Title of your presentation
Extending Community: Stories, Culture & Technology in the Language Classroom
Objectives of the presentation
To introduce the audience to ways that the language classroom, student stories and digital technology intersect to create potential for the ESL classroom; to envision ways that, when extended to the Internet, they can build community among students.
A brief overview of the presentation:
- Encouraged students to think about the ways that one can students’ stories and digital technology to advance specific language objectives.
- Referred to a Venn diagram I’d created that shows these three realms, and suggested possibilities for language learning in the intersecting areas. [The diagram below is an updated version of the one I used in the presentation.]
- Played and talked about some examples of digital narratives: interview-based, scripted and from other sources.
- Suggested some pros and cons of the blended classroom.
- Showed some additional, unconventional ideas for using digital technology for student storytelling.
A description of the strengths of the presentation
I think it served as a general introduction ways to use students’ stories for language learning and to using the Internet in some inventive ways. Several people said they’d long considered setting up a blog for their students, and this presentation gave them a sense of specific advantages and challenges of doing so.
A description of what you would do differently and why
I think the scope was too broad. I had two key things I wanted to communicate: the results of my research on my independent study (represented by the Venn diagram at whose heart was “learning community.”) But I decided I needed to do it this way to meet independent study as well as Sandanona objectives. Were I to do this again, I’d focus on the areas that interest me most: ideas for using technology to tell stories. I wouldn’t talk as much about blogs and online community because, though those seemed to be among the material that people most appreciated, I’m least interested in them, though I know a lot about them, and see them more as a means to an end.
Comment on your support group’s contribution to your presentation
I was exceptionally lucky to have this support group. We met the weekend prior to Sandanona to review each other’s progress and the feedback I got from them was helpful and encouraging. That gave me the confidence (and the practice) to move into the real presentation with a little more strength. Immediately before the presentation they were by my side, helping me set up and being generally stalwart. I can’t overstate their value. During the presentation they kept flashing me smiles, and I knew that should I have some sudden need, they’d be right there. Immediately afterward we gave each other authentic praise. We met once again to wrap up, but that wasn’t useful since we’d already said everything we had to say.
Comment on your contribution to your support group
I think I was as helpful to them as they were to me. We spend most of one Saturday together at my apartment. I looked at and read the others’ presentations and was genuinely enthusiastic about them, and we all sparked ideas off one another. We were equal contributors to that collective process. During the presentations I offered moral and logistical support when needed, and when I noticed that they had missed one of their key points, I asked an innocent question from the audienee to make sure they covered it.
Statement of your overall learning from Sandanona
I can’t honestly say that the planning phase was particularly rewarding, though I loved my committee buddies. But still, I learned from this microcosm about how hard it must be to coordinate a bigger conference.
In fact, I learned from every step of this microcosm. I hadn’t realized how significant a career move it is, to present at a major conference. The experience has been a factor in making me realize I’ll have to apply to do it. I have little ESL experience and am terrified of people (though I try to hide it), so I feel tremendously inadequate. Yet the research and preparation led me to believe that I can shape my experience into a shape that fits into the world of TESOL.
It helped build my confidence a little to get positive feedback, but I confess I still don’t feel capable of doing an intellectually sound, real-world, professional presentation beyond these safe walls.
One important facet of learning is the process: researching material about which I knew little, finding out more than I wanted to know, and then deconstructing it into a form that’s comprehensible to the uninitiated, and to do so in an original, engaging way — and still keep to time. A huge challenge.
I have come to think that Sandanona is a critical component of the program as we prepare to charge into the real world where we may have to do this sort of thing. Learning from each other’s presentations has been fabulous, and I’ve really loved the chance to be pleasantly surprised by the knowledge and skill (both presentational and informational) of my peers. My support group rocked, and based on my experience with them I think I could never do a real presentation without at least one person’s support (moral, editorial and logistical).
I am guessing that one reason for jamming Sandanona at the end with little development time in an already busy work schedule is for authenticity. I appreciate that, but I wonder if there might be gentler ways. Actually: this was supposed to be a one-unit course. I was not alone in putting probably three units’ worth of time into it. One suggestion is to scale down the scope so it is truly a one-unit class; another is to keep it as is, and scale down a different class.
I realize that this suggestion is likely unworkable because it creates a domino effect of necessary changes… rather like what happens when one is on the program committee and has to reposition one speaker and then finds that every other speaker has to be adjusted as a result.
List of presentations you attended (including support group)
- Tatiana
- Curtis
- Regina
- Genevieve
- Yajuan
- Christine
- Lauren
- Jess
- Sarah
- Natalia
- Nayeon
Please also include handouts for the binder.
Here:
Extending Community: Stories, Culture & Technology in the Language Classroom
Choose Audio-Visual Software
- iMovie (Mac — free download, and included in current systems)
- MovieMaker (PC — free download, and included in current systems)
- SoundSlides/SoundSlides Plus (Mac and PC — $40/$70 retail) http://soundslides.com
- Final Cut Express (Mac — around $200) www.apple.com
Set Up a Free Blog
- www.wordpress.com
- www.blogger.com
- www.blogspot.com
- www.webs.com
Set Up a Free Social Media Site
[Similar to above, but with some additional interactivity, e.g. chat, upload video, document-sharing.]
- GoogleSites: http://sites.google.com
- Facebook groups: http://www.facebook.com/groups/create.php
- Ning: www.ning.com (will soon start charging a fee, but it’s a powerful tool)
Get Ideas
StoryCorps. Has downloadable guide for educators about planning and recording an interview, and sample interview videos: http://storycorps.org/diy/participate
University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Their English Language Center uses digital storytelling in the coursework, and posts some of the productions on their site: http://www.umbc.edu/oit/newmedia/studio/digitalstories/index.html
Learning to Love You More. A social networking site, now in archived status, that was created by artists Miranda July and Harrell Fletcher. They’d give participatory assignments — from “Make a paper replica of your bed” to “Act out someone else’s argument”— and their audience would submit required materials. The site is a great source of topic ideas and general inspiration: http://www.learningtoloveyoumore.com/index.php
Center for Digital Storytelling. Established organization has a big database of digital stories for your viewing pleasure: http://www.storycenter.org/index1.html
Journal of the Imagination in Language Learning. Genevieve Halkett introduced me to this. For the past few years, New Jersey City University’s Center for the Imagination in Language Learning has published a journal with a veritable feast of articles about creativity in teaching (K through college). You can download individual stories from past issues. http://www.njcu.edu/cill/journal-index.html
Things to Ponder from My Research Interviews
Heather Linville (UMBC)
“We come to [digital storytelling] with the ESL piece being the most important. The students’ classroom experience here is greatly enriched by the opportunity to do personal narrative.”
Leslie Turpin (SIT)
“There are many incredible benefits to being an online learning community. When you go online you have to bring a quality of presence, to suspend judgment.”
Sean Conley (New School)
“[Students’] learning happens in the forums… How much students participate relates to how much the teacher is involved. You have to be there for the beginning and the middle of the conversation, not just the end. You have to be ‘sprinkling your presence’ with comments, questions, links.”
David Isay (StoryCorps)
“The act of doing an interview is an important process. StoryCorps is less of a telling project than a listening project.”
Polina Vinogradova (UMBC)
[When we come to a new country and a new language] “we feel powerless because we can’t express ourselves. Some people think, ‘I don’t want to become American’… When you’re learning a language, it’s important not to deny your own cultural background and language.”
Michael Roberts (SIT)
“Photos are ‘false traces.’ I tell people, ‘Rather than seeing stories in the photographs, try seeing photographs in the stories.’”
A Poem by Daniel (Age 15, Mexico, high beginner)
“Once I traveled to the universe.
In the place more dark, I saw a light —
A light as your eyes.
I wanted to go, but…
It was very late and I had to return at home.”
A Parting Thought
“[T]he Web is about linking minds, communities and ideas, while promoting personalisation, collaboration and creativity leading to joint knowledge creation.” You might want to read that twice. It’s from McLoughlin, C. & Lee, M.J.W. (2007). Social software and participatory learning: Pedagogical choices with technology affordances in the Web 2.0 era. In CIT: Providing choices for learners and learning (p 668). Singapore: Proceedings Ascilite.