What a compelling argument! My mind blew after reading Turner and Hicks’s articles about teaching English students digitally, 5 practices that destroy digital literacy. I am thoroughly convinced by the authors. The questions: What is a truly digital learning and what is not? made me want to reconsider my lesson plans. I realize what I have done. I did what Turner and Hick warned, that some of us thought we are teaching the students digitally, but we were not really doing it right.
I grew up learning the rigorous traditional way about English. Picturing an image of my essay being edited with red markers, either you are right or wrong and re-do your essay until you get it right, is basically what I was brainwashed. It is a no-brainer because every time I am so excited about presenting the new lesson plan, my students didn’t look excited and complained that they didn’t feel challenged. Clearly, I am teaching them the way I learned, a very dry-academic approach.
After reading these articles, I immediately thought of the professional development workshop I went to two weeks ago. The professional development workshop was about STEM: Vocabulary and Language in American Sign Language. At first, I was not happy to attend to the workshop because it has nothing to do with English department and that I will be stuck from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. learning about something irrelevant, Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math. Boy, was I wrong! I learned a lot that day. This workshop blew my mind. The biggest take away from the workshop was the Flipgrid app. The presenter introduced us a digital learning app, Flipgrid.
After feeling convinced that I need to reframe my thinking on how I develop my lesson plan, I decided to radically change my lesson plan. I decided to try Flipgrid in my English class. What a head-turning! I can see how excited my students were about using Flipgrid. My lesson plan was ASL Presentation/ASL Storytelling. At first, they were to create the slideshow on their presentation topic and then do the presentation in front of the class. I realized that I didn't use digital literacy. Then, I changed the plan by having them doing the presentation using video in Flipgrid. After creating the video, they also get to watch other students’ videos and make comments. The students get to use emoji to mock other students’ mistakes. I can see the huge difference in their learning experience. They are making their learning more fun on their own without me having to make an effort to make their learning experience a fun one. Second, I also used Storybird for those students who chose to write poems and short story. They get to create and design their own mini-books. They didn’t like it and said it is not student friendly so I tried another app called Book Creator. The most interesting thing is that their faces lightened up when I introduced them into using an app to spice up their work. That is what digital literacy looks like. I can’t wait to introduce them to more fun learning experience.
I envy today’s Post Millennial generation for having an adventurous education which is far better than I had during my Generation X period especially with today’s advanced technology.
In my earlier blog, I said that it was a big responsibility as an English teacher. However, for this blog, it is a big commitment to invest my time to learn how to be a digital literacy teacher.
Will Richardson was mentioned in the Turner/HIcks Chapter 2. I was surprised to see his name because I am following him on Twitter. He has one most brilliant mind. A very radical thinker.
The podcast has a wonderful transcript so I could read the interview with Danah Boyd. One thing that strikes me is that the letter of her first name and last name were both in lowercases. I wondered why. Also, another thing I have learned from her is that she did not like to be around people and that she likes to socialize people online better. Often, I would tell my students that it is a bad thing. Now, I think I better reconsider what I tell my students. Maybe, too much of a good thing is a bad thing. Maybe, I can teach my students to keep their lives in balance. I like that she asked herself often, “what kind of relationship do I want to have with the internet.” It will help my students to be aware of their intentions.
Deba, I think it's great that you brought up how different students are taught today versus a little ago. Things change so rapidly, and I think what interests me the most is that with technology, I also really didn't know how poorly my teachers were using it. They took from just lecturing from the book to just lecturing from slide show presentations, almost always just reading exactly what was written up on the board. That's not using technology to your advantage, and I think it's great that you (and I) realize there's so much more that can be done! You have great insight, and I love reading your posts. Thanks for sharing!
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