Changing Horizons

Multiliteracies from MultiMartin

// July 25th, 2009 // No Comments » // Literacy, Work

I have finally got around to uploading the paper I presented at the UKLA Conference earlier in the month. It was presented as part of a symposium about integrating digital worlds in the classroom with Lynda Graham, Angela Colvert and Jackie Marsh.

The paper explores some of the work that Orange Class has completed over the past year in relation to film making, animation as a critical practice and the use of Twitter as a means of evaluation and reflection. All of the examples are linked to the work of key literacy figures and call upon theories of multiliteracies, multimodality, critical literacy and popular culture.

DOWNLOAD THE PAPER

Flickr Feelings

// July 21st, 2009 // 7 Comments » // Life, Literacy

Panther beach fireworks , originally uploaded by snakebite2.

While I was at the UKLA Conference I went to listen to a symposium led by Julia Davies about the photo sharing community Flickr. It was fascinating to listen to Julia, Sigrid and David Barton talk about the different ways that people engage with the website. The gaming and play aspect is something that I’d never considered before, which led me to think about my own engagement with Flickr and what it means to me.

When I look at Flickr I always get slightly envious of the photography skills on show and could never hope to equal some of the shots that appear on the site. Besides that I mainly visit the site as a visitor and have only uploaded about 10 photos to date. I tend to enter the site and search for photos that help me to relax and take me to a place where I want to be. Flickr offers me escapism from the real world. I have a huge thing for sunsets and blue skies, especially on beaches, and if I find a photo showing a combination of these it makes me feel happy and relaxed. I can just imagine myself sat on the beach in the photo above with a cool summer’s breeze, watching the fireworks and listening to the sea. Bliss.

UKLA Conference

// July 19th, 2009 // No Comments » // Life, Literacy

Last week I spent four days in Greenwich while I attended the UKLA conference and focus day on writing. It was great to see so many people attending the conference and a chance to meet up with old friends is always welcome. I enjoyed catching up with Guy, Julia and Jackie as well as Lynda and Angela (who incidently has a new blog).  I also had another chance to get to know Angela Thomas and chat about the fantastic work she is doing in second life (which I must start to use more). I was in complete awe when when I got to meet Courtney Cazden (one of the inventors of multiliteracies) as well as the amazing Elaine Millard, who is genuinely one of the loveliest ladies I have ever met. It was great also to meet with Bill Lord who I’ve spoken to frequently on Twitter about educational issues and new technologies and his collegues at Birmingham City University. I also convinced David who I work with on the Multiliteracies Learning Initiative to attend the conference so it was great to see someone from the North East there too.

The symposium went very well and the room was packed. It was real honour to speak in front of so many distinguished members of the literacy community about the fantastic work that Orange Class has produced.  The keynotes and parallel sessions were very interesting and there seemed to be a lot about digital literacy coming through, which is encouraging. It does confuse me however at the lack of emphasis on multiliteracies as a means of transforming education and the curriculum. It covers so many different types of literacies in the world – cultural, social and professional to name a few but just doesn’t seem to be mentioned that much.

Also while in Greenwich I had the most amazing Jack Daniel’s flavoured steak at a tiny cuban bar and finally got to ride the Docklands Light Railway (on a hilarious journey with Julia and Kate). I’m looking forward to Winchester already!

Injecting SATs with a strong dose of popular culture…

// May 15th, 2009 // No Comments » // Literacy, Work

SATs arrived into my classroom this week without fanfare or pre-warning. I won’t teach to the test and I give them little acknowledgement in my class. They are not the backbone of our curriculum, they are an assessment tool and nothing more.

My class entered the classroom to see their desks rearranged in rows (something I had to do). None assumed we were doing tests and instead commented that it was like ‘High School Musical.’ I thought this was brilliant, popular culture taking over SATs. So while most other Year 2 classrooms have been having test weeks, we had a ‘High School Musical’ week which included special quizzes. Popular culture has won this one…

High School Grumble 2

// May 6th, 2009 // No Comments » // Literacy

OK, so I caved. I watched High School Musical 3 and enjoyed it. After my previous blog post where I grumbled about the franchise escalating out of control, I felt I should watch the latest film. I was really pleasantly surprised. The finale of the series (above) is very touching and signifies the end of the cast’s association with the films. Disney were appearing to be ending on a high and went up in my estimations. Then I found this and started to grumble again. Children need to learn that things don’t last forever and that all good things must come to an end. I think Disney need to learn this too.

In the meantime I am looking forward to watching Studio Ghibli’s latest animation Ponyo, which looks original and breathtaking.

Learning to Tweet or Tweeting to Learn?

// April 26th, 2009 // 2 Comments » // Life, Literacy

After initially being sceptical I have now been bitten by the Twitter bug and hence my lack of blog posts recently. I think part of the reason is Twitter is easier than blogging. You provide a short snapshot of what you are doing and click update – that’s it. It’s interesting to view your timeline after a week just to see what you have (or have not) achieved.

 Another huge dimension of Twitter is the community and interaction aspect. During the holidays I happened to see a tweet about an online webcast (#wttw) and 10 minutes later found myself taking part in it from the comfort of my own home. You don’t come across things like this on Facebook.

I’ve seen various groups talking about using Twitter in the classroom – most of the ideas seemed to be pie in the sky thinking. So I decided to act upon it – bringing the pie down from the sky. So my class now has their own Twitter account – @ClassroomTweets. We manage this in class by having one of our classroom computers running the ‘tweet’ page so that class members can type what they are doing or thinking throughout the day. There are a few simple rules - tweeters must not mention any child’s name or respond to any messages or replies to tweets ‘from the outside’ without either myself or my amazing teaching assistant Elaine being present. It’s extremely interesting to read as the class teacher. For example, I’ve learned that my class only class a ‘literacy lesson’ as the time I am teaching from the front of the class – they believe the time they are at their desks working isn’t classed as ‘literacy’ or indeed a lesson.

Let’s see what else I can learn from reading tweets…

Rise of the new literacy practices…

// April 13th, 2009 // No Comments » // Life, Literacy

One of my favourite television series Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles has finished its current run in America. The general word on the internet is that the show won’t be renewed and the current season was the last. I find the reaction by fans on the internet to this news to be very interesting.

Obviously there are various postings on forums providing a voice for the renewal of the series. Online petitions and Facebook groups are also appearing left right and centre. These seem to be the norm when internet users have an issue to voice their opinions on as part of a community of fans.  With a simple Google search you can find an online petition or facebook group for practically anything.

More interesting is the way in which YouTube enters the equation. One user has created a video which shows the stunning final scenes of the season with messages around the edge. The messages urge viewers to speak out for a third season by writing to the studios, signing a petition, following a link to a wiki, pre-ordering the DVD, contacting the show’s advertisers and emailing studio executives directly. The contact details are played on a loop around the video. Nearly every type of communication is utlised in trying to save this show.

So from the serious plea to the slightly bizarre; here is another video of Hitler’s (yes Adolf Hitler) reaction to the cancellation of the show. I initially thought this was purely a joke but it is a serious retaliation towards the Fox network. Someone has spent a lot of time planning and making this video attack towards the studio. It’s really strange to watch but just shows how web users are using different channels to voice their opinions and air their views. It’s clear that the internet allows us to make our voice heard in new and diverse ways, to a much larger audience than in the past. But what effect will it have?

My emails to the studios were sent this afternoon.

Fighting the Web 2.0 battle…

// April 12th, 2009 // No Comments » // Life, Literacy, Work

I have been enjoying the new series of The Apprentice on BBC1, which has at its core the need to be proficient with communication, language and literacy. If you cannot communicate effectively, for a range of purposes and audiences, you quite simply fail. Above is a picture of Margaret Mountford, one of the senior advisors, who is dismayed at her team’s lack of ability to articulate a simple sales pitch.

Margaret portrays exactly how I feel after a week of fighting a very fierce battle with the school website and trying to set it up to allow children to submit content in a safe and controlled manner. I’m all for freedom of speech and creativity, but eSafety is a huge issue which cannot be ignored.

Joomla (the content management system) runs by a set of rules and procedures. Typically what I wanted to do wasn’t allowed or possible according to these rules. So I decided to purchase an extension which, in theory, would allow the creation of different rules for teachers and pupils. So the plug-in was installed and it conflicted with a range of other plug-ins that were already on the system. Therefore over the past week I have been doing the Mountford hand on head, slumped on the desk expression on an increasingly daily basis. After many (and I really mean many) hours of experimentation and changing settings there is only one problem remaining (which requires recoding by the company I bought the extension off). The systems are now in place for the children to add their own content, blog posts and soon images. It has taken some doing but it is there – a completely personalised system for the school, which would have cost about £6000.

 I breathe a sign of relief and move onto the next battle… end of Key Stage Assessments.

Joomla Juggling

// April 7th, 2009 // No Comments » // Literacy, Work

I’m still working on developing four websites using the Joomla content management system and things are starting to get complicated.

 The UKLA Learning Today website needs to be finished, packaged up and moved to a different server. The MLI website needs updating with more guidance and information about research and I must remember to keep blogging after the Easter holidays.

The most complex problem I am having is with the school website and the Web 2.0 practicalities of access for pupils (everything always sounds better when it is just an idea!). It turns out trying to create an extra user group for children to use with its own set of rules isn’t as easy as I originally thought. This is where Joomla really falls short of its rivals like Drupal (which I incidentally started to build the UKLA site with). The good thing about the Joomla community is that there are normally extensions (open source and commercial) that take account of its downfalls and extend its functionally. Que the purchase of JUGA and a rather complicated installation. Of course the installation hasn’t worked, naturally, and led to many hours of playing with settings and changing code - with little success. Que a log to JUGA technical support and a response saying they don’t know what is wrong either.

How about I draw a website with a pencil and paper and ask for annotations… still user-led but obviously not as interesting?

Changing formats…

// April 6th, 2009 // No Comments » // Life, Literacy

I’m really pleased with how this blog has turned out and I definitely think that moving it away from the main MLI site gives it a unique identity and more scope so that I don’t always have to talk about literacy theory. I also think it looks more like a blog now!

I have taken the opportunity over the past few days to relax and catch a breath. I wrote previously about watching a few films over the holidays so that I’m not neglecting my own literacy practices. So last night I signed up for a 3 month free trial for an online DVD rental service, which also includes Blu-Ray.

It’s typical that when a format like DVD starts to become standard, and you build up a huge library of titles, that a new format is released. Having got a 40" Full HD LCD Television I felt the need to invest in Blu-Ray last December. I now have over 20 blu-ray titles. The quality is generally amazing with newer titles like The Dark Knight. However with older films such as Earth Vs. The Flying Saucers the quality really isn’t that much better than DVD. So are we changing format for changing sake? Some say that DVD and Blu-Ray will co-exist. Maybe this format change is different and more of a format supplement (Blu-Rays are discs afterall). However one thing is for certain -Blu-Ray is here to stay.