I had a chance to present a one-hour featured session at the 2008 CLMS EdTech conference in Monterey, California. Obviously, there’s nothing like actually being in attendance, but I’ll try to summarize my session in writing and PDF slides.
This presentation, entitled 21st Century Publishing on the Web, focused on the idea that it’s imperative that we publish student work to the Web to help expand the walls of the classroom and provide an authentic audience for our learners. The emphasis needs to be on the different 21st tools and means for publishing because our world has changed. Although it won’t hurt students to “publish” their final work in plastic with a comb binder, that’s not the world they (or we) are interacting in. This is a world with blogs, wikis, podcasts, voicethreads, Twitter, and more. We would never think to archive work only on microfiche at this point, and we should move our student publishing on as well. The three main areas I talked about where Why, What, and How.
Why should we publish with 21st century tools? The biggest reasons are to celebrate success, challenge students to achieve at a higher level, expand the educational experience beyond the classroom, and provide an audience for student projects. Our kids achieve at a much higher level when they think more people are listening, and if you publish, your class is guaranteed that the audience is larger than the school site… and the more work that gets published, the more students will go back online and see relive, re-experience, re-learn, and retain the information. Just like the Disney model of marketing, the learning won’t stop when students leave the boundaries of the classroom or school.
What should we publish in the 21st century? This is a tougher one. There are barriers to what we want to publish because there is an abundance of teachers who are still unwilling or afraid of tech projects… or (even more likely) they are overwhelmed with the multitude of standards that need to be taught, and are viewing tech as an extra… instead of what it really is: a tool and environment for accelerating knowledge, empowering student innovation, and enhancing teaching and learning. So, this is why I believe strongly that we should rethink the “Basic Proficiencies” in technology. No matter how un-techsavvy a person is, there’s a very good chance that he/she has a digital camera. So why do we persist in believing that word processing, spreadsheets, email, and presentations are the basics that we teach first? Additionally, the majority of essays that are written just aren’t that interesting and students won’t come back to view them even if they’re online. So to produce “Web-worthy” projects, we need begin integrating digital media into our projects because the Web is visual. This will also help us move higher along Bloom’s Taxonomy where the highest order of thinking is now Create.
Begin with images to enhance a project. Most teachers find this less intimidating, and it’s easy to begin adding a few digital images into that project or essay that’s been assigned for years and years (and years and years). I used to tell students, “A picture tells a thousand words… just give me half of that.” The second basic skill is recording music or voices. Once you have digital images and written work, it’s simple to add in the idea of recording students reading/speaking their work. This is also great for the struggling writers and ELL students because language acquisition begins with verbal communication. So having them record their thoughts will often bring in more details than if they just write. The last basic skill is video. Once you’re doing images and audio, just know that video is more dynamic and will develop higher order thinking skills.
How do we change the focus in the classrooms and publish in the 21st century? One big bit of advice I have is for teachers and students to become Partners in Learning. Teachers need to do what they do best: design lessons, work with the curriculum, and provide parameters for projects. Students should be left to do what they do best: learn technology faster than us, master the curriculum, and create. In no way does this get rid of teachers. Teachers need to develop the lessons and projects because it’s always a Garbage In, Garbage Out situation. Poor lesson are still terrible even with tech. One great way to make lessons and projects more relevant and memorable is by adding a Twist of Creativity. By this, I mean making it more than a report. One lesson that I emphasized here was by the Coulee Kids. Their Cellar Spider podcast was in the voice of the cellar spider. It still covered all the concepts learned about adaptation and basic needs, but it was creative, fun, and interesting. It had a Twist. The other project mentioned here was one by the TechSavvyGirlz that was a second grade project on community. Instead of just saying your favorite things in the community, the student made it into a fun bus tour with sound effects, favorite spots, and history on the city.
The other thing in the How segment dealt with info on blogs, wikis, and podcasts. I’m not going to go over everything here, just know that I love podcasts, and I think that if your class is going to podcast, they should just create enhanced podcasts. Forget audio-only. Enhanced addresses visual learners and are way less intensive than video podcasts but address much of the same critical thinking and organizing without the same time commitment.
That was the gist of the session. Develop a vision! Transform learning with multimedia! And publish! Anyway, I had several resources I mentioned. I’ve tried to link to all of them throughout this write-up. Here are a few others.
21st Century Publishing on the Web Slides (PDF) for download!
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