on her 2001 record "Reckoning." The song embodies most of what I love about Ani - the compelling, relevant lyrics to the appeal to individual reflection and action. She moves from the political to the personal poignantly and her simple guitar walks you through the honesty of her lyrics.

Below is "Two Little Girls" which is a song that shows a different aspect of Ani's musical talent. This is about as narrative as Ani gets, although she does often write about personal emotions and experiences. She demonstrates her staccato guitar playing method and showcases her brilliance when arranging an entire band to play her songs.

I have seen Ani in concert somewhere in the vicinity of 10 times, in a variety of venues, at a many different points in her career. One thing that has always stayed the same - at some point in the concert I am brought to tears as a result of her musical genius.

Documentaries

One of my all-time favorite documentaries is "Born into Brothels". This movie won several Academy Awards and is most renowned for its method of giving children the cameras to shoot their own lives. At the core of this movie are some children who live in the red light district of Calcutta, where their mothers are prostitutes. In the filmmaker's own words, the movie was created for people who want to be inspired "to feel, to notice, to challenge, to take action." The movie certainly accomplishes all of these things through the multiple techniques of photography, video, music, interviews, and voiceovers. At the core of the movie is an investigation of some very difficult and complex issues, none of which can be answerable in a film but are given a new light when looked at through the eyes of the children battling these issues. The movie, through the use of the children's perspectives and multiple media, certainly accomplishes the mission of portraying the honesty of the lives of these children and the systemic oppression they are facing. Children telling of their own reality while not fully understanding the weight of this reality is what really makes this movie real and compelling.

Activity for using Documentary:
I am currently taking another course in the CI department focused on English Language Learners with Limited Formal Education. The activity of creating a documentary about their communities, their immigration to the US, or their experiences learning would be so powerful to use with these students in a content area classroom. This activity would allow for ELL students to develop social and academic skills while expanding on speaking, listening, reading, and writing skills in relation to language development. In a documentary creation lesson, students will need to be very intentional about preplanning who they are going to talk to, what are the core components of the story they want to tell, and, most importantly, WHAT THE STORY IS that they want to tell. The structure and scaffolding of this assignment will allow students to use higher order thinking skills as they critique and analyze the important pieces of the story, searching for the right footage in order to communicate a clear message.

Oh, the News.

Minute-by-minute analysis
(N) - News; (W) - Weather; (S) - Sports; (E) - Entertainment
2 minutes - Foreclosure Scare (N)
3.5 minutes - Sequence of 5 different stories (N)
3 minutes - Commercials
2.2 minutes - Mild Weather exclusive from dog park (W/E)
3 minutes - Commercials
4 minutes - Weather Forecast (W)
4.5 minutes - Sports (S)
3.25 minutes - Commercials
1 minute - Santas for Seniors (E)
30 seconds - Forecast reminder (W)
30 seconds - Wrap up

Out of the 29ish minutes of the broadcast, 5.5 minutes were committed to the news of the day, 7 minutes were dedicated to the weather, 4.5 minutes were all about sports, and 1 minute was dedicated to entertainment (make that 3.2 if you count the awkward dog park weather report as entertainment). A whopping 9 minutes was taken up by commercials. Wow.

Overall, I would say that Kare 11 has the best local news although I am not sure I exactly know why I think that. While I watched this news, I was also watching the Channel 5 news trying to compare the two offerings (I cannot handle Fox9 news). Kare11 seemed to be less flashy and just delivering the news for what it was worth. The two channels had almost identical programming, just delivering the news stories in a different order. Kare11 did have the awkward 4 minute Entertainment/Weather report about how mild the weather had been lately, with reporter Jana Shordahl, but was pretty straightforward. It was nice to learn, however, that I have no need to schedule an entire 30 minutes to watch the news at 6pm on any given night as the news was over in the first 6 minutes. There wasn't much fancy editing happening on the 6 o'clock news and I didn't feel as though there was much sneaky rhetoric taking place to influence the viewers - or maybe it is just because I had already read all of the news stories earlier that day.

That being said, I receive about 97% of my news from online sources. From Kare11 to CNN to Feminist News, I am slightly addicted to checking news sources every 2 hours or so. I am fascinated by reading the same news story from a variety of sources, seeing which sites highlight which stories, and finding out which local news sites jump on which local news stories first. Additionally, it is interesting to contrast what different news sources find as the important voices and angles within the same story. At the core of my information addiction is Minnesota Public Radio. If I listen to the radio, it is on MPR. If I stream online news, it is MPR. It could be that MPR is the one source I truly trust to find news that is important to the varied demographics of Minneapolis. It also could be that the massive corporations that own every other news source (or so it seems) are unreliable for reporting valid, unbiased news.

Clear Channel has been at the core of much criticism in the radio/music world. With the status as the largest owner of "full power AM, FM and shortwave radio stations and 12 radio channels on XM satellite radio" and also "the largest pure-play radio station owner and operator", Clear Channel possesses a lot of power over what millions of people are listening to. The power in this is absolutely staggering. From choosing what songs can and can't be played, to forming cultural identities via music playlists, news choices, and radio personalities, Clear Channel can directly inform a large amount of a person's thoughts, beliefs, and even identity.

Activity for critical analysis of news:
Students will identify three different media outlets for the area in which they live. These media sources must be based in the local area - three local tv stations, radio stations, etc. Students will identify who they believe the "core audience" of that media source to be and then back up this identification with specific examples of news choices, music choices, personality choices, language choices, etc. Ultimately, students will analyze how different outlets disseminate information based on the audience they are intending to reach. Additionally, students will be asked to critique the pros and cons of media outlets having target audiences. It would be incredibly interesting to have students interview members of the target audience to find out the reasons members of that audience do or do not choose to identify with a certain media source.

Advertising Analysis

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cf4QmIIOQEA (unable to embed)

"Dex Knows" commercials are based on the very simple fact that people want to know where to go for the things they want. Starting as a simple phonebook, Dex has now become as accessible as Twitter and Facebook, developing apps for the most prominent data phones. The intended audience in this commercial seems to be the stereotypically busy middle-class white family. This commercial makes Dex seem relevant to everyone in the family, kids and adults. The copies of the Dex character give information to different members of the family that seem more relevant based on stereotypical gender roles - letting the mom know there is a "laser light show" and telling the dad the bowling center is only "two miles away." By using the copies, Dex was able to make the point that you can find the same information in the Dex directory, whether it be in the phone book, online, or now via an "app" on your phone. Analyzing other Dex commercials reveal a very white, middle-class target audience. Dex, himself, is a man who represents the stereotypical white, middle-age, business man - wearing khaki dress pants, a button up shirt, and a tie. Overall, Dex seems to be targeting a very limited audience that has a high-level of access to the internet and has become hooked on the immediate gratification of finding exactly the information they need, when they need it.

My Created Spoof Ad:
After all of this analysis, I started to think how funny it would be if at the bottom of every commercial on TV there was a running banner that explained the bias, influenced, and implied assumptions in the ad. As a result, I thought of the What I Really Meant (WIRM) detector that a person could just point at the television or a person and the screen would reveal the "what I really meant" factor behind any message. Below is my ad:

Crime Shows Genre

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Activity for the classroom:
Television genres all seem to have pretty clear-cut expectations and target audiences. As I thought through the different genres we could choose from, it occurred to me how fun it would be to have students work in small groups to do a cross-genre analysis of two very different genres. In the process of analyzing these genres, students would learn about setting, characters, message, and audience. Students would use their analysis to create a combination genre and write a New Show Proposal for a brand new television show. There have been spoofs of television shows done like this, particularly in relation to reality show, that students could use as models. The activity would cause students to work on critical and creative thinking skills while working on essential ELA skills.

Media Ethnography

For the past 5 or 6 years, I have found myself increasingly interested in understanding how technology and instant communication have created a sense of dependency and expectations that are often unhealthy. Whether it be checking your phone every 5 minutes to see who has (or hasn't) texted you or linking every social network to your BlackBerry or iPhone in order to constantly know when your friends are doing...well, anything, I am far from thinking this interconnectedness has added a healthy dimension to our lives. And then, along came Twitter. A social networking and microblogging application created in 2006, Twitter essentially allows an individual or company to broadcast any detail of their lives at any point to a mass audience, or their "followers." While I have not used Twitter extensively, I have had many opportunities to observe friends and my employer (The Blake School) use it for a variety of reasons. Watching my friend A use it, he alternates between two uses - one is when he has a "profound" thought or idea that he wants to put out there for his friends to respond to, the other is for the basic reason of just announcing what he is doing, even down to brushing his teeth. Blake uses it primarily for communications with parents and alumni, announcing newsworthy events, reminding people of upcoming plays, etc., and to alert the community of emergencies and school closures. Most of the people I have witnessed using Twitter as well as those I "follow" use Twitter as a train of thought broadcast forum. Whether it is to announce the purchase of a new car or to declare a hatred for the kid next door, Twitter is used to announce just about anything. And I do feel like that is what it is - - announcing. My questions remain in the usage of such services - when did we become so self-important that we think everyone wants to know everything we are thinking and doing AND why are we so damn interested in everything people are thinking and doing??

I asked around and searched a bit for to try to figure out why some people use Twitter so religiously. Here are some of the answers I received:
1. Twitter allows people to feel like they are one step ahead of everyone else in receiving information. While this reasoning has some validity, it reeks of unhealthy competition - the whole "I know something you don't know" mentality. The prospect of having real-time news updates is appealing to me as I am a news junky, but I feel as though Twitter could allow for the fast spreading of false or inaccurate information. Many news outlets have Twitter or Twitter-like services that do provide these instant updates, which is nice (although I don't recall the world ever coming close to ending when we had to wait to get home to read the paper or read the news). I will never understand, however, why I would need to know what Ashton Kutcher is up to on a daily basis.
2. Twitter can allow instant feedback on new products and/or ideas. Okay, this has some valid points, as well. I do like the idea of using Twitter to keep the pulse on a consumer market without having to always commence a study group or formal investigation of product use and like/dislike. In situations like this, it allows consumers to have a more immediate effect on the way news and information is being communicated.
3. Twitter create opportunities for people to try on new identities and ideas. Instead of the once a day "water cooler" conversation with coworkers, Twitter allows individuals to communicate with a variety of different audiences throughout the day, about a variety of different topics. I do like this aspect of Twitter and the possibilities it has for creating some great circles for critical thinking. However, it does have major downfalls in that this forum is commonly used to gossip. And I hate gossip.

There doesn't seem to be just one type of person that uses Twitter, as is similar to Facebook and Myspace, but it is most appealing to younger audiences who have created this sort of addiction to one another and social networking. Older people, in general, still have the patience to wait and receive information when it is convenient for them - not as it becomes available. But chances are that sometime in the next year I will be eating my own words as I use Twitter to send tweets to students and teachers, alike.

Desperate Housewives is a television show that is ripe with situations for various lens analyses. For this this exercise, I have chosen to analyze the clip from Feminist and Marxist lenses.

Feminist:
It would be naive to think that any show titled "Desperate Housewives" wouldn't have many instances where the Feminist radar was blaring. Here, the scene opens with two women talking about responsibilities to their children, with Lynette having found childcare so she could have alone time and Susan feeling as though she needed to prepare dinner for her daughter. Clearly this places the women in the role of "caretakers" for their families. What is interesting about the decision of both of the women in the this scene is they both choose to buck their traditional roles, even if just for one afternoon of cocktails. Gaby joins their afternoon happy hour, however, and we soon see the women return to traditional roles, complaining and worrying about the men in their lives. The women talk about their bodies, passion, and their fears of growing old - particularly emphasizing the fear of growing old alone. Lynette is the most powerful of the three women, talking of how she has "allowed" her husband to open a pizza shop, but that it has had a negative effect on their relationship. Overall, the scene plays into many feminine stereotypes, but does it in the context of the women choosing to take to themselves outside of their traditional roles and just spending time together. (Note: the women are not on the porch drinking beers, but drinking a traditional "girly" drink: margaritas)

Marxist:
An afternoon and evening sitting on the porch of a well kept house drinking margaritas. This is a situation that screams middle/middle-upper class privilege. The visuals in the scene are clearly from an uppity, suburban neighborhood in anywhere America - nice cars, well-maintained yards, meticulously clean front porch, and the ultimate symbol of status: the white picket fence. There is something to be said about a mother who feels as though she needs to prepare dinner for her sixteen year-old daughter, as well. Clearly, the expectation that mom is home every evening to make dinner is created in a world where mom is either working no job or working a regular day shift job. In low-class families, many parents are working multiple jobs or have only been able to find second or third shift jobs. Other parts of this scene that speak to the wealth in the neighborhood include the old couple walking while it is dark out and the older woman waiting at night, alone, on her curb for a taxi. Gaby makes a direct reference to the status driven neighborhood when she calls out to the walking couple, "Yeah, we're drinking on the porch. You got a problem with that?" Hanging out on the porch with neighbors, particularly while drinking, is commonly a practice associated with low-income communities, not in a neighborhood such as where they live. As the day becomes night, we can see that the street is well lit and seems safe and when a random taxi driver ends up in front of the house, they have no problem encouraging Susan to jump into the cab. Desperate Housewives is a show built on the assumptions of middle/middle-upper class status and constantly uses this as part of the storyline in episodes.

Classroom Activity:
In order for students to really understand using different lenses, it is important to allow them to juxtapose the different approaches/perspectives with one another. One activity I came up with would be to have students each choose their favorite television show, movie, or video game. I would ask them to analyze their choice from their own perspective - what do they love about this show, movie, game; what are the main appealing aspects of this; who is the target audience, etc. After they have performed that analysis, I would ask the students to look at their analysis from a different lense (ex. if they chose Marxist, I would have them critique the parts of their choice from the perspective of each rung of the economic ladder). Their final task would be to create a 45-60 second "teaser" for their tv show, movie, or game that would make the show more appealing to people outside of the target market. Students would identify the setting, character, and language changes they made after applying a new lens.

VoiceThread

Here is my VoiceThread project:
http://voicethread.com/share/668945/

1. I can't say that I have many challenges with using iMovie, as I have to use it pretty constantly for my job at LearningWorks. Most of our promotional video work is done using iMovie. It was, however, a pretty rough transition for me from iMovie HD to iMovie '08, which I now have. The layout of iMovie HD panels seemed so much more straightforward and easy to use. One piece of iMovie '08 that I like, however, is the simplicity with which you can select parts of clips from video and drag them into your project, instead of always having to split clips. This made precise editing quicker for me.

2. In the short time we had to make the video, I suppose my intent was to show my love and care for my dog Guillermo. I recently had to give him away to another family and miss him quite a bit. In making this video, I had my significant other in mind who also had a very special and important part in her life for Guillermo. So the beginning banner is an "inside" message to her about how we used to communicate with Guilly. In the final 3 pictures, there is a series of her with the dog, me with the dog, and then a Photoshopped photo with both of us with the dog created from the two prior photos that I think is quite humorous.

3. The use of iMovie to create narratives, news reports, documentaries, place-based stories, creative writing, public service announcements, research reports, etc., are all ways I have encouraged my teachers to use iMovie. When the resources are available, I think this is one of the most powerful ways to help students learn as it is a process of creation that is an authentic learning experience involving many areas of critical thinking. I could certainly argue that the use of video would be applicable for any subject - - think of creating word problems via video for Math classes! I really enjoy using iMovie for a variety of purposes.

My VideoAnt annotation:
Click here

This particular blog was interesting to me because of its conversational nature, which, coincidentally, is also the reason she created her vlog in the first place - to address how good other people were at making conversational blogs! Many of the blogs I looked at were of the nature of talking AT you, not necessarily WITH you. The site was designed for lesbians to vlog about their lives, politics, ideas, music, etc., and instead of taking it down a "reporting" route, the users have created a conversation amongst themselves while also giving the casual viewer enough information to not feel like a complete outsider. This approach does make it difficult to fully understand who the intended audience is, except for the obviousness of the name of the page. While there are no video editing techniques used, I have come to really enjoy the simplicity of these vlogs - they become more personal, more accessible.

However, that being said, the videos that were included with the book for class were also very powerful. The first video, of the young mixed woman, employed some very powerful camera shots. I was particularly fascinated by the many different angles she used: opening the envelope, viewing her from behind on the bed, etc. As we have talked about in class, the variation of angles and points of view writes much of the story without needing to articulate what is being communicated. So while the simplicity of the "zero edit" is appealing to me, the power of the video diaries was certainly evident through the thought and planning that went into the overall message - - not just the one that was spoken.

My Introduction...er, sort of.