First, a
reminder! You need to post on our Google Community at least once in a month and respond to at least 2 posts, and you need to Tweet at least once in a month as well. The month is almost over. Check the participation rubric.
This week the readings are all about assessing reading and writing in digital spaces as well as creativity, collaboration, communication, critical thinking and comprehension and the social practices around digital tools. One aspect of this assessment is helping students be metacognitve and assess themselves and their own learning and enactment of these key features of participation in New Literacies. I thought I'd do a little self assessment in terms of reflecting on my own incorporation of the 6 social practices into my blogging, collaboration and communication. So here goes:
1. Contextualizing digital texts: My blog is hopefully is serving the purpose of activating your knowledge of our topic and helping you to make connections before you read, so I carefully choose what I want to write about and how I frame what I ask. I'm not always as successful as I would wish, so I have bee working on being more specific and having some modeling of my thinking in my writing.
2. Making connections between texts and people: I think I'm doing okay in the blog, but I've been having some difficulty in my work with my Uganda project colleagues (a long story for another day). This plays into my communication piece over Google docs with my Uganda team as well, as it seems I'm not being clear about what should be happening in the Google doc....
3. Collaborative understanding and creation of digital texts: See above on the Google doc.
4. Adopting alternative modes of communication: Well, not so good although I've been including pictures and graphics in my PD guidebook for the Uganda project. It will end up being printed this first time.....maybe I need to think about an iBook with examples after my first visit there.
5. Adopting alternative perspectives: I have been trying to do that when I read your blogs, putting myself in your shoes to understand your key points and how you picked them out.
6. Constructing and enacting identities: I definitely do that with this blog as I construct my teacher identity, and hopefully my guide toward understanding.
Before you begin reading, think about and assess your own incorporation of the 6 social practices into your New Literacies participation in this class (that would be in this blog, your blogging group's blog, your use of the VCI, your writing group's use of virtual online meetings, your inquiry topic as you look for information for your chapter or integrate New Literacies into classroom practice). Where do you shine? What might you need to work on?
Here are some key ideas/terms that I think you need to look for and pay attention to as you read for this week and that I would like to see used in your own blogs:
scenario based tasks, reader based response, meta-cognitive reflection, self assessment, static electronic feedback, intertextual commentary, marginal and end commentary, screen cast, dynamic response, holistic and analytic rubrics, dynamic criteria mapping.
Since you are all in different (or mostly different blogging and writing groups), discuss with each other how you are doing peer response and comments to each others' projects in your writing groups, and which suggestions you might like to try. Of course, you also need to discuss what you think are important ideas related to assessment in digital spaces and of New Literacies activity.
I'm going to delve into the VCI once I post this blog (it is Friday afternoon) and jump into your blogs for this week as soon as I post this blog. I'll be e-mailing you individually or collectively once I review the VCI. Look for comments on the blogs.
Finally, remember that your annotated bibliography is due on Oct. 30 by 11 pm. Upload to the appropriate Dropbox folder on D2L (I think that is the Theoretical Article one--I don't remember if the Dropbox has separate folders for the article and for the bib).
Have a lovely Fall Weekend.