Beyond the App invites teachers to interact with experts in online and traditional literacies. In contrast to many professional development activities, Beyond the App participants will co-construct approaches to teaching upper elementary and middle school students with colleagues around the globe. The event is a joint project with the Literacy Department at the State University of New York at Cortland and Graduate School of Education at The American University in Cairo.
Participants will have the opportunity to choose strands or themes such as building fluency, motivation for learning online, assessment practices, and more. You are likely familiar with the Gradual Release of Responsibility Model represented by the phrases, “I [the teacher] do, We do, and You do.” Our focus is on the difficult challenge of providing appropriate literacy practices within the we do [it together] phase when teachers are working online, and students are learning. But, how do you do that when you are teaching online?
Join us to go Beyond the App.
Sign up for details via email on our LeadPages site.
By Thomas DeVere Wolsey with Roya Q. Scales and Seth A. Parsons (Guest Bloggers)
We are really excited to announce the release of our book, Becoming a Metacognitive Teacher: A Guide for Early and Preservice Teachers. In our years as teachers and professors, we have found that the best teachers were the ones who knew how to reflect on their practice and to think of teaching as a journey. Every day as a teacher offers something new to learn, to discover, and to explore.
Cover
Here is what our colleagues have said about our book.
“This book emphasizes that teaching is a deadly serious, demanding, thoughtful, pragmatic art. It pulls no punches about how difficult it is to create a productive learning environment for the 20–30 divergent students under your care in the harried environment of classrooms, and that to succeed you need a proactive, focused mental stance, a reflective, thoughtful approach, and the energy to orchestrate multiple pedagogical variables in response to constantly varying conditions.” ―Gerald G. Duffy, professor emeritus, Michigan State University
“To foster metacognitive thinking among our students, teachers must have sophisticated metacognitive skills themselves. This unique and well-grounded text demonstrates the critical role of metacognition in developing the craft of effective teaching for preservice and novice teachers.” ―William Brozo, professor of literacy, School of Education, George Mason University
“Comprehensive and practical, this text provides an artful and thoughtful blend of strategies for prospective teachers’ personal and professional development. The goal of developing thinking teachers who keep their students at the forefront is supported with the author’s discussion of their and others’ personal and research histories, rich vignettes, and access to multiple digital resources (e.g., TED talks, blogs, instructional videos). A text for both teacher educators and prospective teachers.” ―Victoria J. Risko, professor emerita, Vanderbilt University
*I may earn a small commission for Amazon Affiliate links to any products or services from this website. Your purchase helps support our work in bringing you Literacy Beat.
My graduate students in the Human Development and Learning Theories course took on the challenge of showing how various learning theories look at home and at school. They created scenarios and explainers using a variety of video tools.
Theories are nice, but the real test of a theory for parents and teachers is how a theory can be useful. Parents are grappling with the challenges of working from home and helping their children through the current COVID-19 pandemic. These videos are designed to provide quick and useful ideas to ease the burden.
In this video by Rasha , Farah , and Farah, social learning theories are demonstrated for both children and adolescents. Learn more about social learning on their blog, Who Am I?
Do you face challenges with your kids staying at home? These two videos present a synopsis on how to work with kids during COVID-19 pandemic especially how to teach emotional discipline. Parenting tips that you will love! Nesma, Lamiaa, and Dina’s blog Emotional Development can be found here.
Hana, Sara, and Mona tackled experiential learning. Watch while Hana shows us how NOT to make brownies. View their blog on experiential learning: Do Think Conclude Adapt for more information.
Guess what today, April 23, 2020, is! It’s World Book Day, a UNESCO project. While Literacy Beat celebrates books and reading all year round, World Book Day offers an extra opportunity to honor the books (and other texts) we love. Here are some resources from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and others to help you party like the Dickens.
UNESCO’s World Book Day page with hashtags, toolkit, and links. #worldbookday
National Day‘s page with ideas to celebrate. Find other celebration days for all 365 days of the year, too.
The WorldBookDay.com website has a number of #StayAtHome suggestions.
*I may earn a small commission for Amazon Affiliate links to any products or services from this website. Your purchase helps support our work in bringing you Literacy Beat.
School buildings closed for the rest of the year and universities shuttered their doors, but education must and does go on. In my formerly face-to-face classes, presentations we scheduled for live audiences are now going to be online. Alternatives to live presentations are many, and I will share some of them in this post.
First things first, though: How do you choose an online presentation tool?
Determine what aspects of the presentation you will assess and how that will be done. What gets assessed depends on your tolerance for new technologies (or willingness to try them) and that of your students. Remember that many of them will be trying out tools they have never used before.
Are you able to support your students as they try out new digital tools? If not, are they able to find the support they need? Check out this post on the lazy classroom for a few ideas about how much to challenge your students to try new tech tools.
Onward to some curated resources that you may find helpful. Add your own in the comments, and you might enjoy this post by our colleague, Renee Hobbs where she shares examples of some digital tools she uses.
There are a variety of free digital, web-based resources available for instructors, educators, and learners to create useful and meaningful multimedia presentations. Keep reading.
MULTIMEDIA PRESENTATION TOOLS
Tool Options
Glogster: Tool for creating interactive, innovative multimedia posters, glogs, and more. Read more here.
Prezi: Tool for creating visual presentations that allows you or the viewer to zoom in “to the details” or out to show the “big picture.”
VoiceThread: VoiceThread is an interactive tool that permits creators to add video, still images, audio, and text using a variety of tools. Creators can enable comment features that permit viewers to add their own thoughts to the presentation.
Flipgrid allows users to post short videos to which others can reply asynchronously.
Narrated PowerPoint® posted to SlideShare, AuthorStream, Vimeo, or YouTube. PowerPoint includes a narration/dictate option and can be uploaded or converted for online presentation using one of the tools linked above.
PowToon is a popular and powerful video tool that is user-friendly.
You can also read the following reviews of some of these tools and a discussion of other tools here:
Remember when designing your multimedia presentation:
Simplicity adds value.
Aim for a few words or phrases on a slide (the nugget of information).
Aim for one powerful image on a slide. That image could be accompanied by minimal text, a symbol, or no text at all.
Be creative in capturing and maintaining attention.
Eliminate distraction: use animations, flash, or sound effects sparingly and only when necessary to get the point across.
Avoid slide transitions.
Design artfully:
What does your audience already know?
What do you want your viewers to learn?
Check PresentationZen for more ideas on artful presentation design.
Learn more about Multimedia and Fair Use
Working with multimedia, almost invariably, means incorporating the works of others into a presentation (cf. Huffman, 2010). Teachers and students do have some latitude, called Fair Use. However, it is always an effective practice to make sure that the intellectual property of others are attributed or cited in any presentation. While there can be substantial penalties for infringing on the works created by others, the most important point, arguably, is that attributing the works of others is simply good citizenship. Creators want credit for their work, and any user is a potential creator, as well. In digital environments, creators, authors, and users, take care of one another by properly attributing the sources they use. Though teachers, professors, and students are very familiar with citation of text-based sources (e.g. APA, MLA, Chicago), these style guides often do not provide sufficient guidance when a student, for example, wants to incorporate images, audio, or video created by others in a multimedia presentation.
An excellent place to begin learning about digital citizenship and fair use is the MediaLab at the University of Rhode Island. Teacher and student resources can be found on the MediaLab website.
Though not exhaustive, these websites provide a place to begin looking for music and image sources that students and teachers might use in their own multimedia presentations while considering the rights of others who have contributed their works.
Today, I am posting a few resources for those in PK-12 and higher education who must convert their instruction from face-to-face to an online format in a hurry.
Image: CDC/Alissa Eckert, MS; Dan Higgins, MAMS
UNESCO offers a list of distance learning solutions with links here.
Our colleague, Greg Mcverry, has created a series of videos, “Moving Online In Time of Crisis,” on converting to online quickly.
And Peggy Semingson, featured here on Literacy Beat, shared this curated list of remote learning tools during Covid-19 from Laura Pasquini and these tips for remote teaching from the University of Texas. Peggy regularly shares her own resources and those of others on her LinkedIn profile.
TechSmith Corporation, one of my favorite digital solution providers, shared this website full of tips and resources.
Resources added April 6, 2020
Publishers I work with shared these open access resources:
Teachers and parents are often concerned when students use Wikipedia as a source of information.
When students consult an encyclopedia, they typically hold a reasonable expectation that information contained in the article will be reliable and verifiable. Educators who do not allow students to use Wikipedia as a source, often cite reliability as a topic of concern. Some incidents of vandalism on the pages of Wikipedia raise the level of concern. In addition, those who post and revise articles in Wikipedia may not be experts. In May 2009, Genevieve Carbery reported that a student researching journalism and globalization placed a false quote in an obituary which was subsequently picked up and reported as factual by newspapers around the world. However, Wikipedia’s reliability compares favorably to traditional encyclopedias in most regards.
Wikipedia
When Should an Encyclopedia be Used?
Encyclopedias, whether online or printed in bound volumes on paper, are useful sources of information. Editors and contributors to encyclopedias generally set out to collect information about a wide variety of information, but may also limit the scope of articles to a specific domain (such as a medical encyclopedia). Because encyclopedias are collections of articles on a vast array of topics, they are generally excellent sources of information when students need background information about a topic.
For example, a student writing about an interest in the human genome project may decide to do a little reading on the development of the double-helix. Since the main topic of the student’s inquiry is the genome project, reading a Wikipedia article about the double-helix polymer would seem appropriate.
Many encyclopedia entries are well-sourced; that is, they include references to other documents, media files, and experts that support the assertions found in the article. As a result, a student completing research on the genome project may find some additional sources to consult by reading the article’s reference list. Savvy users of an article’s reference list locate those articles, read them, and evaluate them. They also independently search for additional sources that may support, contradict, or expand on those sources. The founder of Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales, encourages students in college not to use an encyclopedia as a source in writing academic papers (Young, 2006).
Using a Collaboratively-authored Encyclopedia
The nature of the encyclopedia is that of a secondary source. Wikipedia, for example, does not claim to be a publisher of original thought, and it should not be treated as such by those consulting it as a resource. Virtually all encyclopedia articles report knowledge based on other sources; that is, original or primary sources are consulted. However, the authors, whether experts in their fields or interested parties that wish to contribute, must select from many sources and interpret those sources in writing an encyclopedia article. Thus, rather than ban the use of Wikipedia and similar collaborative projects, students and teachers can ask the following questions. Teachers can help students learn to question any secondary source. Three questions students might remember when they consult any encyclopedia:
Am I reading this encyclopedia article for background knowledge?
Will reading this encyclopedia article help me find sources that support or refute the main points in my own writing and presentations?
What other sources can I consult?
and two questions specifically for online, collaborative encyclopedias
Have I checked the history tab to see who has contributed (some posts are anonymous, but the list of edits and revisions can be revealing)?
Is there anything that appears to be missing or not addressed in this article that is found in other sources?
Finally, teachers may best be able to help students learn to evaluate the sources they use and when to use them rather than banning them outright.
References
Carbery, G. Student’s Wikipedia hoax quote used worldwide in newspaper obituaries. Irishtimes.com., May 6, 2009.
Young, J. R. Wikipedia Founder Discourages Academic Use of His Creation. The Wired Campus, June 12, 2006.
By Thomas DeVere Wolsey & Dana L. Grisham with Susan Lenski
We are excited to announce that Assessment Literacy: An Educator’s Guide to Understanding Assessment, K-12 by Literacy Beat bloggers Thomas DeVere Wolsey and Dana L. Grisham with guest blogger Susan Lenski is now available.
Literacy Beat readers are invited to take 20% off the list price. Just point your browser to Guilford.com or use the promo code 2E on the Guilford website.
Assessment Literacy: An Educator’s Guide to Understanding Assessment, K-12
Overview:
This clear, no-nonsense book guides current and future teachers through the concepts, tools, methods, and goals of classroom literacy assessment. The expert authors examine the roles of formative, summative, and benchmark assessments; demystify state and national tests and standards; and show how assessment can seamlessly inform instruction. Strategies for evaluating, choosing, and interpreting assessments are discussed, as are ways to communicate data to parents and administrators. User-friendly resources include boxed vignettes from teachers and researchers, practical assessment tips (and traps to avoid), and 12 reproducible planning forms and handouts. Purchasers get access to a Web page where they can download and print the reproducible materials in a convenient 8½” x 11″ size.
Thanks to our reviewers: Missy Provost, Troy Hicks, Judith Dunkerly-Bean, Paula Dreyfuss, and Linda Smetana and to Diane Lapp, author of the foreword.
Have you ever wondered just how much work your class or course actually entails for students, or if you are a student just how much time you need to invest in your coursework outside of class. This guest post by my colleague at the Center for Learning and Teaching at The American University in Cairo looks the advantages and limitations of just such a tool. Check it out!
A Guest Post by Maha Bali
Would You Use a Course Workload Calculator?
Reading Time: 2minutes
This is the second time I come across something like this. A course workload calculator. This one from Rice University (I have a soft spot for them because I taught there in 2008).
On the one hand, I feel like it can be useful for people who teach courses at the same level to compare their workloads to each other or what is expected.
I do like that they ask if readings have new concepts or are difficult, for example, so I think some people might find that useful, e.g. should they assign the reading and expect students to understand it before they discuss it in class? Perhaps certain readings can be done before, but others after. Also, the calculator doesn’t account for reading ability esp for non-native speakers. But it does allow you to adjust the reading speed for example, which I guess to be honest you may need to do for different segments of students. I once had two freshmen in my mostly senior and junior class, and they truly struggled with some of the readings. The other students had no problems at all, either they were better readers or better bluffers (which, honestly, is a good strategic learner move).
One of my goals as a teacher and professor is to guide my students to think of themselves as readers, authors, and creators. To help students realize just how much reading and writing have played a part in their lives, I use an assignment I call My Life as a Reader and Author. The assignment involves the creation of a mandala with symbols representing different aspects of literacy in the students’ lives. The directions, paired with examples in the PowerPoint are fairly simple:
The texts we read and the texts we compose can have a powerful influence on our identities. In this assignment, you will create a visual representation of your life as a reader and author using the mandala to organize and capture your ideas. Briefly explain each symbol.
Zahraa created this mandala, below, using digital tools.
Zahraa’s Mandala
She then described the significance of the images.
I divided my mandala into four sections:
Reading Section
I added a photo of my laptop as usually I use it to read online and also to download softcopies of the books that I want to read. I like to read on my laptop as I have different folders to save whatever I want to read and highlight on it.
I added the photo of the book the power of thinking without thinking. It is the most recent book that I have read. I found this book so interesting and I learnt a lot from it. In addition, I recommended this book to my friends who do not like to read very much as I found the author’s way of delivering information is so good.
I added google logo as it is my close friend when I need to know or read about anything.
Junior development section
In this section I added a photo of my weekly visit to children orphanages. I am a part of Volunteers In Action (VIA) club at AUC. Every week end we visit an orphanage and we give sessions to children about different things like peace, cleanness, attitude and manners. I added this photo because these children motivate me to read more about the topic before delivering it to them in order to teach them in a correct good way.
I added photos of cleanness and right & wrong photo to highlight some of the things I teach them during the sessions
Experience
While reading I experience new things and know a lot of new information. This photo describes things that one can achieve while reading like how to manage your time, select your goals and how to learn from others mistakes, especially if you are reading about someone’s bibliography.
Writing
In the writing section I added a photo to describe my favorite time of writing which is in the early morning with a cup of coffee.
Malika chose to combine shapes from the Internet and then draw her symbols.
Bridget Dalton
berdwyer
Blaine Smith
danagrisham
jillcastek
TDWolsey
