Technology, Affinity Spaces, New Literacies, and Female Leadership: Thoughts on Days 3 and 4 of NCTE

     The last two days of NCTE were a whirlwind for me. I presented on a panel with two brilliant women educators from Texas, served as a floating respondent for "The Future is Now," and served as a respondent for "Sharing Our Voices: Preparing Teacher Educators for Today, Tomorrow, and Forever." Each role was very different, but rewarding. I learned a lot from the roundtables, and I also learned a great deal about new technologies and new literacies from working with Julie Vu and Sara Mullins on our panel entitled "Transforming Learning Spaces with Digital Technologies: Pitfalls and Possibilities." In addition to utilizing ideas and concepts from my dissertation work, specifically affinity spaces and multimodality, I was also able to bring in anecdotes, images, and ideas from my classroom work at Mount Vernon Presbyterian School during this school year.
     Perhaps this was serendipity: the Wednesday before I did this panel, my school had an "Unplugged Day", at which students and educators alike were asked to put away our electronic devices, specifically our phones and computers. Teachers had to use or computers for some tasks, such as taking attendance, but we were asked to keep our lesson plans for the day as technology-free as possible. Since our school is very technology-driven, with clear touches and one-to-one chromebook access for students, this was a big deal for us. It proved to be challenging for students and teachers alike to work without our devices for a whole day. However, it did facilitate some interesting conversations in my 7th Grade Grammar/Composition class about how technology can both encourage and discourage personal connection, the advantages and disadvantages of technology, and the difference between technology and electronics/appliances. A couple of my students aptly pointed out that if we truly went without technology for a whole day, we would be able to utilize very little at school, including such things as the electricity, lights, and supplies on our classroom maker carts:

Therefore, Unplugged Day, for my students and me, begged the question of what exactly we mean by the term technology. Julie, our session chair, was complimentary of how smart my students are, which is true. :) She then decided that we should add this very question to our presentation, when we met ahead of time to tweak it on site, and that we should discuss technology, new technology, new literacies, and how to differentiate such terms. 

       I was able to talk about maker carts and makerspaces in my presentation, which was a great way to bring my classroom experiences into the conversation: 

There are challenges with maker carts, such as keeping them supplied and clean and figuring out how to best allocate our resources. However, they make it possible for my students to do some amazing design thinking and project-based thinking work such as their recent game design and writing assignment: 

Some students created their literacy concept games on their computers, and others created board games with maker cart materials. Regardless, these projects would not have been possible without technology, whether they used new technology, traditional technology, or a combination of the two. This was an interesting concept to explore in the presentation, and one on which I hope to continue to write and to speak. Two other teachers from Atlanta-area private schools attended my presentation, and one asked for my card after the presentation, so we could continue the dialogue about maker spaces and innovative ways of teaching.  

       Another aspect of my teaching that I discussed at the presentation, as related to my dissertation work, is the comics club I facilitate at school on Fridays during Advisory:

In hindsight, I wish I had talked about this element more at the presentation: I figured out pretty quickly that the club functioned more effectively when the students read chosen comics in small groups, which I assigned, than when we tried to all discuss one comic that I chose for them. This is, after all, a club rather than a class, so I need to better keep the protocols in line with those of affinity spaces (Gee, 2004), at which leadership is porous and shared and at which choice is a key component. It's been interesting to me that some groups have gravitated toward digital comics and others have chosen more traditional paper comics. We also plan to watch the Wonder Woman documentary in December, a feat which would not be possible without technology.  

       My two brilliant colleagues, Sara Mullins and Julie Vu, discussed other great strategies for bringing technology into the classroom for such activities as socratic seminars on Shakespeare plays, sources to discuss fake news and the evaluation of sources, and Twitter hashtags to better facilitate classroom discussions at the high school level. I learned a great deal from both of them and gained ideas I can modify for my middle school students.  

       Also greatly beneficial to me was the roundtable I attended and helped facilitate at "The Future is Now", which had activities that early-career teachers led. I ended up at Table 18, which was a very good fit for my interests and current teaching situation: 

Topics included enhancing literature discussions through socratic seminar and the question formulation technique from the Right Question Institute, how music can enhance literacy instruction, and how "iGen Language" is influencing Generation Z, the generation of students whom I currently teach. We had though provoking conversations about how to "gameify" a classroom effectively, how to encourage students to ask deeper questions, and how to find a balance between teaching academic discourse and acknowledging that the nature of language is changing with image culture and social media. I learned so much from these early-career educators (within their first three years) and can't wait to see what ideas they come up with in the future. My Twitter feed includes more images and commentary from this session.  

      A session that I attended related to my work at school the last day was entitled "Advocating for 21st Century Collaborators: Teaching and Thinking in the Company of Others." In particular, I thought this session related to the MVx Mount Vernon Mindsets of communication and collaboration,  both of which are important in today's educational climate. The statement that most stood out to me from this session is one that I also included on my Twitter feed: "Ideas, action, and community make for strong collaboration." The community aspect is one that I've tried to emphasize in my classroom, even at the start of the year, in part because of my National Writing Project background.  

       Overall, NCTE 2017 was a success for me. I was sorry to miss the ALAN Workshop this year due to constraints of time and money, but I sincerely hope that I can return next year. I loved being at NCTE, and a theme that emerged at the NWP meeting that was relevant to my time at the whole conference was the importance of connecting and cultivating relationships with other female leaders. This NCTE year in particular, it was meaningful for me to present and reconnect with women who have mentored me (Jennifer Dail and Mary Stillerman), women who influence me with their pedagogical ideas (Julie Vu and Sara Mullins), and women who went on the UGA graduate school journey alongside of me (Meghan Barnes, Michelle Falter, and Karen Graham). It was inspiring and rejuvenating, both personally and professionally, for me to spend time with many awesome educators this year, especially these women, all of whom I feel are amazing leaders on my field. Thank you so much to each of you! After this past year, I needed some female superhero power, and that's exactly what you all gave me. :) 

Reference: 

Gee, J. (2004). Situated language and learning: A critique of traditional schooling. New York, NY: Routledge.  

Inspired by Authors and Technology: Reflections on NCTE Day Two

Some of my favorite memories of NCTE Day Two involve authors who inspire young people and educators. In the keynote speech, Jimmy Santiago Baca reminded us that only knowledge will combat ignorance, and that we are dream makers for our students. At the CEE Luncheon, Angie Thomas, the author of The Hate U Give, reminded us that racism is real, that we as educators have the power to fight systemic racism, and that the words of teachers really can hurt, help, and heal our students. She talked about a first grade teacher who she overheard saying something that hurt so much that she still remembers it as an adult. Yet she also talked about a third grade teacher who told her to take her pain and write about it, which got me choked up because that's one of many reasons why I too write. I was so inspired, and her talk reminded me that deep down, our students want approval from their teachers so badly, and the words we say out loud or in side conversations really can hurt or help. I feel like I need to be even more mindful of how what I say might affect my students.  Angie Thomas's third grade teacher was a large contributing factor to why she became a writer. I'd love to think that a seventh grade teacher can have the same positive effect on her students.

My colleague Mary Ann and I were both interested in going to sessions about digital technology and critical thinking. She went to a session that had great materials about asking students to question their news sources, regardless of their own political beliefs, or lack thereof. The presentation link is here and includes resources that educators can go to for more information, including a Facebook page. I went to a session about digital technology and inquiry, and the link is here. Some of the lesson plans applied to high school more so than to middle school, but I loved some of their techniques, such as the PollEv.com word exchange/collage they did as an introduction. This is something I could see doing with my students, along with infographics and the collaborative research project with digital sources that Barbara Robbins described toward the beginning of the presentation. They also recommended a book that I think would be helpful to me, Collaboration and Comprehension by Stephanie Harvey and Harvey "Smokey" Daniels. I believe this book could apply very specifically to the work I'm doing with Mvx at Mount Vernon Presbyterian School. Another book I'm interested in, based on what I learned today, is Master the Media: How Teaching Media Literacy Can Save Our Plugged-in World by Julie Smith.

Throughout the day, as my colleagues and I prepared our Saturday presentation and I reconnected with other colleagues/friends from graduate school, people asked me a lot of questions about my game design and writing project-based learning assignment. This was flattering and unexpected; it gave me ideas for what I might present and write about in the future and made me glad that I had encouragement to do this project with students. At Mount Vernon Presbyterian School, one of the guiding principles is "share the well," which I also believe is a major purpose of the NCTE Conference.

Today, I look forward to presenting my own session with two colleagues at noon and to attending more sessions related to inquiry and digital technology. Jacqueline Woodson will speak soon, which I am sure will be inspiring. I also hope to find resources related to comics that interest young adolescents, since I do the Comics Club at school.

Learning Experiences from NWP and NCTE Day 1

This year, I've been fortunate enough to attend the National Writing Project meeting and the National Council for Teachers of English conference in St. Louis, Missouri. I was sad to hear that this would be the last NWP meeting at NCTE for the foreseeable future, due to financial constraints. However, the meetings have been a meaningful experience to me each year I have attended, so I was happy to hear that NCTE is still going to have NWP as a part of the conference in the form of NWP sessions.

My Thursday morning at the National Writing Project started bright and early, as my colleagues and I presented at the first "About Writing" roundtable. Dr. Jennifer Dail and Mary Ann Stillerman have been talking for a long time about how to best utilize social media for the Kennesaw Mountain Writing Project. At our last KMWP Advisory Council meeting in August, we discussed this concept in more depth.  I had ideas to contribute in part because of my social media and website work that I did as the Red Clay Scholar at the UGA Writing Project site for three years. Therefore, Jen and Mary Ann were gracious enough to ask me if I wanted to participate in their NWP meeting roundtable. After getting permission from my school, I accepted the invitation. Using this handout that Jen created, in part from the inspiration of a brainstorming meeting that Mary Ann and I had in October, we participated in the "About Writing" roundtable session. We shared and received many wonderful ideas about how to better use social media not only to promote Writing Project events, but also to encourage the exchange writing and pedagogy ideas amid educators. It's a conversation I'm eager to continue over time.

For the second half of the "About Writing" roundtable session, I went to a wonderful discussion of women in leadership and how female Writing Project leaders rejuvenate themselves through a writing group. They use writing prompts to encourage this community and shared some of these prompts with us, while asking us to add resources to the googledoc that might be helpful.  The prompts, along with the discussion we had, prove to be helpful for thinking about what a writing community might look like, both inside and outside of classroom settings.

After the lunch and keynote, I went to the roundtable session called "Teachers as Writers." Representatives from the Alaska Writing Project gave us wonderful ideas about how to engage the community with writing projects:

Their #reverbwriting idea is one that I can see trying in my own classroom and/or in a Writing Project setting. In the second part of the "Teachers as Writers" workshop, a representative from The Virgin Islands Writing Project talked to us about the work she has teachers do throughout the year to create a professionally published anthology. I received a copy of Voices From Behind the Scenes: Teachers' Experiences in the Classroom Expressed through Poetry and Prose (Ed. Valerie Knowles Combie), which is available online for purchase.

The last roundtable session, "Teacher Inquiry" was my favorite one of the day. The Boston Writing Project/University of Massachusetts Writing Project taught us an amazing questioning technique based on inquiry principles, of which this is literally only a snapshot:

They also taught us about the impressive work their Invitational Summer Institute does surrounding issues of race, gender, and socioeconomic status. Their inquiry questions are truly conducive to having productive conversations about tough issues. One of the TC's who spoke also described project-based learning activities she does at her K12 school utilizing some of these same inquiry and questioning techniques, which benefitted me as a middle school teacher.

Lastly, The Lake Michigan Writing Project shared this link with us, which has some incredible activities surrounding Ekphrastic writing based on Stanford Design Thinking principles. I was excited about this session because the suggestions were very pragmatic for my seventh grade writing course at Mount Vernon Presbyterian School. Additionally, their design thinking principles apply specifically to my school setting.

My day ended with me attended the #whymiddlematters 25th Anniversary Celebration of the journal Voices from the Middle. Dr. Sara Kajder, an important mentor to me, is one of the editors of this journal, and I'm thrilled to see how much it continues to influence the field. I just renewed my membership to NCTE, which now includes a regular subscription to this amazing journal. One of my current writing goals is to eventually publish an article in Voices from the Middle or a similar journal based on project-based learning work I am doing in the middle school classroom. The anniversary party included several well-known literacy educators: Bob Probst, Donalyn Miller, and Kylene Beers, among others. This gathering was a tribute to middle school teaching, in addition to being a celebration of the journal's success.

I'm still processing Day 2 of my NCTE experience, but my upcoming blog posts will include my next adventures in St. Louis: Hearing Dr. Jimmy Santiago Baca speak for the first time in a decade, now as a more seasoned teacher; Angie Thomas's talk at the CEE luncheon; meeting and hearing favorite authors of children's and YA literature; sessions I and my colleagues attended related to digital literacy, inquiry, and discussions around fake news; and my second presentation on Saturday, which we've been planning since January 2017. Until then, my friends and colleagues, Happy Thanksgiving season.

Game Design and Writing: Reflections on my First PBL

This fall at Mount Vernon Presbyterian School, my students and I embarked on a new adventure: Game Design and Writing! It was the first time I had done a full-fledged PBL "Project-Based Learning" Unit, although I did elements of this instructional style while teaching in Douglas County public schools, particularly with my Gifted classes. I initially thought the unit would take two weeks. However, due to special events at school and logistics, it took closer to 3 1/2 to 4 start to finish. This was earlier in the year than I anticipated doing a PBL, to be honest. I initially thought I would not do one until late first semester or even second semester, especially since I am new to my school. But all things considered, I am glad we went all in and dove into this adventure together. I believe it helped me to bond with our students and our classes to feel even more like a community.

Along the way, I learned many lessons, which I thought I would share with my fellow educators and friends: 

1. There is so much more to game design and writing than I thought! I am a proud member of several fandom and/or nerd communities, including Georgia Football, Harry Potter, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, YA literature, comics, the list could go on. Gaming is not one that I know as much about, although I have several friends who are into it, as academics, players, or both. I've heard them talk about the passion of getting involved in another world, the storytelling aspects of it, etc. But until I saw my students engage with this project, I took it for granted how much creativity goes into board games, card games, and video games. There's so much to consider: the rules, the explanations, the world building (when applicable), and with educational games like the ones my students made, the concept and how to best utilize the game to teach it. I knew that game design took hard work and attention to detail, but there's a lot of creativity involved as well. I wonder what courses game designers take in school to help them learn these skills, besides computer programming/design for those who create video games.

2. If you let them, the students will teach you so much! As far as (older) Millennials/Oregon Trail generation folks go, I am reasonably adept at technology, but I'm not superb at it. Some of my students have a natural knack for coding, though, and they created video games that were well beyond what I expected for young adolescents in the seventh grade. Plus, thanks to my students and also to my friend and colleague Rachel K. Sanders, I learned about several excellent computer game design programs that are easy and student-friendly. Scratch is the one that most of my students utilized. But there are others, such as Game Star Mechanic, Twine, and Unity. Coding is a process that involves mathematical thinking and reason in addition to the creative thought of making the game, and observing this process in my students gave me a whole new perspective of this activity. There's also a lovely program called "Hour of Code" for those who are interested in teaching your students more about coding. Thank you, Rachel, for this tip! https://hourofcode.com/us.

3. Like so many things in life, it's good to have a schedule and a plan, but to allow room for flexibility. People who know me well know that I tend to be a planner, in all areas of life. Without going into a whole psychoanalysis of Dr. M. Robbins, ENFP's on the Myers Briggs Scale/Personality Test do not feel the need to control other people, but we do not like to feel controlled.   sometimes felt that the logistics of PBL planning and execution, along with the inevitable interruptions of school life, were things that I could not plan or control, and that was hard for me at times. However, I learned to go with the flow. I spent hours planning out each day of this project ahead of time, along with deadlines. Although I stuck to the deadlines, the daily plan did not always go quite as I anticipated. Yet I realized that so long as I was giving my students the support, encouragement, and resources that they needed, it would all turn out fine, and in fact it turned out much better than fine. I trusted the students to pace themselves on the project, and I think they learned from the process of having to collaborate with others in order to design an attractive, thoughtful game while still meeting a deadline. We had constraints of time, space, and resources, but that's true of real world projects as well. I might make some tweaks in the future in terms of the direction I give students with pacing and timing, but overall, the process went better than I thought, even when I had to let go of control more than I wanted to.

4. High expectations bring positive results 
At times, I couldn't help but wonder if I was asking too much of my students when I assigned them to create a game, directions for the game, a two paragraph expository explanation of the game, and a narrative story to accompany the game, with Jumanji serving as an example. They worked in teams of 2-3, although the narrative component was individual. Overall, they ended up blowing my expectations out of the water. Granted, my students are bright and have a lot of home support. As a teacher over the years, though, I've found that students will usually rise to the bar that you set for them, particularly if you've taken the time to get to know them and to meet them where they are.

5. Collaborating with other classes is so much fun! I need to continue to be open to this. 
For me, one of the most rewarding aspects of the project was having my students interview younger students prior to creating their games and testing them out on the same students at the project's end. I thank our school's PBL consultant Shayna Cooke for suggesting this idea and also my colleagues in other grade levels Ashton Booher, Carolyn Edwards, and Jayne Liu for participating in this aspect of the project. The students worked hard to prepare and rehearse interview questions prior to meeting the younger students, and it was good for them to know that they had an audience. Watching my seventh graders play the games they created with the younger students at the end was amazing for all involved. I was so proud of how students in both classes responded to the experience. It made me want to do more cross-class collaborations.

I look forward to my next PBL project and thank everyone who came with me on this game design project journey. May the skills we learned remain with us, and I look forward to working together to #designabetterworld.