A happy New Media Birthday to me.

I am a big believe in celebrating birthday weeks. One day is just not enough for recognizing the day a person was born. My birthday is November 18th and the past week was devoted to celebrating it. On Monday I took three wonderful Peabody women to a Regina Spektor concert. As girls do, we drank cocktails, bitched about men, and enjoyed laughing with each other. As we made our way into the Ryman, we happened upon an unfamiliar opening act. The band used an old television set as an advertisement for their name. One of my new media classmates leaned over and shared, "what a great use of technology. We should totally blog about this!" I could not agree more.

Tuesday, I ran to my best friend in Nashville's house after a long night of work in order to bring in the actually birth day with some beer and bad TV. While I was watching trashy reality television. All through the program, the reality stars used abbreviated language to indicated feelings and words, "OMG! Did you just see that?!" My friend and I turned to each other and simultaneously exclaimed, "New Media!" Then we fell over in drunken giggles at our revelation.

Wednesday. My actual birthday. It consisted of class, more class, a tattoo, and a party. I figured it was time to cross another thing off my 101 things to do in 1001 days list and finally get the tattoo that I wanted. As I was clenching onto my friend's hand for dear life I could not help but wonder how a person begins to learn how to do tattoo art. Imagine the different literacy that goes along with learning the trade of implementing permeant ink on a person's body. Not only do you have to learn how to use the tools, but you also have to learn how to create the design in a way that fits the person's personality. For the pussy that I am, my artist knew to outline the easy stuff first in order to get me acclimated to the process before moving onto more complicated things. Thankfully, it is in a place that I will never have to explain to a future employer.

Thursday and Friday passed. Saturday I journeyed to Atlanta with a friend in order to catch another birthday concert. All along the way I was joined with a recognition of new media.

Sunday rolled around and three of my favorite people came with me to see one of my favorite indie musicians, Imogen Heap. The greatest thing about her is that she uses overlapping sound-bites in order to create the background for her music. Her whole concert is filled with technology because that is the only way to make the type of music she makes with only one person. A friend and I looked at each other and I knew what we were both thinking - New Media! I kept wondering how does one learn how to make music like that using those tools. There were sound boards everywhere and the music had to be played at just the right time in order to make it all work. Not to mention, one must learn the literacy of the actual instruments before every creating music with it. Imogen Heap knew I whole different language that I was not even remotely familiar - the language of sound editing.

New Media is all around us. The more I look around, the more I understand the importance of teaching it in the classroom. As I put the finishing touches on my inquiry project, I have discovered that it is not enough to teach using new media. A good teacher must teach the literacy surrounding new media. We must teach this new language that comes with the technology. I can make all of the powerpoints I want about books we are learning in class, but I need to know how to use and teach the language of powerpoint. I need to be able to teach the language of technology along with the English language. Book literacy and new literacy go hand-in-hand now. It is up to us as teachers to recognize that and pass that on to our students, so that one day we might be able to celebrate our birthday at a concert where a former student is creating music with the written and technological language that we taught them.

Where's YOUR head, Sir!

I must tell a story, and I promise that it pertains to literacy. It was Friday night and for some reason the band at the bar decided that this was a good night to continue playing past midnight, which meant that all of the people who went to the JayZ concert and all of the UKentucky people who went out drinking decided to come back to the hotel just before we had a chance to do last call. There are very few things that make me fuming angry. Coming to my bar as I am moping and expecting a drink is one of them. This massive flood of people come storming into the joint, demanding a drink. I was tired, cranky, my feet hurt, and honestly I could not justify staying open for an extra ten dollars. However, the other bartender thought differently and decided to starting handing out the drinks like they were free. So I was stuck serving for a whole hour on top of the previous hour I endured with the band. Mind you, we are supposed to be closed by 11:00pm. "Woopsie," is what the band told me when I explained why I was giving them dirty looks.

Finally, the crowd eased so I thought if I started mopping then the Jayz people and the Kentucky people would get the hint and leave. No one wants nasty mop water splashing on them. Unfortunately, both groups were too drunk to care, causing me to curse them silently while I tried to mop around them as best as I could. A Kentucky man walked up to me and asked me, "where is your head?" I gave him the "what the hell?" look, which proceeded to translate back to him, "keep repeating until I figure it out."

"Your head, your head, your head lady. Where's your head." Finally, with clenched fists and a clenched mouth and said, "Sir! Repeating the word 'head' back to me a hundred times is clearly NOT going to make understand. Please use another synonym."

"Your John, Lady. Where is your bathroom." For F-ing reals! You really could not say that in the first place?! No, instead you had to be all unique on me in hopes that I figure out your country ways. Shaking in anger I pointed him to the restroom. The JayZ people were laughing and telling each other about the strange interaction between me and the man, using another language entirely because I didn't understand a word they said. They kept laughing and pointing, and I kept mentally giving them the finger. (Sorry for the crudeness, but at 2 in the morning, after a ten hour shift my lady-like charm vanishes completely).

The next day I was telling my mother the story. In her loving motherly way she said, "Kimberly, you know that if you plan to continue residing in the South you need to learn these types of slang." Wow! I thought I was getting by with knowing what Sears-suckers and meat and threes are, now I have to learn a whole new language? I found it interesting that the way I felt towards the man was the same way I felt towards the help forums when I was trying to figure out a program to create my video essay and all I was coming up against was advanced and unnecessary technical jargon. Can you please just use plain English and I will understand? But, what is plain English anymore? What is plain teaching anymore? All of the southisms are nothing compared to the language of technology as it pertains to everyday life and the classroom. What if a student informs me of a new program I had never heard of, does he have to repeat it a hundred times for me to understand or reach into his memory for an ancient terms that compares hypertext to a type-writer on speed (yes, I have heard this comparison before). Also, where do we as teachers draw the line when it comes to slang? At what exhausting point do I flip the mental finger and internally scream, "learn English!"? I hope that it never gets to that point, but I can guarantee there is going to be a large Old School Thesaurus in hand and my students are going to learn how to use it well.

Reach the ah ha!

The reason this post is a little late is because I wanted to capture the whole experience of making our video essay for class. At exactly 11:52am my partner and I finished our projects. Fourteen hours staring at a computer screen produced a product that is more meaningful to me than any essay I have ever written. I have also never felt more like a student in my life.

Three weeks ago we were given a daunting assignment: create a video essay about new media. The look on every face in the classroom was shear terror. We are all graduate students, who got into the top education program in the country, and yet the thought of facing something new broke out the cold sweats. Periodically throughout the weeks, everyone stubbly asked our classmates how their videos were coming. The same look of "girl, please!" answered back from every face. One thing was clear, we were all lost and no one wanted to start drowning just yet. Therefore, the weekend before the project was due caused a wide-spread panic. We have to do this video NOW! It is amazing how people put off the scary or unfamiliar. Not facing whatever it is that has us in a panic is better than diving in head first. Unfortunately, when something is left to the last minute, diving in is the only solution.

On Saturday morning, two bright-eyed girls faced each other and said, "let's do this." The first few frames were a piece of cake. The animation went smoothly, and we were so enthralled in the process that we completely lost track of time. Both of us are products of the computer generation, yet we still have a fascination for what can be done. At one time it was said, "the mac is only as limited as the imagination." I guess our imaginations turned off because our once clear vision turned into a massive blur. We were hitting roadblock after roadblock. Every minute was a new frustration. You know it is bad when you start actually talking to your technology, begging it for help, "PLEASE work with me!" One of us would think of something brilliant only to find out that you have to jump through twenty hoops to make it happen. Apple support became our best friend. Also, why is it that the coolest and easiest applications cost an arm and a leg? After eight straight hours of working we decided to treat ourselves to some trashy television and pizza.

Sunday came along and two glazed-eyed girls dragged their feet back to the project. The progress of the day before seemed irrelevant. New roadblocks formed and old ones still were not resolved. They started asking friends, relatives, the entire internet for advice. Facebook statuses included, "does anyone know how to download a youtube file onto imovie?" Slowly, the movie came along but it still wasn't up to par. Unfortunately, I had to go to work that night. We vowed to meet for two hours Monday morning and get everything accomplished.

The bar was slow so I decided to use the time to figure some things out. Slowly, everything started making sense. Maybe it was the change of scenery, but things became easy again. Not wanted to jinx the good luck, I showed up this morning with written out directions on how I figured everything out the night before. In two hours we had a movie. After a few fine tunes and some voice over, me and my partner sat back watching our creation with an overwhelming sense of pride. We created this video from nothing: no background knowledge, no prior experience. We were not only proud of ourselves, but of each other. When one of us got frustrated, the other would calm the storm. When one of us was too tired to type correctly, the other took over. It was a collaboration unlike any other I have ever experienced. Both of us brought our strengths and weaknesses and it worked out. No matter what happens, we made a movie and we are proud of it.

Now that I have had a little time to reflect I realized that this project replaced me back to the position of student. For the last few months we have been taking about teaching. We are teachers. We are leaders. We are capable of reading theories and understanding them, discussing them, writing about them; but it is rare that we place ourselves back in student mode. As I student, I remember things coming easily to me. The only subject I really struggled in was math. I made it up to Algebra II and then goodbye easy street. No matter how hard I tried I hit roadblocks that were impossible, at the time, to overcome. Everyone once in a while I would finally "get" something and once I did, I never forgot. Making this video was similar to that feeling of accomplishment. I forgot how good it feels to get the "ah ha!" moment when the youtube video downloads perfectly as an mp4. I forgot how amazing it is when you know that you created something great. Most of all, I forgot how much I learn from figuring out puzzles. Although my eyes are now crossed from staring at the computer, and I am pretty sure I destroyed my kidneys from all of the Tylenol, this was an experience I will never forget. It is also a tool that I will take with me into the classroom, because I now know what the potential roadblocks are so that students are relieved of some of the major frustrations when given an assignment like this one.

I can't wait to share our video with the class. I will post it on the blog after we get feedback.

Read. Write. Think

I was searching through several websites this week, trying to find ones that connected nicely with my inquiry project. I didn't realize how much material there is for English teachers. One website would lead me to the next. With each click of the mouse, I was creating my own research story. I don't even remember what I googled, but I ended up coming across TEWT (Teaching English with Technology), a fantastic website for English teachers.

For those of you who want to play around with it now, here is the link:

http://tewt.org/lessonplansites.html

I searched through the numerous lesson plans the site offers for numerous common texts that are taught in English classrooms. There is information for poetry, ESL, grammar, and other links for more lesson plans. I had a choice: do I continue on this site or explore some more? I ended up following the link to another site called read.write.think. It is a collaborative website created by the International Reading Association and NCTE. This specific website concentrates on connecting technological lessons to the standards. It is great for public school teachers.

Of course, I immediately clicked on the Student Materials tab and started playing all of the interactive games. Who knew that there is an actual website that helps you create book covers! My favorite was the fractured fairy tale tool. It first helps define a fractured fairy tale, and then helps the student create a fractured fairy tale of their own. By entering information, the tool produces a hilarious fractured fairy tale. The student can decide what to keep, change, or discard so the story becomes their own. It would be interesting to see if students learn fractured fairy tales as effectively using the tool as they would sitting in a group with a pen and paper, writing out their own tale.

After wasting a significant amount of my "school work time" I decided to move on to the lesson plans. They are set up by grade level, making it easy to sift through the elementary lessons. I came across a specific lesson that really caught my attention. The topic is "Protest Songs" and the lesson included students looking through Wiki pages for specific songs. The students are required to write down the sources the author used, located at the end of each wiki page. Then the students do their own research and see what materials were used (scholarly/popular). This is a great lesson when it comes to Wikipedia because as the lesson specifically states, almost every student will run across one or two sources that are not very good for research and informative purposes. However, this is not a lesson on why students should never site Wikipedia, it is a lesson about understanding protest songs through research. Long lesson short, the students eventually write their own wiki page on a pre-established class wiki about their specific protest song. Then the students classify each song in order to find the significance of the general protest song. What a fantastic lesson!

I think the reason behind my excitement is because this lesson allows students to take control of their own lesson. We all search wikipedia in order to find the latest information about our topic, but most of us don't actually write responses to the wiki's or correct information we know to be false. This lesson proves to students that even they can participate in an information gathering site. They can be the authors of their own Wikis just as the protestors of authors of their own songs. Any lesson that causes a students to read, write, and think is a great lesson. The three components of English are not separate so they should not be treated as such. Sometimes I find teachers organizing class lessons in such a way that each time slot is compartmentalized - Reading. Writing. Thinking. Instead, this website encourages English teachers to mesh the three components of learning into one - ReadWriteThink. Every lesson incorporates all three, so that students are engaged in numerous activities at once without realizing that they are reaching higher levels of thinking for an extended period of time. I highly recommend this website for that reason, not to mention the easy step-by-step lesson plans that are easy to understand and accessible to all teachers. This is definitely one site that I am keeping bookmarked for future use.