"Technically Literate"

Schools are one of the last places children are not glued to screens. The last thing, some argue, we should be doing is promoting more screen time. We have all read articles such as this where we learn that tech industry giants do not allow their kids to use digital tech tools or send them to schools without technology.

Others argue the very nature of literacy has expanded and we are miseducating children if we do not teach them how to use technology to research, make meaning and communicate understanding. If we do not teach this skills, kids will do little beyond consume media. Proponents of ed-tech argue, “digital literacy is the ability to use information and communication technologies to find, evaluate, create, and communicate information, requiring both cognitive and technical skills.” (American Library Association (2017))  An aside, at what point do we drop "digital" from that sentence?

Recently I heard author, Daniel Torday speak about how authors are moving beyond the text to augment the power of storytelling. There are current arguments in the field of literary criticism about the novel.  (Some in the field of literary criticism argue that the author is dead—except the author isn’t dead, they’re Googling to see what people are saying about them!- this immediate feedback btw is a way in which the author's place in the conversation has changed) This larger context matters; old ideas about art, the academy, and knowing are being displaced though we do not know yet what will replace these ideas.

If we agree we need a new literacy (and we don't all agree), we haven't agreed on these new literacy skills entail. What do students need for the future? Publishing once was confined to print. In the 20th century it expanded to TV, radio and records.  The Internet expanded it farther making it possible for students with technical skills to publish Web sites and audio content that could (conceivably) reach worldwide. Torday argued that as an author, he needs to go beyond text and include digital and social media to enhance his storytelling,

I have been working with a colleague (+Lnovo) on an assignment asking students to make a video about a line from Shakespeare's tempest. I was struck by the video controversial NY congresswoman AOC, recently made to support her Green New Deal idea. Whether or not you agree with its merits, you can see that she has leveraged futurism and digital tools (with a lovely marriage of old and new tech) to make an intriguing video. Something about this resonates far more than a text-based article. I believe we should equip students with these skills.  The tools we use will change, yet there is a visual way of knowing/ teaching -yet fully explored- that students should know.



My colleague came to me asking to help her with a project on the Tempest. The project:

Tempest project:  Choose a speech (no more than 16 lines) and make a movie that captures a vision for the speech; in your piece, you should find a way to incorporate text, music/sound and visuals, working together to express that vision. (Please don’t use Caliban’s “isle is full of noises” speech.)  Below are a few examples to help inspire you; you might also think of music videos you think are particularly effective as you contemplate models for this kind of project. I’m imagining that your movie will be between 1-2 minutes long.

You’ll submit the movie and a written piece at least a page long in which you describe your inspiration and the process/decision-making that went into the finished product.  Be specific in this written piece, and remember that anecdotes are often helpful in conveying the process of creation. Be prepared to talk about your choices and the movie you made. We’ll watch (at least some of) the films together.  Here’s an example of one from the past.  Check out https://www.youtube.com/user/poetryvisualized.

And here are a few other potential inspirations for a project like this:

“I Died for Beauty”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjqtcHauOcg

“The Hollow Men”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_isBlDupV

I compiled  this guideline for digital storytelling to hand to the students. 

Check it out, there are some nice examples within the slidedeck.

Homework

Almost no one except a certain type of person fearful that their children/ students will be left behind really thinks that piles of homework are a good thing. Yet, there's a certain amount of, "If it was good enough for me..." mindset among adults that fosters a generational inertia around homework. Among theorists and researchers, the argument about the efficacy of homework is largely between those who think a little is okay versus those who think we shouldn't be giving anything at all.

This article in the Atlantic explores this debate about homework and how homework is given in the United States. While I am pedagogically and philosophically in Alfie Kohn's camp; the structure of the high school day makes it difficult to give no homework at all. 

For the record, I give homework. Not much. But some. I teach 9th and 12th graders. Most written work by my students is done at home. All journals are written at home. For projects, I try to allot enough time for most of the work to be completed in school. But some of the work is done at home. I also give about an hour's worth of reading a week.  

This paragraph from the article jumped out:

Another problem is that research tends to focus on homework’s quantity rather than its quality, because the former is much easier to measure than the latter. While experts generally agree that the substance of an assignment matters greatly (and that a lot of homework is uninspiring busywork), there isn’t a catchall rule for what’s best—the answer is often specific to a certain curriculum or even an individual student.

Surely worksheets and other mindless busy work does nothing to promote learning. This article doesn't fully answer the question it poses. If I had my druthers, I do away with most homework and being fully honest, I'd give even less of it myself. But kids are trained to think about school a certain way. They conflate rigor with learning. At least some parents still expect it; I still get an occasional phone call from a parent worrying that their child isn't doing enough homework.  Homework becomes a proxy for virtues such as determination, hard-work, and personal responsibility. 

It seems right to me that the ultimate answer about the efficacy of homework comes down to the individual student.  And if that's the case, individualize the homework. Drop the one size fits all approach. I've always felt that if we really wanted to use homework to promote responsibility, we should make much of it optional.  And we should emphasize better over more.  Now, I have to think more about how to do this in my own classes.

Recently, I asked my students to create a soundtrack by finding a song and tagging it to one of the Enlightenment philosophers we have been learning about. Asking students to find songs to match these philosophers encourages them to interact more fully with the philosophers' thoughts. It promotes a level of understanding beyond me simply asking, "What does Locke believe?" Here's what they came up with: