online k12 conf. talk: "Keeping the LIteracy in Twentieth Century Literacies"

Reflections on the Online k12 conference talk -- "Keeping the Literacy in 21rst Century Literacies
by Drew Schrader

This talk, aimed at "busy teachers", focused on introductory strategies for addressing traditional literacy goals in high school, while using web 2.0 tools to foster student engagement. Of the three tools the presenter highlighted, two (Diigo and Prezi) were ones we had already been introduced to in class. Serendipitously for me, the third tool (Screentoaster, which I had not previously been aware of) does exactly the sort of thing (provide an easy way to capture screen shots) that I had been most recently wondering how to do for my Learning Reflections project!

This talk had a strong theoretical basis in learning theory for reading, coming largely from a book that the presenter highly recommends -- I Read it but I Don't Get It, by Chris [Something -- Giovanni??]. Basically, Schrader says that many high school students have poor reading skills, and that many need instruction in some of the same sorts of strategies that we teach in the upper elementary grades, but which (he claims) the students frequently haven't been explicitly guided in practicing since then.

As I said, two of the tools that Schrader discusses are ones we've used / seen in class. He demonstrated how to have students use Prezi as a "mind-mapping" tool when planning their writing, and how to use Diigo (using both highlighting and sticky notes left by the teacher) to draw students' attention to important information and text features in assigned readings. Both of these seemed to me like reasonable classroom uses of these tools.

The tool I found most interesting, though, was naturally the "new" one, Screentoaster. Schrader recommends using "think-alouds" with students to model various reading comprehension strategies. To model think-alouds for his students, he can post an example of himself doing this, for an excerpt from a shared class text such as Lord of the Flies, using Screentoaster. He says the program is free (I think) and easy to use, and runs online without needing to download a porgram or button or special toolbar. You just create an account and then click "Start recording." You can include both voice and video, and when you're finished you can upload your clip to Utube, or have screentoaster.com continue to host it on their site, or you can download it as a .mov file and use it on your own computer. . . . Anyway, whether or not I would ever use Screentoaster to model reading comprehension strategies, I'm glad to know it's out there and "easy to use", for use in my "Summary of Personal Learning" project!

One final note: Schrader warns (as I have been concerned about throughout this course) that it's too easy "to put neat tools ahead of good practice", rushing out to try a new online tool with your class without really having a significant learning goal in mind for it. I think we're at a fascinating but confusing point in time, right now, where the high stakes assessments are measuring mostly content knowledge whereas many educators seem to agree that we should also be focusing on using web 2.0 tools to give students opportunities to do all sorts of experiential, collaborative, creative project-based learning -- which takes a lot of time. Schrader adresses the conflict that can too easily arise between those two goals, although he may make it sound too easy to sort out.