My First Assignment

As I work through my online master’s program, I’ll be posting my assignments here. Seems wrong to leave them locked in a walled garden.

My first assignment was participating in an online chat. When South African wifi and WebCT’s hate of all my browsers combined, I missed it. Below is my alternative assignment. What do you think?

Chat # 1 Synopsis

Date and Time: June 30, 2010, 6:00 pm EST

Name: Zac Chase

Course: EDUC 610

1. Discuss the importance of cooperative learning and the benefits that it has over lecturing

Cooperative learning puts more of the oneness for the processing of the learning on the learners in the classroom than traditional lecture. Properly infused, it also builds in time for checking for understanding and creates a natural push toward application rather than focusing on memorization and recitation. Again, these are qualities of cooperative learning when it is properly applied. Without attention to individual accountability or positive interdependence, the learning becomes group work and learners are allowed to slink into the background or take control of the work. Teacher facilitation is key in this respect. It shouldn’t be confused with turning over “control” of the classroom to the learners entirely.

2. Discuss the different strategies [you use] in your classroom using multiple intelligences, graphic organizers and reflective journals.

I try to have my learners moving frequently throughout the class period. In talking with occupational therapists, I know my learners’ brains benefit from changes of state every 15 minutes or so throughout the class. This is one of the places where I infuse cooperative learning and check for understanding. Granted, some classes are devoid of these 15-minute check-ins when lessons require more endurance or focused time in one state. As far as multiple intelligences, I don’t adhere to draconian measures prohibiting learners’ use of iPods or other MP3 players when reading or writing in the classroom. We’re learning that music of different tempos and rhythms reacts differently with different learners’ brains. If this can help any learner in my charge gain clearer access to reading, writing and thinking, I’m not about to stand in the way. Working in a project-based school, I attempt to design projects that give learners choice in their products whilst still adhering to the learning objectives of the unit and working toward understanding in relation to the units’ essential questions. Sometimes, this can mean students creating works of music, annotating video, creating performance pieces, writing essays or any other myriad of outputs. Along the way, quizzes and other assignments scaffold development of traditional skills. For the overall assessment, though, I ask the learners to produce from their preferred intelligences so I can better access their learning of the key concepts and understandings.

In the realm of graphic organizers and reflective journals, I use both quite frequently. Oftentimes, journaling will be the first component of the class. For prompts, I offer choice again. Learners may respond to a photo related to the day’s lesson, a quotation also related or they may free write. Whenever possible, I attempt to keep the free write option in the journaling assignment. As it’s the first assignment of the period, I want learners to have a time to process whatever issues they may be bringing with them from earlier in the day. Oftentimes, it allows them greater access to learning later in class and creates a safe space within their days.

3. Discuss the importance of active learning in the classroom.

I feel like this was touched on nicely in our online readings, but I’ll offer up my own thoughts here. Active learning, if structured properly can bring a level of equity to a classroom that would likely not otherwise be created. When working with learners of different backgrounds (which I would argue includes all learners), active learning can work against socially-established systems of privilege and work to allow discussions on a smaller scale that can both work against socially-constructed barriers as well as allow a processing and production of learning outcomes that would be left by the wayside in a classroom run strictly through lecture.

4. Discuss the importance of social development.

Learner engagement with the curriculum and the teacher requires engagement from the community within the classroom, including a social component among peers. Learners lacking in social development will become unable to focus due to their lack of connection to the classroom itself.

Social development in the classroom is dependent upon learners feeling safe. They must be able to relate their peers, and therefore must be presented with opportunities to do so. Anything from interest-based inquiries or self-selecting group projects can help to grow a learner’s social confidence, and connection to the classroom.

Many learners, however, will reject this kind of specifically social constructions within the classroom. Learners that feel as though these are contrived events may require a less “risky” environment within which to feel socially accepted. This is the perfect avenue for an online discussion or chat with other learners within which the more shy learners can engage and feel confident in their contributions. By creating an online profile, they are able to self-identify their interests and locate other learners in the classroom to collaborate with.

The teacher is responsible for facilitating social growth within each learner. While she may want to focus solely on the curriculum or on setting academic expectations for her classroom, social development is a major part of creating a functional environment within which learning occurs.

The teacher cannot simply call on the learners that she relates to, nor can she only promote the learners who need the most help into positions of least risk.

The role of the teacher is to find a balance for all learner-to-learner interaction in terms of all learners’ needs for socialization and growth in team collaboration. Just as a teacher would create mixed-ability groups for project-based learning, she must also create mixed-sociability groups in every learning situation. The simple act of asking a questions and soliciting responses is a social act. Maintaining a healthy back and forth between those in positions of comfort with their peers and those who are more apprehensive will lead the classroom to be a safe, and hopefully, appropriately social learning environment.

5. Discuss your current method of Classroom Management, how you came about using these methods…. then discuss [whether] “change” [is] difficult or easy for you

and why.

My current method of classroom management is based largely on the work of Hal Urban. A proactive approach, it focuses on community building and positive interaction with learners. From the beginning of the year, learners know to expect “high-grade compliments” from me randomly near the beginning of the class period. High-grade compliments entail three components 1) Close proximity, 2) Eye contact, 3) Thought. They focus on the aspects of learners that might otherwise go unnoticed by teachers and other adults in their life. Keeping the selection random also pushes me to sit in front of the most challenging learners in my classroom and really reflect on the best parts of those children. It requires me to see the good on a regular basis.

As for the daily operations in my class, I regularly incorporate cooperative learning strategies to keep learners engaged, operate in an online environment and am available regularly on Facebook and instant message. I’m fairly certain these external modes of communication and collaboration go the extra mile toward showing my learners I care about them and thereby help give them permission to care about our classroom community.

As for my willingness to change, I’m all for it. The caveat to that statement is so long as it is thoughtful, reflective change. My principle is fond of evoking the Law of Unintended Consequences and asking, “What is the worst consequence of our best idea?” So long as change comes with this contemplation, I’m receptive. Change for the sake of trying something new or because it’s popular can often be dangerous.

6. Questions regarding assignment # 1.

I’ve already posted this on the forum, but I’m wondering if our first discussion post must be only the problem statement or if we should also include an explanation to meet the stated 250-word requirement.

Computer said no

Part of getting on the ground here is encountering new surprises. It’s part of what I love/hate.

The Eastern Cape project has offered a special challenge.

I must first state I’ve had only basic formal moodle training. Everything else has been figuring it out as I go. The fact that it’s an integral part of daily life at SLA definitely gives me a leg up on many others, but I’m no moodle maven. (I don’t even own the scarves, robes and crystals I’d imagine such a maven would possess.)

When Charles, our main liaison with the Eastern Cape Department of Education, asked for training integrating the Learning Objects different e-Personnel and teachers have built into moodle, it fell to me.

Super.

I’m up to a challenge.

The idea is to create intranets within the schools in the province with computer labs, install moodle and have the LO accessible to all teachers within the school.

Some initial roadblocks: the intranets don’t exist, a plan for moodle installation hasn’t happened yet, there may be others.

Still, I sat in the dining hall yesterday working with the sample LO Charles had given me.

I wanted to claw out my eyes.

Here’s what I learned:

The objects were created in a free Microsoft software called Learning Content Development System. They pull in video and graphics and text. They create interactive guided lessons. They export into SCORM. They don’t play nicely with moodle. (That last one was a bit of a bugger.)

Awesome.

I spent hours trying to figure things out.

My favorite piece of research brought this reply from a MSFT Moderator on the forums:

Hi Takabanda,

LCDS is designed to create content that can be hosted in the SharePoint Learning Kit (SLK).

In addition, we continue to test the content in other Learning Management Systems. We’ve heard varying reports about issues with Moodle and we do not have steps to resolve the issues some course authors are encountering with Moodle at this point.

Unfortunately, we don’t have specific steps to for Moodle.

Thanks,

Stephanie

I had some bad news for Charles.

I sent this tweet out:

Minutes later, I got this response:

@Microsoft_Cares attempted to help, as did @mwacker, and I’m grateful for it. Still, in the end, it was for naught.

I handed the issue over to my teammate, Chris, in whose wheelhouse this problem more naturally lives.

Nada.

While I’ll leave Matthew Arvin out of it, Microsoft should still look over their shoulder when in allies.

Districts here don’t have budget for SharePoint Learning Kit. More to the point, there’s no budget for the upkeep nor bandwidth for the updates. Offering the first part for free and the second for pay is a bit of a bait-and-switch.

The flipside of that is the need for a clear ICT plan and research of the tools chosen for implementation. I certainly realize that. I’ve pointed it out as well.

I can’t help but have a bitter taste in my mouth thinking this is another example of corporations eyeing districts hurriedly moving to “catch up” with other districts/countries as profits over people and ignoring the global implications of leading them to waste the limited funds they possess.

Yes, buyer beware.

It’s reciprocal.

Seller, operate in good faith.

Find the Hard Pack

We’ve been starting each day of the Eastern Cape project with a period of reflection. It’s been my task to orchestrate these moments of reflection.

Wednesday, I told a story.

Mid-October, I’ll be running my 8th marathon.

Because of this, I need to keep training whilst I’m on the ground over here. As many of the locales where we’ll be working aren’t necessarily safe for a lone foreigner out on a run, I’ve been taking advantage of each location I can.

The venue here on South Africa’s “Wild Coast” is safe(-ish).

Wednesday, I set out before the sunrise to run along the beach.

Whereas Gonubie was a little resort town situated right on the beach, here, we’re much more middle of nowhere. The beach is expansive and I had it to myself.

Living in Florida taught me about running on the beach – you stay close to the water on the hard-pack sand. Otherwise, you’re running in mush.

The first mile-and-half of my 6-miler was great. Still dark, light breeze, waves crashing.

Then, I lost the hard pack.

It was mush.

It was whatever the morning equivalent of twilight is and I was running in mush.

I pushed through.

“I’m a marathoner. A little soft sand won’t get me down.”

It didn’t end.

I’d stop and rest and run again and stop and rest and run again. No end.

I was fatigued.

I turned around half a mile short of my set halfway point.

Beaten.

As I took another walking break, I spotted the two people I’d passed about a quarter of a mile before turning around.

This was their beach.

They’d left a path.

I started to run again – in their tracks – ignoring my own footprints.

This was their beach.

The way back was easier than the way out.

I was following those who knew the path and I was pretty certain were so used to walking it they thought nothing of it.

Pace-wise, my time was horrible.

As far as all the other reasons long-distance runners do what they do, it was superb.

This is the story I told the e-Personnel Wednesday before a day-long workshop where we asked them to create lesson plans in which they incorporated Information Communication Technologies to serve as examples for the thousands of teachers they work with. They’d never done what they’ve been asking their teachers to do for two years now.

It was arduous and confusing and jargon-splitting, but it was so good.

If we’re going to ask others to go there, we must first go there ourselves.

It’s up to us to find the hard pack.

Not the same

The Gist:

  • The issues are not the same.
  • We’re not all in this together.
  • Thinking it’s the same is wrong.
  • Have different conversations.

The Whole Story:

Tuesday, we ended Day 2 with an Elluminate session connecting the e-Personnel here in Eastern Cape with folks back in the States attending ISTE.

Thanks to Steve Hargadon for hooking us with the Elluminate connection. And thanks to Monika Hardy for joining in and talking about the work she’s doing with classrooms around the world.

It was quite the day.

Just before we were ready to reconvene following lunch, we lost connectivity. Here’s what’s funny, connectivity wasn’t an issue for the first few sessions. We were talking about backward design and working with adult learners and workshop design components. Computers were necessary, but not Internet.

After lunch, Google Docs was on the docket. (Geez, I’m witty.)

Then…it wasn’t.

As near as we can figure, some moderate winds in the area blew a telecom cable loose down the road. Telecommunications from here to Port Elizabeth were down.

There’s a dangerous trap to being here. Similarities can seduce. In an attempt to connect to the environment, to seem a part of rather than apart from, my mind went to “We have so much in common.”

That is the visible.

The invisible is not the same.

During the Elluminate session, a guest said, “I have a feeling we’re not so different.”

We may not be, but our situations are.

Picture a training for all the district technology coordinators for your state. Now, picture the Internet going down due to moderate winds.

What’s the reaction?

Would they sit as though nothing had happened?

We’re talking district-level folks as well as the heads of technology integration for the state.

My guess would be a series of hardy “harumphs.”

Here, there was no surprise.

Not the same.

What if your state was pushing to get every school connected to the Internet? What if several districts said no because they didn’t have electricity and then argued further that they didn’t want to get a generator to power connectivity because they knew the reliability of the generator would likely play havoc with or destroy the equipment if they had it?

Is that happening where you are?

This is me out on a limb saying, likely no.

What’s more, the local press would probably be on the story in hours.

Not the same.

What if the telecom provider your district contracted with honored the legally-required 50 percent e-rate for connectivity, but treated your school as a third-class consumer, arguing that the American satellite they contracted with to get their connectivity didn’t give them a 50 percent reduction for their account? And, no one did anything.

Again, the press, the parents, the district, all stakeholders would be on the line looking for answers.

Here, scenarios 1 and 2 above are such a part of life that snubbery by an international corporation seems par for the course.

Not the same.

I’ve more time to think on this over the next few weeks.

For those of you at ISTE this week, look at your programs. Where are the sessions about building connectivity across the world?

Where are the conversations about the importance of everyone’s voice?

Are we doing so greatly if we’re leaving so many behind?

Does having a “connected” classroom in North America matter when only 25.6 percent of the world’s population has access to the Internet?

When we talk of having our students collaborate with students around the world, do we celebrate the success AND tell the story of the road their partner countries had to walk to find access?

If information is currency and the haves and the have nots are finding themselves more and more separated, we’re fooling ourselves if we think it won’t lead to great troubles down the road.

What are you doing?

The Wonky Road Ahead

The network here is a bit wonky.

According to Charles, one of our liaisons on the ground here, the Ministry of Education (MOE) would have preferred another venue.

That venue did not complete the required rating that would have established it as a Historically Disadvantaged Institution. Evidently, in order to bid for the contract, a business should qualify as a HDI.

We’re working with approximately 40 Senior Education Specialist e-Personnel this week. They work with the 6,000+ schools in the Eastern Cape province. The majority are responsible for tech training for around 300 schools.

At evening tea last night, one e-Personnel boasted that she was able to travel to a record 40 schools in one month thanks to her new government-subsidized car.

Eastern Cape has the third highest population in South Africa and is ranked the most impoverished.

And those are just the socio-economic problems.

Based on multiple reports here, the provincial and national management see ICT as a new problem for them to manage.

They are working under the myth that, “ICT can never ever, ever assist teachers in the classroom.”

Charles would like to erase that myth as his legacy.

I’d like to help.

Still, the network here is a bit wonky.

The e-Personnel haven’t all physically met in the same place for years. They’ve received quarterly training in cohorts.

They don’t know what one another is doing.

As I learned at lunch, “We are not terribly interested in what you are doing in your district as we are responsible for our own.”

Similarly, the e-Personnel have never been in the same virtual space at the same time. The e-Learning unit attempted to get everyone together through a site called SocialGo. It didn’t take.

Seems they didn’t inherently value something because it was new.

Yesterday’s session had the e-Personnel logging in to a moodle course we’ve designed for the week. It holds the readings, it holds the homeworks, it holds the forums for discussion. It means something to their progress.

Everyone had to download their homework files and fill out their moodle profiles before leaving the meeting room at night.

We haven’t any wireless access. They needed to be plugged in.

The network here is a bit wonky.

Today I learned something about different

I went to the SuperSpar today.

It was no cheetah, but it was interesting.

While the rest of the team was tidying the odds and ends of their workshop sessions, I took on the task of lunch and dinner preparation.

SuperSpar, btw, is a brand of grocery store chain here. I didn’t go to Spar or KwikSpar. I went to SuperSpar. South Africa is rife with Spars.

If you’ve never been to a grocery store in a country other than your own, it’s a bit trippy.

It’s clearly a grocery store. You can tell that as you walk in. There are groceries.

Little things, though, are different.

Eggs are left out stacked on pallets on the floor rather than in a refrigerated case.

Milk comes in a foil-lined carton with the label “long life milk” and sits on an aisle’s endcap (also unrefrigerated).

Little things.

Also, you can slice your own bread.

I’m not saying a bread knife sits next to the display and you individually slice each piece. I’m saying you get to operate the little machine with the handle that pushes the loaf through while dozens of little jigsaws do their elfish work.

No adult supervision was required.

I’ll admit a small amount of giddiness.

Here’s the thing – we ate the eggs, I made soup with the milk, no one died. Not even a stomachache.

It seems doing things in a way that’s different and thereby initially seems wrong may not, in fact, be wrong. It may, stay with me here, be different.

Not only that, different didn’t mean better. Different didn’t mean worse. Different meant different and same.

Mind = Blown

Thanks, SuperSpar.

This is going to be tough & I petted a cheetah

I petted a cheetah today. It came and laid itself down in front of us and our guide said we could come over and pet it.

I did.

It was strange.

Two of our hosts on the ground here in Eastern Cape took us to Inkwenkwezi Game Reserve today. It was amazing. Given the possibility of jetlag, movement was impressive.

While the nature was impressive, it was part of the conversation at lunch that began, again, to put the situation in Eastern Cape in perspective.

Talking to Charles and Nobubele who head the e-Personnel for all of Eastern Cape Province, we learned:

– Eastern Cape has 6,000 schools.

– The province is broken into 23 districts.

– That’s about 300 schools/district.

– Ten percent of all schools have a computer lab (PC).

– If the other schools have information communication technologies (ICT) it consists of a laptop and a digital projector.

– Many times schools’ principals will lock up the laptops (sometimes in their offices) because they don’t trust their teachers with the ICT.

– In order to get a lab, schools must put the infrastructure in place for the labs. That means everything from the tables to the power supply.

– One school received 30 computers but had power for 15.

A person begins to have perspective on what it means to work with educators here on building capacity for the integration of ICT in education.

You can take your cute workshop on digital storytelling and shove it or throw it or delete it or whatever-verb-you-choose it.

The new old ways of thinking don’t apply here.

New new ways of thinking are what are needed.

Working on that.

What if they don’t like me, again?

I’m imagining this to be easier to write given the lack of Internet connectivity. After three days of travel, we’ve arrived a Gonubie, Eastern Cape, South Africa.

While the others showered or settled in, I put on my running gear and ran down to the water.

Three and a half miles along the Indian Ocean at sunset with a full moon over the horizon turned out to be exactly what I needed.

I’m unsure what to expect from this first week of workshops. Though the e-Personnel here in Eastern Cape will have their own laptops, what I’ve read about the education system here has been bleak. I am, as always, waiting to be proven wrong.

One of the sessions I’m charged with leading this week is backward design. If your memory’s some sort of steel trap, you’ll recall I was Mr. Backward Design for last year’s projects in both South Africa and Kenya.

In Cape Town, we were met with resistance. Not resistance to the ideas or to me in particular, but resistance to what it resembled.

In preparation for this year, I did my research and found this report on the advent and predicted failure of Objectives-Based Education (OBE) in South Africa.

OBE is close to Backward Design (not the same, but close enough).

Handed down in the wake of Apartheid as a way to rejuvenate the South African education system as well as create an influx of creative, innovative thinking, OBE went along with attempts to reform the blatantly racist curriculum of Apartheid.

The study lists 10 reasons OBE will fail in South Africa. The study’s author is no dunce.

After the fact, this helps to put last year’s teachers in context and helps me to gear up for this year.

The piece that hung in my head – if you squint you can still see it hanging there – was the idea that OBE would also mean the advent of a slew of new jargon and terminology accompanying the new way of thinking. Add that to the existing structure of the South African classrooms and the paper argues teachers will overload and either reject OBE or implement it incorrectly, shaping what they’re already doing to fit what they understand OBE to be.

This last part stands at the crux of some of my concerns when working with teachers in a workshop setting.

I’m learning each year to push my students to think more deeply vs. trying to get shallow understandings of everything.

Professional development, though, is so scarce, it’s nearly impossible to resist the urge to throw everything into one week.

Looking at our schedule, I think we’ve a good start.

Tomorrow’s first face-to-face full-team meeting will help to flesh some of this out in my mind.

Sunday’s meeting with Charles (our liaison with the Eastern Cape Ministry of Education) and his colleagues will also bring a better understanding of what the participants here need and want.

So long as we’re working to those needs and wants, we’re on the right path.

Back to Africa (Almost)

I just finished drinking a Coke.

For those who know me, you’ll understand this is somewhat surprising. Then again, I’m sitting in London’s Heathrow Airport, so the Coke here is free of high fructose corn syrup, so I can drink without guilt – mostly.

It’s Day 2 of travel to South Africa.

After an hour’s delay at O’Hare, we boarded our flight.

Then, we sat.

We waited for some piece of cargo or another that was running late on account of multiple deluges that have been battering the Midwest this week.

Once loaded, we pulled away onto the runway.

Then, we sat.

One thing I’ve got to hand to our captain, the dude was forthright with the information.

“Folks, it’s Capt. You’llForgetMyNameLater here on the flight deck. No one seems to be taking our calls at the tower, but we’ll let you know as soon as we know something.”

It went on like this for a couple hours.

The Northern Corridor was shut down, and you know how that goes.

On the plus side, no one was seated near me, so I was able to “stretch out” while watching Leap Year. (If you haven’t, let me save you some time. Everyone ends up happy. Even the bar.)

My body and mind aren’t quite on the same page as to whether I’m tired or hungry or know what day it is. I’m hoping the 11-hour flight to Cape Town will sort that out.

I’m still sorting through my thoughts on the trip as far as expectations go. Most important – I never expected this. In my flurry of e-mails home to let folks know I’d made it through the first leg of the journey safely, I wrote this to a friend:

In other news, I’m going back to Africa – back. That’s crazy, right?

There are these moments when I stop and think about the little and big choices that led to this. I mean, think of all the decisions in my life that have afforded me these opportunities. Three generations ago, my mom’s mom’s mom was born on the banks of a river in the Oklahoma Territory. How’s that for perspective? Whoa.

So, that’s where my brain lives. A taste of this particular moment in my life before I sign off and head to Terminal 5 (I’ve been in the wrong terminal for a few hours now):

I’m sitting in Heathrow watching the World Cup on my way to Cape Town while chatting on Facebook with a friend in Nairobi. Oh, and yesterday morning, I woke up in Springfield, IL.

Youtube is killing my students[‘] [work]

The Gist:

  • My students created some amazing pieces of scholarly analysis using youtube.
  • The wider audience can never see it because of poorly-thought restrictions our systems and youtube’s systems have put in place.
  • It’s time for us to stop choosing ignorance over what it possible.

The Whole Story:

I’m actually supposed to be grading right now, but I’m angry, so I’m stopping.
I’m not even angry for the usual reasons.
My seniors completed what was their ultimate project of their English Studies at SLA.
The assignment was easy to explain:

  • Choose one of the top 10 most viewed youtube videos of all time.
  • Choose one of the six critical literary lenses (reader-response, gender, socioeconomic, new historicist, postcolonial, deconstructionist) we’ve explored over the last four years.
  • Apply that lens to the video and post it to youtube as a critical literary analysis.
  • For the created product, work in iMovie or use the annotation function of youtube.

The full project description can be seen here.

The work required them to utilize skills as readers, writers, and thinkers.
The problem, youtube – the algorithm, not the people – sees the work as a violation of copyright.
You would too, if you weren’t actually watching the videos to see what they actually are.
I wanted to make certain my thinking on this lines up with the legal requirements, so I went to Kristin Hokanson.
She said it all came down to two questions:

  1. Did the unlicensed use “transform” the material taken from the copyrighted work by using it for a different purpose than the original, or did it just repeat the work for the same intent and value as the original?
  2. Was the amount and nature of material taken appropriate in light of the nature of the copyrighted work and of the use?

She followed up with:
Fair use considers FOUR factors:

  1. the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
  2. the nature of the copyrighted work;
  3. the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
  4. the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

In answer to the first question, yes. Rather than being a video for entertainment, the video is now a non-profit scholarly educational work. As for value, it’s the work of high school students. Some of the value is more, some of the value is less. Will any of these analyses break 1 million views? No.
In answer to the second question, yes. The students used all of the videos because they needed to show how the entirety of the text worked toward supporting their theses. In some cases, they augmented the work with outside slides in order to more fully make a point. Again, the idea here is for the viewer to experience the text concurrently with the analysis, pausing as needed to think more deeply. In the case of something like Miley Cyrus’ “Party in the U.S.A.,” I’m thinking this is a definite repurpose.
Realizing youtube would likely not discern between actual re-purposed non-profit educational work and a simple copy of the original work, I asked the students to submit their work as private videos and then share them with my account.
It was an attempt to keep their work authentic as well as alive.
For the most part, it worked. Then, students started coming in to class telling me their work had been taken down.
Let this be what I say:
For those who complain youtube is destroying culture or thought or any of the rest, this project re-purposed not only the videos, but the medium into a place for scholarly consideration of some of the most globally popular contemporary texts.
For those who argue the blocking of youtube in schools, look at this as a rudimentary example of what can happen when we empower students to think critically about and within online social spaces.
Many of the students worked diligently and thoughtfully on this assignment. If nothing else, they’re more thoughtful and aware of what they view and what it means for a text to be popular.
I’d show you this student work, but then youtube’d have to kill it.