Opening the Oyster

When Shakespeare said, “The world's mine oyster,” he wasn’t kidding.  Today, we have the ability to virtually be anywhere we would like to with Internet access.  Search engines and social media open up cultures and ideas by connecting us through interaction.  Beyond social lessons to learn, the Internet, digital text, and new literacies provide educators with opportunities to expand their classrooms beyond walls and into the minds of our youth.

As I read the chapters and articles for this week, I was continually stuck by the awareness of the authors to the fact that digital text and new literacies allowed access into places before impossible.  One aspect of a traditional classroom that I have struggled with is getting to every student and addressing his or her needs during a lesson.  While using Ning with Literature circles, Shoulder (2014) noted “I can actually ‘pop-in’ during group discussions, then later I can look at what actually took place” (Gura, 2014, p. 72).  This allowed the teacher to monitor what students were discussing, but in a way that provides students with the ability to engage in authentic conversations.  Because students view online platforms like Ning and Edmodo as social by nature, they “help with analytic skills necessary for reading comprehension, but are used in a setting that appeals to the teen personality” (Gura, 2014, p. 76). 

Another area that becomes observable is a student’s thought process.  Children with expressive language issues struggle with the ability to voice what they are thinking. Therefore, it becomes difficult to access how they ended drawing a certain conclusion or ended up at an answer.  In using e-books, Larson (2012) noted that highlighting and notes recorded on e-books offers insight into a reader’s comprehension process (Larson, 2012, p. 286).  As one pre-service teacher remarked, “I don’t ever highlight in storybooks, because I was always taught to respect books,” but in an e-book, nothing is permanent (Larson, 2012, 285).  Students can highlight what they find important as they read and make notes about how the story relates to their lives, but as they discuss and re-interact with it, they can modify and alter those original notes.   If a teacher monitors this, she/he can monitor a student’s thought process and assess how well they comprehend the text.

A flipped classroom flops instruction and homework.  Students use technology at home to take notes and activities are completed at school.  I am very interested in this for two reasons. First, many of my students’ parents are wonderful at helping their children and having their needs met, but they can also become too involved in projects completed at home.  Second, I hate spending an entire class period “prepping” with a lecture.  (Here is a great website further explaining a flipped classroom.) So, I love the idea of using technologies, with the assumption they are available to your students, to meet the demands of a modern classroom.  Extensions like blogging allow students to dig deeper into texts such as “analyzing characters actions and synthesizing quotes” in their own time rather than in the a 50 minute class period (Gura, 2014, p. 84).  In addition, an activity that utilizes new literacies, levels the playing field. “Students who rarely raised their hand to participate during class [can] post well developed comments and challenge classmates with questions of their own” (Gura, 2014, p. 82).   

If the world is ours for the taking, we need to know how to access and analyze it.  “We should acknowledge multiple types of digital texts and support students as they discern which reading strategies to apply” (Larson, 2012, p. 288).  We can’t rely on a set of traditional education practices to prepare our students for the world emerging at their finger tips.

We know how important background knowledge is for readers. Unfortunately, many of our students won’t have a chance to explore the entire world before reading texts about various places and cultures. The following Pinterest Page, aptly named, “Why then the world’s mine oyster” is a great example of using apps and tools to broaden our students knowledge.

http://www.pinterest.com/morgankitchens/why-then-the-world-s-mine-oyster/

Making It One of a Kind

One of a kind is defined as the only item of a particular kind.  How rare and extraordinary this one of a kind must be.  Humans appreciate and revere the individual.  But, when you breakdown that one of a kind, elusive, can’t-find-it-anywhere-else thing, you begin to see that it is really just a transformation of something familiar.  Like a magic eye poster, the longer you look, you notice that what you may have seen at first is now something completely new. Voila, a one of a kind!

As I read about copyright law and fair use, my mind continually came back to this idea of one of kind.  I debated with myself if I could conjure up something, anything that was completely original.  Humans evolved from apes, my grandmother’s original cookies are comprised of ingredients, and my new goddaughter is the perfect composite of her parents.  If the universe struggles to create something 100% novel, why should producers not be allowed to build on or alter works that generate new ones?  “Because copyright law supports the goals of creativity and the spread of knowledge, the more strongly transformative a new creative work is” the less likely one needs to fear copyright infringement (Hobbs, 2010, p. 53). 

These idea of transformation, originality, creativity and copyright are swirling around our students.  As prosumers they not only want to visit blogs and websites, but create their own (Hicks, 2013, p. 29).  I know my students would much prefer to use (and hopefully create) digitally enhanced texts that become interactive and “use hyperlinks, embedded media, and other features that make web-based texts dynamic” (Hicks, 2013, p. 35).  But, as with any crafting, comes the responsibility to give credit where it is due.  Students need be literate about media literacy.  “Media literacy is the capacity to access, analyze, evaluate, and communicate messages in a wide variety of forms” (Center for Social Media, 2009, p. 2).  This is where our students will weld what they find with what they create. 

An overt theme of the Common Core Standards is critical thinking across all curriculums. We want our students to be thinkers not just encyclopedias (isn’t that what Google and Wikipedia are for anyway?).  Fair Use is a fabulous way to discuss critical thinking because it is flexible (Center for Social Media, 2009, p.6).  Before students craft web based texts, they should discuss and determine their opinions and stances on fair use. Because there is “no numerical rules of thumb that can be relied upon in making this determination,” students have to really think about each issue separately and analyze how the material was used and is a transformation occurred.  If not enough change happened, then we have created more of the same.  But, if students analyze a work and synthesize that a true transformation has occurred, well then, they have created a new one of a kind. 

Growing up in the age of Napster, I vividly remember the lawsuit Metallica filed over music sharing as a violation of their copyright.  In looking for other’s who have taken litigious stands, I was lead to Disney. and also this video mash-up.  In no way does it resemble the original and yes it is transformative.  I would have to say a derivative audience was found. 

References:

Center for Social Media. (2009). Code of best practices in fair use for media literacy education. Retrieved from: http://mediaeducationlab.com/sites/mediaeducationlab.com/files/CodeofBestPracticesinFairUse_0.pdf 

Hicks, T. (2013). Crafting digital writing; Composing texts across media and genres. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.  

Hobbs, R. (2011). Digital and media literacy : connecting culture and classroom. Thousand Oaks, Calif. : Corwin Press, c2011.