Week 13 Supporting your own learning

This week (the last week of readings) is all about how you will continue to support your own learning about New/new Literacies/literacies.  These literacies are key to success, as you already know, in the 21st Century. New Literacies are continually changing--even the apps or websites or programs that you think you know are updated regularly, sometimes to the point where you have to relearn how t  use them.  Not only that, new tools (hardware, software, in the cloud) proliferate and old tools may become obsolete.  As teachers, we are life long learners (or we would not be doing what we do). Sometimes your school district or workplace decides what PD you will attend and sometimes you yourself do.  So think about what makes effective PD for you? How do you continue to learn about your profession?  How have  you used Twitter and our Google Community as a learning platform?

The next 2 weeks, you will only be responding to my blog so that you can spend your time working on video annotations and your multimodal article.  You will need to meet with your writing group and with me with your drafts of your article online via Google hangouts or Skype.  I'll be available Nov. 29 in the evening or daytime, Nov. 30 in the evening or afternoon after 3, and Tuesday Dec. 1 in the evening or late afternoon. I"ll be in California on Nov. 30-Dec 4 at the meeting of the Literacy Research Association, so remember the time difference (I'll be 2 hours earlier than you).  I want to touch base with everyone about their chapter and how it is coming.

Have a good Thanksgiving.  I'm thankful for all of you and the work that you do to support the learning of all children/learners.  I'll be down in Texas with my mother celebrating her 90th birthday on Nov. 25.  I'm including a picture of my Mom and I.  She still lives alone, is a basket weaver, knits and sews for her great-grandchildren (ages 18,14, and 1) and honorary great-grandchildren, reads the newspaper daily (and has at least 2 books going)and is a faithful attendee of women's soccer, basketball, and softball at Texas A&M University (where she lives). I could tell you all about the  gutsy stuff she has done (she was the first woman in her small town in Iowa to go to college and she worked for the FBI in Washington, DC during World War 2, for example) that makes her a role model of her time.

See you online the week of Nov. 30!

Week 12 Designing multimodal texts

I enjoyed the multimodal blog responses and small group meeting reports.  I have had such a busy meeting week that I haven't had the chance to read your blogs yet (it is Friday at 3 pm as I write) but I'm hoping some of the multimodality has oozed over to them as well.

This coming week's readings are all about designing multimodal texts and how to help learners become multimodal text designers.  So, tell me what you know about design principles and about remixing and using images, sound, and video from the internet. What does it mean to "level up"? what does iteration and feedback have to do with it?

I know that there is lots to read, so here is how I"d like you to divide it up:  Everyone should read the introduction and section on assessment in BABR 8.  Divide up the rest of that chapter around these headings: images, audio, video, digital storytelling/poetry.  Everyone should read BABR 9 on design principles.  Divide up the articles among each of you.  The blog leader can address the common readings and those pieces she read, and each of you need to respond to her questions and fill in the rest of your blogging group on what you read.  Then all of you make connections.

A few reminders:

• Resources were due on Nov. 6, so I'll be grading them over the weekend
• Your lesson/activity plan is due Nov. 13 before we meet face to face.  Let me know if you need more time to get the video annotated and uploaded. 
• We are meeting face to face in Rm 334 on Nov. 14 at 9 am-5pm.  We will plan on an hour for lunch.  Our main plan of work is creating the multimodal chapters and learning how to author an iBook.  If you have an Apple computer, make sure to download iBooks Author and Pages if you don't have it (it is free).  If you don't, I'll have an Apple laptop for you to use.  
• Get a Dropbox account if you don't have one as that is where we will deposit the iBook stuff 
• If you borrowed one of my iPads, you will need to bring it to give back to me at the end of the day.
• Bring questions, concerns, etc. 

I'm looking forward to all of us being together again. Have a good week, and see you soon.