(Note: The W on my keyboard doesn't always type, so if something doesn't make sense, add a W to it and maybe it will. I think I took care of all of the issues, but I can never be sure.)
I would get the week we're reading about planning to ensure NL/nl is addressed in our lessons/curriculum, of which I have none (lol, smh). Since I can't add any personal teaching experience to the readings, nor can I talk about how to integrate NL/nl into my curriculum, I am going to focus this blog on the similarities teachers and journalists have when dealing with integrating new literacies into our educational products.
Since multimodal communication is everywhere (we've been watching ads on TVs at Walmart, for example, for about a decade now), and technology is so prevalent, how do we start to integrate this into everyday use, like the classroom? To refer to my own background, I know one of the most difficult things for a journalist to do is to think of the new literacies way of presenting information, and I'm sure this is an issue not just limited to them. When we write a story, as journalists, we are encouraged to consider the best way of showing the information and involving our audience in the story, which is one of the most difficult things to keep in mind. For every event, for example, we must remember to get the opinions of our readers before creating a full story package. So, there's the coverage we provide by way of the traditional story, and then there's the extension of that, typically showing our audience reacting to the event, by way of a Storify done on reader opinions Tweeted our way. A movie review should have a YouTube video of the trailer attached and a link to show times and maybe a link to the book or book summary the movie was based off of. It's about sharing our story plus the resources for the reader to obtain the whole story, if he or she would like.
I see this as similar to teaching in that, in order to ensure everyone is new literate, lessons should do the same thing. To plan for a multimodal lesson, at least as far as I can tell from our readings, the teacher has to do the same thing a newspaper has to:
1) Evaluate the audience (or class). What do they need to know here? What are their interests? What is their lifestyle? What are their limitations? How will they be interacting with my information?
2) Evaluate the mission statement--or in the case of an educator, the pedagogy.
3) Identify the pieces of information that will be required to bring that audience to a place of necessary knowledge (determined in the first step), and create a plan for how and in what order this information should be presented to them for maximum understanding of the basics.
4) Identify how this audience, considering its limitations and where we can cover the gap, will be interacting with this particular piece of information. Then identify how the audience will most likely follow up on this information, if they would like to learn more. Put these two together, and now there should be three elements to the full lesson: conveying the story (or lesson) itself, the medium with which this story/lesson will be transferred, and the medium through which the audience should be following up on the information.
5) Create the story/lesson and reevaluate to ensure it will reach and make sense to every kind of reader/learner within the projected audience.
It's essentially teaching in both cases, considering it is geared toward the transfer and assimilation of information to an outside, limited audience. Even in journalism, we can't assume people are literate. We are supposed to aim for a 5th-grade reading level for the sake of our readers' varying literacy levels, and though we are "digital first," meaning we focus on our online content and the interactivity, we do have print products that focus more on visuals (infoboxes, photos, layout, etc.) than interactivity to ensure our legacy readers (those readers who prefer traditional media) still receive the same attention to multimodal literacy our online readers do.
However, even from my limited experience as a journalist and advertising art director, I am only able to comment on how to integrate multimodal technology into my information conveying practices. It is passive, to an extent, and is not in person to tiny, curious people. So, my question for you all then is how would the list of steps I gave above of the similar steps teachers and journalists must take to create a viable multimodal, new-lit educational experience change when used for the classroom? Are there extra steps I didn't include that would be necessary in a classroom but not in newsroom? What do you all do to take interactivity into consideration in your instruction? What do you wish you could do more of? I ask this last bit so maybe we can all brainstorm about how to make those things a reality.
Jacqueline, I’m so glad you are in our group! You have perspectives with your area of study and background that will be so interesting to discuss. In regard to your question about the “steps” taken, and where teachers and journalists might relate is interesting. Numbers 1 and 2: Evaluate/Pedagogy---I’m not sure we evaluate our class as much as we use a framework if you will (our state and district standards) guided by pedagogy and content knowledge to have a clear set of objectives and goals for student learning. Presently, in our district, their interests and lifestyle are not so much guiding forces in what steers the curriculum, although there are some schools where personal student interests drive project based learning.
ReplyDeleteNumber 3: Interesting—the educator has instructional goals in mind, but depending on the methodology and pedagogy of the instructor, the teacher may lay a foundation of questions (inquiry) for the students to construct collaboratively, and then individually to synthesize. The information can be presented within different viewpoints leaving it up to the individual to synthesize with collaborators, reflection, or on their own based on their background experiences.
Some educators believe they are the information holders that need to give the information to the student through lecture and textbook reading, and the goal of the students are to learn what has been given, and recite back that information as it is what should be “known” (that was my schooling experiences K-12). 4) Again, what happens after information from a lesson is either given or constructed (through collaboration or individually), I’m not confident there are consistent extensions given to pursue additional information or knowledge unless the content area is of high interest for the learner (reader in your case) to pursue. I do believe that new literacies in journalism (online newspapers) and classrooms exchanges of text do and will lead to more extensions as we all interact and understand the power of multimodal literacies. 5) Where you talk of reevaluation to reflect if the information makes sense to every reader, again depending on your own philosophies, many of us believe, or have begun to see that there will and should be different interpretations based on one’s culture and experiences. The million-dollar question to me is how societies where we have free speech help support the awareness of obvious bias in content and the multimodalities of communication.
I’m not so naïve as to believe there is not bias in all text, but what I have begun to question and struggle with is, to what extent are We even cognizant of bias, and are we recognizing and teaching an awareness of the power of the word and image to form public policies. There are television channels I can’t personally listen to because the bias is so blatant that I question even if I am receiving factual information. I grew up with 1 major newscaster, Walter Cronkite, (“and that’s the way it is”), and we all believed, that was the way it was, but honestly, the bias that exists now through which channel you watch on television, which newspaper you read, or which magazine you subscribe to is heavily geared to the right or the left, or an outside voice directing the information.
The bit about some educators being "gatekeepers" makes me sad. I understand that many educators believe this, but I definitely don't think that's the right way to go about it. recitation can only get one so far; it's being able to connect the information that makes it stick.
DeleteAnd oh, Cronkite. Listened to him on the radio growing up, but my anchor was Tom Brokaw. Him, I trusted; and yes, I totally see the bias in news now. I think it happened because of the 24-hour news day that broadcast stations try to uphold now. There's just not enough news to last 24 hours, so I've seen a lot of "news-only" stations airing commentary as "news." So, I never get my information from TV, and I don't know many millennials who do. All information has to be vetted now, whether it's in the news or in a textbook. Had I known how biased my Texas textbooks were when I was a child, I would have tried to research it at the library for myself. And now, with the debates on changing our history books to reflect a more "positive" view of the US . . . I'm becoming frightened for the future of information. Still, now that we have so much connectivity; we should be able to vet anything we need to. It's about (full circle) teaching new literacies to our children. Teaching them how to vet information for themselves and how to remain skeptical despite ho the information is coming from.
And now that I'm remembering it, the "gatekeeper" comment reminded me of a change that journalism is going through too. We were one thought of as the "gatekeepers" of news, but things have changed. We are now the curators of information. We rummage through it, pick out the important bits, present it, and encourage debate in our social media communities--not act as the only "font of knowledge" around anymore. And this is a HUGE part of journalism education. We are told this in nearly every class. We are not gatekeepers anymore, we are curators.
DeleteMy questions for you are, how is bias in text dealt with in your college of learning? What factors are discussed in regard to bias and new literacies? How do you keep bias in check with your own voice, or do you believe you need to? Do you believe that multimodalities have the power to persuade audiences and be used as a more powerful tool than print? If so, how? Do you believe in telling the story there should be room for different interpretations? Do you believe people only want to be fed information or have more options to pursue other perspectives through hyperlinks or links to different perspectives? Do you think it is the job of the journalist to process the information to be interpreted in one directional manner? Do you think journalists that write for publications/magazines/newspapers are well aware of any slant that would be accepted by editors or not accepted when they submit articles? I’m interested to hear your thinking on all of this---it all relates to how we all communicate.
ReplyDeleteGreat questions Barbara. I'm also interested in learning more about this because you've now got my gears turning. There used to be an app that presented a headline and brief summary of the situation, and then had links to the same story being covered in a wide range of media outlets, both domestic and foreign. I wish I could remember the name of it, but for a reason unknown and unannounced to it's users, the app shut down and was no longer available.
DeleteWithin the last few years I have found myself deliberately avoiding media for several reasons, but partly because I was always questioning the bias and filter through which the story was being presented. I never felt like I was getting the truth or the facts, but rather I was getting someone's thoughts or feelings about a situation. I've been criticized extensively for my avoidance, and accused of being naive, uneducated, and many other glorious adjectives, however I have never been presented with a reasonable argument to sway me in any other direction.
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DeleteJackie, thanks for your connections of planning and newswriting. I also appreciate the responses, but I want to caution you not to get off on a tangent about bias in the media and how that is handled without bringing it back to the topic of the week, which is planning. I think you can do that...and still address issues related to bias, because that also comes up in teaching adn lesson prep.
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DeleteDear all and Dr. Beach,
DeleteI also thank Jacqueline for helping us think outside the box. It is really meaningful to think about the connection between journalism and teaching. One different thing that I have found between the two, based on your list, is that teaching has a room for reflection, community building, and critical responses, whereas journalism rarely has. When planning a class, I as a teacher, intentionally set a certain amount of time for students' reflection either through individual work or group work. Also, because learning process is on a continuum, I offer diverse ways to my students to create a learning (living) community, through which they collaborate, share resources, and sometime critique each other - eventually which can allow subjective meaning-making. So my point is that teaching prep and newspaper prep share several aspects in the five steps you mentioned; however, teaching prep seems more likely to give students a "subjective" meaning-making process than news paper prep. For example, the fifth stage in your list said: "Create the story/lesson and reevaluate to ensure it will reach and make sense to every kind of reader/learner within the projected audience." The purpose of reevaluation here is to ensure the content "reach" readers, not ensure the content being "processed" by readers - so the step seems a bit passive to me. I understand the difference naturally lies between the two fields though. Some media welcome readers' critiques, but still many readers seem to perceive newspaper or TV as an information deliverer, not an object to critically discuss. I am perhaps too much critiquing journalism? Any thoughts will be welcome! :)
PS. My reply may answer this question I think: Are there extra steps I didn't include that would be necessary in a classroom but not in newsroom?
Thanks!
As for the bias, one thing resonating with me is what Jerome Bruner said (sorry to keep saying about him MacKinley and Jacqueline, Barbara and I discussed a lot about him last semester). Bruner mentioned that every education is biased. More about Bruner: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerome_Bruner.
DeleteWe often critique that media is biased based on certain voices, power relations, and social issues. I believe that this type of critique is a very constructive critique; which eventually makes our society healthier. However, at this point, this discussion leads me to this question: have we thought about any possible biases melted in our class prep process or pedagogy? As a human being, we are biased and constrained (again Bruner). So our class prep, choice of tools, ways of assessing are somewhat biased. What kind of bias do I have? For example, I personally experienced that wikis are not that comfortable to me to maneuver; so I usually use a blog for a discussion tool. I think blogging can do its job well as I designed for; but still I need to confess that I may have my students, and myself as well, miss the chances to use the good aspects of wikis - my choice is biased. So...I was just wondering about this question to discuss...what bias do we have in planning classes both in traditional way and when integrating the new literacies?
Or, for Jacquline, what biases do you have when planning your writing and other journalist projects?
I try to eliminate whatever biases I do have (I've written argumentative articles I didn't agree with that were still totally based on fact, just for the sake of offering the other point of view for people to decide their stances on these things themselves), but I'm human, and I know I can't get rid of all of my biases. I think my number one issue is assuming that everyone understands the Internet. I don't consciously assume that, but I think I do unconsciously. And, in Oklahoma sadly, I think I assume some things about my audience. Many Oklahomans see newspapers as fiction (thanks to the broadcast stations that put out commentary as "fact") and we are dismissed as "too liberal" to pay attention to. I know this doesn't apply to everyone, but it's hard not to think it does when we're bombarded by those kinds of accusations all the time. I also think there is an aspect to the language we use that could alienate some minorities; but in the end, these biases are based on catering to the general population, rather than the minority.
DeleteEducators have the luxury of getting to know their audience intimately. I know we are getting better at that in journalism, thanks to social media, but (for example) the Daily had 90k readers yesterday. I know I don't know all of them, who they are, or what they think to begin with. All I can do is my best and pay attention to the stats on the website. That blinds me to a lot of things that teachers can explore and accommodate (and I'm a tad jealous about that).
Additionally, journalism is changing a lot. Investigative journalism, the best kind in my opinion, is all but dead. Freelancers are starting up small companies, or going out on their own into dangerous areas with no company backup or legal team, to get the real stories. Companies see it as too costly to uphold, so we're missing out on lot of the depth older news used to have. Additionally, we're going "digital-first," meaning that our readers will have access to all of the information online, though it might not all be in the print paper. We also add more stories online than in the costly print edition because we're catering to the majority of readers who don't pick up the print edition, thus wasting our time and precious little money.
Lastly, I did want to respond to the idea that teaching builds communities and encourages reflection when journalism does not. I think the new journalism does, in fact, do both of these things. Communities is how people get their news. I don't read a paper, but my friends post about things I think are important online, sending me to an article I read, and then we debate it on social media. News groups are also running social media now, and the good ones encourage debate and reflection on big issues (unlike those biased broadcasts and publications Barbara was talking about earlier). In order for this to occur, however, we rely on educators before us teaching people how to vet the news, how to debate it, how to reflect on it. Without these new literacy skills, journalism won't have the communities or the reflective debates that we thrive on.
So, thanks, teachers. The journalists of the future rely on you creating thoughtful readers.
What do you all do to take interactivity into consideration in your instruction?
ReplyDeleteI do different types of group work, e.g., a pair discussion, a group research, or a debate session in the classroom. Using Web 2.0 technology, I also have my students interact outside the classroom by giving a blog to discuss (just like what we do now), prompting them to share their homework and peer-review on it, and listening to and commenting on peers' speaking through VoiceThread. Interactivity is one of the most important things in teaching to me, because sometime I imaginably "draw a knowledge-making line" in and outside of the classroom. What I mean is that if we lecture only, the line follows just one way, straight line from teachers to students, just like the spiderman shot the linear web lines to multiple recipients in one way. However, when I have my students interact in a group, the line then builds up the real intertwined spider web, both offline and online, which comes with multimodal contents as well, e.g., YouTube video. With this in mind, I think that one of the beauties of new literacies is that we can plan interaction/discussion "before, during, and after" the lesson in the classroom as our readings said. Moreover, through which process, our students may perceive that learning happens everything, in diverse directions, not just in one passive direction in the classroom. This is what I'm doing, and I am wondering any other ways you do for the interactivity. Thank you for your good question!
Sorry I'm posting so late, guys! It's been a really rough week. You all raised really interesting subjects, and it's been a blast to think on them from your points of view while applying them to my own teaching-like world.
ReplyDeleteI totally hear you on the rough week thing. It has been a real doozy...
DeleteThat's a shame to hear you're feeling it too. *hug* Hope this next one is better for you.
DeleteThanks! Hope the same for you! If not, we can commiserate on Saturday! :)
DeleteThanks for such a great post Jacqueline! I also enjoyed reading about the topic through your lens, as it is very similar in many ways to what we do. I would also like to address your questions (even though Barbara did an excellent job) because each teacher brings a unique philosophy and experiences into their classroom that affect how they teach and interact with their kids.
ReplyDeleteI feel like these questions are nearly identical to how I approach the first steps in creating a lesson or unit for my students. I look at the PASS/OAS/CCSS skills (and our district pacing guides and mandated curriculums) to identify the specific skills (as well as the range of those skills and suggested performance indicators for each skill) that the kids need to learn. Then I determine what they will be bringing into the lesson (prior knowledge, courses, life experiences) and brainstorm ways that I can present the necessary information and develop the specific skills needed that are also of high-interest and will engage the students.So for example, if the skill I need to teach is data analysis (mean, median, mode, range), instead of assigning a random set of numbers for the students to work with, I may give them several options on how to complete an assignment (Select your favorite sports team or athlete and identify 10 games last season in which they contributed to the final score, including their highest and lowest scoring performances of the season. OR Identify your favorite musician. Research and list at least 10 songs that the artist has released and the highest point on the Top 100 Chart that each song went to. THEN list out your 10 data points and calculate the mean, median, mode, and range for your set of data.) For this particular lesson I also try to provide an opportunity for the students to extend their thinking by sharing their results and then making an argument as to why the person they selected is superior to others. This requires a higher level of thinking, presentation of evidence, comparison, etc. And, the kids have a blast doing it.
Anyways, back on topic here…
(Argh, apparently my entries are often too long and have to be cut into multiple pieces- sorry!)
ReplyDeleteI will be really honest and say that seeing the pedagogy planning separated into its own piece has kind of thrown me off a bit this week. For me, I see this as a naturally ingrained step in evaluating the audience (because different kiddos will need different pedagogy) and creating the plan. Maybe I am just way off here (and that honestly wouldn’t surprise me, as my brain seems to be turning into complete mush as the days pass), or perhaps I see it that way because it comes so naturally to me now, whereas new teachers have to really break it down and put it together piece by piece, almost like ingredients in a recipe.
The “third” step is where I feel there is the biggest discrepancy between what I’ve done, and what teaching with new literacies will require. There is an old saying/philosophy that you can’t teach content and procedure at the same time, meaning if you want to alter a behavior (or teach a new skill), it needs to be done with content the students are already familiar with OR if you want to teach new content, it is best to use skills or activities that your students are already familiar with. By distinguishing between the two, an instructor is minimizing the likelihood that the students will become frustrated or overloaded by trying to learn something new and demonstrate in a manner in which they are not familiar or comfortable. The Hutchison & Woodward article alluded to this idea when they described the two teachers who were unsuccessful in their attempts to integrate the technology into their lesson on Main Idea. I am struggling to see over this hump of merging the two goals, partly because while I understand the theoretical perspective, I see that the practicality of pulling them off in some of our inner-city classrooms (that are incredibly challenged in ways that an outsider can’t even begin to understand) might not be as successful.
On a side note, I think the venn diagram that reflects the TPACK Framework is really good. I am a kinesthetic and visual learner, so even though I understood the relationship between the three components by reading about them, seeing the spatial relationship between the 3 really made it “click” for me. Before seeing it I felt like the TPACK was describing more of a linear relationship between them, rather than the overlapping areas on either end of each knowledge area.
Thoughtful....yes, Mackinley, I do think planning your pedagogy is so ingrained that you may not see the explicit steps that you actually do (some of that tacit knowledge experts have!). This has been an interesting discussion...
ReplyDelete