2010+NCTE+Convention

by Groeninger, Bufkin, Brodie, Castle, Housiaux

The Conference was titled "Teachers and Students Together: Living Literate Lives."

There hasn't been such an exciting time in the field of English teaching since whole language broke onto the scene and sparked heated debate over it as opposed to more skills-based approaches to teaching English. Unlike the debates over the effectiveness of whole language, which were heated and protracted, there seems to be little to no debate over whether or not web 2.0 activities will become a central part of the English language classroom: that is a given. As one presenter said: ":Things are not changing: they already did change."

From the conference, I have about ten hours worth of websites to explore, and I have three books to read in order to investigate leads that I believe would bring Ransom more in line with the cutting edge of English education (private schools tend to lag behind public schools in my content area).

Among the things I found of interest that you might wish to investigate are the following: > Users can [|doodle] while commenting, use multiple [|identities], and pick which comments are shown through [|moderation]. VoiceThreads can even be [|embedded] to show and receive comments on other websites and [|exported] to MP3 players or DVDs to play as archival movies."
 * The Internet Safety Technical Task Force at Harvard has just released a study: "Enhancing Child Safety & Online Technologies." You can get a summary of the report or the full report online.
 * Although I went to several sessions on technology, the only mention I heard of white boards/smart boards/active boards was from one presenter who encouraged the people at the session to throw them out because they are outdated and do not offer the opportunties for literacy learning that more interactive modes of technoloy offer.
 * The keynote speaker, Otto Santa Ana, a sociolinguist, gave an interesting talk of about three metaphors (education as a path. education as a river, and the school as factory) that dominate public disourse about education and about the need for educators to change those metaphors. For those interested, check out his //book Tongue-Tied: The lives of Multilingual Children in Public Schools//.
 * An interesting documentary, //[|Race To Nowhere]// is one that would likely spark much discussion if viewed by the Ransom community. Unlike //Waiting for Supreman//, which points to the socio-economic injustice in our school systems and has little to do with the reality of Ransom Everglades, //Race to Nowhere//, speaks of a world where children are so engaged in becoming (in the sense of entering a good school in order to have a lucrative career) that they live under increasing pressure (the rate of teenage suicides is increasing) and that they have no time just to be children. Their days are twelve to fourteen hours of school, activties, community service, and study. Sound familiar? Among the interesting facts in the film, at least to me, is that despite high GPAs and increased amounts of study at the high school level, colleges are having to remediate basic math and writing skills more than ever. Students are not learning with high stakes testing and increased pressure from schools, parents and students themselves.
 * //Ning// is a social networking site that was highly recommended in a couple of sessions. There is a low cost that is said to be well worth it. It's a site in which you can form groups (that the teacher controls) and upload documents, links, videos, etc.
 * //VoiceThread// is another site that several presenters mentioned as a very god one. The website says, "A VoiceThread is a collaborative, multimedia slide show that holds [|images, documents, and videos] and allows people to navigate slides and leave [|comments in 5 ways] - using voice (with a mic or telephone), text, audio file, or video (via a webcam). [|Share] a VoiceThread with friends, students, and colleagues for them to record comments too.
 * website: http://digitalwriting.pbworks.com
 * books: 1//) Teaching Writing Using Blogs, Wikis, and Other Digital Tools// by Richard Beach, et. al. and 2) //Literacy Tools in the Classroom: Teaching Through Critical Inquiry, Grades 5-12// by Richard Beach, et. al.