It is easy to think that social media could be a distraction in the writing classroom. If not implemented in the classroom properly, social media based components to courses could occupy such territory. If implemented well, however, students become both engaged in the present writing class and more prepared for future writing which will most certainly become even more web-based than it is today.
In a video published on YouTube by the University of Minnesota entitled "Twitter in the Classroom?," we see how well social media can work:
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Facebook and Rhetorical Analysis
In Jane Mathison Fife's article "Using Facebook to Teach Rhetorical Analysis," the author argues that Facebook can be employed for the study of rhetoric. Fife writes that "students' enthusiasm for and immersion in these nonacademic literacies [social media sites] can be used to complement their learning of critical inquiry and traditional academic concepts like rhetorical analysis. Although they read these texts daily, they are often unaware of the sophisticated rhetorical analysis they employ while browsing others' profiles (or as they decide what to add to or delete from their own page)."
As Fife asserts, the study of ethos, logos, and pathos can easily take place on Facebook. Unlike traditional texts, Facebook profiles feature text, images, sound, and videos to create and support a person's "self" and his or her ideas. When compared to traditional texts, Facebook--with its diverse content--may prove engaging to students. Importantly, as they know the site well, students are able to navigate, collect the information they need for the assignment, and begin understanding rhetoric to a higher degree. Truly, a myriad of possibilities exist for the study of rhetoric on the site.
By analyzing Facebook, Fife argues that students are able to address the difference between truth and the perception of truth created by the Facebook user. After noting that certain Facebook users purposefully posted pictures of themselves at parties or other social gatherings, Fife's students came to realize that a "persona" could in fact be created through the inclusion of certain photos and other information on the page. Perhaps the users on Facebook pages viewed were not social or happy-go-lucky but wanted to appear that way. For Facebook users who did not know this person, the "truth" is that the person was really how they appeared. In a rhetorical sense, the perception was the truth.
Fife notes that after viewing Facebook pages as a class they "had pulled together a fairly extensive list of Facebook features that students thought were rhetorically significant. These features included quantity and type of pictures (in profiles and albums), people’s comments on walls, applications (what and how many), the “about me” and “personal info” sections (how much and tone), standard profile information, and groups." After introducing the topics of ethos, logos, and pathos and discussing their rhetorical uses, it will likely prove very easy for students to find those elements on a Facebook page.
After studying the site in class, students can begin to not only understand that arguments can become multimodal in nature, but also that texts themselves can become more than just words. Fife concedes that "One of my students remarked that Facebook profiles can share extensive information about a person and that for some people it may be the closest
they come to writing an autobiography."
This idea of rhetorical analysis, then, is a nice segued assignment either into or from the previous post on assignments which deal with multimodal composition through social media.
As Fife asserts, the study of ethos, logos, and pathos can easily take place on Facebook. Unlike traditional texts, Facebook profiles feature text, images, sound, and videos to create and support a person's "self" and his or her ideas. When compared to traditional texts, Facebook--with its diverse content--may prove engaging to students. Importantly, as they know the site well, students are able to navigate, collect the information they need for the assignment, and begin understanding rhetoric to a higher degree. Truly, a myriad of possibilities exist for the study of rhetoric on the site.
By analyzing Facebook, Fife argues that students are able to address the difference between truth and the perception of truth created by the Facebook user. After noting that certain Facebook users purposefully posted pictures of themselves at parties or other social gatherings, Fife's students came to realize that a "persona" could in fact be created through the inclusion of certain photos and other information on the page. Perhaps the users on Facebook pages viewed were not social or happy-go-lucky but wanted to appear that way. For Facebook users who did not know this person, the "truth" is that the person was really how they appeared. In a rhetorical sense, the perception was the truth.
Fife notes that after viewing Facebook pages as a class they "had pulled together a fairly extensive list of Facebook features that students thought were rhetorically significant. These features included quantity and type of pictures (in profiles and albums), people’s comments on walls, applications (what and how many), the “about me” and “personal info” sections (how much and tone), standard profile information, and groups." After introducing the topics of ethos, logos, and pathos and discussing their rhetorical uses, it will likely prove very easy for students to find those elements on a Facebook page.
After studying the site in class, students can begin to not only understand that arguments can become multimodal in nature, but also that texts themselves can become more than just words. Fife concedes that "One of my students remarked that Facebook profiles can share extensive information about a person and that for some people it may be the closest
they come to writing an autobiography."
This idea of rhetorical analysis, then, is a nice segued assignment either into or from the previous post on assignments which deal with multimodal composition through social media.
Monday, March 21, 2011
Google Docs, Wikis, and Collaborative Writing
Google Docs, the free, online composing and document viewing program from Google, is perfectly suited for writing inside and outside of class. Unlike traditional word processing programs such as Microsoft Word or Open Office, Google Docs allows for simultaneous collaborative writing on an assignment from any computer at any time.
In the following video, we get a glimpse as to how well Google Docs can aid in collaborative composition:
The beauty of Google Docs is that, though obtaining a free Gmail account with Google, students can easily share writing assignments with anyone (who has a Gmail account, of course) for the purpose of brainstorming, co-writing, peer response, or publishing. As the video mentioned, a document in Google Docs can be written on at anytime by anyone accessing the document. That means that multiple writers can author a document at the exact same time with all the changes being saved every few seconds. There is no need to email a document back and forth while individuals update or replace their personal copies of the documents.
As educators in the video mentioned, knowing that their classmates can and will read or collaborate with them on their work could inspire students to create something they are proud to share with their classmates. With this type of sharing and collaborating in the writing classroom taking place, students could easily become more invested and engaged in their writing assignments.
Wikis, similar to Google Docs in their collaborative writing capabilities, allow for multiple students to co-author writing assignments. In the piece "Why Wiki?," Dundee Lackey argues that wikis have an important place in the composition classroom. First, although Lackey acknowledges the use of course systems like WebCT for private content such as grades and personal messages, the author prefers wikis for all other course content. Lackey asserts, "I find [wikis] more accessible to students and more easily organized (and reorganized!) to suit my course designs and learning goals. One can easily create pages for individual days, topics, or students, and create multiple hyperlinks to the same page. I use a wiki to post daily plans, writing projects, and all manner of resources for student writers."
When Lackey has taught her students to use wikis, she feels that they can start to "conceptualize web site architecture, [which lays] the groundwork for another form of writing/publication... the technology also permits us to upload images and display them in line, and to use color and font formatting to customize pages. Making sound and image part of our daily learning experiences--our environment, even--also allows me to subtly encourage multimodal research. All this, I believe, encourages students to be mindful of and to practice visual rhetoric skills, skills that are increasingly useful in our society."
Knowing something about basic website and document design will be practical skills for the future. With wikis, not only can students learning the fundamentals of academic composition, but they can also learn important skills to complement their writing.
Finally, she states that wikis "also help us talk and think about writing as a process, and a rhetorical and social one at that. Clicking the history tab on any page provides me with a great way of illustrating revision. The public nature of the wiki encourages students to consider potential "real-world" audiences." Visually being able to see where a wiki was and where it is now can be extremely valuable to students who do think that there are important, social steps in the composition process.
Here is a short video on using wikis in the classroom:
Although wikis are more complex than Google Docs, they are still easy to use, and Lackey argues that learning to use a wiki can take just minutes.
In the following video, we get a glimpse as to how well Google Docs can aid in collaborative composition:
The beauty of Google Docs is that, though obtaining a free Gmail account with Google, students can easily share writing assignments with anyone (who has a Gmail account, of course) for the purpose of brainstorming, co-writing, peer response, or publishing. As the video mentioned, a document in Google Docs can be written on at anytime by anyone accessing the document. That means that multiple writers can author a document at the exact same time with all the changes being saved every few seconds. There is no need to email a document back and forth while individuals update or replace their personal copies of the documents.
As educators in the video mentioned, knowing that their classmates can and will read or collaborate with them on their work could inspire students to create something they are proud to share with their classmates. With this type of sharing and collaborating in the writing classroom taking place, students could easily become more invested and engaged in their writing assignments.
Wikis, similar to Google Docs in their collaborative writing capabilities, allow for multiple students to co-author writing assignments. In the piece "Why Wiki?," Dundee Lackey argues that wikis have an important place in the composition classroom. First, although Lackey acknowledges the use of course systems like WebCT for private content such as grades and personal messages, the author prefers wikis for all other course content. Lackey asserts, "I find [wikis] more accessible to students and more easily organized (and reorganized!) to suit my course designs and learning goals. One can easily create pages for individual days, topics, or students, and create multiple hyperlinks to the same page. I use a wiki to post daily plans, writing projects, and all manner of resources for student writers."
When Lackey has taught her students to use wikis, she feels that they can start to "conceptualize web site architecture, [which lays] the groundwork for another form of writing/publication... the technology also permits us to upload images and display them in line, and to use color and font formatting to customize pages. Making sound and image part of our daily learning experiences--our environment, even--also allows me to subtly encourage multimodal research. All this, I believe, encourages students to be mindful of and to practice visual rhetoric skills, skills that are increasingly useful in our society."
Knowing something about basic website and document design will be practical skills for the future. With wikis, not only can students learning the fundamentals of academic composition, but they can also learn important skills to complement their writing.
Finally, she states that wikis "also help us talk and think about writing as a process, and a rhetorical and social one at that. Clicking the history tab on any page provides me with a great way of illustrating revision. The public nature of the wiki encourages students to consider potential "real-world" audiences." Visually being able to see where a wiki was and where it is now can be extremely valuable to students who do think that there are important, social steps in the composition process.
Here is a short video on using wikis in the classroom:
Although wikis are more complex than Google Docs, they are still easy to use, and Lackey argues that learning to use a wiki can take just minutes.
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Social Media for Multimodal Composition
Although many teachers of rhetoric expect their students to only study and utilize the written word, rhetoric does exist in other media. In such a digital age, to provide practical instruction for the present time and place, our rhetoric classes must incorporate a more modal approach to study and composition.
In an attempt to keep her instruction relevant to the new digital age, A UT at Dallas Graduate Student, Barbara Vance, incorporated multimodal composition to her rhetoric class. Vance, who had great success with her multimodal approach, wrote about the experience in a piece on AcademHack entitled "A Model for Teaching Writing." In relation to her approach, Vance wrote that "as it stands now, most rhetoric courses focus strictly on writing, and they limit assignments to the classroom environment – practices that devalue other rhetorical mediums, and the purpose of rhetoric itself." Although traditional classrooms are social environments, they are "isolated" to a degree--at least in terms of in class writing assignments and discussions--from the outside world. Further, traditional classrooms are rooted in text-based, printed compositions.
What Vance sought to do, and what she is encouraging fellow teachers to do, is incorporate a more multimodal approach to student composition and join the current, digital age. As the author notes, rhetoric is exercised in a social environment. Vance writes, "Requiring students to blog, contact people outside their classroom, and post writing on the Internet teaches them to engage with the community, gives their writing more significance, and supports rhetoric – a term that, by definition, implies community." Writing can--and should be--collaborative at various steps in the composing and disseminating process. This is where social media can be integral in the composition classroom--in the collaboration of writing assignments.
Vance also asserts, "Creating work in a vacuum delegitimizes it. When the goal of your course is to teach students to persuade, and you don’t include what is now the most influential tool for disseminating your argument, you are crippling your students." To meet these needs, Vance had students work from a website and compose throughout the semester using a blog. Finally, she had the students create a film based on writing in their initial essays.
Describing the interrelated class assignments, Vance explains "The first essay required them to identify an issue in their local community and write about it. From these, the students voted on which would be made into a film. The second major writing assignment was a visual essay in which the students each described how they would make the film, supporting their paper with images they found online or took themselves." Then the students created a film which would be uploaded to their class website to be viewed by those outside the class.
As Vance noted, "The blog, the group film – everything the students – did was about engaging the world, establishing a presence, and utilizing the tools that the rest of the world is operating with, rather than limiting them to traditional print-based technology."
Here, the approach is to make composition more relevant to the current world in which students are writing, and to get them engaged in the writing process. By utilizing social media--blogs and a website which would share a class composed video--composition in Vance's writing class to become more relevant and engaging for her students.
In an attempt to keep her instruction relevant to the new digital age, A UT at Dallas Graduate Student, Barbara Vance, incorporated multimodal composition to her rhetoric class. Vance, who had great success with her multimodal approach, wrote about the experience in a piece on AcademHack entitled "A Model for Teaching Writing." In relation to her approach, Vance wrote that "as it stands now, most rhetoric courses focus strictly on writing, and they limit assignments to the classroom environment – practices that devalue other rhetorical mediums, and the purpose of rhetoric itself." Although traditional classrooms are social environments, they are "isolated" to a degree--at least in terms of in class writing assignments and discussions--from the outside world. Further, traditional classrooms are rooted in text-based, printed compositions.
What Vance sought to do, and what she is encouraging fellow teachers to do, is incorporate a more multimodal approach to student composition and join the current, digital age. As the author notes, rhetoric is exercised in a social environment. Vance writes, "Requiring students to blog, contact people outside their classroom, and post writing on the Internet teaches them to engage with the community, gives their writing more significance, and supports rhetoric – a term that, by definition, implies community." Writing can--and should be--collaborative at various steps in the composing and disseminating process. This is where social media can be integral in the composition classroom--in the collaboration of writing assignments.
Vance also asserts, "Creating work in a vacuum delegitimizes it. When the goal of your course is to teach students to persuade, and you don’t include what is now the most influential tool for disseminating your argument, you are crippling your students." To meet these needs, Vance had students work from a website and compose throughout the semester using a blog. Finally, she had the students create a film based on writing in their initial essays.
Describing the interrelated class assignments, Vance explains "The first essay required them to identify an issue in their local community and write about it. From these, the students voted on which would be made into a film. The second major writing assignment was a visual essay in which the students each described how they would make the film, supporting their paper with images they found online or took themselves." Then the students created a film which would be uploaded to their class website to be viewed by those outside the class.
As Vance noted, "The blog, the group film – everything the students – did was about engaging the world, establishing a presence, and utilizing the tools that the rest of the world is operating with, rather than limiting them to traditional print-based technology."
Here, the approach is to make composition more relevant to the current world in which students are writing, and to get them engaged in the writing process. By utilizing social media--blogs and a website which would share a class composed video--composition in Vance's writing class to become more relevant and engaging for her students.
Looking at Multimodal Literacy through Myspace and Facebook
Learning to read texts besides only traditional ones featuring only the written word can be valuable. In her piece entitled "MySpace, Facebook, and Multimodal Literacy in the Writing Classroom," Jennifer Swartz discusses ways to teach multimodal literacy through social media sites.
Swartz writes, "To help students see the ways in which writing is relevant to their everyday lives, I introduce Facebook and MySpace to the classroom where we look at these social networking sites as rhetorical texts." In this piece, Swartz makes the acknowledgment that social media sites have forever changed the way people write. The author argues, then, that the writing on these sites should be addressed.
While implementing the study of Facebook and Myspace into her class, Swartz makes it clear that they are not just studying status updates of friends or looking at new photos which have been uploaded. She mentions that "we look at their Facebook and MySpace pages in class and discuss how they describe themselves, what songs they utilize, what pictures represent them, and whether they have set their profiles to private. In other words, we explore how they use rhetoric to construct an online identity and what the ramifications of those choices are." Facebook pages, then, become multimodal texts which maintain rhetoric and assert identity. These texts can be studied to better understand rhetoric, Swartz argues.
The study of Facebook as a multimodal text quickly becomes the study of audience. Swartz notes that for students "there is a disconnect between the virtual audience and the audience for whom they are writing...they have completely forgotten that members beyond their immediate circle might be consuming the information they publicize, interpreting it in different ways, and using it for different purposes." This is a reminder that students must be aware at all times of their audience: the audience they did consider as well as the one they did not. In turn, students should be taught through this exercise to consider and cater to all members of their audience.
Swartz states further that "the ways in which we imagine an audience might not be consistent with the reality of that audience, since those who peruse our profiles are very often not the ones whom we envision will be doing so. By asking students to think about their profiles, they begin to see that their construction of an online identity is a specific set of rhetorical choices, each one dictated by how they want to depict themselves in an online environment."
By considering all aspects of audience for their Facebook pages, students might better consider their audience in composition for the academic setting. Further, by learning to read and address multimodal texts, they may better craft multimodal texts of their own with a strong sense of rhetoric.
Swartz writes, "To help students see the ways in which writing is relevant to their everyday lives, I introduce Facebook and MySpace to the classroom where we look at these social networking sites as rhetorical texts." In this piece, Swartz makes the acknowledgment that social media sites have forever changed the way people write. The author argues, then, that the writing on these sites should be addressed.
While implementing the study of Facebook and Myspace into her class, Swartz makes it clear that they are not just studying status updates of friends or looking at new photos which have been uploaded. She mentions that "we look at their Facebook and MySpace pages in class and discuss how they describe themselves, what songs they utilize, what pictures represent them, and whether they have set their profiles to private. In other words, we explore how they use rhetoric to construct an online identity and what the ramifications of those choices are." Facebook pages, then, become multimodal texts which maintain rhetoric and assert identity. These texts can be studied to better understand rhetoric, Swartz argues.
The study of Facebook as a multimodal text quickly becomes the study of audience. Swartz notes that for students "there is a disconnect between the virtual audience and the audience for whom they are writing...they have completely forgotten that members beyond their immediate circle might be consuming the information they publicize, interpreting it in different ways, and using it for different purposes." This is a reminder that students must be aware at all times of their audience: the audience they did consider as well as the one they did not. In turn, students should be taught through this exercise to consider and cater to all members of their audience.
Swartz states further that "the ways in which we imagine an audience might not be consistent with the reality of that audience, since those who peruse our profiles are very often not the ones whom we envision will be doing so. By asking students to think about their profiles, they begin to see that their construction of an online identity is a specific set of rhetorical choices, each one dictated by how they want to depict themselves in an online environment."
By considering all aspects of audience for their Facebook pages, students might better consider their audience in composition for the academic setting. Further, by learning to read and address multimodal texts, they may better craft multimodal texts of their own with a strong sense of rhetoric.
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Twitter in the Writing Classroom
As a relatively new social media site, Twitter is a deliberately simple, very popular "micro-blogging" site. With an allowed message length of only 140 characters (not words, remember), the site limits users to concise posts, or "tweets."
Before we address writing through the site, we should address using Twitter itself. Most students will probably be very familiar with Twitter, but should any student--or the professor--need help getting started on the site, Howcast put together a great video:
In the article 100 Ways to Teach With Twitter, K. Walsh compiles a list of some great ways to use the site in the classroom. While there is seemingly endless list of ways to use Twitter in any class, I'd like to take a look at some ways to use that directly relate to us English folks.
It should be noted, here, that Walsh sets the article up as series of links to individual articles which include the ways to use Twitter in the classroom. It is a little tedious at times to sift through these different articles, but the suggestions provided in the articles make the effort worthwhile.
In one such article, Sonja Cole's "25 Ways to Teach with Twitter," she provides suggestions such as replying to questions, joining educational groups, or posting responses to a book that is being read by a group. These suggestions might be translated into things such as making class-based groups where students can discuss readings and assignments, teachers answering student questions about course content, and following news, pop culture, or literary groups which are relevant to the course.
In another linked article posted to AdemHack entitled "Twitter for Academia," there are even more specific examples of how to use the popular social networking site in class. One suggestion included what was called "class chatter" where conversations relevant to class can be carried on outside of the course through Twitter. Other suggestions included having students visit the site's public timeline to "get a sense of the world," track words to see how and where they are used in tweets, and having students simply use the site as a public "notepad" to share topics, news, and issues relevant to class.
Two of my favorite suggestions for Twitter come from the same article listed above. One of these suggestions in to teach grammar through the site. Because tweets are so short, proper use of spelling and grammar is of the utmost importance. After all, how many tweets are plagued with spelling and grammar problems? Too many to count, and more than enough to study and correct.
The second suggestion is to have students co-author a story where each student in class adds to what the student before him or her had written in a previous tweet. This would continue until each student had written 140 characters worth of the story in an individual tweet. Of course, this is the same exercise that takes place on paper, but just transposed to the Internet.
Using the site Twitterfall.com is yet another way to use Twitter which (to my knowledge) was not mentioned in this article or the linked pages. Students can use the site to see the most up-to-date tweets on a term or phrase they searched for. This, in turn, can guide them to relevant articles and discussions of specific topics.
These examples are only a small handful of ways to use Twitter in the writing class. I encourage you to peruse the above articles and sites, talk to other teachers using Twitter, and to just try something new that seems interesting and worthwhile.
Before we address writing through the site, we should address using Twitter itself. Most students will probably be very familiar with Twitter, but should any student--or the professor--need help getting started on the site, Howcast put together a great video:
In the article 100 Ways to Teach With Twitter, K. Walsh compiles a list of some great ways to use the site in the classroom. While there is seemingly endless list of ways to use Twitter in any class, I'd like to take a look at some ways to use that directly relate to us English folks.
It should be noted, here, that Walsh sets the article up as series of links to individual articles which include the ways to use Twitter in the classroom. It is a little tedious at times to sift through these different articles, but the suggestions provided in the articles make the effort worthwhile.
In one such article, Sonja Cole's "25 Ways to Teach with Twitter," she provides suggestions such as replying to questions, joining educational groups, or posting responses to a book that is being read by a group. These suggestions might be translated into things such as making class-based groups where students can discuss readings and assignments, teachers answering student questions about course content, and following news, pop culture, or literary groups which are relevant to the course.
In another linked article posted to AdemHack entitled "Twitter for Academia," there are even more specific examples of how to use the popular social networking site in class. One suggestion included what was called "class chatter" where conversations relevant to class can be carried on outside of the course through Twitter. Other suggestions included having students visit the site's public timeline to "get a sense of the world," track words to see how and where they are used in tweets, and having students simply use the site as a public "notepad" to share topics, news, and issues relevant to class.
Two of my favorite suggestions for Twitter come from the same article listed above. One of these suggestions in to teach grammar through the site. Because tweets are so short, proper use of spelling and grammar is of the utmost importance. After all, how many tweets are plagued with spelling and grammar problems? Too many to count, and more than enough to study and correct.
The second suggestion is to have students co-author a story where each student in class adds to what the student before him or her had written in a previous tweet. This would continue until each student had written 140 characters worth of the story in an individual tweet. Of course, this is the same exercise that takes place on paper, but just transposed to the Internet.
Using the site Twitterfall.com is yet another way to use Twitter which (to my knowledge) was not mentioned in this article or the linked pages. Students can use the site to see the most up-to-date tweets on a term or phrase they searched for. This, in turn, can guide them to relevant articles and discussions of specific topics.
These examples are only a small handful of ways to use Twitter in the writing class. I encourage you to peruse the above articles and sites, talk to other teachers using Twitter, and to just try something new that seems interesting and worthwhile.
Friday, March 18, 2011
Comfortable, Effective Socially Based Writing Through Social Media
In her 2009 article entitled "There's an Art to Writing on Facebook or Twitter -- Really," Maria Puente makes some interesting claims about writing on social media sites.
Puente concedes that social media sites "allow people to feel connected to a virtual community, make new friends and keep old ones, learn things they didn't know. They encourage people to write more (that can't be bad) and write well and concisely (which is hard, trust us)."
She notes, however, that writing on these sites needs improvement. She quotes social media expert Hal Niedzviecki who jokes ''We all have to go to status-update charm school. Just one in every million status updates is worth reading, maybe one in every 5 million if you're looking for poetics.''
Puente then asks "So what makes a good status update? 'Personality,' says Adam Ostrow, editor in chief of Mashable.com, an online publication that covers social networking. 'Personality is really what drives people to (follow) you, especially on Twitter.' How to improve your updates? 'Follow others who are funny, clear and concise and mimic them, or Twitter a bunch and figure out what people respond to,' says Sarah Milstein, co-author of The Twitter Book."
If students can practice making engaging, relevant, or interesting tweets or status updates, they can perhaps begin to give their scholarly ideas and academic writing those same qualities. As an exercise, have students follow political pundits, modern philosophers, comedians, and other popular figures to see what they are saying. Challenge the students to then create good posts on their social networking sites. Groups can be created on Facebook and Twitter so the class can see these status updates.
In Because Digital Writing Matters, The National Writing Project, which authored the book, quotes from "Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century" which states, “‘Participatory culture shifts the focus of literacy from one of individual expression to community involvement. The new literacies almost all involve social skills developed through collaboration and networking’” (11). When composing online, writing inherently becomes more collaborative and interactive than in the traditional classroom setting. Traditionally, a student drafts an essay by himself or herself, turns it in, and gets the essay returned with a few marks from the teacher. Through online writing, however, students can toss out ideas, get a response to those ideas, and ultimately collaborate at varying levels.
For many students, group work --or at least a level of interaction-- carries less of a negative connontation than an isolated, individually-based assignment. As social creatures, we generally feel comfortable working on assignments in groups. For this purpose, social media can serve a valuable role in the classroom.
Of course, as we explore the uses of and build assignments with social media components, there is still a place for traditional essays. There will always be value in traditional writing assignments, both for the skills they build and the comfort level they provide for reserved students who prefer a more individual work style. Likewise, what writing assignments with social media components--or foundations--can provide outgoing students a chance to write more in their own environment and in their own terms.
If nothing else, working with social media in the writing classroom can provide a welcomed change and variety to the traditional writing assignments.
Puente concedes that social media sites "allow people to feel connected to a virtual community, make new friends and keep old ones, learn things they didn't know. They encourage people to write more (that can't be bad) and write well and concisely (which is hard, trust us)."
She notes, however, that writing on these sites needs improvement. She quotes social media expert Hal Niedzviecki who jokes ''We all have to go to status-update charm school. Just one in every million status updates is worth reading, maybe one in every 5 million if you're looking for poetics.''
Puente then asks "So what makes a good status update? 'Personality,' says Adam Ostrow, editor in chief of Mashable.com, an online publication that covers social networking. 'Personality is really what drives people to (follow) you, especially on Twitter.' How to improve your updates? 'Follow others who are funny, clear and concise and mimic them, or Twitter a bunch and figure out what people respond to,' says Sarah Milstein, co-author of The Twitter Book."
If students can practice making engaging, relevant, or interesting tweets or status updates, they can perhaps begin to give their scholarly ideas and academic writing those same qualities. As an exercise, have students follow political pundits, modern philosophers, comedians, and other popular figures to see what they are saying. Challenge the students to then create good posts on their social networking sites. Groups can be created on Facebook and Twitter so the class can see these status updates.
In Because Digital Writing Matters, The National Writing Project, which authored the book, quotes from "Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century" which states, “‘Participatory culture shifts the focus of literacy from one of individual expression to community involvement. The new literacies almost all involve social skills developed through collaboration and networking’” (11). When composing online, writing inherently becomes more collaborative and interactive than in the traditional classroom setting. Traditionally, a student drafts an essay by himself or herself, turns it in, and gets the essay returned with a few marks from the teacher. Through online writing, however, students can toss out ideas, get a response to those ideas, and ultimately collaborate at varying levels.
For many students, group work --or at least a level of interaction-- carries less of a negative connontation than an isolated, individually-based assignment. As social creatures, we generally feel comfortable working on assignments in groups. For this purpose, social media can serve a valuable role in the classroom.
Of course, as we explore the uses of and build assignments with social media components, there is still a place for traditional essays. There will always be value in traditional writing assignments, both for the skills they build and the comfort level they provide for reserved students who prefer a more individual work style. Likewise, what writing assignments with social media components--or foundations--can provide outgoing students a chance to write more in their own environment and in their own terms.
If nothing else, working with social media in the writing classroom can provide a welcomed change and variety to the traditional writing assignments.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Brainstorming Through Social Media
Collaboration through peer review is becoming increasingly popular, and for good reason. It is important for students to realize that writing can--and, in many ways, should--be collaborative. What I would like to propose here, though, is that we find ways to collaborate in other arenas, ones which take place earlier in the drafting process. Peer review typically takes place after a draft is "completed," but what if we tried collaboration the pre-writing, or brainstorming phase? This is an avenue worth exploring and social media sites are perfectly suited for doing that.
I think, if executed effectively, collaborative brainstorming sessions could be both fun and rewarding for students. As writing based sites, Facebook, Twitter, and blogs could provide great venues for this. Students are constantly tuned in to these sites and are looking for topics and ideas to interact over. For this reason, brainstorming would be perfectly suited for social networks; ultimately, it is seemless to the M.O. of the sites.
With the ability to post short messages on Twitter and Facebook, it would be easy for students to post their research question, central idea, or argument and get feedback on it. Blogs (and the Note feature on Facebook) would allow students to post more brainstorming content for the purposes of feedback. Perhaps they can post images or videos they are researching or using as source material to garner additional responses. Brainstorming in this fashion could allow students to not only further refine their own thoughts on a topic, but also get an opposing viewpoint which they may not have considered.
Taking privacy issues and the connection of students into consideration, Facebook allows for the creation of private Groups and Fan Pages where students can interact. These spaces would also allow for the teacher to observe and grade the brainstorming sessions as needed. There are a myriad of possibilities with this idea.
Brainstorming via personal network pages could be a great way for students to interact in "on their terms" while accomplishing school work.
I think, if executed effectively, collaborative brainstorming sessions could be both fun and rewarding for students. As writing based sites, Facebook, Twitter, and blogs could provide great venues for this. Students are constantly tuned in to these sites and are looking for topics and ideas to interact over. For this reason, brainstorming would be perfectly suited for social networks; ultimately, it is seemless to the M.O. of the sites.
With the ability to post short messages on Twitter and Facebook, it would be easy for students to post their research question, central idea, or argument and get feedback on it. Blogs (and the Note feature on Facebook) would allow students to post more brainstorming content for the purposes of feedback. Perhaps they can post images or videos they are researching or using as source material to garner additional responses. Brainstorming in this fashion could allow students to not only further refine their own thoughts on a topic, but also get an opposing viewpoint which they may not have considered.
Taking privacy issues and the connection of students into consideration, Facebook allows for the creation of private Groups and Fan Pages where students can interact. These spaces would also allow for the teacher to observe and grade the brainstorming sessions as needed. There are a myriad of possibilities with this idea.
Brainstorming via personal network pages could be a great way for students to interact in "on their terms" while accomplishing school work.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
YouTube as a Source for Invention
Through personal thoughts and conversations with colleagues, I have long thought that Facebook and Twitter could make good sites for invention, but I had not thought about similar possibilities with YouTube. In a presentation entitled "Teaching Invention Through YouTube," Ruijie Zhao looks at the site and ways to effectively use it in the writing classroom.
Before even looking at YouTube, Zhao contends that "an isolated and introspective dialogue within the writer definitely helps him/her select information, digest information, and raise questions, but such functions should not lead people to believe that prewriting itself is asocial and anti-collaborative." The thought here is that if understanding, ideas, meanings, and connotations are indeed created socially, then the choosing and initial construction of those ideas for writing assignments can also be done socially.
As a social media site, YouTube enters the picture.
Essentially, YouTube allows students to first start researching their topics. It is important to remember that YouTube allows anyone to post videos on the site. Students have the potential to look at videos on their personal--or class--topic posted by a reputable source on the subject or simply an amateur looking to share an opinion. Each has merit in a class room, although in widely different arenas.
Zhao argues that the site "assimilates different voices, represents the interests of different groups. It allows people from different ethnic groups, cultural and political backgrounds to share their knowledge, attitudes, and opinions through dialogues. These dialogues, in turn, encourage students to articulate viewpoints, express opinions on opposing arguments, assess bias, evaluate strengths and weaknesses of each argument, and make their own judgments. the key to maximizing such potential is de-centered learning where every participant’s voice is heard and valued."
Zhao asserts, however, that "to fulfill this goal, the instructor should be aware of the importance of creating a non-threatening class atmosphere." After students watch videos on YouTube, they must be given time to discuss the videos as a class and make sense of them on a personal level. As members of a visually based society, students might relate to or better understand a topic after watching a video on it. In this respect, YouTube can get students talking and, ultimately, entering the conversation.
As further encouragement to use YouTube in the writing classroom, Zhao asserts that "the idea that one’s sense of vision is not merely a receptive sensory skill but, rather, an active focus of one’s intelligence, is a critical concept for writers who wish to use visual thinking in their writing process."
As with every social media site, it is important to monitor students during the invention session to ensure they are using YouTube for academic purposes.
Before even looking at YouTube, Zhao contends that "an isolated and introspective dialogue within the writer definitely helps him/her select information, digest information, and raise questions, but such functions should not lead people to believe that prewriting itself is asocial and anti-collaborative." The thought here is that if understanding, ideas, meanings, and connotations are indeed created socially, then the choosing and initial construction of those ideas for writing assignments can also be done socially.
As a social media site, YouTube enters the picture.
Essentially, YouTube allows students to first start researching their topics. It is important to remember that YouTube allows anyone to post videos on the site. Students have the potential to look at videos on their personal--or class--topic posted by a reputable source on the subject or simply an amateur looking to share an opinion. Each has merit in a class room, although in widely different arenas.
Zhao argues that the site "assimilates different voices, represents the interests of different groups. It allows people from different ethnic groups, cultural and political backgrounds to share their knowledge, attitudes, and opinions through dialogues. These dialogues, in turn, encourage students to articulate viewpoints, express opinions on opposing arguments, assess bias, evaluate strengths and weaknesses of each argument, and make their own judgments. the key to maximizing such potential is de-centered learning where every participant’s voice is heard and valued."
Zhao asserts, however, that "to fulfill this goal, the instructor should be aware of the importance of creating a non-threatening class atmosphere." After students watch videos on YouTube, they must be given time to discuss the videos as a class and make sense of them on a personal level. As members of a visually based society, students might relate to or better understand a topic after watching a video on it. In this respect, YouTube can get students talking and, ultimately, entering the conversation.
As further encouragement to use YouTube in the writing classroom, Zhao asserts that "the idea that one’s sense of vision is not merely a receptive sensory skill but, rather, an active focus of one’s intelligence, is a critical concept for writers who wish to use visual thinking in their writing process."
As with every social media site, it is important to monitor students during the invention session to ensure they are using YouTube for academic purposes.
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Social Media Every Step of the Way
As teachers of writing, it is imperative that we not only keep students writing, but that we keep them interested in writing. Because social media sites are such a huge part of student's lives out of the classroom, if more of those sites are incorporated into the classroom, students have the potential to become more engaged in their writing assignments.
Having seen mostly traditional writing assignments throughout their academic career, students can write more on "their terms" and in "their setting" through social media. Students in the year 2011 have grown up with digital technology; they not only feel comfortable using it, they want to use it. In a recent presentation entitled Teaching Invention Through YouTube, Ruijie Zhao argued, "Facing a student population that has grown up in this digital environment, instructors need to implement innovative teaching that incorporates technology to cater to what students know and need."
The central piece of social media sites is writing. While the sites can incorporate music, video, pictures, and graphics, writing exists as the main form of communication on most of these sites. By focusing more on writing on these sites, and the improvement of writing on these sites, we can hopefully improve the writing at the academic level as well.
The rationale for using social media to help teach writing also has practical implications past just meeting students on their terms.
In her article entitled "A Model for Teaching College Writing," Barbara Vance argues that "Writing and reading online is different than performing those same tasks on paper. We communicate differently on the Internet, and as more and more people read from their phones and portable e-readers, our understanding of communication will change further still. As technology shifts, so does our means of persuasion; if students do not explore this, they will find their skills quickly out of date."
In this blog, we are going to explore ways to successfully incorporate social media into the classroom. The goal here is two-fold: to meet students on their terms and to have them meet our expectations in the writing classroom. My thought is that, in general, academic writing can become more accessible and practical for the student, and that the process will remain worthwhile and rewarding for all parties involved.
Stay tuned for some interesting ways to implement social media into the classroom and hopefully you can try some of these tools in your classrooms.
Having seen mostly traditional writing assignments throughout their academic career, students can write more on "their terms" and in "their setting" through social media. Students in the year 2011 have grown up with digital technology; they not only feel comfortable using it, they want to use it. In a recent presentation entitled Teaching Invention Through YouTube, Ruijie Zhao argued, "Facing a student population that has grown up in this digital environment, instructors need to implement innovative teaching that incorporates technology to cater to what students know and need."
The central piece of social media sites is writing. While the sites can incorporate music, video, pictures, and graphics, writing exists as the main form of communication on most of these sites. By focusing more on writing on these sites, and the improvement of writing on these sites, we can hopefully improve the writing at the academic level as well.
The rationale for using social media to help teach writing also has practical implications past just meeting students on their terms.
In her article entitled "A Model for Teaching College Writing," Barbara Vance argues that "Writing and reading online is different than performing those same tasks on paper. We communicate differently on the Internet, and as more and more people read from their phones and portable e-readers, our understanding of communication will change further still. As technology shifts, so does our means of persuasion; if students do not explore this, they will find their skills quickly out of date."
In this blog, we are going to explore ways to successfully incorporate social media into the classroom. The goal here is two-fold: to meet students on their terms and to have them meet our expectations in the writing classroom. My thought is that, in general, academic writing can become more accessible and practical for the student, and that the process will remain worthwhile and rewarding for all parties involved.
Stay tuned for some interesting ways to implement social media into the classroom and hopefully you can try some of these tools in your classrooms.
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