Subject: ICTs in English
List archive
- From: "SARA, Deb" <dsara1 AT eq.edu.au>
- To: ictenglish AT mailinglist.tki.org.nz
- Subject: [ICTs in English] FW: ictenglish discussions
- Date: Mon, 31 May 2010 09:04:47 +1000
Dear All
I am forwarding the following to you as an apology and
an explanation for my hurried posts many of which contain spelling, punctuation
and possibly even grammar errors.
While the following is an explanation more than an
apology I am aware that my responses are rough drafts and I do apologise if some
teachers find that irksome. I can't promise that I can always edit my responses
to the nth degree however. I hope some of you can still bring yourselves to the
task of reading them, and that you can uderstand some of the ideas in them.I
will endeavour to be more careful.
Regards
DEB
The following is a reply I sent to a reader's criticism, earlier.
(Line added inread has been added since the reply I sent
earlier):
Dear XXX
Re your feedback re my paragraphing.
I hope you appreciate the context in which teachers make comments
- particularly long ones- on the site. We respond in a very brief period of time
between lessons etc.
It's very difficult to give adequate time to this. I do my best
under the circumstances. - which is not the best I can do, of course.
I'm aware that my post also has lots of spelling errors. My
apologies.
I guess I might have made the unconscious assumption that if
I took the time to contribute this, in a busy teaching day, that the recipients
could take the time to understand it - or at least enough of it to make it worth
while. Given its rushed delivery that is an ask but I don't think it is too big
an ask. Where a teacher feels it is, he need not read it. You are not compelled
to read these posts.
No, I am not illiterate. Just very busy, yet very passionate about
teaching and very moved to contribute what I can to understandings of these
importany changes to pedagogy, in the few minutes I have available each day to
read and respond to posts.
Just between you and me, I do mind your criticism, given the above
context. Just between you and me anyone who would take the time to count
the sentences is possibly taking a lot of time to find fault - time that could
be taken to understand the content.
I guess anyone who is willing to speak out out publicly is
bound to get petty criticisn at times. I addmitted to not being able to do
justice to the task of amswering Craig and Karen's questions. I gave it my best
shot under the circumstances and I had hoped - even trusted - that my readers
would understand that I did so as an extra professional task - not one I
had to do and not one I had ample time to do. The rushed nature iof the response
is not in deabte. I thought teachers would unerstand that it was rushed because
of time restraints.
Your response may have been more palatable if you had ended on a
positive note, by the way. I try to do that with my students. I hope you don't
mind i I find it hard to end on a palatablenote here.I can't promise that I will
have time in future to proof read and edit my responses to the Nth degree. This
is after all "Chat" as far as I am aware. I think that if we all agree that this
is chat -and we won't, of course- then sometimes we will over look typos and
long paragraphs. But of course some will NOT overlook such errors. I accept
that.
I also make the assumption that this chat (or discussion , if you
like) line is more about ideas that grammar, spelling and paragraphing, and that
an analysis of any chat or discussion - particularly a spoken one- would find it
littered with errors or grammar etc. The process of throwing ideas back to others in a passionate
way is a creative process and I am happy for that to be done quickly and
received as a type of brainstorming exercise. To stop and edit absolutely
everything is not being cognizent of context, in my view. But I know some
people cannot neglect to edit anything, and I accept that personalities and
beliefs differ. This is not to say that I think grammar etc
are unimportant. It is probably realistic to say, however, that I will at
times only have the time to send a rough draft. For you who are
apparently offended by that, please remember the delete
button.
Regards
DE B
I'm enjoying all the contributions on the mailing list and people like you are providing some great links & thoughts.
Thanks.
Being a teacher, and one of the audience for your email, it's like a Pavlovian response to give feedback and I hope you don't mind me saying: I felt that squeezing 65 lines of writing into only 3 paragraphs detracted from the content.
Hi to Craig and Karen and everyone else,
These questions , Craig and Karen, are very big questions and
I won't do them justice in this e mail or by myself.
But I'll say what I can, knowing that it is inadequate, in time,
space and expertise , etc... This shift is a process and this is a very
small part of that process. The discussion group is an important
part.
-
Firstly I CTs are tools to an extent (but also repositories, always developing innovatively, interactive, connect with anyone wnywhere around the world, encyclopedia, social networking sites, etc etc) but can't teach writing. We are the teachers who must - I believe and many many many share my belief - learn to use them ( and all the capacities they bring to our classrooms and lives and the lives and classrooms of our students) - to teach writing, and other language skills. That is supported by an enormous amount of research, some of which makes very interesting and very inspiring reading. I'll attach somethong that I found on Tuesday. The ressearch - proven effectiveness - is why we are asked to engage. The research has proven to a lot of influential English professional that ICTs are most effective in teaching. But they aren't teachers. We are. We need to read about how they can be used, and ultimately we need to use them. Ideally we need to use whatever students are using so that we know whether and/or how we can tap some or all of these uses in our classrooms fopr the benefit of kids. We need to discoverfor ourselves: Why they are thought to be so good. Why kids who aren't engaging otherwise engage with learning thhrough ICTs. Why kids who are already engaing find learning more meaningful and enjoyable with ICTs. No, a microwave doesn't improve cooking. But not many people are throwing them out, so what does that tell us? Is it because of a clever marketing campaig? Or is it because they are a great tool for this day and age. And any day and age, arguably, but many today are thankful that their only tool is not the wood stove, today. Particularly in such a fast moving society. These tools both suit, compliment and help create this life style, one would have to say, I think. One of these facts supports the use of ICTs. That is the reality of constant change in this culture/ society. The www etc etc help us all keep up with those changes, to some extent. There is heaps to say, but we all need to do some reading, I believe. Just to make sense of it all for ourselves. Craig to focus on thhe claim that some teachers don't see ICTs improving kids' writing, there is a lot of evidence to show that it can and does. We can't see it when we start out, but for many - and myself included now, but not a year or so ago - it can be used to help a teacher improve kids' writing. That said it leads to more studnet autonomy too. So our iinput is different. WE need to set things up for the students. This all seems a mystery at first, but It's journey that is well worth the time and effort. And so very enjoyable forus too when we learn to do it. It's such fun!!! I can't wait ti getto work each day. I can't get to sleep at night. It's an exciting journey and unprecedently inh the history of teaching, I'm sure. Kids love it. Teachers love it when they get into it. And there is so much help out there, although it doesn't feel like that when one starts out. I was freaked and and angry and felt abondoned without help even a year ago. A lot of the help is accessible through ICTs. Huh!! The full circle.Go for it. You'll love it. ( I can remember using a slate, by the way.)
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I think that addresses to some extent both points raised by Craig and Karen albeit too briefly.But Karen the question of engagement and motivation which you raised. There is again a lot of reading that is helpful for making the conection between engagement, motivation and learning. So that would be a good way to go. THre is a lt on the www. Peole have been researchingthis area for somethinginn the vacinity of 25years, all around the world. Cell phiones are also being used in classrooms. I don't use them but our school is moving in that direction. oNce again, because they are communication, verbal language devices used by students they must have the potential for use in English classes. Obviously when they text Mum they aren't necessarliy shifting their understanding, but neither does leaving note for Mum on the kitchen table. I think it helps to see that the traditional tools used in English classrooms don't in and of themselves shift students understandings and / or writing skils either etc etc "without a coherent, strategic bit of planning and teaching around it." So there is definitely a challenge here and that is to learn how to use these new tools, but also why. Learning how will to some extent help with the why, but not completely.
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Re the R & J assessment Item. this is very new for me , and untested. In relation to interactivity, collaboration through a shared interactive to-ing and froing could be used in the planning, processing, getting and developing ideas stages, and then this could be developed independantly by the student into a creative text, I would advocate. There are of course literary texts made up of letter and diary entriesn (Anne Frank and Letters from the iNside by John Marsden, for eg). The latter may be largely made up, although always, too, based on the real experiences of the writers and people in his/her life, I guess. So I can imagine interaction/ collaboration with at least one other studnet in the processing development and teaching stages ( eg, playing out / role playing the interaction on e mail or some other chat site, which is probably more relevant than e mails which young peole don't use much anymore. (This is how ICTs can be used to teach in the classroom, but only one example of thousands). But there'd be no collaboration in the putting together of the Assesment Item, unless it were a spoken task. In Queensland we're permitted to have the option of one (one only) spoken Asst Item which is interactive, although prepared intricately in advance, of course.Each student must speak for a certain amount of time and each student is assessed separately, of coursse.
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- [ICTs in English] FW: ictenglish discussions, SARA, Deb, 05/31/2010
- [ICTs in English] Re: FW: ictenglish discussions, Karen Melhuish, 05/31/2010
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