The Big Fresh from Choice Literacy
March 21, 2009
Fitting Technology In
Last week I was in the Pacific Northwest for video and classroom
visits. I stayed with my friend Joan for part of the trip. I had
my own guest bedroom and bathroom at her home, and she couldn't be
a more gracious hostess. One morning I pulled out a towel from the
pile in the bathroom closet, and couldn't believe my eyes when I
saw what was behind the towels. I pulled out the entire pile to
get a closer look.
Sure enough, the deep closet was filled with. . .books. Stacks and
stacks of children's books, professional books, journals from
teacher organizations. Before you give me the World's Worst
Houseguest Award, please note that Joan gave me permission to share
this story, as an example of how both of our lives are overrun with
texts. (Besides, I'm sure most of us have far more embarrassing
things we could unearth in our bathrooms than professional books!)
Neither of us have tiny houses, and Joan also has a classroom full
of books with closets in school for storage. But there simply
isn't room any more for all the titles we already have, or want to
own. Unlike pleasure reading, it's difficult to recycle
professional books at thrift shops or used book stores. We could
spend hours with book swap services online, but who has the time?
And we never throw them out, because that would take up space in
landfills and seems like a terrible waste on all levels. So we
pass many along to friends who are teachers, who probably
eventually store them in their garages or guest room bathroom
closets, too.
Which is a long way of saying Joan and I both recently purchased a
Kindle, Amazon's eBook reader. We are surprised at how much we are
enjoying them from the start (and no, Amazon isn't paying me for a
testimonial, which is good because there are loads of things they
could improve on the device). The success of the Kindle, even
with its steep sticker price and fairly limited features and
selection of texts, tells me that many readers who love the feel,
smell, and look of real books are driven like Joan and me to try to
do something about the weight, space, and hassle of dealing with a
physical mountain of books.
I resisted buying an eBook reader for a long time, just as I
resisted email, cellphones, a TiVo, a DVD player, and pretty much
every major technological advance of the last 20 years. And yet
there is no question these gadgets have done more than make my life
easier - they have fundamentally changed the way I spend my time,
as well as my habits as a reader and writer.
This week Franki Sibberson begins a new year-long series at Choice
Literacy on technology for literacy teachers, Beyond Gadgets. I am
assuming most readers of the Big Fresh are far more savvy than I am
about technology, and have a better attitude about trying out new
hardware and software tools. But no matter your experience level,
technology is pushing all of us to think harder about how we define
literacy, and what students need.
The danger is that those of us who are adverse to new technologies
won't have enough of a voice in the debate about how technology
might change literacy in schools. The beginning point for Franki,
and most of us, is the same starting point we had for reforming
reading and writing instruction over the past generation. Start
with how technology has changed the way you read and write, share
those changes with your students, and then you'll start seeing a
roadmap for how your instruction might change.
We've also posted a terrific new article on critiques of strategy
instruction from Shari Frost, plus more as always. Enjoy!
Brenda Power
Editor, Choice Literacy
Free for All
Sometimes the pendulum swings so hard in education that it's hard
not to feel whiplash. Shari Frost considers critiques of
strategy instruction, analyzing what's valid and what's not in
attacks on the flurry of post-its in classrooms. This would be a
provocative read for a staff meeting or study group:
http://www.choiceliteracy.com/public/853.cfm
Franki Sibberson begins her new year-long series Beyond Gadgets,
on integrating technology into literacy instruction, with a
reflection on how technology has changed her reading habits
dramatically over the past decade:
http://www.choiceliteracy.com/public/850.cfm
I'm always on the hunt for useful short videos on the web, and Video
Jug has a terrific series of 3-5 minute videos explaining different
punctuation marks:
http://www.videojug.com/tag/punctuation
Thinkature is yet another free online brainstorming tool that
allows participants to collaborate from a distance. This would be a
helpful site for visual learners, as well as any sort of follow-up to
strategic planning:
http://wiki.thinkature.com/
We've posted our full slate of Choice Literacy Workshop summer and
fall events, including new offerings on middle school reading
instruction,word work, nonfiction in the intermediate grades, and
dealing with assessment data. These new topics are in addition to
our popular offerings from last year on CAFE assessment, struggling
readers, literacy coaching, and the literacy principal in action:
http://www.choiceliteracy.com/public/department22.cfm
For Members Only
Mandy Robek finds a punctuation unit study with her 3rd graders is
a fun alternative to yet another genre study. Her feature includes
booklists of children's literature and professional texts:
http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/855.cfm
In this week's video, Pam Pogson leads her 6th grade students in a
discussion of how to edit for conventions. The focus of the lesson
is on creating personal spelling lists in writer's notebooks:
http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/566.cfm
We've posted a new Choice Literacy Cluster on Rereading Strategies,
with contributions from Max Brand, Aimee Buckner, Franki Sibberson,
and Karen Terlecky:
http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/856.cfm
Finally, don't forget to check out our new organizing tool for
members. "My Favorites Files" allows each member to save articles
to read later, write notes on features, or create individual files
of materials around topics and themes of your choice. We've
designed the widget so that it takes less than a minute to learn
how to use it. The brief tutorial on "My Favorite Files" is
available at this link:
http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/846.cfm
That's all for this week!
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