V-Tweets

Posted on June 18, 2023 by TDWolsey

by Thomas DeVere Wolsey

Definitions are useful as long as they are understood. With V-Tweets, we ask students to consult at least three dictionary definitions they find online, including at least one that is specific to the discipline. They work with a partner to synthesize a definition from the three or more definitions they have found that meets the demands of the discipline. Here are the steps:

  • The teacher scans the reading assignment and selects Tier Two and Tier Three words for critical after-reading study.
  • Student pairs are assigned words to investigate (Internet, dictionaries, background knowledge) and must consult at least three sources for the Tweet and an image or visual (may be drawn and scanned or photographed; or use Google Images with teacher approval).
  • Students must identify the sources of their definitions/explanations of the words.
  • Students combine the sources, discussing and drafting a 120-character “Tweet” for the classroom website. Wait, 120 characters? Stay tuned.
  • Students then share their V-Tweets with each other prior to reading, and they are available as students read the text.
  • Use hashtags and Twitter handles to encourage conversation. For example, Ms. Hernandez might ask her period 1 students to use the hashtag #Hern1 to encourage Twitter conversation among her students in that class period. A handle, such as @thernandez can ensure that the teacher receives the Tweet.
  • Because Tweets can only have 140 characters, it is important to make room for the hashtag or handle and the image, all of which take up some of the characters allotted. We suggest about 120 characters.
  • Students will negotiate how best to define their assigned term within the character limitations.
  • In addition, students can carry on the conversation as they use hashtags to expand or elaborate on each others’ posts.

In this example, the Tweet is developed from three online definitions, composed to fit the Twitter format, and posted:

V-Tweets are the creation of Literacy Beat blogger Dana L. Grisham and Linda Smetana with a little help from Thomas. The V-Tweet description above is from our book (Thomas DeVere Wolsey & Diane Lapp) in 2016, Literacy in the Disciplines. A second edition will be available later this year. Since that time, Twitter’s format guidelines have changed. For example, in 2017, Twitter changed the character count from 140 to 280. How would that change the nature of the V-Tweet? In addition, Twitter now offers “notes” of up to 2,500 words. What are the implications for V-Tweets with these changes? Could you use Mastodon to do something similar?

Filed under: digital content creation, Grisham, visual literacy, vocabulary, Wolsey | Tagged: | Leave a comment »

STEAM + Literacy

Posted on October 28, 2022 by TDWolsey

By Thomas DeVere Wolsey

In 2019, I supervised a group of terrific scholars who were graduate assistants, and most were teachers. The bulk of the work was done by this terrific team. The idea was to create STEAM (Science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics) with literacy, then align all of that with Next Generation Science Standards, the Common Core State Standards, digital literacy standards, and Egyptian curricular standards.

The team worked together to produce the units, eventually four in all, and each of those was then reviewed by an independent expert who was not part of the team. While we were never able to spin those off to a website, as planned, I am adding them here with a Creative Commons license so that others can benefit from the great work the development team did. Because these were intended to be digitally available and designed for online access, technically, these are still drafts.

ThemeThe world we live in!
TitleSecuring access to clean water  
Unit Essential QuestionHow could we secure better access to fresh/clean water sources?
Grade Level6-8

The problem:
Water scarcity and desertification are common challenges in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). The growing demands of securing more freshwater have impactful effects on demographics and economic development. Families living by the sea coast, and/ or remote places might spend many hours daily lining up to get a few liters of fresh water from the water delivery truck to maintain their day-to-day needs. Can you help them find a more sustainable and convenient alternative to access/ provide fresh water in their area?

iclite_appendix-c1-unit-one_the-world-we-live-in_revfinalDownload

CategoryLife Sciences
ThemeFood Security
TitleWe Garden!  
Unit Essential QuestionHow can we improve food production to meet the needs of the growing populations?  
Grade LevelGrade (6-8)

The problem:

With the ever increasing population in Egypt and elsewhere, people need increasing amounts of food. In order to meet the increased food needs in Egypt, we have a lot of options such as importing food, which costs a lot of foreign currency, growing more food or rationalizing our food consumption. The government economic agenda gives priority to different agriculture projects with the aim to enlarge the cultivated area and to guarantee sufficient production of the main crops to satisfy the needs of the growing population. Can you help design a system that facilitates gardening for food production?

Source: https://www.files.ethz.ch/isn/14877/Hamza-Mason%202004SAVED.pdf

iclite_appendix-c2-unit-three_life-sciences_we-garden_reviewedDownload

CategoryLife Sciences
ThemeEnvironmental Awareness
TitleDealing with Climate Change
Unit Essential QuestionHow can we reduce the impact of climate change?
Grade LevelGrade (6-8)

The problem:

July 2019 was recorded as the warmest month in history. In general, it is anticipated that the period between 2015 to 2019 is turning out to be the hottest years in history (World Meteorological Organization, 2019). In Egypt, we continuously feel the summer heatwaves. As there is no hint for any environmental improvement, the climate change problem will continue bringing us more heatwaves and warmer weathers in the years to come. While using air conditioners might look like an immediate solution that helps us deal with the problem, the power used by air conditioners, like most other regular electricity-run devices, actually add to the problem causing climate change. Do you know why? Can you help us have a better solution that might have less negative impact on the environment?

Reference: https://public.wmo.int/en/media/news/july-matched-and-maybe-broke-record-hottest-month-analysis-began

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iclite_appendix-c3-unit-two_global-warming-and-green-house-effect_reviewedDownload

ThemeTheme: Transportation
Unit TitleTravel safely!
Essential QuestionHow can we protect passengers in a car crash?
Grade Level6-8

The problem:

The number of road traffic deaths continues to rise steadily, reaching 1.35 million in 2016 (WHO, 2016).  Although automotive and mechanical engineers are innovating many safety procedures to help passengers, these innovations haven’t made their way into enough vehicles to reach their full potential in reducing fatal car crashes. 

Do you remember those days that you spent hours outlining and drawing your dream car? What are the most important aspects in automotive design? How do automotive designers build cars that are speedy and safe at the same time? 

Mechanical engineers, electrical engineers and industrial designers collaborate to develop and enhance motor vehicle structures, engines, and associated systems to ensure optimum wagon performance. In addition, they carry out a series of crash tests to modify their design in order to ensure optimum safety to all passengers in case of accidents. 

iclite_appendix-c4-unit-four-automotive-vehicles-four__reviewedDownload

The project team was ably managed by Bola Ibrahim with the assistance of these team members:

Hanan Abou Zaied

Hanaa Mahmoud

Alaa Badran

Hemmat Mahmoud

Dr Mohamed ElNagdi

Dr. Thomas DeVere Wolsey served as faculty supervisor

with Gihan Osman and Heba El Deghaidy as Co-PI and PI (Principal investigator)

The project was funded by the office of:

Associate Provost for Research, Innovation and Creativity at The American University in Cairo

The content of the PDFs linked on this page only are

STEAM + Literacy by https://literacybeat.com/2022/10/28/steam-literacy/ is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Filed under: Common Core, digital content creation, digital resources, disciplinary literacy, media literacy, technology integration, Wolsey | Tagged: | Leave a comment »

Go Beyond the App

Posted on August 17, 2020 by TDWolsey

By Thomas DeVere Wolsey

Beyond the App Promo & Logo
Are you ready to go beyond the app?

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.

Filed under: assessment, digital content creation, digital reading, digital tools, new literacies, reading comprehension, Reading conference, technology integration | Tagged: , | 1 Comment »

Alternative Presentation Resources

Posted on April 5, 2020 by TDWolsey

By Thomas DeVere Wolsey

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?

  1. 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.
  2. 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.

People working

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:

8 Great Free Digital Presentation Tools for Teachers to Try This Summer http://www.emergingedtech.com/2011/07/8-great-free-digital-presentation-tools-for-teachers-to-try-this-summer/ *

Teacher’s Recommendation for Academic Uses of 5 Fun Free Presentation Tools http://www.emergingedtech.com/2012/01/teachers-recommendations-for-academic-uses-of-5-fun-free-presentation-tools/

Links You Might Have Missed—Presentation Tools http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2009/03/links-you-might-have-missed.html

*  Note that Vuvox no longer exists.

Remember when designing your multimedia presentation:

  1. Simplicity adds value.
  2. Aim for a few words or phrases on a slide (the nugget of information).
  3. Aim for one powerful image on a slide. That image could be accompanied by minimal text, a symbol, or no text at all.
  4. Be creative in capturing and maintaining attention.
  5. Eliminate distraction: use animations, flash, or sound effects sparingly and only when necessary to get the point across.
  6. Avoid slide transitions.
  7. Design artfully:
    1. What does your audience already know?
    2. What do you want your viewers to learn?
    3. 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. 

#SocialDistance #onlineteaching #COVID-19 #RemoteTeaching

Reference

Huffman, S. (2010, May/June). The missing link: The lack of citations and copyright notices in multimedia presentations. TechTrends, 54(3), pp. 38-44.

Filed under: digital content creation, digital resources, digital tools, multimodal, presentation | Tagged: , | Leave a comment »

Course Load Calculator

Posted on October 20, 2019 by TDWolsey

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: 2 minutes

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).

https://cte.rice.edu/workload

Rice University

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).
Read More (redirects to Maha’s blog, Reflecting Allowed).

 

Filed under: Apps, digital content creation, digital resources | Tagged: , | 1 Comment »

My Life as a Reader and Author

Posted on October 5, 2019 by TDWolsey

By Thomas DeVere Wolsey

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.

Mandala

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.

Malika's Mandala

Malika’s Mandala

Resources

Mandala Generators Online:

Staedtler:

MandalaCreator:

MandalaMaker:

ColorMandala:

DrawMandala:

Mandala Creator:

Mandala Creation Software:

MandalaMakerTM :

Mandala Maker from Tucows:

Adobe products and plugins (e.g., Illustrator, Photoshop) that can be used to create mandalas).

Illustrator:

MirrorMe plugin for Illustrator:

PhotoShop:

Inspiration:

Mandala Project:

Filed under: avatar, digital content creation, multimodal | Tagged: , , , , | Leave a comment »

Writing for Science Learning: Book Creator

Posted on April 13, 2019 by TDWolsey

by Thomas DeVere Wolsey

Science teacher Kathy Blakemore has inspired generations of seventh-graders to take better care of our planet, to be curious about all its inhabitants, and to learn more about what makes its ecosystems work as they do.

Recently, Kathy and her students at Elsinore Middle School in Lake Elsinore, California decided to take their learning public. Using Book Creator, the students published a book titled, Incredible Invertebrates. Students worked in teams to identify sources about various phyla and then synthesize graphics and their reading. They learned about what it takes to write a book that is appealing to their audience as well.

Amazing Invertebrates

Incredible Invertebrates Click to read this book, made with Book Creator https://read.bookcreator.com

Each chapter is organized describing where the invertebrates live, what threats exist to their survival, and what fun facts the student scientists and authors uncovered. I was very impressed that the students cited their sources and identified key vocabulary that their readers will want to understand.

Congratulations to Mrs. B and her 7th-grade GEMS students on a job well done.

Filed under: digital content creation, digital resources, digital tools, disciplinary literacy | Tagged: , , , | 2 Comments »

The Photo Essays

Posted on October 23, 2018 by TDWolsey

by Thomas DeVere Wolsey

Last month, I wrote about the tools for creating photo essays.  This month, I’ll show you a few.  The idea was to use photography as a medium for thinking about identity in my EDUC 1099 Selected Topics course.

Farida wrote about and photographed her home that she shares with her extended family. The family votes on important issues. Click the photo to see Farida’s photo essay on Tumblr.

Farida

Using Exposure.co, Salma explored her home and travels.

Salma Megahed

https://salmamegahed.exposure.co/a-photo-essay/embed/cover?embed=trueA Photo essay by Salma Megahed on Exposure

Scrolling through her photo gallery, Dinah discovered that she had many images looking skyward. With Adobe Spark, she created this essay. Dinah

Using the idea of perspectives through doors and windows, Iman shared her essay on Tumblr.

Iman

KarimKarim looked at The American University in Cairo campus from unique angles taking us at the end to his favorite place at the University.

Filed under: digital content creation, Images, technology integration | Tagged: , | Leave a comment »

The Photo Essay Project

Posted on September 20, 2018 by TDWolsey

By Thomas DeVere Wolsey

This semester, I assigned my undergraduates to create a photo essay defining the places that have had the most impact on who they are and who they might become.  Their photo essays are due next week, so this week I am sharing some of the photo essay websites and software tools they are using.  Today, they explored the affordances of each. I provided a list of questions (you will find them below) to guide their choices.

Dear Literacy Beat readers, if you have a site or tool to share, please add it in the comments.

Photos

iPhone Photos

Platforms

  1. Tumblr
  2. Instagram
  3. WordPress
  4. Spark from Adobe
  5. Exposure
  6. Ghost
  7. PowerPoint Online and Slideshare, Youtube or Vimeo (convert slide decks to video), Authorstream
  8. Prezi

Pro-Tip: What’s your statement about the photos you choose? Can you write one (or maybe two) sentences that capture the main idea of your photo essay? Is it unique enough that others will want to view your essay?

 

Photo Editing Tools

  1. Canva
  2. Ribbet
  3. GIMP
  4. Photo Resizer
  5. net
  6. Photoshop Express
  7. PIXLR

A note about intellectual property: Any work you use that you did not write or create must be attributed.  This includes music (and be aware that using copyrighted music could result in your project being taken down by the platform or host).

Pro Tip: Create a rough draft of your essay in order to check out the features of the platform and tools you use.  Try different ways of arranging your photos, text (including captions), and titles.  Later, you can hide or delete the rough draft.

Questions / Affordances

Check out the sites and tools (software) on the first page and review a couple of examples. What affordances does each offer your project?

  • What does it cost?
  • Do you need an account?
  • Can you make the site available to anyone?
  • Does the site privilege images, text, or both?
  • What features does the site or tool have that others may not have?
  • Is the site or tool mobile friendly? Laptop friendly?
  • Does it have sharing tools (e.g., Facebook, Twitter)?
  • Are there advertisements? How intrusive are they?
  • Is the platform easy to navigate and provide tools that make it easy for you to create a photo essay?

Two notes about color:

  1. Don’t overdo it!
  2. Make sure the colors you choose for frames, text, and so on are easy to read against the backgrounds you choose

Filed under: digital content creation, digital resources, digital tools, Images, visual literacy | Tagged: , | 2 Comments »

La Asociación Española de Lectura y Escritura – Vocabulary

Posted on June 25, 2017 by TDWolsey

Literacy Beat blogger Dana L. Grisham and guest blogger Linda Smetana will be presenting strategies and techniques for vocabulary learning at 4:15 on July 5, 2017 in Madrid, Spain.  Some of their resources can be downloaded from Literacy Beat. Be sure to check these out!

conferencia-inglc3a9s-negativo

READING AND WRITING WITH NEW TECHNOLOGIES TO SUPPORT VOCABULARY LEARNING

Frayer Model [Frayer Model]

Vocabulary Self-collection Strategy + [VSS+ Worksheet PDF]  [VSS+ Word worksheet]

V-Tweets [Vtweet blank Worksheet PDF] [Vtweet blank Worksheet for Word]

Session description:
Effective vocabulary instruction for all students has gained importance over the past decade. Graves (2016) reminds us that vocabulary learning is of enormous significance, that we cannot teach all the words that must be learned, and that it is even more challenging when we teach students who come from varied backgrounds and languages (p. 4-5). Effective vocabulary instruction provides access to academic text for all students and technology is an effective tool for vocabulary learning, particularly when students are engaged in generative and active learning (Grisham & Smetana, 2011). Effective vocabulary instruction promotes a lively interest in words through student expression, playing with words, building on individual interests as well as curriculum needs, and emphasizing self-efficacy in word learning (Beck, McKeown, & Kucan, 2008; Graves & Watts-Taffy, 2008). Researchers conducted several studies designed to test the efficacy of three generative technology strategies for increasing the academic vocabulary of K-12 students. Each study built upon the one prior to refine the strategies. They were based upon the idea that technology should be generative in the sense that the children should create some authentic product from its use.

Technology in the K-12 classroom is no longer optional; it is imperative that teachers know how to teach with it and students know how to learn with it (Tondeur, et al, 2011). Thus, teachers must be prepared to address content standards with useful technological tools. The workshop consists of two parts beginning with the presentation of research on the strategies and the increased emphasis on disciplinary literacy and academic vocabulary (Wolsey, Smetana & Grisham, 2015). Students who are more engaged with word learning and who make connections between words necessary to understand text make deeper conceptual learning (Castek, Dalton, & Grisham, 2012). Repeated encounters with words in various contexts and modalities, social interactions while learning new words, and meaningful generation of learning products (Coiro, Castek, Sekeres, & Guzniczak, 2014; Leu, Kinzer, Coiro, Castek, & Henry, 2013; Marzano, 2009) assist in vocabulary learning. Linking images and linguistic information in the brain aids such learning and retention (Sadoski & Paivio, 2007).

In the second part of the workshop, participants are invited to learn to use the strategies themselves, so that they may use them and/or incorporate them into their instructional practice. Strategies include technology-rich versions of the Frayer model, Tweeting for vocabulary learning (V-Tweets) and Vocabulary Self-Selection Strategy Plus (VSS+) all of which are situated within the challenges of academic texts and the need for close reading. Participants are provided with 21st Century strategies that connect to and engage today’s diverse student population and provide access to content.

Read more on Literacy Beat:

Frayer Model

VSS+ here and here

 

 

Filed under: digital content creation, Reading conference, technology integration, vocabulary | Tagged: , | 1 Comment »

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