In this phase, our collaborative work started with meeting through Google Hangouts on Saturday for about an hour (11:30 - 12:25) creating/ sharing a Google Doc. As we worked, we referred back to the “DT Project: Next Gen EL Pedagogy” document. Using the checklist as a guide, we went over the necessary components. Finally, we created a new shared Doc to outline the needed tasks and divvy up the work. After our collaborative work, my individual contributionwas to create a Powtoons animation that would describe our "Parent University" prototype. It was also my responsibility to gather our resources together into a Blendspace where we could then share it with others. My challenges for this week's collaboration was in figuring out the best way to create a visual representation of our prototype. We felt that we had a great, work-able idea however we struggled in figuring out the best way to present our idea. The experimentation phase involves developing a prototype to address the problem and getting feedback from end-users to modify the prototype. With colleagues at my site, we can see that experimentation is critical to getting to a working prototype. By getting feedback from end-users, the parents/students themselves, we would have valuable input to adjust the prototype to make it more successful. Since our schools are out of session, we do not have access to actual end users. If we did have access to end users, the process would yield more accurate results. In doing this process with input from each other, instead of end users, we need to be mindful that we, ourselves have not had many of the same experiences that we are trying to anticipate parents of our English Learner students have. As educators, most of us have not been in the situation where we were unable to help our students due to language or cultural barriers. When collaboration is an additive in lieu of individuals simply working in groups then meaning is being made collaboratively as all partners actively learn from one another. There are times when working in group where partners simply divvy and delegate tasks. There is little discussion that occurs and little meaning that is created beyond the isolated units of assigned tasks. If the overall collaborative project is clear and purposeful and all members work together well to create meaning then the collaboration is indeed an additive. If members can work in isolation or are indifferent to the cohesion of the end product then we arrive at individuals simply working in groups.
Part 2 Question One: Wouldn’t it still be worthwhile to have students take those slides and learn to elaborate from there in writing? We hadn’t considered the importance of forcing students to focus and ease in ability to edit when they had to make slides instead of a long, written piece. We believe it may be a good start, but wouldn’t it still be worthwhile to have students take those slides and learn to elaborate from there in writing? While understanding and expressing the gist of a piece is a very important skill, we feel like it is equally as important students practice and learn to use language related to different text structures and for different audiences orally and in writing. Question Two: Isn’t the idea of thoughtful reflection and careful revision important as well with paper projects? A second question posed was in regards to allowing for ease of editing. Jester suggests that students using paper projects are more likely going to worry about “messing up” the looks of the paper rather than doing a good job. Isn’t the idea of thoughtful reflection and careful revision important as well with paper projects? We were thinking of the great artists, the great authors, and the great musicians. We felt it is important that any creative task be approached with the understanding that it can be transformed and changed. Our experiences seemed to be the opposite of what the author states. What Kristin noticed happening with students in her classroom was that students took little care and had no concern for how something looks. Most of them did not hold a pencil correctly or know how to use a paint brush or crayon. Many seem impatient with the time it takes and would rather just do something on the computer. We believed there needs to be a balance of experiences for our kids because the next Jimmy Hendrix or Picasso may be sitting in our classrooms and never have the opportunity to touch a guitar or to use drawing tools otherwise. Question Three: How would Owen see form and function melding together given that, unlike old school slide shows, web 2.0 presentation tools are not linear but rather capture an infinite web of interconnectedness? The article, “If I Had a Hammer: Technology in the Language Arts Classroom” points out that the tool of slides adds a more natural need for precision to express an author’s thoughts. A concept must be expressed wholly before moving on to the next slide. As Owen describes it, “One slide is a whole, an entity to itself. Viewing that slide, students recognize that their ideas must relate to one another to belong in that entity” (If I had a Hammer). In other words, Owen sees form and function melding in order to effectively express a student’s ideas. The question that David had, given that this article was written 14 years ago, is how would Owen see form and function melding together given web 2.0 tools that are no not linear but rather interconnected? What was meant by this is that a slide show moves from slide one, to slide two, and all the way to the very end. A tool, such as a wiki or a blog does not require one to move sequentially in this fashion. Thus, an author can therefore create a web of interconnected ideas that does not require one to complete a thought before moving on to the next. This does not require to fully complete an idea before moving onto the next. One idea can spawn many more, and that’s ok. Question Four: Why is the author so confident that a multimedia presentation is a better format for the task at hand? Might his opinion change more than a decade later when we have come to recognize the value a hands-on, maker education? So often the word that is used to describe effective use of technology is “leveraging.” Technology is not always the solution. As Owen states, it is but a tool much like a hammer. This bring to mind the old adage that when the only tool one has is a hammer then every problem looks like a nail. In this day and age, we want students to have a robust toolbox, in which students are able to differentiate between tasks best suited for technology and those suited for other means.