Gender and digital reading

I have included an interesting link from DERN. The paper is only brief but contains some relevant research findings on the topic of gender & digital text reading practices.  

I have a long standing interest in how the digital world in which our children and students are currently immersed has impacted on their literacy and learning practices, so thought I would share the research about reading on line - thanks to Gerry White and DERN for always bringing forward such interesting research up for discussion.  

 

 

  

Online participation experiences with MOOC #change11

I had my first opportunity to participate with the MOOC # change 11 on-line, in a live discussion, thanks to a Perth based Murdoch university guest speaker Jan Herrington, the start time was suitable for Australian based participants! The ICT was painless via Blackboard and the quality of the connection was good for the hour long discussion - some lag on audio and video but chatting via the keyboard with other participants was instant. I did find the keyboarding chat very open, broad ranging and encouraging so thanks everyone! It is a bit daunting to give it a go at first! I did find trying to read, type, listen, follow, comment was the most challenging aspect of the participation for me!
Enough about the the ICT  - it worked and was operated by me - unaided ( wee hoo! It must be fool proof)

The theme of the webcast was"Authentic Learning".

I got the gist of the content and got to follow the presentation. I did find the concept of "Authentic Learning" interesting but struggled to see the secondary school based subject application across most areas, without it becoming non-authentic and frankly it seemed a bit of a forced fit. This is mainly because of the premise that school learning is somehow 'authentic' and has 'real world' application.  'Authentic Learning' seemed to be best matched to vocational contexts - simulated situations, reporting, observing, etc. schools often are responsible for the skills prior to these simulated situations the ones surrounding the ability to writ a report, observe and record, report etc... it might have been that I got the wrong end of the story but Jan  Herrington seemed to be equating 'Authentic Learning' to realistic applicable tasks that have application only to the real world and any other type of learning such a 'learning to learn' seemed to not have application as a simulated real experience therefore was seen as a de-contextualised learning experience which rendered it inauthentic.  The definitions were ill defined rather than established and shared from the beginning. School based tasks seemed to be labelled inauthentic if they have little application for students beyond...well just learning it .. i guess for me it was the idea that in secondary schools are somehow not real world and instead offer learning that is not applicable to 'real world' was a strange position to begin from and it felt at odds with what I have understood of tasks assignments and assessment in schools. I  will read more on the topic and reserve my further comments for now but as a reflection this is my first blog on the topic - I'd love to hear from others about their thoughts on the topic.

Digital Learning

Have just attended attended a thought provoking and at times very affirming networking day on digital learning The keynote address was provided by Professor Stephen Heppell, and educator with specialist areas in ICT, creating learning environments and a great teller of interesting anecdotes from his formidable track record of projects in Education and learning. I was introduced to Heppell's work last year through the director of emergent form Paul Houghton - thanks Paul - really enjoyed meeting Prof. Heppell today and realising that the meeting from late last year has completed its full circle and led to my participation in such an exciting forum on future education directions for schools in the form of today's Digital Learning day.
Heppell's website is comprehensive, inclusive and challenging and something to behold - plenty of student voices too. I also enjoyed a workshop presented by x-cite logic's Jenny Jongste on wiki's and blogs - very good link was provided that I just thought was practical and addresses some concerns teachers have about how to assess  digital learning! The wiki is called edorigami and is set up by New Zealander Andrew Churches - fabulous stuff here - gold! 

I will write more on the blog about the day and my reflections soon - meanwhile enjoy exploring the links!

 

Info-graphics and visual text production

I came upon this interesting website that gathers infographic examples and has created a community of visual data images that are appealing and interesting and well suited to the graphics of most ICTs today.. if nothing else it is full of excellent examples of visual texts.

It got me thinking about how information is changing through the establishment of web-situated content and therefore how we locate, read and interpret that content is changing. This in turn changes how we teach and what our students expect from the texts they read/view.

Codes of visual language and the skills of layout, design, font and colour choice all have an effect on a  texts 'readability' The balancing of these aspects of visual text creation leads to an increased need to understand how we communicate visually through psychology & brain function and how the construction of on-line texts effect understanding and learning ....

Exciting times for teachers and students - me thinks! Perhaps this is a direction that curriculum content needs to head  - the need to develop visual & digital literacy skills has never been higher... along with social interaction, communication, negotiation, inquiry methods and much more. These are the core curriculum areas now...to quote a 15 year old student ..... "The need to know what Australia's main mineral export product is died for me the day my mobile phone learnt the answer"... hmmm well.. ...yes...

     

e - books and audio

ABC's Radio National programme The Book Show - had an interesting interview about e-books and the development of an audio tracks for e-reading on e-readers, tablets and PCs..... 

I liked the idea of reading and listening to a selected audio to enhance the experience ....but I began to wonder if it really would be an enhancing experience for the reader?

I began to feel a bit uncomfortable with the idea of someone choosing what I would listen to as an accompanying audio track when I was e-reading .... what if their predetermined choice of music or audio effects were just not quite what I had in mind?

This sometimes happens to me when books are made into film texts and you find yourself trying to accept the miscasting of a character who just does not ring true to the way in which you envisaged them walking and talking!

It's all started to sound like listening to a film without any pictures and where is the fun in that? 

- and what if the book publishers which are owned by huge conglomerates that only provide particular musical experiences? which are based on white, middle-class, cultural norms?
Audio domination of my e-reading head space ....yikes! 


 Thanks to youtube.com/dalefilms for the spooky audio!
 

New link from my latest MOOC - ing around

I have been finding that the easiest way to engage in the change # 2011 MOOC is to review latest blogs and any live meetings I might have missed due to time differences - so here is a link to an interesting blog, by Rliberni  that explores some great ideas around what are the new literacies that teachers need to consider when engaging students with technology. 

The video, provided by Sarah Fudin, identifies not just technology based operational skills but rather learner /user skills. The idea of identifying  new literacies that are applicable to teach our students in our schools give teachers a starting point from which to engage our students in co-developing a new curriculum to suit the world as it is now, a knowledge based economy. 

I thought these new literacies were immediately applicable for use in a highly connected world.

Networking , collaboration and innovation

Here is a great short YouTube clip about where good ideas come from by Steve Johnson 


He has a book out too of the same name.  I thought it might be good to use with teachers and students too
when discussing on-line collaboration, importance of talk, ethical borrowing of ideas, etc. etc.