Final "Portfolio" Reflection #4

Of everything we've covered in class, what are two examples of things that I will definitely use in my teaching?

My final project, which I will probably post next, should answer this question clearly, but I can summarize that here.

First, I will definitely be assigning an "interactive presentation" of some sort, but for which assignment, or using what topic, I am not yet sure. For this, students will need to use PowerPoint, KeyNote, Google Docs, SlideRocket, SlideBoom, SlideShare, VoiceThread, or something similar. They will not be able to "talk at us," and the criteria for slide composition will be strict -- slides will definitely not be "text dumps." And I think my colleagues in the Speech Department will love me for teaching this unit; I think they already require the use of PowerPoint in student speeches.

Wait, Here's An Assignment Idea:

I could have groups of students (3-4 per group) do "research" to look for and analyze images or portrayals of contemporary college students in the media--print media (books, newspapers, magazines) and online media (websites, podcasts, blogs, video, etc.). The groups could then present their "media" (and their "remixes"?) and their analyses using one of the presentation applications mentioned above. Ooo, I think I like this idea!

O.K., Now I'm Back:

Second, I will definitely be rethinking "peer review" in my courses. I might do one, the first one of the term, the "traditional" way, in class, face-to-face, in pairs, trios, or groups of four. Let them experience it, and then really talk about it afterwards--"deconstruct" it and evaluate it. After that, I'll probably have them try Google Docs, since Professor Beach mentioned in his midterm evaluation of my blog that it will be the easiest, as opposed to using a wiki or a blog. And "training" students for peer review is always important--training and modeling--so I will need to rethink how I will present and have them carry out the peer review.

An "Aside":

(Is peer review going the way of citing sources ... in the digital world? It seems like citing sources has become a lot more informal ... "hey, just create a link, that's good enough." Is peer review merging with collaborative writing? Instead of just responding to a "text," or inserting comments into a "text," are students going to start just "playing around" with the text themselves, in an attempt to help out the writer? Is this bad? But what if the assignment is not a collaborative writing assignment? Or is all writing becoming collaborative? And do we need to start re-envisioning peer review to be something else?)

O.K., Now I'm Back:

Third, I will definitely introduce "Bubbl.us" as a prewriting and an organizational tool!

Fourth, I will definitely have a class wiki, but as you've read in other posts, I'm not sure yet what I'll have students contribute to that.

In Conclusion:

I am excited about all this! I'm interested to see how my students will react to all this. I'm interested to know how many have already done things like this. (And that's kind of what my final project was getting at. So I suppose I should end here and embed that project in the next post.)

Final "Portfolio" Reflection #3

Will I have my students keep and present a final portfolio of their coursework? Yes, definitely.

How will I have my students keep and present their final portfolios? Their individual blogs? The course wiki? Individual wikis? The "eFolio" from the State of Minnesota. Ugh! I don't know. Yet. Perhaps I should let them choose? Or would that cause too many headaches?

What will I have my students include in the portfolio? The answer to this one is easier. Our English Department at Anoka Ramsey Community College already has a portfolio process and committee -- and I have participated in this process in the past, but not consistently. If my memory is correct, the current portfolio process for English 1121, our college-level first-year writing course, asks for the following:

1. A cover letter or introductory piece, which also serves as the reflective piece.
2. An essay of the student's choice, preferably expository or persuasive, with all drafts from first to final.
3. The argumentative research paper, with all drafts and with all cited research sources.
4. An in-class essay.

A student can, of course, include more, but these are the minimum requirements.

I see now that some things are going to have to be modified if I'm going to have my students do this "digitally," especially the last two items.

For item #3, including all cited research sources shouldn't be too difficult -- most of this should be possible with hyperlinks. And, if a source is not "online," hopefully we'll be able to attach PDF files somehow. And, even better, I ask my students to highlight in their sources the material they cite in their paper, and they should be able to use the highlighter feature in Adobe for this! If nothing else, I can have my students do what I had to do for Professor O'Brien's "Struggling Adolescent Readers" course: they can send to me a compressed/zipped folder containing all their documents.

For item #4, this will be trickier. The intention behind the in-class essay is to see what a student can do on his or her own, without multiple drafts and without peer feedback. Partly, it exhibits a student's writing fluency, and partly it is a plagiarism check. To have students write this on a computer, or online, does present some challenges to both of these purposes, since blog posts or Word documents can be easily changed, after the posting or initial draft, and it is pretty much impossible to prevent this ... and useless, hopeless, unnecessary, etc. ... to "police" it.

Including other digital projects -- such as VoiceThreads or SlideRockets or YouTube videos -- should also be easy. Hyperlinks can be created and copied, or HTML code can be embedded.

Ultimately, for me, the first decision seems to be the "form" the portfolio will take ... blog, wiki, or eFolio?

And, ultimately, for the students, the reflective piece will hopefully be the most important.

Student Blogging and Plagiarism

In the Beach, Anson, Breuch, and Swiss book, Engaging Students in Digital Writing (draft copy, 2008, pp. 5-6), the authors quote Gunther Kress:

If I am thinking of composing a text, I can take the resources for that from anywhere--usually described and misunderstood as cut and paste, and not as real writing or composition.

My worry here is that this IS what some students do, and they don't see a problem with it. They cut-and-paste text from the web into their own documents, without any attribution phrases or citations (from a particular documentation system), and are then shocked when I fail the paper for plagiarism.

I am beginning to understand, now, in this class on digital writing, why and how they can think this way. With YouTube and social-networking sites, this is how things are done, and they don't think anything of it. A video--or anything else--is linked to quickly and then passed on. The original creators might even be pleased that their work is being passed on to a wider audience and may not worry about correct attribution.

But here comes, then, discussions of specific discourse (or other) communities, and specific conventions observed by different communities. Academia values attribution and citation. Knowledge is created, disseminated, and built on. But previous work is acknowledged.

Web 2.0, or the Read/Write Web, does not seem to value this acknowledgement, or seems to value it in a different way. We are not only "consumers" of the web; we are now also "producers." And with this instantaneous "switch" in role, from reader to writer, we seem to immediately respond and/or create, and attribution can get lost.