Reflections on creating an iMovie

I love using iMovie. Creating visual poems, stories, or montages is so fun and rewarding. There is such a sense of ownership one gets from getting to use images and music that matters to them in their work. The result is something so personal and so much more than just black letters on plain white paper.

Our world is visual. It is so important that students learn how to navigate the visual world as much as the literary one. It isn't fair to have students simply put words on paper and ignore all the senses. It is with our eyes and our ears that we internalize so much of what goes on around us. And when we can create things with our own hands that we can see and hear, there is a deep sense of personal satisfaction. Working with images and music is like playing, and playing is how we learn about the world.

I did a podcast about Rilke's poem, "Entrance," and decided to continue working with it for this project, as well. I will be teaching a unit on poetry in January and I wanted to explore various ways I might have my students engage with poetry. I want them to analyze the poems of others and write their own poetry. Teaching high schoolers how to write poetry is a very difficult task. If the goal is to get students to learn about and appreciate poetry and be lifelong lovers of poetry, it is important that they feel connected to it. It is not enough to just tell students to write a poem. So many would become paralyzed by confusion or fear. Having students write poems as a response to other poems, or have them write poems based on or inspired by other poems is a good way to start. Before I wrote the words to this poem, I searched for images that reminded me of Rilke's poem. I searched picture databases on Google and Flickr in order to find pictures that I could use. Then, I inserted them into the iMovie. After I had the pictures lined up the way I wanted them, added the music, transitions, and played around with the Ken Burns effects, I began to write my poem based on the pictures I had found. As I wrote, I found I needed to go back and find some other pictures or delete pictures I had already inserted. So, it was just as much about getting the pictures to match the poem as it was getting the poem to match the pictures. I was really surprised by how easily this poem came to me. I was so inspired and motivated by the images and from the ideas I had already gotten from Rilke's poem, that it was almost effortless. And I don't feel like I simply reiterated what Rilke said in his poem. I took an idea that his poem planted in my mind, expanded on it, and let it unfold and develop naturally. In the end, I feel like I have a very orginal poem that no one would know came from Rilke.

I definitely plan on using a form of this activity with my students next quarter. These two forms of technology have provided me with new ways that I am going to inspire my students to analyze existing poems and create their own.

Digital Poem using iMovie

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Reflections on creating a podcast

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this process. In another class, I had an opportunity to create a podcast for an assignment, but I decided not to do it. I thought that creating a podcast was just not a big deal and wouldn't provide any additional understanding than writing a paper would. The process of podcasting as a tool for helping students improve their writing was lost on me. I am happy to announce, though, that I am a convert! This process showed me how much this can help students.

I started my podcast by reading a poem by Rainer Maria Rilke, one of my favorite poets. I was just in the mood to read some poetry, so that's what I decided my podcast was going to be about. Just in the process of reading the poem a few times into the microphone brought me new levels of understanding in the poem. Of course, poetry is typically meant to be read out loud, but it's often difficult to ensure that students really did read the poems you assign them a few times aloud. This process of having them record their readings in a podcast is a good way to ensure that they do. This goes for any stories or plays. Students may not even realize how reading out loud is enhancing their understanding, so that part of creating a podcast about a piece of literature is important.

Next, I read a page-long statement/analysis about the poem. This is the part of the process that I really became sold on the podcast idea, especially as a way of enhancing writing skills. I consider myself a fairly good writer and don't often read my work out loud before handing it in. I know I should, but I guess I have convinced myself that I don't need to. However, as I read my work into the mic, I was constantly changing things, realizing that how something sounded in my head was completely different from how it sounded out loud. Again, this is a difficult thing to convince students of, but having them engage with the process of recording podcasts could really help them recognize how to edit their writing.

I realize that podcasting can also be done without a script. I think that that would also be very useful, as a way of having students just talk out their ideas and listen back to them as a way of generating ideas for a paper or a project.

I also included music in my podcast. I wasn't planning on doing that, but I heard a classmate's podcast the other day and he had included music. I felt that the whole thing was more engaging to listen to with soft music in the background and it reveals something about the author. I used Sigur Ros's song "Gong" because it is one of my favorites. Being able to include this element made the whole thing seem more personalized and helped me feel more attached to the project.

Rilke's "Entrance" PODCAST

Meet Molly VLOG

VLOG

Failing Schools VoiceThread

MN Stories Vlog

What I like about this vlog is that, even though it is an interview, they splice it up and incorporate video and music into it. The editing is very sophisticated and interesting and fun to watch. Another reason I like this vlog is that it is a kind of advertisement for something that flies a little under the radar in Minneapolis. Sound Unseen is a really interesting festival that gets little attention outside of the core audience, but since music is something Minneapolis is becoming known for, it's something that a lot of people would be interested in if they only knew about it.

The audience for this vlog is certainly people who are familiar with the festival and want to know what is playing there (well, this is from last year, but that was the intention). It is also for people who are not familiar with what it is and gives them a nice sense of what they might expect. Because the vlog has clips from the films that are playing, you can kind of figure out what the festival and each film that is highlighted is all about.

Sites like Blip.tv are great because they expose people to aspects of the community they might not otherwise have access to.

Witnessing Whittier

Since I wasn't there when the class went out into Dinkytown, I decided to do my ethnographic study in my own neighborhood, Whittier.

My neighborhood is very diverse and can be called a lot of things. It is "eat street," the MIA, MCAD, the International Neighborhood, among other things.

Based on the reading "Using Place-based Writing to Construct Social Worlds as Social and Cultural Spaces," I decided to do an informal observation at a popular location in Whittier. There, I observed three different aspects of the place: who was there, what were they doing, and what are some distinguishing features of the location? From there, I came to some conclusions about my neighborhood and tried to develop a sense of

I chose to do my ethnographic observation at Spyhouse Coffee Shop (pictures coming soon; camera cable has been misplaced...). This is one of the most popular places in Whittier and where a lot of people who live, work, and study in the neighborhood hang out.

• Most of the people here are young, "hipster" types. They are almost all on laptops. Others are drawing, writing in journals, a few are reading novels. I suspect that they are students from MCAD, as this is the nearest coffee shop. They are dressed in funky, vintage styles, and are somewhat aloof.
• There are a few older men gathered at a big table. They look a little weathered, like they may be recovering from some kind of addiction and this is their new routine. They keep going outside to smoke.
• Other than the group of men and a few couples working quietly in the booths, almost nobody is here together, chatting. It's pretty quiet, except for the noise of the coffee machines and people ordering.
• Based solely on appearances, there seems to be a lot of racial/cultural diversity among the people here.
• The music is pretty loud. It's indie music.
• The walls are covered with the artwork of a student from MCAD. They are large paintings depicting scenes from Spyhouse and the surrounding neighborhood.
• The building it is housed in is somewhat old, but restored. There are a lot of elaborate architectural details on the outside. The space inside is open, with a high ceiling.
• The decor is kitchy and vintage.

"Reflecting on [my] neighborhood as constructed space" leads me to "recognize issues" and realities about it. For example, because of MCAD, the majority of residents of the neighborhood are young and rent. Having majority renters in a space impacts the physical appearance of the area, as well as, say, the number of police cars one might see. Additionally, since many of the residents are young and in school, this may account for loud parties on weekends. If many of the people in the neighborhood are renting, it makes the area relatively cheap, which can be a blessing and a curse.

Focusing on a few key aspects of a place can reveal quite a bit about it. I am intrigued by the idea of having students do ethnographic studies of their neighborhoods in an effort to have them develop a sense of identity connected to that place. I think this is an especially useful exercise if they are asked, then, to compare their neighborhoods to others. Having students write poems or stories using pictures on VoiceThread or iMovie is a wonderful way for students to develop a sense of pride in their home, while also identifying things that may need help. This helps students get a sense of civic duty. I really like the idea of using House on Mango Street for this kind of unit. The other book that came to mind was Out of the Dust, since Billie Jo runs away from the suffocation of her Oklahoma dust bowl town only to discover that even though its hard, it's still her.

Research Strategies

When I am researching a project or paper, I usually start with the U's libraries. I've used the databases there enough at this point to know how best to narrow a search and weed out the publications I don't want/need. I fiddle around with which search words will give me the most comprehensive results and I utilize the AND, OR, NOT features for more advanced searches. I've also become familiar with what kind of publications I can expect to get from each different database. One way I check whether an article is something I might be interested in using is if it shows up in multiple searches on different databases. If it shows up in cross-searches, chances are it is relevant to what I am looking for. Sometimes I further cross-check a source's validity by searching on Google Scholar and trying to find critiques of the article/source, or other articles that have cited the one I am interested in.

One of my new favorite research tools is Diigo. I was not sold on Diigo when I was introduced to it last year. I don't think I really understood how to use it or why it was helpful. But I have explored its uses more and I think it is amazing. When I was doing research in the past, I had handwritten notes scattered around me, and word documents with quotes cut and pasted from different sites and articles. Using a Diigo account, though helps organize and sort information from all over the internet. I can't wait to introduce more people to this resource. I think one of the most important aspects of getting students engaged with these resources is to simply expose them to them. I think we have a tendency to assume that our students are more computer and tech savvy than they are. Because we often note how this generation is the first to have grown up with computers and advanced technology from birth, we forget that many of our students don't have access to these things. And when they do, let's face it, they are usually on Facebook or YouTube, or doing other mindless surfing. We have a responsibility to really show kids how to responsibly and usefully use the resources at hand.

For my final project, I want to incorporate research I am doing for Tim Lensmire's course on Politics of Literacy and Race. I am exploring the use of hip-hop music in the classroom to enhance learning. Additionally, I want to look at controversies and challenges to this in regards to perceptions of language use in this genre. For this course, I would expand on this research and develop innovative lesson plans that incorporate digital tools and hip-hop to enhance student's writing. For this research, I will want to research best practices in helping students improve their writing and techniques that other educators have used to incorporate this genre. I will want to incorporate findings from formal publications I might find using Education Full Text, Academic Search Primer, or ERIC. I will also want to catalogue findings from English Companion Ning and other blogs and Nings. Diigo will be invaluable for collecting information from these sources. I still need to explore Evernote more, but I think it will also be a useful resource.

First Post for CI 5475

I was skeptical about the use of blogs in the classroom, both as a student and a teacher. I thought they would take too much time, be too difficult to access, create, or follow. I thought students would think they were corny or too difficult to use. I just did not think that these tools would be beneficial to me as a learner or as an educator. I was wrong about that, though.

As a student, using blogs to share information has been not only a useful tool through which to share information and ideas, but also a supplement to my own learning. There is something different about working on an online forum, rather than just writing for an instructor. You have to be more conscious about what you say and who you are saying it for. When typing for a blog or online forum, the audience is different and unknown and this often changes the message the writer intends. The style of writing is also different and offers practice on a variety of writing skills that you don't necessarily get from formal papers that are just read by the instructor.

On an online writing space, the writing tends to feel like you're working out your thoughts as you go. It's more spontaneous. Not as formal. I think this is a good thing. Formal writing for instructors is an important skill, and certainly has a place in the classroom, but it's equally important for people to develop the skill of simply writing. It's not journal/diary writing, because online writing has an audience, but it's related.

I also feel like having a blog gives a student the feeling of creating a kind of identity for themselves that they can project to their teacher and to their peers. I have seen students get very involved with setting up their blogs so they reflect their personalities, with backgrounds, colors, pictures, etc. As a student I do the same thing. It becomes important to make sure your blog somehow reflects who you are and I think this is important for both student and teacher.

As a student teacher, I used a Ning in a Writer's Workshop class. It was a huge success. The students were excited about it, it provided an excellent opportunity for students to share their work with one another, and was also an additional writing space in the actual classroom. If I wanted to help a student with their writing, I had to go to their computer stations, kneel down, and have my back to the rest of the classroom. So, instead of going to the student's stations, I sat at the front of the classroom, with my own computer and when a student needed help with something, they uploaded their work to the Ning and came and sat with me. I could use other students' work as examples, as theirs were also on the Ning. I could work on the Ning on the overhead projector, and the students could follow at their desks. I was able to communicate with them. I could post announcements, examples, assignments, the syllabus, guidelines, etc.

The students also contributed to their personal blogs on the Ning. Reading their posts, I got a sense of them that was missing in their formal work for class. They wrote more freely and honestly, even though they knew that their posts were going to be read by me and their peers. I don't think that blogs or online writing should ever replace formal writing, or face-to-face classroom contact, but I do think it provides students with a space to be more open. Working in online writing spaces also let me assist students with computer skills. Many students in my classroom didn't know how to upload documents to a site. I was able to show them how and by the end of the term they had no trouble with those kinds of website use skills.

One thing I'd like to learn through this course would just be more ideas about how to incorporate technology into the development of writing skills in the classroom. I would also like to become more comfortable with the gizmos and gadgets of blogs, like RSS feeds, etc. I am VERY excited to look into online role-playing. My Teaching Writing instructor (Heidi) used this in a class last spring and I was blown away by the potential in that kind of thing. I also still need to be sold of podcasting, so I am excited to get some ideas for how to use them in the classroom.