connect. create. question.

If I Had Something to Say by re_birf
Attribution License

This week we’ve been asked to jot down / sketch / brainstorm some ideas about our final design project. I was pretty stumped for a while, and I’m still not sure I’ve really got any ideas. I have several jotted down in my (paper) notebook and have been letting them “sit” in my mind for the last 4 or 5 days. Generally they all come back to writing and how to make it more of a social, interactive experience. Basically, I am uncomfortable (always have been) with the stereotypical image of “writer in solitude.” While I agree that at times one can write better when sitting alone, I also think good writers can emerge from a supported community. It takes some balance. I’m not really keen on teaching / instructing people how to become better writers in solitude. I’ll leave that for Sark, Natalie Goldberg, and Julia Cameron. I’m much more interested in how to capitalize on the hive mind and create some solid pieces of Writing For The People.

i am by Will Lion
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License

Robert Scoble tried a variation of this using FriendFeed and Twitter, but I am much more interested in the idea of having some kind of platform that makes this all possible — that your audience can give you feedback as the ideas are being generated, and that parts of the writer’s words can be shared, and critiqued, before the piece is “finished.” Or perhaps the piece is never finished? I’d like there to be some element of audio / video, as well, so that users can comment this way and so that the focus is not entirely text-based. I basically want writing — that is, communicating via text — to not be as laborious and text-heavy as it is now. In order to blog these days, you have to be pretty text literate. And while that is fine for those of us who are verbal and educated, what about twelve-year-olds who have something to put out into the world, who want to refine their writing, but want some help and interaction to make their writing really phenomenal?

Perhaps I’m thinking too grandiose at the moment…

What’s been sticking out to me when reading Saffer, Sharp, Norman, and Adams is how important it is for the affordances of the interface to be almost instinctual, or intuitive. I also am intrigued by the feedback/ feed-forward ideas Saffer discusses in Chapter 7; it is striking to me how few programs / platforms incorporate this. The key, I guess, is to have everything seem simple to the user but in reality the complexity is all hidden from the user. Which has got me thinking — if it is intuitive to me, how will I know it is intuitive to others? Saffer in particular talks about how so many designers design things for other designers, and how this is just not cool. I have to agree. So I am wondering — hoping? optimistically? naively? — that not being a designer myself or having that background will actually be an advantage in this particular project. Or is that what every designer thinks when they first start out… ? I suppose it comes back to what we’ve been learning in every course so far — a tenet that is fundamental to educators in general — know your user. Do research, talk to them, study them, find out how they will use things, how they think. This reminds me also how intrigued I was about all the user research that went into Quest Atlantis, having read about this for a different course. Knowing your user is key, and I suppose one cannot assume ever that they are just like oneself!

I have to admit that I’m really also loving the ideas of one of my classmates, Poukhan. Check out her ideas. I am tempted to scrap my interactive writing idea altogether and ask if I can join her!

This week’s Design Journal assignment required us, among other things, to write a 55-word story, in the spirit of  55 Fiction. Frank didn’t say so directly, but I imagine this has something to do with the importance of story-telling in design. And what better way to understand the important elements of a story than to whittle it down to its bare-bones elements. It reminds me a little bit of Angry Alien Productions’ 30-Second Bunnies, in that only the basics remain, and yet the story still functions. Here is my first ever 55-word story.

Dead Giveaway

Dark-Field Lighting 2 by Kyle May
Attribution License

“Sweetheart,” he gushes.

“Whiskey, darling?”

“Always.”

The waiter pauses.

“Jameson. On rocks, for him.” Sipping wine, she fumbles in her purse.

Pocket vibration. “Sweetheart, I’ve gotta. . . Hello?” He rises. Impatient ice melts into Jameson; she fumbles in her purse.

Only after paramedics remove the motionless body, the waiter remembers crimson nails, fumbling in her purse.

I simply cannot believe I have not posted since June.  June!  In case you hadn’t guessed, things have been rather nutty over in my neck of the Educational Woods.

Where I’ve been

Briefly — for those 3 “regular” readers who may have assumed that I’d “taken off, eh” in my true Canadian form — this is what I’ve been up to:

• A wonderful summer of laughter, love, travel, family, and yoga.  Blissful vacation in my home province of Alberta, Canada, and my partner’s home state of California.
• In June (shortly after my last post) I received a request to run an MYP Language A level 1 workshop in Hong Kong — my very first MYP workshop ever!  Of course I accepted, not quite realizing how much work would be involved.  The workshop dates: Sept 13-15, 2008.
• Also in June, I began studying for my GRE (Graduate Record of Examination), as preliminary application prep for grad school in the fall of 2009.  My exam date:  Sept 26, 2008.

Photo by Dr Craig
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License
• It then occurred to me that both preparing for my MYP workshop and studying for my exam were going to have to happen simultaneously.  No problem, right?

• Wrong.
• Back-to-school in mid-August.  Mayhem ensued.

You’ve probably already guessed that the MYP workshop prep took priority over my GRE study.  When I look back at the past two months, I still can’t quite believe I did all of this AND taught 4 different grade levels full time, coherently (OK, OK, semi-coherently).  So, you might say I’ve been insanely busy.

How it went

MYP workshop in Hong Kong: Wonderfully!  Far better than I had expected, and with plenty of positive feedback to boot.  It was well worth the two weeks of Hardly Any Sleep (yes, that deserves capital letters), and 3 nights of mediocre room service meals in my hotel room.

GRE: In a word — notsogood. Without going into too much detail, it sucked.  I hate standardized tests. Hate them.  Really, really hate them.  They have so very little educational value, and the very core of my Teacher Being wants to rebel and take a stand!  But dangit – some of the best technology / literacy / education programs in the USA require me to take them just to get my foot in the door.  So I have relented, and scheduled another exam at the end of November.  I promise this time I’ll study for the math section, though I might need some help.  Hey, if nothing else, it’s an excuse to go to Bangkok for another weekend, just in time to do some Christmas shopping.

What’s next: Affirmations

I’ve spent the past three weeks simply trying to catch up and get into a routine.  And now, suddenly, it’s Autumn Break!  What a great time for pause and reflection.

Photo by h.koppdelaney
Attribution-NoDerivs License

My goals this year (even though we’re a quarter through already) involve even more focus on the integration of technology into my English classes to best reflect MYP philosophy.

I admit it: I am MYP FanGirl #1.  That doesn’t mean I don’t think the programme has its drawbacks and weaknesses — it most certainly does.  But I believe so strongly in it because it reflects much of what I know to be true as a teacher and learner that I unabashedly put my support behind it.  I definitely see myself growing even more within this educational framework, and I’ve been with it already for 7+ years.  I do not see my MYPness (yes, I said it ) waning any time soon.

I also will admit that technology has its drawbacks and weaknesses.  But it, too, is something that I believe strongly in because I recognize that our world is changing before us, and our students need to think differently than we did.  Like Einstein said, “We cannot solve problems using the same thinking we used when we created them.”  And so, at the heart of it all, I still believe that it’s not about the technology.  It’s about thinking and learning in different ways to make sense of the ever-changing world, and technology is a big part of the thinking, the learning, and certainly the change.

Where I’m going: Aspirations

So what’s down the road?

The more often I speak to other like-minded educators, the more often I am struck with this realization: the “making sense” part of our job is the same in every “schooly” subject area, and it almost always comes down to communication.

An abridged defintion of “communicate“:*

–verb (used with object)

1.	to impart knowledge of; make known: to communicate information; to communicate one’s happiness.

2.	to give to another; impart; transmit: to communicate a disease.

–verb (used without object)

5.	to give or interchange thoughts, feelings, information, or the like, by writing, speaking, etc.: They communicate with each other every day.

6.	to express thoughts, feelings, or information easily or effectively.

7.	to be joined or connected: The rooms communicated by means of a hallway.

Interestingly, the origin of this word is from the Latin, commūnicātus, ptp. of commūnicāre to impart, make common.

Photo by lumaxart
Attribution-ShareAlike License

What I’m dreaming of is this: a place where the finest, most important skills of communication — that is, those that involve the imparting of ideas and interchange of thoughts and feelings — are not only taught and fostered in an English (or Communications) course, but across every aspect of learning at every age, in every subject area.  (Will there even be a need for subject areas?  The world is so interconnected now; the idea of separating them feels so outdated to me.)

And that’s about as concrete as I can get at the moment.  It all starts with a vision, right?  I have no clear idea what this scenario would look like, sound like, or feel like, but I’m confident that if I continue down the path I’m currently on, the tangible will eventually accompany what is currently visceral.

I envision a time in the not-so-distant future where my current job (English teacher — that is, teacher of both English language and literature) is obsolete.  Instead, I see the language, literature, and tools of communication being delicate, abundant, and essential threads across learning of all kinds.

Where does it all leave me?

I’m just not sure yet!

———————–

*I’ve left out some definitions here that refer to archaic uses or the partaking of the Eucharist.

I follow Clay Burell’s blog and found myself really interested in what he has been saying about teaching Lolita.  And then I saw that he had responded to this meme, originating from Paul C at quoteflections, and the whole thing sounded pretty cool to me.  I’m especially intrigued by Clay’s situation because he is (currently) teaching within the context of an AP English course.  I have never taught AP, and never will — let that be said now.  I have, however, taught English A1 at the IB Diploma level and although I am not teaching it currently*, I know how frustrating it can be to put together a course syllabus that meets all the requirements of an outside body.  I do think that DP English A1 is broader and more open than AP is, but I digress.  Back to the meat of the meme…

The rules: 

• Select and briefly review one teen novel, classic or modern, which is a sure antidote to the daze of high school.
• Title your post Meme: High School Daze to Praise.
• Include an image with your post.
• Tag four blogger colleagues

Sex, Religion, and Other Juicy Bits

The novel I have chosen is not a classic, and is not really modern either, as it has been around for quite a while.  Robert Cormier’s The Chocolate War was published in 1974 and has all the issues you’re “not supposed to talk about” in the classroom:  covert bullying, the pitfalls of organized religion and its leaders, secret societies, sex, masturbation, and violence.  A quick Google Search will tell you how many schools and school districts have banned this book due to its “sensitive content.”

If you haven’t read it, a nutshell summary is this:  Jerry, who is new to Trinity High School, slowly uncovers the secret society at the school called The Vigils — headed by a guy named Archie and supported and overseen by the headmaster-in-waiting, the evil Brother Leon.  Through a series of “assignments,” The Vigils bully and make life miserable for everyone at Trinity, gaining more power as they do so.  Brother Leon gains their support to sell chocolates as a school fundraiser. The clincher is when the Vigils give an assignment to Jerry to refuse to sell chocolates for ten days but then accept after ten days.  Jerry continues to refuse to sell chocolates and mayhem ensues as Jerry grapples with his own answer to the question hanging in his locker, “Do I Dare Disturb The Universe?” (which is from T.S. Eliot’s poem, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”).

The novel deals with several “OMG!” adolescent issues — conformity, raising your voice against the status quo, challenging authority, and many, many more.  One chapter is entirely a description of a masturbation scene — a chapter which turned many heads when I taught this novel a few years ago in the UK.  (If I remember correctly, parents had no qualms about anything being taught in my classroom until “that chapter” and suddenly the e-mails started pouring in.)

And that’s my contribution to the high-school daze antidote.  This novel probably sits best at about grade 9 level, but could easily be given to some mature 8th graders or struggling 10th graders.

And now, the tag:  Clint Hamada, Morten Oddvik over at Mortempo, Alanna Shaikh at Blood and Milk (am hoping for a developmental-world perspective!), and Kevin Gamble over at High Touch… and you know what?  None of these people are English Lit teachers! 

*Currently I am teaching only within an MYP context, because I love the quirkiness of Middle-Schoolers and I often feel they get left out of the bigger world of K-12 education. 

Photo credit:  nicolevity

This article from the lovely Creative Commons Blog caught my eye today, particularly because the forum aims to look at “how digital technologies and new media are changing the way that young people learn, play, socialize and participate in civic life.”  Definitely cool (and no surprise that it’s being hosted at Stanford, either).   However, I am rather curious.  They say that proposed topics include:

Teen Socialization Practices in Networked Publics

Understanding New Media in the Home

Hip Hop Music and Meaning in the Digital Age

New Media from a Youth Perspective

(emphasis mine)

I feel like this is one of those segments on Sesame Street:  “One of these things is not like the other.”  Socialization and networks – OK.  New media in the home and from a youth perspective – OK.   Hip Hop Music and Meaning – huh?  This stands out rather unusually to me.  My questions:

• Why hip hop?  Why not other genres of music?  Or maybe there is another topic:  “Classical Music and Meaning in the Digital Age: from Chopin to Garage Band”?
• Why only music?  Why not video, television, and podcasts? (although perhaps these are the other “new media”)

Anyone else?