Image Courtesy: http://thetrc.org/trc/images/forum.jpg
So far, the
results of my new literacies approach has been mixed in my classroom, but I'm optimistic overall. Since
debuting the ‘Friday Chats’ threaded discussion groups in my class, I’ve heard
an assortment of opinions from students. To begin with, this project replaced
another ongoing writing project that I thought students were losing interest in
and I was getting frustrated with. I had started a Friday project where
students had the choice to either silently read a book of their choice or write
in a personal blog about whatever they wanted. I got the idea from Devon
Stokes-Bennett, who spoke about her “Passion Project” last summer during her
project presentation. The students started off strong in the fall but then I
noticed that many students were not participating. They were pretending to blog
when they were really playing online games or chatting with one another online.
I thought that if they began engaging with one another in a forum that they
build for class, they would be excited for this new project and I also hoped, as Baker asserts, that "Technology can be harnessed to help children practice traditional reading and writing skills" (Baker, p. 287). Some are certainly
excited for the change, however a handful of students told me that they
“missed” blogging; even the ones who I knew had fallen behind so I’m a bit
confused. Three very strong students have asked if they can continue to blog
anyway so I have decided to run the blogging project as an enrichment project
for those who are interested.
The first result
that I am excited to see happening with the TDGs is that students are
participating in the chat groups outside of class time even though it is not
required. I noticed this was occurring a bit in the first two weeks, but this
weekend I have received about a dozen notifications from Google Groups that
alert me that students are continuing to chat past the required ‘chat time’ of
Friday class. I find this really exciting, and in particular, I was happy to
see a more reluctant student post a few replies late Friday night when I had
noticed that he hadn’t written much during class. Many of them are also accessing 'older' conversations from weeks past, and updating their responses or catching up if they had fallen behind. I’m learning that some
students just need much more time to think before they respond or perhaps even feel
more confident replying when they’re outside of the classroom space. This understanding is something that Lee and Lee (2006) discuss in their article about personality types and threaded discussion groups in which they argue that "[reflective thinkers] may actively participate in asynchronous environments such as Web-based threaded discussions because they have enough time to think" (Lee & Lee, p. 84). Also,
whenever one student posts, everyone in the group is alerted, so they are
encouraging one another to continue classroom discussions beyond the class.
The next thing
I’m noticing is that students are really starting to critically think about
choosing who they want to engage with. The groups have shifted a few times
since they originally signed up, with students asking to switch or break up
into even smaller groups. A few female students have said that they would feel more
comfortable in a female-only group, even though they initially wanted to work
with a mixed group. I was especially interested when a girl asked to switch
into an all-female group after initially signing up in the same group as her
boyfriend and some of his friends. She said that she would be far more
comfortable chatting online with a smaller group of girls she knows well. Since
switching, I’ve noticed that she’s writing a lot more than she did in the first
couple of posts. Because we’ve been implementing Project Based Learning into
our practices at our school, navigating group work and group dynamics is
something that we’re talked about a lot as a class and I’ve spoken to several
parents about it as well. I’m thrilled to see students stop and think about whom
they work best with and who will support them in their learning instead of just
working with their friends.
I’m also
thrilled that students have been providing me with ideas for the forum posts.
The ‘Create a Soundtrack for your Life’ post came from a student’s suggestion,
and another asked me to post a creative writing option for this week, as we are currently studying poetry. I provided a template for a poem for the students
who feel a little bit ‘lost’ with poetry, but offered the option for students
to write any kind of poem they liked. Here is a screenshot of (part of) this post:
About halfway through class, I checked in
with the student who asked for a creative writing option, and asked her if she
was interested in this week’s chat and she looked up at me and replied, “Miss,
I’m already on my fourth poem. This is going to be a long response.” This completely made my day.
As Cox and Cox (2008) discuss, what I try to do with my forum posts is provide "an open-ended, thought-provoking question that supports the particular course material under consideration" (Cox & Cox, p. 554) but eventually, I
would like to turn over decision making around discussion topics to the
students, although I’m not really sure how to do this. I’ve thought about
inviting each group to suggest a topic, then put it to a class vote. I’ve also
considered having each group determine for themselves what their topic for the
week would be, either choosing from a list that I provide them with, or
providing examples and then allowing them the freedom to choose. I think my
only stipulations would be that the topic has to connect with the outcomes of
the course and/or to what we are currently studying otherwise in the class. I
plan to investigate further what other teachers have done and see what they say
has worked. I’ve also considered running a book club using this platform; I’m
just not sure what this would look like yet. I’ll probably start asking the
students how they would like to see these groups develop. One suggestion I had
from a colleague was to use a website called http://www.polleverywhere.com where I could
post a question such as “What should our next ‘Friday Chats’ be about?” and
then students can text their answers into the poll. I can project the screen on
my white board, and students’ responses will pop up anonymously in real time
and we could read them as a group. Here's a visual that shows an example of what can be done and instructions:
Image Courtesy: https://tmiket.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/polleverywhere-defaultinstructions1.png
I tried using this website a couple of weeks
about while teaching Of Mice and Men and my grade eleven students were
shocked that I was asking them to use their phones for class. The response was
wonderful as their answers popped up at the front of the room and they kept
yelling, “That’s mine!” Their responses appeared on the board and looked something like this:
Image Courtesy: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhB6FiF1E3JbhjkX-UEllOSqk81xQCxPElFa4WkmhgGteU-AS2woWb_vP5WHhiMzblZMpgyPseWnAQKa21E1KpYn8WL-1-9KNq3eR5PNGE51pvafZ9HoAmGQgg6GedqTOlm4v4WpnSO0Hk/s1600/Screen+shot+2012-04-24+at+1.04.29+PM.png
Students are also being really kind to one another in the groups and have been offering one another a lot of encouragement. I'm happy to see this because I spent a lot of time outlining expectations for responding to others online at the beginning of the project. As an example, here's some kind words from one of my students:
One of the technical 'kinks' that I've run into is that every Thursday night when I post the prompt for the Friday class, the Google Group sends a notification email to all the students. The next day, the students see the email from me and instead of going to their Google Group to respond, some have been replying to the email by accident. This means that only I see their response, not their group, and it is not recorded in their group. For the past few weeks, I have had to take the first five minutes to remind them how to go through the steps of accessing their Google Groups and begging them to not reply to the notification email. This is a problem that I did not anticipate; I just assumed that it would work either way. This caused quite a headache because I had to get roughly 140 students in 30 different groups to go back and copy and paste their responses from emails back to their groups. All the students seem to know how to access it properly now, but this snag was very frustrating and I know I'll have to do a lot of digging through my email to ensure I've read everything they've posted for assessment.
Another struggle that I've encountered in my instruction is exactly what Tarasuik (2010) describes in their article; being "instilled with the mantra 'stay on task'" it similarly took "much effort for me to interfere as little as possible" when I noticed students "leaving those internet windows open in the background... often glancing at several websites as they worked" (Tarasuik, p. 545). Many students are on other websites and devices while they participate in our Friday Chats discussion. I need to remember that they can multitask, and also, that they are often on these other websites gathering ideas for their posts.
Image Courtesy: http://www.timeslive.co.za/incoming/2013/12/02/teen-girl-on-laptop-and-phone.jpg/ALTERNATES/crop_630x400/teen+girl+on+laptop+and+phone.jpg
Many students also love to listen to internet radio while they work, or have music videos playing in the background off of YouTube, which I usually have no problem with. However, I struggled in one moment when I noticed that while a student was in the middle of typing in their Google Group, they were simultaneously streaming a TV show online and listening to it in the background. When I asked her how she concentrated, she assured me that she "needs background noise" and to "not worry" because she'd already seen the episode so she really wasn't paying much attention. I asked her why the background noise of the classroom wouldn't work for her and she scrunched her nose and said "well, I'm not interested in what everyone else here is talking about." In this moment I admit I wrestled with what to do because admittedly, my own work habits were influencing what I thought of hers. I would never be able to work effectively the way she is, but since she was making great progress, I just told her that I looked forward to reading her response and let her continue. I'm not sure if this was the 'right' thing to do, but I'm choosing to trust her understanding of her own learning.
In a similar vein, something that completely perplexes me about many students work process and multitasking abilities is how even while they are writing to one another in their Google Group, they are also continuing to text, Facebook, Snapchat, and "hang out with one another online" (p. 545), outside of our online classroom space. Sometimes it makes me laugh when I see that students sitting even across from one another are texting to each other and when I ask why they don't just talk, they usually respond that it's something they don't feel comfortable saying out loud. Of course I want them to feel safe in communicating with one another and if they're 'on task' otherwise, I don't see this as a problem, but I sometimes worry that they're perhaps texting things they wouldn't say out loud because they know I would shut it down if it was cruel, gossipy, or offensive. I'm learning that there is a balance between trusting and monitoring their digital presence, and I'm still not sure what the ideal classroom looks like. The students know that my only 'rule' in the classroom is that everyone in the room deserves to feel safe and welcome, and if a student is interfering with this, then we have a problem. I am just concerned sometimes that they may be hurting one another via their screens and it is then out of my sight and to some extent, my control.
The last major hurdle I continue to battle with nearly everyday is trying (often unsuccessfully) to assist students with troubleshooting on their various digital devices. I'm fairly comfortable with Apple products, as I have a Macbook, an iPad, and an iPhone, but when it comes to other laptops, tablets, and phones, I am usually at a loss. I'm comforted by Gainer's (2012) article that assures "teachers need not be experts in technology. In fact, willingness to learn from students may provide opportunities to highlight and honour out-of-school literacies of students" (Hagood in Gainer, p. 15). Students are certainly the best resource to help with this, and we are lucky at my school to have a full time IT person that I can call to my classroom to help students with various technological issues.
Ultimately, through the successes and snags I've seen so far with experimenting with my new literacy is what Lee and Lee assert; that "Online learning is a complex process" (Lee & Lee, p. 564). I look forward to continuing to learn about the benefits of TDGs with my students and building these conversations together.
Reference List:
Baker, E. (2010). The New Literacies: Multiple Perspectives on Research and Practice. New York,
NY: Guilford Press.
Cox, B.
& Cox, B. (2008). Developing Interpersonal and Group Dynamics through Asynchronous
Threaded Discussions: The Use of Discussion Board in Collaborative Learning. Education, 128(4). 552-565.
Gainer, J. (2012). Critical Thinking: Foundational for Digital Literacies and Democracy. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 56(1). 14-17.
Lee,
J. & Lee, Y. (2006). Personality Types and Learners’ Interaction in
Web-Based Threaded Discussion. The
Quarterly Review of Distance Education, 7(1). 83-94.
Tarasuik, T. (2010). Combining Traditional and Contemporary Texts: Moving my English Classroom to the Computer Lab. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 53(7). 543-552.
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