AmyLou

"Race" and "hillbilly" are here to stay

2010-06-17T06:33:00.000-07:00

When we read the chapter in Rockin’ Out that was about the eighties, I was greatly intrigued by the discussions of race in music. Due to this factor, I decided to read chapter 2: Blues and Country Music: Mass Media and the Construction of Race. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect of this chapter, but it still fell a little short for me.

I’m not saying that there weren’t some interesting facts I learned in this chapter, but on the whole, I felt like it was a list of musicians from each type of music: race, hillbilly, country blues, classic blues. This was not outrageously helpful to someone with no background knowledge in these types of music, or these specific artists.

I feel like this book could have benefited from a CD accompaniment. It would have helped its reader to understand faster about not only the different artists, but the subtle (or not so subtle) differences between the various types of music.

Having said that, I truly enjoyed looking up and listening to some of the artists and songs mentioned in this chapter. The songs listed below showcase my musical journey through this chapter as well as my initial reactions to the songs and their history.

Fisk Jubilee Singers (Ezekiel Saw De Wheel) – It seems that there is nowhere else that the blues could have started from. The sound of this soulful music holds so much emotion, mostly lamenting, that shines through to its listeners. I really enjoyed this style of call-and-response song and I particularly liked the specific version I listened to. It had a crackly sound, either from the recording or the playing of a phonograph record. I think this added to the history of this music.

Johnny Cash (Casey Jones) – I feel like this version retains some of its history. You can feel the nod to the early blues. First off, Johnny Cash has a wonderful voice for this style music, but then you bring in both the backup singers and all the instruments. It is these to properties that truly make this a joy to listen to.

Grateful Dead (Casey Jones) – Of course this version is much different from the Johnny Cash version, but I think that speaks to almost the oral tradition of music. While the sound wouldn’t always stay the same, the message would, and that was the important part.

Clarence “Pine Top” Smith (Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out) – When I read the term “boogie-woogie blues” I did not expect what I heard in this recording. Of course I did expect the piano, since Reebee Garofalo talks about the classically trained musicians that make up this style, but I was not expecting the slow talk-style of singing. Boogie-woogie, to means, sounds like it would have been a little more upbeat than this song showed.

Mamie Smith (Crazy Blues) – While I am not really crazy for this style I don’t understand how it took record companies so long to tap into this market. I think this section frustrated me the most. Why wouldn’t you want to open your markets up to all people? I guess it is easy for me to say this now since all the groundwork has already been laid, but come on. We are all people and we definitely do not all tlike the same type of music. It seems like good sense, as well as good business sense, to be open to producing all types of music to draw in all types of audiences.

Bessie Smith (Downhearted Blues) – I can definitely see the jazz influence in this song. While the instrumental seems simple behind her, Bessie’s voice is complex and rich as she croons about her life. Going from saving Colombia from bankruptcy with this song to having no career after the Great Depression struck six years later seems like a tragedy. Luckily, places like iLike.com keep her music library there for you to hear.

Bessie Smith (Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out) - This will be a short one…no disrespect to Clarence “Pine Top” Smith, but I enjoyed this version more. I liked the rhythm and beat better. It is interesting to note that this was her last song before the depression. I guess it came true for her.

Blind Lemon Jefferson (See That My Grave Is Kept Clean) - To me, this sounds like much of the bluegrass music that I listen to today. It would make sense that bluegrass and country blues are linked. I love his voice and style of music. It sounds similar to the music I had at my wedding.

The Carter Family (Keep on the Sunny Side) – Who knew I had heard this song before. Thank you O Brother Where Art Thou?. Again, I enjoyed this song, both this version and the movie version. It is unfortunate that country music no longer sounds like this. You can almost hear in this recording the essence of the family. I think this songs goes well with the image I am sure they wanted to portray.

Jimmie Rodgers (Blue Yodel #9) – The first thing that struck me was the title. On iLike.com it is now called Standin’ on the Corner (Blue Yodel #9). I wonder why the change. The other thing that strikes me is his musicality. It is definitely in contrast with what the Carter Family was putting out at the same time. He is a bit freer and more open. He also “rocks” a bit more. Could his song choices be a part of carrying on his “ramblin’ man” image?

Roy Acuff (Great Speckled Bird) – TI choose this artist due to his history surrounding baseball. I wondered what a former baseballer would sound like on a record. I wasn’t disappointed. The instrumentation in this piece adds greatly to the tune. This song didn’t only showcase the voice but also made the instruments part of the story they were telling. It was almost like they were using the instruments to portray the “great speckled bird”. I feel like you don’t find this technique much anymore (in the limited music I listen to these days).

Meade Lux Lewis (Boogie Woogie) – I had to find out about this artist because the person who read this copy before me had underlined his name and let me tell you - this was what I expected from boogie woogie. The piano playing was upbeat and complex. You don’t need the voice to tell the story, the piano does it all on its own. I can imagine people having a grand old time out on the dance floor listening to this song.

Assignment #1:

For this assignment, I would like my students to take a musical journey similar to that which I just took. I would start off by having them, either alone or with a partner, research and present on a specific time period in music history.

As a part of this presentation, I would have the students come up with a list of musicians that impacted this time period. Following the presentation, I would give them time in the computer lab in order to look up these specific artists and their music. They would have to react to a set number of the songs or artists similarly to how I reacted to them. They would then turn in their paper.

I think that this would not only be a good follow-up for the time period presentations, but would be a good precursor to having them write a review later on in the course.

Assignment #2:

While I was listening to the songs from this section, it struck me that many of them had been redone – if not once, multiple times.

For this assignment, I would have the students find a song from this era that had been covered by at least two other artists. They would then write not a review, but a comparison of the songs. How are they similar? How are they different? Vocally and instrumentally? How does this change the message of the song, etc? This will help them to see how music changes depending on the time period in which it is sung.

Review Assignments

2010-06-13T19:32:00.000-07:00

Assignment #1:

This assignment is an extension of one already posted. In the previous assignment, the students had to put together a CD of songs that represented who they were or a time capsule of songs that represented their life.

For this extension, the students would write a review of their partner’s CD. They would focus on the placement of the songs and talk about if they are good transitions between songs or if things could have worked better with a rearrangement of the playlist.

Assignment #2:

For this assignment I am going to ask the students to find a song that they want to review. The catch is that the song they find must be a remake of an older song. In their review they should make sure to make some comparisons to the older song. In effect, this will be a combination review and compare/contrast paper.

One More Cup of Coffee

2010-06-13T19:30:00.000-07:00

The White Stripes

One More Cup of Coffee

In 1976, Bob Dylan sang One More Cup of Coffee as a song of regret and absolution, the ending of a love affair based on physical passion but marred by deep differences. Sung as a duet with Emmylou Harris, the lyrics hinted at forgiveness, both to Dylan’s female companion who he was leaving, and to himself for walking away from what was still good in their relationship.

The White Stripes covered the Dylan tune on their 1999 self-titled debut album. Carrying the weight of Jack White’s heavy, blues-influenced guitar and the deep, droning beat of Meg White’s drums, the same lyrics Dylan sang in 1976 no longer offer any forgiveness, but rather aim to ridicule and shame the singer’s lover. Dylan wrote of leaving a beautiful, sensual woman, whose family and background doomed any hope of a long-term relationship. Jack sings it as a scornful ex, who is using his lover’s insecurities – things like her lack of education and lack of money – as a weapon to leave her broken as he walks out the door.

Jack and Meg’s version, while more forceful, also lacks the depth of feeling that makes the Dylan version so haunting. Dylan is torn, and Harris’ back-up vocals make the song a conversation – two lovers parting ways agreeing that they will always remember each other. The Stripes bring a harder edge, but fail to capture the sadness that accompanies even the ending of even the most ill-fated relationship.

Social Networking Site Assignments

2010-06-09T10:53:00.000-07:00

Assignment #1

The objective for this assignment would be to understand how a celebrity’s celebrity is decided upon and showcased in society.

Day One:

I would first talk to the students and have a discussion about what is a celebrity. What are the characteristics a person must have in order to be considered a celebrity. I would write their responses on the board.

I would then have them throw out some names of people they consider to be celebrities. We would then compare these so-called celebrities to the list of characteristics we made as a class.

Day Two:

I would first have the students choose a celebrity they wanted to complete this project on.

Then, we will spend the hour in the computer lab finding current news stories or articles on their chosen celebrity. These articles could be more factual or more entertainment based (Us Weekly/Star/etc).

Day Three:

The students will again be spending the day in the computer lab. Today they will be looking up their celebrity on Facebook and Twitter. I want them to see what types of news or posts are posted.

One they are finished with the research, the students will be writing a paper comparing and contrasting the information they found on Facebook/Twitter and other “news” sites. I want them to describe how each set of news or posts changes the representation of that celebrity.

Assignment #2

For this assignment, I would like the students to try and figure out if the posts on social media sites are authentic to the celebrity.

In order to complete this assignment, the students will have to choose a myriad of celebrities and groups that they want to research. They will then have to take the time to study the posts found on sites such as Facebook and Twitter. They will need to notice the minute details that account for the differences in author.

They will need to write a paper using posts as their evidence and try to determine if the posts are authentically their celebrity or not.

The Authenticity of Social Networking Sites

2010-06-09T10:44:00.000-07:00

What I first have to say is “Wow!” I must be one of the most naïve people in the whole world. I had no idea how much social networking sites were being used for promotion. I mean, I knew that Barack used these sites throughout his campaign, but I never really made the leap to actors and musicians. I guess it only makes sense. Why wouldn’t you use the popular social media to promote both you and your celebrity, if you do happen to be a celebrity?

In my defense, I do have a Facebook account, a MySpace page, and a twitter account, but let me tell you how little I delve into each of them. Lets start with the latter. While I do have a twitter account, I have never tweeted. In fact, I have never read or followed anyone else’s tweets. I signed up for the account during my last Masters course with Rick Beach. My husband, on the other hand, uses his Twitter account daily. So, for this assignment I gave myself over to the expert to find out more about this exciting new social medium.

He gave me a run down of how it works. How people can post small status updates quite often. To me, that sounded a lot like what occurs on Facebook. But, the benefit of Twitter is that it is only the statuses without all the other annoying Farmville and Mafia Wars updates. My husband doesn’t follow a lot of celebrities. I think he does follow Joel McHale, but he is an anomaly. Being that he works at the state capitol, he mainly follows legislators and news media. He says that Twitter is an invaluable tool for knowing what is going on in the world of politics. He continues to say that if a reporter has a fact, they typically tweet it before they write the story.

Last night, I asked him about the celebrity postings and how he knows that they are truly posted by the celebrity. He said he didn’t know. He did not seem to care too much about if it was really Joel McHale or his publicist. He did say that most of the post sounded like McHale himself. I talked with him about what I learned in the reading regarding Mariah Carey and Brittney Spears using first and third person to distinguish between their true selves and their publicist. We both found that extremely interesting.

On to MySpace…I do not have to talk about this one for very long because I truly only set up this account to stay in touch with my nephew. I later on found out that he wasn’t using that particular social media site. Due to that, I have not logged into that account in a really long time.

The same cannot be said for Facebook, however. I log on to Facebook multiple times a day. I do not believe, however, that I use this site in the same manner as most of the people (at least most of the younger generation) do. Again, my main reason for signing up was to keep in contact with a friend who moved over seas. If he had not left, I am unsure if I would have entered the Facebook realm. I typically use Facebook as another email. I sign in, check the home page, look at my profile, see if I have any new invites/requests, and sometimes play a game.

Up until two days ago I had never searched for people or organizations outside my realm of friends. I didn’t really know that different organizations had pages, but now I do and I am interested in looking up some Facebook pages that would be beneficial to my teaching career. I love the idea that there are other teachers out there that I can hook up with and exchange ideas with. And while I knew that celebrities had Facebook pages, I didn’t really care about them. They’re not my friends.

After reading Celebrity Studies: The promotion and presentation of the self: celebrity as a marker of presentational media by P. David Marshall, I was highly motivated to do some research on the issue of using social networking sites as a was to promote both the self and the performer. I know we talked earlier about how an authentic performer would not separate these two halves of the whole, but I think believed it to be different in the case of the online self.

I would imagine that in the online self, artists are going to show a more intimate side of themselves. I do not believe all of them will go as far as Ashton Kutcher and post pictures of their wives in underwear, but they will still show us some glimpse into their personal life.

One reason I believe that artists and performers would want to do this is because they control the message that gets sent out. This is most definitely not the case in most of the media coverage they get. Usually the paparazzi and other media sites choose what to report, and in turn, how they are represented or come across. By using sites like Facebook and Twitter, the artists cannot represent themselves in the way they see fit. While this may still be a performance, albeit not on a stage, we (their audience) still see this as a more intimate view.

When choosing a celebrity to research I went to Facebook first. I clicked on the music section and scrolled through the artists that have sites dedicated to them. I did not have an opinion on who I wanted to see, so I ended up looking at multiple peoples’ and groups’ sites.

Early in the research, I came up with a hypothesis I wanted to test. It came to me, after looking at Mariah Carey, Brittney Spears, and the band The Killers, that it seemed like it was easier to determine if the posts were actual posts from the artists themselves or their publicist if it was a site dedicated to one person rather than a group. This led me to believe that most single person sites were more intimate in nature than the band sites.

Taking this as my hypothesis, I dug a little deeper and looked at more celebrity Facebook pages. I started by looking at some band sites. For this I examined The Black Eyed Peas, Maroon5, and Weezer. While I know that this is a small sample size, I think the point gets across. After scrolling down and reading a multitude of posts on each of these band’s sites, I noticed a trend in what was uploaded to these particular sites. All that was posted were news pieces on each of these artists, tour dates, and their music, along with other promotional materials. There was never an intimate or more telling post. Even when the band tried to make it more intimate, it was still promotional. This can be seen in Weezer’s post of “Are you ready for Bonnaroo? Share some pics of your camping gear”. I feel that they were trying to make it sound like it was the members posting this, but it was still really all about promotion and telling their fans that they would be at Bonnaroo.

One band site that leaned more into the intimate realm was that of Tapes ‘n Tapes. While their posts were mostly made up of tour dates, I did notice that they took the time to answer some of their fans’ posts.

Shane C Mutter Are you guys ever coming to New Orleans? What the hell? June 3 at 8:30pm

Tapes 'n Tapes

we hope so. it's been at #1 on our list of "cities we haven't played in yet, but want to" for a while. we're trying....guess we'll just have to try a little harder, though.

June 3 at 8:47pm

Shane C Mutter

Glad to hear. Well keep me posted and I'll keep my fingers crossed. My brother, cousin, and a few friends have been following you guys for a few years.

June 4 at 7:19am

I feel that this really lends to the authenticity of these posts. And it makes me feel that they care about their fans and their fans’ desires and wishes.

So, now onto the single artists’ pages, where I expected it to reflect a more intimate relationship with the audience based on the types of posts I would find. Instead, I found that this isn’t really the case. I have found examples of single artist Facebook pages that are very much not intimate. The pages I looked at were Jay-Z, Michael Buble, and Celine Dion. None of these artists posted anything that I would declare truly from them rather than from their publicist. It was still all about the tour dates and promotion.

This makes me wonder then, why do some artists take the time to post materials themselves while others don’t? What is it about Brittney Spears or Mariah Carey, or even Joel McHale that makes them want to have that more personal connection? Unfortunately, I don’t have the resources or time to answer this question, but I hope that someday someone will.

What is Censorship?

2010-06-06T14:22:00.000-07:00

Censorship Lesson Plan

Day One:

Present information about the first amendment.

Class Discussion: What is censorship?

Have the students define the word both my creating a definition and by looking it up in the dictionary.
Pose the following discussion questions (if needed)

Have you ever been censored? Describe.
Give examples of censorship that has occurred in our society (Hopefully they will bring up the topic of censorship and music).

Let them know our overarching question for this unit will be: Is censorship ever okay?

Day Two:

Start the day by playing some music that has either been censored (lyrics/playtime) or that has a parental advisory sticker.

Disseminate information about the PMRC and their issues with and goals for music.

Pass out song lyrics. Have a discussion that includes the following:

What is your reaction to the song?
What does it mean to you?
What is the message of the song?
Does the artist want to motivate you to do something or persuade you to think a certain way?
How compelled are you to follow the artist’s direction?

Talk about specific cases where artist’s have been sued.

Day Three:

Explain their assignment.

The students will be participating in a debate. This debate will center around the 1985 hearings where the decision was made to use parental advisory stickers.
Each student will be assigned a character they will have to play in the debate. They will have to research their assigned character and formulate an idea of what their character would believe about the issue of the parental advisory sticker.

Assign them characters:

Tipper Gore
Sally Nevius
Pam Howar
Susan Baker
Mike Love
Stan Gortikov
Frank Zappa
Dee Snider
John Denver
Prince
Madonna
Garth Brooks
Ozzy Osbourne
Mr. McCullom
Mrs. McCollumn
Charles M. Young
Jason Newsted

Give them the rest of the hour to research

Day Four:

Final research day

Day Five:

The students will have the hour to debate.

Day Six:

For the first half of the class, we will debrief about what happened the previous day during the debate.

Using what they learned during the debate, the students must now write a paper that answers the following question:

Should CDs that may be considered offensive contain warning labels?

They must take a stand on this issue and provide evidence for their decision. Their paper must be one page in length.

Day Seven:

The students will complete their papers.

Lesson Plans: Authenticity

2010-06-03T19:32:00.000-07:00

Lesson Plan 1: Authenticity

Objective:
• To have the students understand the concept of authenticity.
• To have the students take a look at a specific artist and decide if they are authentic or not.

Procedures:
1. Give the students the prompt of, “What does the word ‘authentic’ mean?” Give them five minutes to brainstorm on their own. After five minutes, open up the discussion. Write their responses on the board. Once all the responses have been told, lead a class discussion.
2. During this class discussion, come up with a set of qualities they believe fit the concept of being authentic.
3. Once this list is made, read articles discussing the concept of authenticity in relation to musicians.
4. Go back to the class list and make any changes the students deem necessary.
5. Explain that the students will each need to pick an artist that they will do a project on to determine whether or not they are authentic.
6. Using Kembrew McLeod’s Semantic dimensions, have the students do some research into their artist’s background as well as using their own experience with that artist in order to determine their authenticity.
7. After the research is complete, have the students complete a paper describing the authenticity of their assigned artist. They should also present their results to the class.

Lesson Plan 2: Authenticity

Objective
• To enhance the students’ understanding of authenticity in regards to musicians

Procedures:
1. This lesson should follow an initial discussion of the concept of authenticity.
2. Have the students review the idea of authenticity and discuss what the characteristics of an authentic or true self are.
3. Break them up into groups. Assign each group a different genre of music. Each group now needs to come up with a list of qualities that are necessary for an artist of that genre must have in order to be considered authentic.
4. Once those lists are complete, have each group present their list to the class.
5. Now, assign each student one of the genres that have just been characterized.
6. Have each student pick an artist from that genre and see if they are an authentic member of that genre or not based on the characteristics provided.
7. Have them present their results to the class.

Authentic or Not?

2010-06-03T19:05:00.001-07:00

Each day in my life I am faced with the idea of authenticity, though I have never put that name to it. In working with high school students you get to see both their authentic side, and their not-so-authentic side. With them, the struggle to find their “true self” is extremely difficult. And the struggle to have their peers accept their “true self” is even more difficult.

This acceptance of the “true self” occurs throughout each aspect of our lives; with our friends, our family, and in our jobs. I believe that if you become a musician, with the aspect of fame, this drive for acceptance is even greater. due to being in the limelight, your livelihood now depends on creating that authentic self and having people connect with and believe in it. But, what is this “it” that musicians have to get their sudience to believe in?

According to David Pattie, they way in which a performer creates his or her authenticity is through the music. In fact, he states that the music is the “ultimate proof of authenticity.” This means that the audience must believe in the song that is being performed to us.

Once they have us hooked by song, the performers must themselves be real. This gets a little more complicated. We, as the audience must believe that the performer is onstage giving us their true self. We want to see, know, and understand who they truly are. But, we also know that the self that they are showing us is a performance.

When we finally believe that the “true self” is shining through, and we have a connection to the song, a miraculous moment happens. We connect. And it is almost like the audience and the performer become one.

I do not believe that there is one person out there who can say that they have not felt this bond. That they have not been listening to one of their favorite bands or vocalists and they have felt a deep connection with the person on stage. At times it has felt that they were singing specifically for you (or me). This authentic moment is exactly what these performers want to happen.

Do they all do this? Do you always feel this connection? Probably not. I do like the idea of taking a peek at those that I deem worthy of paying money to watch them play music. So, who would I consider to be some of my favorites? I think I will have to take a look at The White Stripes and Bright Eyes.

The White Stripes

To start with a little background of this band, they are considered a rock duo. In fact, when these two first made it big, they were a self proclaimed brother and sister band. Too bad their divorce papers surfaced later on.

I have seen them in concert three times. The main reason for this is my connection to the music. The connection I have with the music is not on a deep and personal level, however. I just think that they are able to write lyrically fun, musically wonderful songs.

The first time I saw them in concert, they were at Roy Williams Arena and my seats were in the nosebleed section. This made the experience difficult for my by not really allowing me to connect with them. They were too far away to really have a feeling like they were singing to me. It did briefly occur once, when they sang a cover of Bob Dylan’s One More Cup of Coffee. And this was mainly due to the fact that I was one of a handful of people who knew what they were singing.

The second time I saw them they were playing The Orpheum Theater. This venue was much smaller. That allowed for a bit more intimacy and connection to occur. In fact, that night they had much more discourse with the audience than during their first concert. I wonder if they even felt more of a connection with their audience. But, what makes me feel that their performance is really about their true self is what happened during the third concert I saw them perform.

This concert actually occurred the night after I saw them in concert at the Orpheum. They played a second show and I was in attendance. To back up a bit, the night before Jack and Meg had gotten a little frustrated with the amount of people taking their pictures. They continually asked the audience to stop. Flash forward to the next night and you see Jack walking on stage snapping a Polaroid picture of himself. As it develops, he tosses it out into the crowd. This gave him a bit of control of the situation while also interacting with the audience.

One other way I know that they are authentic (in my eyes) is due to the fact that when Meg developed a case acute anxiety, or stage fright, and had to cancel a bunch of concerts, I really felt for her. I felt such a personal connection for her that I remember thinking that I hoped she was okay.

Bright Eyes

The band Bright Eyes is made up of a band with ever changing members but one main singer, Connor Oberst. I have also seen both his band and him playing solo shows a multitude of times. In fact, I have probably seen him in concert more times than any other band.

Do I think he is authentic? It’s complicated. I think that he began authentic and is slowly fading into the inauthentic realm.

His music, and specifically his lyrics, is amazing. He writes some of the most poetic words that I have ever heard (now remember, I am kind of naïve when it comes to music). This is especially true of some of his first albums. Each and every song is able to pull you in to the story. And the story is beautiful.

However, I feel less of a connection with some of his recent albums. In fact, I can’t even name one of the songs on his newest album. I don’t know if it sue to my tastes changing, or him changing.

I do feel like he has changed over the time of his career, and I feel like that has affected my belief in his authenticity. When he first began, he played venues such as First Avenue and the 400 Bar. While First Ave. is a pretty good sized venue, it is nowhere near the size of the venues he is playing now. And the 400 Bar was even smaller. The first time I saw him at the 400 Bar, he told a story about his connection to that venue. He actually knew and was really close to the person who owned that venue and he said he wanted to show his support for that place and was glad that we came out to show our support as well. I think that this declaration really hooked me. I fell for his true self [act] in that moment. However, he has not played this particular venue in a really long time.

Although I can make a case for his authenticity (even though I think it is waning) you can definitely make a case for his inauthenticity. He has been criticized for both over writing his songs and over emoting when on stage. Since these are both important qualities in the idea of authenticity, if you felt this way you would definitely not believe he was authentic.

Found Lesson Plan and My Additions

2010-05-30T11:51:00.000-07:00

Soundtrack of Your Life

Again, this is a lesson plan that I found during my pop music in the classroom search. I really thought the my students would like this lesson, so I wanted to include it in this post. The link to this lesson plan can be found in the previous post.

Type of Activity: Individual.

Approximate time: Four 50-minute class periods.

Objective: Students will write reflectively and personally.

Materials: The Soundtrack of Your Life assignment sheet includes blanks for songs and artists and an explanation of each required paragraph. It may also be necessary for students to consult their Compact Disc (CD) liner notes or Internet sites for lyrics. The Green Book by Jeff Green is a great optional resource which provides a thematic categorization of over 20,000 song titles.

Setup: Play music as the students are entering the classroom.

Procedure:

Day One: Distribute a copy of the lyrics and play Bon Jovi's "It's My Life." Then, discuss the meaning and message of the song and the possible relationships to Jon Bon Jovi's life. Next, have the students discuss this song in relevance to their own lives. After the discussion, have the students choose eight major events — deaths, first car, entering high school — in their lives and then choose songs to accompany each event. Some students will need overnight to complete the list.

Day Two: Have the students collect the titles of at least eight meaningful songs that correspond to the events they selected on Day One. The songs should be of a school-appropriate nature. By using CD Liner notes, the Internet, and The Green Book, students will be able to find lyrics that fit their events. It is also helpful to encourage sharing of events in order for students to find songs that fit their musical tastes.

Day Three: Now that the students have created an "imaginary soundtrack" to their lives, have them write a reflective letter that explains why each event and song is included. Create examples or use examples fromwork by previous students to help explain the expectations of the assignment. Have the students follow the outline on the student handout for constructing the soundtrack of their life.

Day Four: (Wait several days after Day Three for this part of the lesson.) This is the day the writing assignment is due for presentation to the class along with a visual aide. Students need only share a small portion of their soundtrack; this helps everyone feel more comfortable in front of the class. As the students share their visual aides (usually CD cases of their soundtrack) everyone in the class begins to better understand their peers, which builds a positive classroom climate and mutual respect among students.

Summary: This assignment combines a student's passion for music with a teacher's respect for the personal narrative. It's an invaluable combination for inspiring students to write. The assignment sets a positive tone at the beginning of school by having students share their lives with each other and with the teacher. Through the vehicle of the personal narrative, the teacher learns about each student's background through a first writing effort that unfolds in a safe, creative, and comfortable atmosphere. Of course, the personal narrative — particularly as it connects to music — also engages students in the emotional response to a creative work, which the teacher will expect from them when they respond to literature later in the school year.

Enrichment: Use this same "imaginary soundtrack" activity, but create the soundtrack to a novel your class is reading instead. This works extremely well because it challenges students to summarize the main ideas of each chapter with an individual song that captures or shares that same meaning. Other successful and creative ideas include a poster and presentation, an interview with the "rock star" (student), a CD release party, a mock concert, or a "behind the music" documentary.

One way in which I could alter this assignment:

I have been in a classroom where I was given the task to make a CD that represented me. On it, I was able to put music that represented me throughout the different time periods of my life. After each member of the classroom had finished their CD, we swapped. In fact, we put them all in a box and randomly drew one out. They did not have our names on them.

You then were required to write a two page paper discussing what you felt this person was like, hat they went through, or what this music represented for them. After these papers were graded, the person who made the CD was given the paper.

One addition that I would make to this assignment is to have each student write an initial paper reflecting on their music choices. Then, they can swap papers with the person who picked their CD. Then they could have a discussion about how similar or different the interpretation of the music choices were.

Resources for Teaching Popular Music in the Classroom

2010-05-30T11:44:00.000-07:00

Rock and Roll hall of Fame Museum website

This site has 52 lesson plans that cover a wide range of topics – from the music of the Vietnam War, to Woody Guthrie and the Grapes of Wrath, to the Bill of Rights. I picked a lesson at random to look at (Lesson 40 – Rock and Poetry: A Thematic Project). I chose this because I have before tied music lyrics to poetry. What I found when I clicked on a link is a very well thought out, detailed lesson plan. It gives information on the objectives of the lesson, Materials needed, background information, procedures, evaluation, and more. If each of the lesson plans found here are this well done, it is going to be a wonderful site to keep going back to.

Media Awareness Network website

I wanted to include this particular lesson plan because it went so well with our assignment for this week. On this page you will find a lesson plan that introduces students to the idea of popular music and music videos. In this lesson plan, the students will get to learn about the role that music videos play in the history of music itself (much like we did) and also look at how music and popular culture invade their lives as well.

Read Write Think website

Over my career as a teacher, I have found a lot of great lesson plans on the Read*Write*Think website. I feel like this website has a lot of materials that connect standard Language Arts curriculum with pop culture. Along with this specific lesson plan, I have also used lesson plans that discuss satire with both the movie Shrek and the television show The Simpson’s. I have included these links below as well.

This specific lesson plan uses the lyrics of Stairway to Heaven to examine and analyze metaphors in poetry. Again, I have done something similar and it worked really well. I think I would use this lesson to introduce a poetic device project I would want my students to complete.

Lit Tunes Lesson Plans website

The reason that I included this website was it’s main belief or goal. The lesson plans on this page are meant to “enhance literacy and inspire writing.” I think that this is definitely a goal that most, if not all, Language Arts teachers can relate to. It looks as though it has quite a few lesson plans that would interest my students, including ones on The Barenaked Ladies and Johnny Cash.

I also really like the “Soundtrack of Your Life” lesson plan. It is reminiscent of an assignment that I completed while taking a Rhetoric of Rock Music class at the University of Minnesota.

Read Write Think website

Here are the two lesson plans on satire that I used during a summer school class. I think that the one based on Shrek and fairy tales was a definite success. The one based on The Simpson’s was also fun, and the students were engaged, but I think I would tweak it a little bit to make it more successful.

Shrek

The Simpson's

Music and Politics from the 1970's and 1980's

2010-05-30T11:05:00.000-07:00

Due to growing up in the eighties, I was rather excited about starting off with the chapter in Rockin’ Out that Reebee Garafalo dedicated to that decade. Learning about the music that I grew up with definitely interested me and kept my attention - again, I have to make a bit of an aside to reiterate that if we could catch our students’ attention by engaging them in a topic that they are interested, we will achieve this same effect with them. They will want to acquire more knowledge in that area and we, as educators, will sneak in that pesky reading that they seem adverse to. Ok. Rant over. Back to the topic at hand.
While I don’t define myself with the songs and artists of the eighties, I am sure that they had some influence over me. This influence could have taken root in the more political aspect of my life. I find that I agree with the outcome of the political actions of the eighties. Now I know that my political leanings did not come solely from the music of the eighties (since I was between the ages of 0 and 10) but I am sure they influenced the people around me and therefore passed on when I got to the age to think more politically.
While reading Chapter 9: Music Videos, Superstars, and Mega-Events: The Eighties, I found myself immersed in the story of the time. As a naïve, passive music listener, I really had no idea about the history that surrounded this decade. I grew up in a world where MTV dominated the television. In fact, I only lived one year of my life devoid of this channel. It was interesting to learn how the pairing of the auditory and the visual helped the recession that occurred in the music industry to bounce back.
On the other hand, it was quite sad to learn about the racist and sexists practices MTV succumbed to in order to make money. I realize that big businesses have to follow the practices of the times if they want to make money, but you would think that a revolutionary business would be willing to takes more risks and take them in a speedier manner than they actually occurred. This was just not true.
As far as the topic of race was concerned, the music industry showed its true colors both in the artists it signed, but also in the artists it showed on television. I think that the quote by veejay Mark Goodman really sums up the argument against promoting African American performers: “Of course, also we have to try and do what we think not only New York and Los Angeles will appreciate, but also Poughkeepsie or the Midwest. Pick some town in the Midwest which would be scared to death by Prince, which we’re playing, or a string of other black faces, or black music” (298). This just shows the political influence that controlled the music industry. I will be forever grateful to Michael Jackson for breaking down the color barrier that exists not only in the music industry, but also in our society. Who knows where we would be as a society if he had never gained the fame and popularity he did.
When approaching the topic of women in music, and specifically in music videos, I feel that my last post goes into a lot of that detail, and I refer you to that if you haven’t already read it. However, I will say that I do not believe that the use of women in male artists’ videos has changed much in the last thirty years. It seems that the idea of using women as visual hooks is still alive and well. Will this ever change? Part of me hopes that it will, but the larger part of me thinks that this is a trend that will stay for a long time.
Overall, I was thrilled with the leaps and bounds that the political realm gained due to or at the same time as the leaps and bounds made in the musical realm of the 1980s. On the other hand, while reading the chapter in Rockin’ Out that talked about the history of the 1970s, I had the opposite reaction.
My beef doesn’t really reside with the music of disco, but rather with its counterpart of punk music. Since I was not a child of the 70s, I really had no exposure to the music that came out of this decade. Even my older brother, who was born in 1973, missed this era of music entirely. I do now, however, have a group of students that are taken over by puck music. In fact, one of my students decided to do a research project on punk music, reading for weeks about intimate detail of two of his favorite bands. After reading chapter eight in our textbook, I began to wonder if he really understood what punk music meant or represented. It would be interesting to find out if this particular student knows the history of the punk music or if he just fell in love with the sound of the music.
I have to say; I understand some of the philosophy behind punk music. I understand not wanting to be controlled, and instead opting to be something different. But, I do think these thoughts were taken to some pretty far extremes. And sadly, these extremes showed up in the political climate of both Britain and the U.S. I know that it wasn’t the goal of the punk movement to become a symbol for the National Front, but when you choose to use symbols such as the swastika to make a political stand, it can come back and haunt you. The book states that it was more about confrontational art and not an endorsement of racism, but it amazes me that they could have over looked the history of the aforementioned symbol.
Not only did they forget about the history surrounding the swastika, they used it not to enhance their beliefs, but instead to make more money. For Westwood and McLaren, it became a way for them to put a stamp on the fashion of the times as well as get themselves immersed in markets other than music, such as the film industry. To make money off of the tragedy that surrounds this symbol is disgusting to me.
I was glad to hear that groups formed to combat the message and beliefs of the National Front. I feel that the Rock against Racism (RAR) was indispensable to what our country became. I loved that they worked to bring not only blacks and whites to the stage at the same time, but worked also to cross the gender and sexual orientation barriers. It is amazing to me that the culture of music has such a wide reach that it could help a politician gain the popular vote in an election. And this is not something that only happened in our history. This is still going on today. You can see it in shows such as Rock the Vote. I am glad there are people who are using their influence to make people think about what it is they want our country to stand up and believe in.
As a teacher, it seems like a no brainer to want my students to understand how politics and music go hand in hand. I think in noting this connection, it will help them understand the music and lyrics that they are enamored with.

Women and Sexuality in Music Videos

2010-05-27T05:43:00.000-07:00

After watching the assigned videos, and reading the critique of Fiona Apple’s Criminal, I was at a bit of a loss as to what to write for this blog post. Leaving the subject as open as it was makes me think about the plethora of topics that could be discussed. So, that’s what I am going to do. I am going to dissect each of these videos and look at the images, the lyrics, it’s place in history, and the reaction the viewer had upon seeing the stimuli.
We first viewed Lesley Gore’s It’s My Party video. This video was produced in 1963 and shows the artist singing to a group of dancing young adults while background dancers perform behind her. The camera cuts back and forth between Lesley, the crowd, and the background dancers as the song goes along.
As far as the lyrics go, they are pretty harmless. It is a poppy little tune about her boyfriend dumping her for another girl and bringing the new girl to the exes birthday party. Of course, his old girlfriend is a bit upset by this new revelation and decides to cry. And do we want to stop her? Why would we – It’s her party and she can cry if she wants to, as the song tells us.
The first thing that I noticed is the lack of connection between the music video and the lyrics of the song. I think my generation is used to the video either telling the pictorial story of the song or at least enhancing the song through images. With this video it is not the case. The images do not follow the lyrics, nor do they enhance the song. I am assuming that the reason for this is due to the time period in which this song was written and performed. This video felt like more of a performance than a music video – one maybe taped during an episode of American Bandstand.
Due to the “safe” lyrics and the even safer video, I did not have too much of a reaction to this song. It is one that I had heard many times in many circumstances, from on the oldies channel to on the Sweatin’ to the Oldies VHS tape my mom still brings out on occasion. This particular song from this era, coupled with the video, does nothing to challenge or shock its viewer in any way.
In 1996, Fiona Apple gave us the song, and video, Criminal. In this music video we see a young woman in the basement of a house that we, the viewers, are led to believe that she has just taken part in an orgy.
The lyrics to this song talk about the fact that she has made mistakes and needs help to redeem herself. In fact, in the lyrics to this song she compares herself at one point to the devil. These song lyrics are a far cry from Lesley Gore’s It’s My Party. As time has gone on, and decades have passed, women have been able to take more of a power role when expressing themselves though song. If Lesley Gore had decided to write something similar to Criminal, there would have been an outrage and both the music industry and her adoring fans would probably have ostracized her.
When I first saw the Criminal video, fourteen years ago, I remember really liking it. It seemed to my sixteen-year-old self that it was a really good video. Looking at it today, I would agree with that assessment. I think that the mood of the video matches with her voice and the lyrics of this particular song.
Video reviewer, Mark Zeltner dislikes that in this video we, the viewers, were pulled into this sensual video through the use of Fiona both taking a picture of us in the beginning and also singing straight to the camera (to us) throughout the video. I actually think that this is what most artists shoot for. They want their listeners to be drawn into the music, into their lyrics, into their video. If we were not meant to be apart of their work, it would never be published for us to read/hear/see.
Another critique Mark Zeltner makes is the assertion that the director of the video has created “a soft porn four minute masterpiece masquerading as a contemporary rock music video”. If you look at what the accepted definition of what soft porn is you will see that this video, while sexual in nature, does not meet these standards. One definition found on Wikipedia states that “Softcore pornography depicts nude and semi-nude performers engaging in casual social nudity or non-graphic representations of sexual intercourse or masturbation.” I would argue that the actors in Apple’s video do not engage in any sort of representation of sexual intercourse or masturbation. While these acts are hinted at, they are not displayed for the viewer to see.
This is very unlike the images shown in Lil Kim’s How Many Licks. This video is filled with nothing but “semi-nude performers engaging in casual social nudity or non-graphic representations of sexual intercourse or masturbation.” Why then did Mark Zeltner leave this song alone when writing his critiques? In Lil Kim’s video, multiple images are cut together to show the story of the main character. We see this character 1.scantily clad while dancing with other scantily clad women, 2. on a poster with nothing covering her breasts other than pasties, 3. being used as an image for a gentleman to get self-pleasure, and 4. as a take charge sexual being wearing a low cut, skin tight outfit while driving a powerful automobile.
Not only were the images of this video explicit, but so were the lyrics. Holy cow. During the introduction of this song Lil Kim uses very graphic language. I had never heard this song before, so when I did hear it for the first time I was quite shocked.
But, I do think that was the point. She is challenging the conventions of each and every viewer with both her lyrics and the video she put together. Over time, we have definitely come a long way from the tame videos of the 1960’s.
The last question I want to bring up is this: if Fiona Apple’s or Lil Kim’s songs were performed by males, would Mark Zeltner and I be more comfortable with them? I believe that the members of our society are pretty used to men being in charge, taking control, and flaunting their sexuality, both in life and in music videos. Would that have made Zeltner more comfortable with the “soft porn” images, or me more comfortable with Lil Kim’s lyrics? It is hard to know the answer to this, but I tend to think the answer is a resounding yes.

Why teach popular music in the classroom?

2010-05-25T20:32:00.000-07:00

After reflecting over the school board’s idea to move “back to the basics” in order to improve test scores in reading and writing, I wanted to put forth reasons why this plan may not work.
For many years, we have seen a decline in not only students’ test scores, but also in their interest level in participating in class discussions, assignments, and other coursework. What seemed important and interesting to the student population fifty, forty, or even ten years ago does not hold the same value for the students we are currently teaching. Our students’ interests are evolving right along with the change in our society. Why is it that we, as educators, are not willing to change right along with them, but instead stick to the same rigid curriculum we have been teaching, without success, for a long time?
The lack of interest in the curriculum they are supposed to learn is a key reason why they are becoming more and more disinterested in our classrooms. If we can provide the students with a “hook”, or a link to who they are and what they like, we may be able to draw them back into an environment where learning can, and will, take place.
I want you to think for a moment about a topic in which you have no interest to learn about. Maybe it is knitting, or fishing, or maybe it is underwater basket weaving. Now consider how you would react if I told you that all you could read about for the next nine months was that one topic, which you have already professed disinterest. Were you overjoyed at the thought of learning more on that subject and being able to understand it better, or did you groan audibly, shut down, and decide you wouldn’t do the reading? Now think about how you would have reacted if you were a teenager.
Next, think of a topic that you love. If you got the chance to read about that topic for the next nine months, how would you feel? Excited? Interested? Ready to get started? We are not so different from our students and I think we lose sight of this as we continue to choose curriculum that does not interest them. Now, I do understand that there is not a magical topic; a subject area that will appeal to each and every member of our school’s community. But I do feel that there are those that will appeal to a large majority of our student population.
One topic that may garner the interest of the majority of the population is popular culture, and, more specifically, popular music. The question is: how do we incorporate the topic of popular music into the already existing standards that we have set for ourselves? Where does this topic fit? At first glance, it doesn’t seem like it would be a smooth transition to bring the topic of popular music into our school. Into which discipline would it best fit?
While reading Rockin’ Out: Popular Music in the USA by Reebee Garafalo, I felt that the ideas presented in both the introduction and in the chapter on the music in the 1980’s would be not only interesting for the students to learn, but also would enhance their understanding our country’s history. Just as reading Wuthering Heights enhances a student’s understanding and knowledge of 19th Century England, learning about and reviewing music from various eras can provide a lens in which to view history and culture.
We can use popular culture and popular music as bait to help students become interested in new subject matter. Will we only be discussing the history of music without opening the doors to the history of our country and the world? Of course not; the two are intertwined. We cannot look at the history of music without talking about the history of the world. It is just not possible. Our history influenced the music of the times, which in turn, influenced our history. Many social and cultural shifts that occurred in the American society happened right along with shifts in the music scene.
If a social studies teacher was given the opportunity to reach out to a student through their love of music, we may be able to help them culture a new passion for history by linking the two together. This new passion could carry on for years, opening new doors to our students as they continue on through the world of academia.
You may be asking, if we can only teach popular culture and popular music in socials studies class, why are you, a language arts teacher fighting for this opportunity? I struggled with this myself. After a cursory glance it seemed that the most logical place to study popular music would be in the social studies classroom, but after probing further into the topic and talking with my colleagues, it is apparent that the topic of popular music is a multidisciplinary one.
Go back to our earlier example of reading something that interests you and relate this to our students. As a language arts teacher, one of my duties is to open our students’ eyes to writing from across the world. By the time they graduate high school, my students are supposed to have been exposed to American literature, British literature, world literature, and poetry. I cannot tell you how many times I have introduced a new novel to a group of incoming students and have been told, I haven’t read a book since elementary school. When asked why this is, it quickly becomes apparent that they have no connection to what they are reading.
Even today, after the students took the practice MCA-II Reading test, one student told me it wasn’t so bad since the reading was interesting. In fact, many concurred with this assessment stating that they hoped to never read about how to peel potatoes ever again; which was one of the passages we had read earlier in the year. The message from our students is clear: if we let them read things they’re interested in, they will want to read. Once we can get past a student’s aversion to reading, I believe they will be much more inclined to give other topics found in literature a chance.
Along with literature, the students must be introduced to poetry. When we think of poetry, people like Emily Dickinson, William Shakespeare, Deborah Keenan, and Allen Ginsburg pop into our minds. But what about the likes of Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, and Kanye West? Looking back at the works of Emily Dickinson or William Shakespeare it is easy to see where a high school student could get lost when trying to come up with the “true meaning” of their poetry. While the themes may be universal, the language used is not. It can be quite tedious for a novice in poetry to understand the intentions of the poet. If we instead were able to introduce them to poetry through a poet of our students’ generation, such as any of the above musicians, I believe the students would have an easier time understanding the poetry and grasping the meaning. Does that mean that there isn’t a place for Henry Wordsworth Longfellow in our curriculum? Definitely not. After the students have mastered the poets of their generations, it would be our job to take them a step further and challenge them with the classics. But at least them we would have built upon the groundwork of the knowledge and confidence of our students.
In summary, we have tried the “back to the basics” approach and have seen the decline in our student’s knowledge and willingness to learn. Why not try to generate an interest in their own education by offering topics that interest the students instead of pushing them away? Please consider this proposal to include the topics of popular culture and popular music into our curriculum.

Final Project

2009-12-13T14:35:00.000-08:00

Unit Plan: Bring Poetry and Pictures Together

Part One: Using Flickr

This week the students will gain an understanding of how to search the Creative Commons section in Flickr and put together a Flickr slideshow.

The students will also reflect on their Flickr slideshow as well as give feedback to their peers' Flickr slideshows.

Day One:

Show Google Presentation "Flickr Slideshow"

2. Have students sign up for Flicker.
3. Have students brainstorm topic ideas for a Flickr Slideshow in their blog.

Day Two:

Go over rubric for the Flickr Slideshow Project.
Have students sign into Flicker.
Students should search the Creative Commons section and add pictures to their "Faves".
Once each student has found enough pictures, the student should create a slideshow and post the link or embed the link on his/her blog.

Day Three:

Go over rubric for Reflection.
Each student should log into their blog.
Once there, they should watch their Flickr Slideshow.
After they have watched their slideshow, the student should complete a reflection post on their blog following the guiding questions handed out.

Day Four:

Go over rubric for Peer Responses.
The students should have the hour to watch and respond to their peers' Flickr Slideshows.

Part Two: Using VoiceThread

This week the students will take their understanding of Flickr and take it one step further. Using pictures they either find on Flickr or upload from their computer, the students will create VoiceThread and share it with their peers.

The students will also reflect on their VoiceThreads in a blog post as well as provide responses to their peers' VoiceThreads.

Day One:

Watch tutorials found on voicethread.com

What is VoiceThread?
VoiceThread in one min
Comment Moderation
Video Doodling

2. Go over the Educator's Guide to VoiceThread with students
VoiceThread Guide

3. Have the students sign up for VoiceThread.
4. The students should have the rest of the hour to play around with using VoiceThread.

Day Two:

Go over the assignment sheet and rubric for the VoiceThread project.
The students should complete a blog post in which they brainstorm ideas for their VoiceThread. They should also discus which of their poems they are going to read as their images come onto the screen.
Upon completion of their blog post, the students should begin searching for pictures either on Flickr or download them from their email for use in their VoiceThread.

Day Three:

The students should be at the point where they can begin recording and using the other tools in VoiceThread.
Let them have the hour to record their VoiceThreads.
Once they finish their VoiceThread, they should upload it into their blog.

Day Four:

Give the students time to watch their own VoiceThread and write a reflection in their blog.
Once complete, the students should have the rest of the hour to watch their peers' VoiceThreads and provide responses to them based on the rubric for peer responses.

Part Three: Using StripGenerator

This week the students will understand how to create a comic using strip generator, and do so using a poem as the subject for the comic.

The students will also give peer feedback and revise their comic strips based on the feedback they receive.

Day One:

Show Google Presentation "Creating Comics"

2. Give the students time to play around on stripgenerator.com
3. The students must decide on a poem that they are going to create a comic strip around.

Day Two:

Go over rubric for first comic assignment.
Allow students time to create their first comic strip.
After they have created their strip, the students should either link to their comic strip on their blog or embed it.

Day Three:

The students should start the day by revisiting their comic strips.
The students should complete a reflection post on their blog about their comic strip following the guiding questions handed out.
We will then review the rubric for Peer Responses.
The students will have the rest of the hour to begin looking at their peers' comic strips and writing responses.

Day Four:

The students will continue writing responses to their peers for half the class period.
Once the peer responses are complete, the students will read the responses they received on their own comic strip. They will then use the next day and a half to revise their strip based on the feedback received.

Day Five:

Once the students have completed their revised comic, they should either post a link to it or embed it in their blog.

Day Six:

Today, the students should revisit the comics they provided feedback for.
They should post a new response in using the revised comic.

Part Four:

This week the students will learn how to use the different features of iMovie. They will also put their knowledge to use by making an iMovie in which they speak one of their poems aloud while providing background pictures and sound to help deepen the meaning of their poem.

The students will also create an iMovie for a partners poem. Then, the students will reflect on the similarities/differences between their interpretations.

Finally, the students will reflect on this process in a blog post.

Day One:

Watch tutorials on how to create an iMovie.
For the first iMovie assignment, the students must upload images from Flickr into iMovie. They must then learn how to add sound, voice over, and other effects depicted in their rubric.
Once they have completed this assignment, they must upload their iMovie into their blog.
The students then must reflect on their experiences with their first use of iMovie. What they liked/disliked. What was easy/hard. What they want to learn for their next assignment.

Day Two:

Go over the iMovie assignment sheet with the students.
The students must first decide on a poem to work with on iMovie. The poem that they choose must be one that they wrote during this class.
Once they have chosen this poem, they must blog about what this poem means to them and what images could represent and deepen the understanding of the meaning of the poem.
Once they have completed their blog post, the students can spend the rest of the hour searching on Flickr for images they want to use in their iMovie.

Day Three:

Review the rubric for the iMovie project.
The students should have the rest of the hour to begin working on the iMovie project.

Day Four:

Today, the students should finish up their work on their iMovie project.
Once completed, the students should post their iMovie onto their blog.

Day Five:

Today, the students will get partnered with another student
The students should trade their poem with that of their partner.
For part two of the iMovie project, the student must now create a second iMovie using their partners poem.
The student should first read their partner's poem and write a blog post describing what they believe the poem means. Also, the student should brainstorm and come up with images that they could use during the reading of the poem to aid in making the poem understood and help to deepen the meaning of the poem.
Once their blog post is complete, the student can log on to Flickr and search for images.

Day Six and Seven:

The students will have the next two days to complete their second iMovie.
Once completed, the student must post their second iMovie on their blog.
They must also complete two blog posts. The first one should describe why they choose each image when depicting their poem and how they add to the meaning of the poem. The second one explains the images they chose for their partner's poem and how they add to the meaning of the poem.

Day Eight:

The students should get together with their partner and watch all four iMovies.
They should compare and contrast the similarities and differences in the iMovie based on poem #1. Next, they should do the same based on poem #2.
Once they have compared the iMovies, they must then reflect on this process on their blog. How were their visions similar? How were their visions different? What was similar/different in the interpretations of the poem and it's meaning? What images did their partners use to depict their poem that they really liked? Why did they like those images? What images did their partner use that didn't seem to reflect the "intended" meaning.

Day Nine:

On this day, each student will get up and show their iMovie to the class. This will be a time for the students to show off their poetry as well as their work on providing images to their poetry.

Dec. 8, 2009

2009-12-08T10:38:00.000-08:00

Reflection on Blog Posts:

Our first blog post was on blogging. I had never blogged before. I have found that I truly like the act of blogging. I like the idea of reflecting on an issue or something that happened to me that day or even a frustration I have come across. If I were to continue blogging I do wonder if I would keep my blog to a topic (e.x. teaching) or if I would want to blog about anything. I would have to think about the purpose that I would want my blog to serve and the audience I was putting my blog out there for. I think that it would be good to use a blog in my classroom as a precursor to a large group discussion. I would give them the questions ahead of time and they would have to respond to them on the blog. I feel that this is a good idea because then everyone would come to class with an answer and be able to better participate in the discussion. So often, my students clam up when faced with a question when they haven't had time to process the question. They do not want to answer for fear that they look stupid in front of their peers. This would relieve some of that pressure. I would also encourage the use of a blog in my creative writing classes as a way of getting their work out there and garnering feedback that they might not get in class.

Our second blog post was on vlogs. Again, I had never had much experience watching or creating a vlog. I found that it was hard for me in the beginning to create the vlog due to both finding a topic and also what I should say. If I were to do this again I would probably write out more of a script to follow so that I could go over it a few times and get comfortable with what I was going to say.

Our third blog post was on the use of flickr and voicethread. I have to say that I loved this assignment. With the flickr assignment I felt that it gave me a place to be creative and interpret my word or theme in a way others may not have. My ideas only became stronger as I was able to put pictures to them. I think that I am going to use this assignment in my final poetry unit. You could really do this assignment when talking about theme in a literature class as well. You could have the students find pictures that give image to a theme that they find in any novel (or poem). Bringing the pictures into voicethread was great. i liked learning this technology and thought that it was the most user friendly as far as getting into it without having previous knowledge. I am going to have my poetry students use this technology by having the students put images to a poem that they wrote (as well as having them put images to a poem written by someone else) to see if adding those images helped with the understanding of the poem.

Our fourth blog post was on using wikis. Through this class I have found that my previous experience in using wikis was faulty. I don't think that I was taught how to use wikis to their full potential. We just used them as receptacles for student work. Never once were we shown how to use them for collaborative writing and other collaborative projects. I don't know that this technology is a good one to use in my school. A large majority of my students would not do work outside the classroom. Also, many of them do not have computers and/or internet access at home. I know that there is access at libraries, but good luck getting them to go to one.

Our fifth blog post was our reflection on the online role-play. I had never done an online role play before and did not expect to like it as much as I did. I thought that it was going to be boring to participate in. What I really enjoyed, however, was the asynchronous research and posting that we did before having the synchronous chat. I liked being able to take the time and find the material, post at my leisure, respond to others without hurrying through what I had to say. i felt that the synchronous chat was a little too much for me. having to keep scrolling through the posts to find either new ones or replies to your posts was a bit challenging. I would probably do the asynchronous role play idea in my classroom, but again have the same problems as the collaborative wiki. I would have to give students time to use the lab to complete the assignments and at that point it would become asynchronous and I am not sure that they would have gotten as much out of it.

I have to take a second and apologize to my blog partners. I know I am being a little long winded. Sorry.

Our sixth blog post was on using iMovie. I had never made a movie using this technology outside of our technology class when in the English cohort. I still don't think I know all the technologies surrounding iMovie that I could use to make the movie better. I want to learn more and then I think it would be fun to use in a class. perhaps to videotape a poetry performance in order to provide feedback to the performer.

Our seventh blog post was on podcasts. Honestly, I don't think I will ever use a podcast. I think if I was going to record a lecture I would save it as an audio file and just upload it to my class website. I don't think I would require people to subscribe to my podcasts and without that the technology wouldn't be a good one to use.

Our eighth blog post was on ToonDoo. I liked using this technology. I think that I would use it in poetry - again to illustrate what a poem is saying. I also could se using it to help the students better understand a piece of literature. It could be a creative project for a student - they could pick a section of a novel or play and have to create a comic strip or put a few comic strip together in book form to better illustrate what was happening in the story.

Our ninth blog post was about the readability of websites. Although that is not what I want to focus on. I really liked learning the technology of screenshots and applying them to my post. I had never done that before. I think that using a screen shot helps people understand what you are talking about. They don't just read your description, they get to see an actual picture of it. This would help visual learners in the classroom if screenshots were included on handouts.

OUr tenth blog post was about the use of feedback tools. I know I need to use them, but I don't often know which methods work best. I find that I am not always specific enough when it comes to a rubric and it leaves a lot for interpretation. It is a skill I need to get better with.

All in all I have to say I personally learned a lot in this course. I now need to take some time and figure out which of these technologies would be the most useful to incorporate in my classes and for what assignment. I don't just want to use them for no good reason. There needs to be a purpose behind them.

If I would ask my students to provide work to a portfolio, I would want to showcase their growth as a writer. i would use it in a class where they had to go step by step in a project as well as revise the writing piece multiple times. Then they could post each draft and insert comments about the changes they made as well as changes in them as a writer - what their growth was like. I liked the use of the classroom portfolio that was on Mrs. Autrey's website. I liked the fact that it was put out there for the parents to see as well as for them to reflect on their growth as a writer - like they did in their second letter to her.

Well, I think that I have talked ("typed") long enough. See you.

Dec. 1, 2009

2009-12-01T10:19:00.000-08:00

When my students are completing a writing assignment, really any writing assignment, I try to have them get feedback from both their peers and me. I find that this can be a bit daunting, depending on how much they know about giving feedback, how much knowledge they have around grammar, punctuation, structure, and topic. I feel like to have the students give worthwhile feedback I would have to spend quite a bit of time coaching them on just how to do that, which I do not always have.

When the students give peer feedback I have them focus on specific aspects of writing depending on what type of writing they are doing. If it is a research paper they look at amount of evidence and organization. If it is a poem I have them write about its meaning and word choices. That gives me freedom to work on other things - grammar, punctuation, organization, etc. I typically sit down with the hard copies of their writing and mark it up. I find, though, that I still need to conference with each student to explain what I was trying to say. I liked the idea of having the students send me their papers electronically so that I can just insert the comments right into the paper. It would give me more room to type comments and explain them further. Also, I could them demonstrate the correct way to attribute a quote or where a comma should or shouldn't be inserted.

As I was talking in class the other day, I may be interested in using ToonDoo as one of technologies within a poetry class. I would have the students read and analyze a poem. Then, I would have them use ToonDoo to illustrate the poem, and hopefully provide more meaning and show a deeper understanding of the poem. I would also have them defend their choices. they would have to write a paragraph or two detailing why they made the illustrative choices they did and how that helps explain the meaning of the poem.

When providing feedback for this assignment I would have a portion of it come from their peers. I would have the students look at a comic that was not their own and try to decipher the meaning from the illustration. I would have them complete a survey or write a paragraph about what the illustration conveyed. If the student did not like the illustration or it made them more confused, they would have to explain why. The "artist" would them be able to sit down with their peer and receive the feedback and talk about where the disconnect was. Then, the "artist" could take the constructive criticism and modify their original comic.

I think I would look more at the structure, length of comic, and the students' defense of their comic to grade their work.

I made a very rudimentary rubric for a collaborative writing project that I may have them complete in a creative writing class that I am teaching now. Any comments or suggestions would be welcome.

November 24th, 2009

2009-11-23T12:22:00.000-08:00

Readability

I think that the official Bob Dylan site has a high degree of readability. When you enter the site, the first screen you see is very simple. It has a background that doesn't distract you from the content and a picture of Bob Dylan - just in case you forgot what you were looking at. Across the top of the screen, there are links to the other pages of the site including: home, news, tour, albums, songs, media, fine art, community, features, and store.

When you navigate to other pages, the same plain background and picture of Bob Dylan are used, which I think helps the reader get used to what they will see on the pages. When other pictures are added, like the two cameras, they are very simple pictures. Another feature I liked was that the page you are currently on is highlighted in blue. That helps in the navigation of the site.

The only page I found that was a little harder to read was the link for the albums. When you click on it all you see are small icons that are pictures of the album covers. This was a barrage of information compared to what was on the rest of the site. It was helpful, though, that I could put my cursor over the picture and it would tell me the name of the album. All in all, I thought this was a good site.

On the flip side was the Walker Art Center's website. When you get to the home page, you see things that are both helpful and a hindrance. On the top of the page is that helpful bar with the links again, just like on the Dylan page. But, the rest of the page is not so simple. You are flooded with images from the collections that they currently have on display. These images change when you are on the same page for awhile. That was a bit distracting for me. Then, you scroll down and come across 14 boxes that all typically have a different color assigned to them as well as a picture to go along with the words. The boxes themselves are pretty simple...a heading, a picture, and an explanation...but the sheer number of boxes was overwhelming. Also, I noticed that when I clicked on the linked to these boxes, all but to of the links sent me to a page found within the calendar section of the website, which is one of the handy links on the top bar of the page. I am not sure why they had to have the info in more than one place. You could say to emphasize whatever was in those boxes - for example the British Television Commercial Awards - but why do they need to highlight 14 different things at one time?

Activities

As far as activities for the students to participate in and help them gain an understanding of design features and interactivity, I think practice makes perfect. You could teach them the design features that websites do/should use to enhance readability and have them first search the web for things they are interested in and check out the readability (much as we did) and then have them employ those understandings in designing their own websites. They could design a website for a research project or for a pre-reading assignment. Same thing with designing PowerPoints...you could assign a topic to a student. Have them design the PowerPoint. Then you could give them the interactivity lesson and have them redesign their PowerPoint. They could then compare their presentations. Also, they could show their presentations to the class and give feedback as to which one works better.

Here is my presentation.

November 17th, 2009

2009-11-23T10:12:00.000-08:00

Before this assignment I had previous experience using ToonDoo to create an online comic strip. I decided to use this technology again, instead of ComicLife, because I have very few pictures on this computer. I was then able to use the wide range of characters, backgrounds, and props that are available on the ToonDoo website.

I decided to create a comic strip that illustrates a section of Macbeth. This came from an assignment I gave out two years ago, before I know of ToonDoo. One of the creative project ideas was for my students to draw a comic strip that would retell a portion of Macbeth. I had one student complete this assignment, and her drawings were great. I think that having an online technology to use for the "drawing" would help draw more students to this particular assignment.

Creating the comic was fun. I liked looking around for the "perfect" character and "perfect" setting to illustrate my ideas. There is a bit of a drawback, however, in the amount of characters or settings you have to choose from. I felt that there should be more choices for how you wanted things to look. But again, there were more choices here than on my computer.

One thing I had to think about was how much information should go on each panel. It got pretty crowded when multiple characters talked in the same panel, therefore I settled on only one character speaking per pane. I would need to create quite the multitude of strips to illustrate, say, an entire scene of Macbeth. This is definitely something that is different from reading print texts. When reading print texts there can be so much information on one page, and it isn't distracting or information overload. That isn't true of comic books. You need to be careful of giving too much info on one page - it will either get skipped and your reader wont catch it all, or there will be that information overload.

I think I would like to try my assignment again, but this time instead of using paper and pen, I would allow the students to work on ToonDoo. I would have to adjust exactly how much of the novel/play I would want them to illustrate, however, since they wouldn't be doing it by hand.

Here is my comic.

For some reason the second panel of the strip isn't showing the words. I have saved and reedited three times, and I cannot make the words appear. I will have to fix it later.

November 10th, 2009

2009-11-04T11:25:00.000-08:00

I liked the process of creating the podcast. It took me awhile to think of something I wanted to record that would be "perfect." After I stressed myself out for awhile, I realized that it did not have to be perfect, but I should instead focus on something that would be usable for my classes.

Looking forward to what I will be teaching next quarter I landed on recording a poetic devices podcast. I chose four of the main poetic devices (you could do many more) and talked about their definitions as well as gave examples of each type of poetic device. All in all it was about four minutes long.

Looking back, I think that I would want to script it out a little more. I had a basic outline of what I wanted to say, but a more complete script would be really helpful. I think it would help me go deeper into the subject that I was covering. Not only talking about the definition, but what these poetic devices bring to poetry. It would also help eliminate some of the longer pauses from when I was trying to think of how to transition on to the next topic.

Saving the sudio file and uploading it to media mill was no problem. I have not yet converted it into an actual podcast. I am not sure if I need to do so for what I would use the audio file for. After listening to Pete last night, I think it would be just as good to upload the audio files onto my class ning for my students to listen to. I don't think the technology of the podcast would necessarily be more helpful than that.

I think that I am going to continue to work on creating a lot of audiofiles for use in my poetry class. I think that there are many topics that I could cover. From poetic devices, to poetic form, to analyzing specific poems for both devices and content. I am sure that there are many others as well. I also like the idea of looking at slam poetry and having my students use either garageband or imovie to record themselves. I would have them use garageband if I really wanted them to focus on the emotion and the words. imovie would be useful when covering the delivery method of the poem.

I don't think it will be too hard to engage these students in creating audiofiles/podcasts/vlogs. I think that these students love to work with this type of technology (really they just like to hear the sound of their own voices). As far as evaluating them, I think that I would have to give them some pretty straight-foward guidelines or a rubric for what they had to make sure they had in their projects. Then I would look and give them their due points.

November 3rd, 2009

2009-11-03T07:34:00.000-08:00

With limitless options for topics I could cover in my podcast, I was having trouble coming up with one that I wanted to do. I think, however, that I will record a poetry lesson. I will cover a few of the main poetic devices, providing definitions and examples for each.

I will probably record it as though it is one in a series of podcasts on the topic of poetry, not really giving a lot of background about myself, but instead focusing on the subject matter. I think it would be good to use these in my classroom as a way for students to access the "notes" while at home. It would also be helpful for a student if they happened to miss a day that had a lecture - they could listen to the podcast to receive the information I covered in our discussion.

October 27th, 2009

2009-10-27T09:53:00.000-07:00

I have decided that I want to create a imovie using still photographs. When I was thinking about what photos I have, it became apparent that I have the most photos of my son. I think that I want to show his transformation from birth (or maybe before) to now.

October 20th, 2009

2009-10-27T09:21:00.000-07:00

When I was creating my role, I started by deciding on a name. I knew once i had taht, some of the personality of my character would already be there. I then thought of existing characters that would fit the role of a parent who believes that Google is making us stupid. Carol Brady came to mind. She seemed the perfect fit, from what I remembered of the TV show. after I decided on playing Carol, I went out and got a picture from the Creative Commons on Flickr and put it up on the Ning. I then had to think of the language Carol would use. I didn't think that she would sound too professional, and instead made her be a happy-go-lucky mom with an edge.

Most of the arguments that I came up with revolved around Carol's many children. I was able to give examples of how the use of the internet and phone technologies had effected her children's attitudes and work ethic.

I mainly used the sites Beach posted to look at arguments until we were all making arguments on the Ning discussion board and in the chat room. I then went out and found research that either proved or disproved what people were saying. That ended up being fun - information at your fingertips is a pretty incredible thing.

My position in this role-play were different. My personal position did not change, but it was interesting looking at the situation from another point of view.

I think that the use of an online role play would be a great tool to use in the classroom. I think that there were some kinks in ours that would have to be ironed out - the feeling of being overwhelmed when we were both posting and chatting being one. I think it would be good to have the students stay out of the chat room until the forum posts were closed. Then the students would know what to focus on. Also, I wonder if it would have been better to use tappedin to have the synchronous discussion and use the wiki to have the asynchronous discussion (I didn't feel that we needed to be on at the same time to post arguments, only to reflect at the end).

October 13th, 2009 - Wikis in the classroom

2009-10-13T06:09:00.000-07:00

I have had some experience using and teaching Wikispace. Last year Sobriety High did not have enough money to have four full time teachers at every site. It was proposed that all the teachers create online curriculum that we could share between sites. The main proponent of creating the online curriculum, Larry, was a huge fan of Wikispace. He showed us the "Wikis in Plain English" and sent us off on our way.

Looking at Larry's finished product (a creative writing class), it seems that he was not using the wiki for any purpose other than a place where students could go to get their assignments. Then, the students were to create their own wiki page where they put completed work. He never (and through his example we never) used a wiki for collaborative work. The students would also post replies on nicenet to prompts and each other. It seems that this couls just as easily be done using a wiki page.

I can see using a wiki page as a resource for both the parents and the students, not to mention for me as well. I was thinking of setting up an Arona Language Arts Wikipage. On that site, there would be links in the sidebar to each of the classes that I teach - for example there would be a reading and recovery page.

When you get to the front page of the wiki, there would be a description of the class and what the student expectations are. On the sidebar to the R&R page, there would be links to each of the books we reading the class (This would be a cumulative list from all the years I taught this class). The student or parent would be able to click on those links and go to that wiki page (like the Comeback wiki page).

When you get to the front page of the Comeback novel, you would be greeted with - yes you named it - more links! These would include: a section about the authors, an overview of the book, journals, project ideas, and handouts/worksheets.

The first two sections would be mainly set up by me with links to other websites detailing the biographies and excerpts from the books if I can find them. The journals and Project Ideas links would be mainly student run and would increase in size each year I taught that same book. I would probably begin with having one journal question under each chapter. Then, I would have the students brainstorm journal questions and put them under the appropriate chapter. That way, they are taking ownership of that section and the journal possibilities will continue to grow. Same would go for the project Ideas section, except that I may not put any ideas under there to begin with. The students would use that section to brainstorm ideas and write a description of what the project is. I think that I would just need to make sure that the final product have enough work around it. I would do so by commenting on their page.

I would put the last section (handouts/worksheets) up as a resource for the students - if they missed a day they could just go on and see if there was anything they missed. Is there a way to put a calendar on the wiki page? That may be helpful.

Here is my class wiki.

October 6th Class Post

2009-10-01T10:47:00.000-07:00

The topic that I chose to find images for was that of beauty. I did not want to go the traditional route with this topis and only select images that society would deem beautiful. I chose to look at the beauty of aging. I looked on Flickr and found pictures of people from various cultures that had one main thing in common: wrinkles. That was actually my search term.

I feel like our society is afraid to age and get wrinkles . So afraid that we now come up with anti-aging creams and injections to stop that process. The people in the photos, however, have embraced their wrinkles and are beautiful because of it.

Dixie and I were talking about how to include Flickr in a poetry class. She was talking about haveing them come up with both images and song to go along with a selected poem. I took it one step further and thought it would be fun to have the students 1. write a poem, 2.put images and song to the poem and, 3.trade poems with a partner and have them put pictures and music to that same poem. After that was complete, the students would watch both versions and discuss their differences (if there are any) in the interpretations of the poem.

Here is my slideshow:

Using VoiceThread was great. I wasn't sure how easy it was going to be, but the tutorial was right in saying it wouldn't take very long. I didn't want to use pictures from Flickr, but I don't have too many personal photos on my computer. I pulled a few of these pictures from the website I made in the technology course while I was in the initial licensure program. On that website there was a section titled "About Me" which showcased my family. So, that is what this VoiceThread is about.

Sept. 29, 2009

2009-09-28T07:40:00.000-07:00

I watched a blog I found on YouTube titled "Andrew's Blog (The Enchanted Playground One)." Andrew is a part of the cast of Mary Poppins. He, along with the rest of the cast went to the City Museum in St. Louis. The City Museum is, as one trip advisor user says, "like no other museum you've seen before, this imaginative learning center features a multi-level enchanted forest, giant aquarium, participatory circus and a museum of oddities." Andrew describes it as a ten story recycled jungle gym.

I think that the main audience of this vlog would be those that went along with him to the museum. It looks like something they would be able to look back and reflect on. In a larger sense, I think that it would be good to look at for anyone (like me) who thinks that there should be more hands-on places for adults to go and play like a kid again. It does a good job chronicling what a trip to this museum would be like - and if you were thinking about visiting I think it would hook you.

For the most part, the vlog takes you, the audience, through all the things you can do, go through, participate in during your visit to this museum. But, there are also moments where Andrew stops and tells you where they are in the museum (the roof, the caves, etc.). This just gives you a sense of place, especially if you have never been there yourself.

I definitely think that this was a good, fun, entertaining vlog. Here, watch for yourself:

I had quite a time creating the vlog. I have never before recorded myself, and try to stay out of things when my husband is taking a video of my son. It is odd to watch myself and hear myself - I totally agree with Ashley. I also felt like it took me some time to feel comfortable with what I was going to say. I had to practice a couple times before it seemed to flow. I wonder, though, if practicing takes out some of the authenticity of a vlog.

I have created it, but am having some difficulty with uploading it. It has been "processing" on Youtube for quite awhile. I will put it up as soon as it is done.

Okay, here is what you have been waiting for:

Here is my concept map I made at Bubbl.us:

Frustrations

2009-09-28T07:14:00.001-07:00

So, I was reading in Teaching Writing Using Blogs, Wikis, and other Digital Tools about students using blogs. It said that one teacher found that if it was a requirement that students would do the bare minimum. Then, the book went on to say that if the blog was not a requirement, it seemed as though the students participated more readily and had more of a community. This seems all well and good, but what will work for the students who just don't do anything? They don't participate in class discussions, they don't complete their homework, they don't go to the library to get materials, they don't use their classroom time appropriately, they don't have computers at home. They just don't.

How am I supposed to engage them enough to want to go and do work that isn't required - work they wont get a grade on. My students, apart from being "bad" students, have a lot of things going on in their lives from work, to harsh family life to meetings for their sobriety every night of the week (for some of them). I am not trying to make excuses for them, but sometimes it seems that these kids are the exception to the glorious work that is being done in the digital world.

I would love feedback or ideas or to sit down and discuss this more in depth with people. I am just getting frustrated because it does not seem like this class will have any benefit for my current students.

Final Project Idea

2009-09-21T08:14:00.000-07:00

I am planning on writing a unit that incorporates technology into the reading of a play. I hope to make the unit available for use with multiple plays - meaning have the basic structure of the unit set, but be able to have it general enough to work with many plays. I think that this would be really good for the population of students that I currently work with. They do their best work when day to day structure is kept the same. I feel that if I use the same basic structure whenever I teach a drama unit, they will get used to the structure of the unit and be able to better understand the process.

For this final project, I will probably base my unit on the teaching of Macbeth. I hope to include the use of :Vlogs, Wikis, a webquest, and possibly a blog. I am (obviously) still learning the best way to incorporate these technologies, so I am not sure how I will use them yet or if I will change which technologies I will use. I am not yet sure how I will use digital note-taking. I liked the idea of using Inspiration, but am not yet sure where I will fit it in.

I have to admit that I probably have not used a database to search since I completed my undergrad/initial licensure programs back in 2004. I am pretty sure the database I used to use when searching was MNCAT. Unfortunately, that means I now rely a lot on Professor and Dr. Google to answer many of the questions that I come up with.

After last class, I now understand how bloglines could be a valuable tool in research. I liked that you could subscribe to a particular journal/magazine/etc. or you could ask that a particular topic's information find your way into your bloglines account. As far as determining the validity and credibility of the information, I guess I would first need to determine the validity and credibility of the site the material is coming from. I would have to say that I could do this by using the handout I give to my students when they are completing their research project. This rubric has you (the reader) rate multiple criteria on a scale from 1-5 to determine if it is a valid site. I will probably subscribe to many online newspapers and try to find some educator blogs/websites that I want to get updates from.

Class Notes for Dixie

2009-09-15T14:50:00.000-07:00

Any questions or comments?

We talked about the idea of transparency - anything you put on the internet willremain there forever.

Setting up your feeds:

A feed puts out posts to your audience (via email)
Many ways to put up your feed One way - type it in. It is typically your blog url/Feeds/post/default This is your feed URL.
I have a handout for you.
Rick would like us to create a link to our blog on the class website. Go to http://digitalwriting.pbworks.com/Student-blogs
Google bloglines and create an account

Bloglines:

create account
click on add
type in blog URL you want to have a feed for
click on subscribe
now the blog will show up on the left hand navigation bar.

Feedburner

Go to your blog. Go to settings. Go to Site Feed. Click on feedburner. Follow instructions from there. Click on the Atom one. If you have already created a feed elsewhere, you DO NOT NEED TO DO THIS STEP!

Since we are partners:
We need to subscribe to each others posts. I am going to do this on Bloglines.
We also need to go to each others blogs and become followers.
We also have another partner...her name is Ann.

We got another handout - "Chapter 6: Fresh and Forward Thinking: Using Blogs for Educational Purposes"

How can we use digital media (specifically blogs) in your classes?

use wiki to have collaboration between students - especially good those that may not speak up in class.
blogs good for teachers to have a personal learning network - give each other ideas and challenge each other in the classroom.
doing exercises in code switching - between text speak and formal language
create facebook profiles for characters in novels and have them update and interact with each other.
have the students post things they learned in a pre-reading activity and post links to where they found the information.
synchronous chats for book clubs. Then you get a transcript. Students can later reflect on their transcripts. Rick will go over a good sit for this later on.

PowerPoint Notes: (They may be on the web)
Inquiry based Instruction
http://inquiry.uiuc.edu - good website for inquiry based instruction

Critical Response Protocol (CRP)
Set of questions you get students to ask about a certain phenomonon. They get used to asking these questions - a thinking routine. One of the questions of often "what do you notice?" or "what do you see in this image?" "What does this remind you of?" "Do you see any connections?" "What meaning are you finding?" "How does it make you feel?" "What questions do you have?"
We looked at an example of CRP - gravestone example(Carolyn Clark).
There are a lot of interesting images you can use on Flickr -when using flickr use creative commons

Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS)
similar to CRP

Tagmemics
How do you define the neighborhood?
How has your neighborhood changed over time?
How is my neighborhood different from others?

Interviewing

we got a handout

Kinds of questions

develop questions based on prior research
ask "grand tour" questions bout the "big picture" experience
ask open ended questions vs yes no questions
follow up questions
"pointing" interviews to focus on specifics - have student bring in something with special meaning. Another students ask questions about that object. Then that student summarizes to the class what they learned about that object.

Ethnography methods - fly on the wall perspective.

Field Notes: Fieldworking

Focus - selective perception
Verbal snapshots - 5-10 details
descriptive vs. general language

Seeing and Making Connections is important. this is where you get the knowledge (connectivism) - Stephen Downes

How do we learn? discussion

Break

go to the Ning. Click on the twitter link and join. Follow the class twitter.
AmyLou_12
normal password
gust0257@umn.edu

Social Bookmarking (have 2 handouts for you)
when you find something you like you tag it and then share it with people.
Rick suggests to sign up for one or both of these and play with it.

Del.icio.us
Diigo

Watched a video about Diigo

mypopstudio.com - good website. especially for teen girls.
youth voices - a site that other schools are part of and a place where our students can interact with other students from all over the world.

Uses of Blogs

2009-09-15T09:32:00.000-07:00

I have never before used a blog in my everyday life. I think this is due to two main reasons. The first reason why I don't blog is time. I don't have time to put pen to paper, let alone sign on and blog about what is going on with me. Second, I worry that what I say would not be important for anyone else to read. To me, it is easier to write in a notebook that only I read because no one will read and critique what I wrote. I guess I have to realize that writing a blog is not only for others, but for me too.

Blogs have not been utilized in my classroom either. This is due to both my lack of knowledge of how to best use blogs and the lack of technology use at my school. I guess I would like to learn how to better use the technology and how it will help students a)learn to write b)learn to write better c)learn to love to write d)learn to want to write more.

In the classroom I have used Nicenet and google sites. I used the google site to disseminate the daily lessons to online students. Nicenet is a conferencing website and was used as a place where students would reply to both journal prompts and each others' replies. Right now I am using Ning in my reading and recovery classroom. It is being used as a place where they can learn what is going on in the classroom (day-to-day) and also respond to forum questions. After they respond to the forum questions, they respond to each other's posts - much like what we are doing. I hope to figure out what is the best digital media technology to use for my population and in my classroom.

As far as enhancing or hindering communication... I think that having them log could get the students to write more, but I wonder what caliber writing will come out of it. And as far as using blogs in the classroom, what control should I (as the teacher) have in giving them topics or reining them in if they are not staying on the topic.

I guess that is all for now.