A different class of journalism

autobiographical comics

2007-10-01T07:34:00.000+10:00

I put this autobiographical comic together in one day (yesterday) and thought I would share it and the making of it with you....

Why do it?

I was browsing for interesting art curriculum and came across a great site which uses exemplary work of artists working with students.

An autobiographical comic project by Heather McAdams caught my interest. It is based on encouraging students to write autobiographies about particular moments, events, emotions. She has a list of questions to get them thinking of a range of stories and they then choose a particular story. They then look at what images might go with their story and how to exagerate emotions and events - emphasising emotional highs and lows, and using metaphor and symbols to make the imagery more intense. They then look at creating a comic (1 or 2 pages) using 8 to 16 panels - they don't need to be uniform. Good drawing is not required. The website has a thorough descriptor of her process, her questions to invite stories and tips for comic making.

I am a real fan of autobiographical writing methods - it was one of my own research methods in my PhD. It can be extended by looking at the cultures which might be embedded in the story and which shape the moment. So personal stories can be value added by some navel gazing.

Anyway, as with all new things I thought I would have a go and see how easy it would be. I admit to already being a cartoonist - have a book published - and was a cartoonist for a publishing company. My style is very different to McAdams. Clean lines. Single or triple panels. But the multi-panel A4 page requires a different look. Needs a lot more variety - and McAdams suggests using hatching and dots to create different shades, textures and lighting effects.

The process

OK, so what story do I have? Well one comes to mind - it was my graduation day on Saturday ... which I missed. Could there be a story in that? It was pretty easy to write some lines, putting myself into the present moment. It is interesting that when thinking of text for the purpose of a comic it does shape the rhythm and linking of sentences. As you write images start suggesting themselves. I needed think time between doing it - this added extra depth and enabled me to reflect on the deeper meaning, and during all stages of the process this think time was important.

Now it is time to draw a mockup on paper. Modify, improve, refine and minimise text, maximise the ability of the images to tell the story, can I use a metaphor? Now do a proper copy on bleedproof paper with black felt tip pens.

So now I have two comic A4 pages. Pretty good.

But because I have been playing with moviemaker I wondered how successful using static pictures might be in a movie. Digital Storytelling techniques suggest using autobiographical stories and voice overs to go with photos - but can it apply to comics as well? The voice overs connect directly to the uniqueness and the emotions of the person and their experience and helps the story connect with the audience - creating a sense of empathy and causing them to reflect on their own stories.

My husband has been playing around with crazytalk which takes static pictures of people and enables you to animate the face and put in lip synch as you do a voice over. So I drew a cartoon especially to try that. And then I put all the comic pics and the crazytalk movie into movie maker for editting and voice over.

I can just imagine student potraiture art work animated to tell their stories.

I really enjoyed the process, and it helped me reflect on my whole experience of my missed graduation day. So it was useful as personal therapy but does it have a wider audience? Can telling our personal stories in such a way touch others? You decide....

Become an instant film-maker with Machinima!

2007-08-11T17:26:00.000+10:00

I played my first real computer game last weekend and I admit to becoming addicted. I had to get to my goal, to master what I was doing.... running, running.... meeting my mission...

I had several goals:

1. to immerse myself into a game world(Neverwinter Nights - which is a platform for students to make their own games) and understand what it is all about and get familiar with the controls and options

2. start deconstructing it in terms of its story narrative, and game writing techniques (such as creating plot lines, working out the story spine, understanding how they used "breadcrumbs" and "funnelling" to keep me on track) - all terms I have discovered in my reading of game writing techniques

3. start deconstructing it from an archetypal heroic journey point of view and see the potential for student learning

And of course, as usual one's goals get sidetracked, because then my husband showed me some machinima (movies made from video games). These ones were made using Neverwinter Nights - called Neverending Nights .... and I wanted to make my own movie. So I did.

It took me 3 hours to capture all the shots I wanted from my game using FRAPPS (overcoming serious co-ordination problems - managing camera and trying to play at the same time), and then I put them in Movie Maker for editing.

I didn't really have an idea for a story when I started, I just experimented with how I could move my camera and film the real live action. I was able to get close ups, and pull the camera back with the character as she was running (without needing the railway track that real cameras use). I could do great camera twirling shots around the character. So very quickly I had access to some great cinematography tools.

I went into one room in the game again and again, taking shots of the dramatic action from different angles, getting killed again and again. I worked out that it would help if I saved the game just before I opened this door. Using Movie Maker I could then split and trim scenes, cutting from one angle to another. It taught me so much about visual aspects of movie making. And my character didn't complain about her multiple deaths... and in fact I decided to make this the story.

I learnt so much from doing this...

Not just technical aspects which I am still trying to master... turning off the menus on the screen and how to do audio with voice and sound.... and how to use several characters.

But what I really learnt was the excitement from creating your own product... the thinking and problem solving that goes into it... the fact that the story can emerge... that this platform is an easy entrance into film making.... and students will then be able to progress into creating their own worlds for their own stories... but first let them play and see what is possible before moving into project management and storyboarding and game programming.

Want to see my movies? I have to admit to dragging all my relatives over so they could see them!

The movies:

Never Dying Nights - Episode 1 - I Hate Mondays
Never Dying Nights - Episode 2 - Deja Vu

If I have time I would like to continue the evolving story, each time adding a new skill - eg. music, multiple characters, and documenting what it is like doing this. Hmmm.

Meanwhile, I have worked out my psychology based on how I play games - definately a manager and also a participant... not much of a wanderer once I have been given a mission - too task oriented!

Writing Game Narrative - a path to self awareness?

2007-08-11T16:37:00.001+10:00

After reading Game Narrative Writing Skills for Video Games, I am excited at the potential for student learning...

Not only does game writing introduce students to understanding player psychology and developing self-awareness of themselves as a player, it can help them deconstruct popular culture - movies as well as games, and how they might be manipulated. This is not just something for IT teachers to do in their electromagnetically pulsating computer labs - it could be a way of assisting boys in exploring literacy through a culture which has 75% of them engaged.

So now, think Hollywood. Game writers use the "story arc" notion as the "spine" of the game - the "high level" story, which moves the plot forward. The player creates their own experience or story in playing the game - the "intermediate story". (Some game genres don't have stories).

The heroic journey is an archetypal game genre which follows along the line of Joseph Campbell's notion of the hero's journey. These games use archetypes such as the hero, the threshold demon, the mentor, the herald, the trickster, the shapeshifter and the shadow/nemesis.

Game writers choose main characters which have qualities that appeal to their audience - noble, mulit-dimensional, intriguing... or even anti-heroic. Missions (and often killing) are justified to save others.

A dramatic tension is set up by asking the question "Will the hero get the goal?" and rising tension mounts as conflicts arise, the hero has to develop abilities, suffer plot reversals, before the major climax of hero vs nemesis. Then there is the resolution...

The game narrative book does a great analysis of Stars Wars Ep IV and how it follows this story arc.

Educational researcher, Keiran Egan, suggests that a key into learning for 7 to 15 year olds is through a Romantic way of learning - using story, heroes and villains, transformational journeys, looking at the edges of what is possible, enabling depth.

It seems that many game genres are using these learning tools in engaging students. We see it in how they immerse themselves into a game world and come to know everything about it. As educators how can we value add this experience, and help students deconstruct it?

Perhaps by getting in and becoming a game writer these things can be revealed... you are no longer a game player being played by the writers, but rather thinking about how you might engage others as players.

Writing game stories - who is the audience?

2007-08-11T15:17:00.000+10:00

In the last two weeks I have been on a huge learning curve....

It all started when my husband asked me if I could work with some students on developing narratives for games. He is currently teaching 2 Year 11/12 classes where students are developing games.

I'm a journalist teacher, right. I know how to tell a story. But do game stories follow the same sort of ideas? Well I started reading a couple of books:

21st century game design - Chris Bateman, Richard Boon

Game Writing Narrative Skills for Video Games - editor Chris Bateman

And they were fascinating. First, game writing depends on who the audience is. And the games industry really know their audience... they have worked out there are four distinct Myer-Briggs categories which describe the different temperaments of players -

the conqueror - competitive, real time action, focussed on plot events (missions), wants rapid advancement - level ups, fiero, winning

the manager - strategy, game process - improvement in capacity to play the game, finesse, intrigued by plot issues - political/socio issues, time to think

the participant - role playing, narrative, characters - their relationships and perpsectives, multi-player, empathic, diplomatic, wants to interact with story and change it

the wanderer - mimics, explores, wants new toys and fun things to do, unsettled by conflict - turned off if too hard, flat worlds, interested in characters and wants to identify with them

The aim of game design is to help the player find the flow state... not too challenging and not too boring... and it is different for each temperament. Different game genres target the different temperaments with different emphasis on story, characters, open or closed plot lines.

Hmmm. Next post I will talk about game narrative....

Looking for opportunities in topics for the tools for self-understanding

2006-10-22T07:54:00.000+11:00

I have just gone through a couple of weeks where students have been debriefing their experience and learning of an authentic task - the making of the college yearbook. Now we are onto to the next task... the launch of the yearbook.

So let's come up with an advertising campaign. What things could we do, what teasers could we use, what slogans for posters? We have a lesson of brainstorming. Then it is the weekend and I sleep on it. I begin to unpack the sort of excitable responses the students have made. I realise that I could now give them a little theory on advertising - look at the ploys used and ask them whether it is ethical. Usually I would do this at the beginning of the year, but producing an on-line magazine hasn't really required this.

I email my students a teaser for the following lesson... what ploys do you think you were using in coming up with advertising strategies (I give them a list to look at) and do you think it is ethical to use them?

Then I sleep on it. I remember their earlier debriefing where they unpacked what they learnt or who they felt they had become as a result of the yearbook project. Self-reflection is limited by the conceptual frameworks we are using. Perhaps my role is to help expand these frameworks... to help students build up their meta-language, to enable them to better unpack their behaviours and barriers. Perhaps I can also help them name some of the barriers they experienced which prevented them from participating in the project more effectively - so many of them have self-esteem issues, deeper fears or inhibitions and are struggling to self-actualize.

Hmmm. I now look again at my approach to advertising. Really, I have just been looking at the surface, but can I link this more deeply to ourselves, our development and our own needs? Can I help students develop a meta-language to explain their own self-science?

I now create a worksheet where I introduce Maslow's Needs Heirarchy and summarize Stage Development. On the back are a list of advertising ploys and I have added "cost benefit selling" - which is about selling how the product meets a person's need rather than selling the features of the product.

So it is time for class. We discuss emotional manipulation and what manipulation techniques (advertising ploys) they use with friends, family or teachers. Yes, using guilt is a preferred modus operandus! We brainstorm all the McDonald ads curently on TV - about 10 different ones - and unpack which of Maslow's needs they are targetting - and it becomes evident McDonalds are targetting every need!!! Students are a little astonished.

Later in the class, one girl wants people to go do something for her, she uses sighs, "you don't really care for me... if you did you would do this for me..." It is her standard way of manipulating people in the class. But no one is buying this time. I say cheerily, "Are you trying to use guilt, to make me do this? Now, is that ethical?" She looks at me a little taken aback.

So perhaps it starts... we have a language now to start naming behaviours and start discussing where we might be stuck. But I have only three more lessons to go until the end of the year. A bit too late really. Who might follow this up with these students?

It occurs to me that there is now room to make this more explicit in our development of the new curriculum framework of four learning elements. Perhaps in the learning element which relates to student development/personal pathways/wellbeing we should be asking what meta-languages might help students examine self, their self-development and their behaviours? There are a number of models. If we teachers could knowingly (and perhaps consistently) draw on them, and look for how they might tie in with particular topics or activities then we can build this into our courses, rather than seeing it as something separate.

For all my students, this was their first time that they were exposed to the Maslow's needs heirarchy or a theory of stage development... or even challenged to name behaviours. Don't we really care about emotional intelligence? If we did, we would be strategically incorporating its development into our teaching goals. (and am I now the one playing the guilt card?)

The transformative yearbook

2006-10-15T12:24:00.000+11:00

I am continuing to debrief the making of an integral, soulful yearbook (see previous posts)... now I wish to unpeel the metpahors behind what we are doing...

When we are located in the curriculum metaphor - curriculum as content to be delivered - then the yearbook is likely to reflect achievement of gaining that content or skills.

When we are situated in the curriculum metaphor - curriculum as experience or currere - then the yearbook is an opportunity to reflect on where we have come from and where we are going - a more personal as well as collective journey.... with more emphasis on process rather than product... and a greater emphasis on who we have become as a result of that process, rather than what we have done.

So what are the transformational aspects and opportunities of the yearbook? Transformation can refer to changes in cognitive frameworks or changes in ego or other development lines. Kegan (The Evolving Self: Problems and Process in Human Development, 1982) suggests that as we move from one ego stage to another, what owns us in the previous stage becomes something that we can see and name and disengage from. We are able to play with it and thus try on new roles in moving to the next ego stage.

So an example for our students in a socialised ego stage is that of mindlessly buying into student sub-cultures and being subject to peer pressure. Perhaps in moving out of this stage to more self-authoring one, where there is a sense of self-confidence in one's individuality, one needs to be able to name what has been "owning" one.

So part of a rite of passage is telling the stories of who we are/were, dis-identifying with them and thus being able to move on.

So the creation of the yearbook can be an opportunity for the participants to engage in this process, as well as something which might create praxis in others - help them be more playful about who they are and what they might be buying into. It could be something which allows students to both celebrate their journeys as well as shed some aspects of the self which took those journeys. It becomes then for the reader a cultural snapshot of that time when I "believed this" and "was this".

We produced a comic page called LOST which is all about identity crisis ... Who am I? Where do I belong? The main character tries on the different roles of student subcultures - nerds, jocks, musos, tenny-boopper plastics, goths... only to decide to be herself, realising that it might take a lifetime to work out what that is.

Was the very collaborative process of visioning this, photographing it and then coming up with the words a process of a transformation for my class? We had certainly talked about sub-cultures previously but I suspect that creating this product/performance about them embodies the learning... starts to speak to the deeper unconscious. It is more than just a critical analysis.

Will the readers experience something as well... will it sow seeds? Will they shrug it off because they have already been there, done that? Who knows, but hey it is fun thinking about the deeper potential of what we are doing as teachers.

And what could be in a yearbook that might illuminate the process of moving from the self-authoring stage to the next one which is more about plurality, care and meaning? Perhaps we already have exemplified this in the very process of creating it? Is it invisible to the reader and do we need to make it visible? Perhaps there is a role for The making of the yearbook which unpacks the dilemmas my students had to face and helps the reader to take this journey as well... but in our debriefing we are not quite there yet... perhaps part of transformation is not trying to take students through stages too quickly. We need to sit and live with what we have learnt for a while.

The soulful yearbook

2006-10-15T07:59:00.000+11:00

Continuing my debriefing of the production of an integral yearbook...

When I took over the journalism class in April this year, I didn't know that it had been a tradition that the class was responsible for doing the yearbook. I had been there and done that! I was hoping to take the students on a different journey. When I looked at the College's massive yearbooks of the last few years (80 to 100 pages) I felt the energy drain out of me. I felt mindless. A suppression of my soul. It looked so tedious. I wondered where the learning was for the students in collecting all the material... where was the journalism?

Not that many of my students were interested in being journalists. Why were they in this class then? What sort of experiences would help and support their own growth... help lighten the dark spaces...? (and believe me many of them had major issues - soul suppression, no sense of passion, depression, insecurity, drugs). I sat down and wondered about the potential of the yearbook for supporting healthy human development - there's and mine!

Hendersson and Kesson suggest when looking at curriculum that one should bring seven modes of inquiry into play:

Techne – craft reflection – how do we do it?
Poesis – soulful attunement of the creative process – what is whole and beautiful in what we do?
Praxis – critical inquiry – what are the underlying power structures? Whose needs are being served?
Dialogos – multi-perspectival inquiry – different voices, enabling dialogue.
Phronesis – practical, deliberate wisdom - unpacking the reasons behind things.
Polis – public moral inquiry - what are the underpinning values and ethics?
Theoria – contemplative wisdom – what is the purpose of education, what does it mean to vision?

One of the first things that struck me was the concern of poesis. How is this project beautiful? How is it creative? When I first showed students past yearbooks, they like me wilted. I realised that they too needed to do something that was inherently creative - that enabled them to vision... something that might capture their imaginations ... enable them to be revolutionary (most of my students see themselves as 'alternatives' and like to be pushing the edges (though not necessarily their own.) Why put so much time and effort into something if your soul can not be inspired?

My next concern was one of praxis. Whose agendas were we being subject to? What were the power plays going on in the school? Who did a traditional yearbook serve? And as you can imagine, behind the scenes there was the usual political game playing. And I took the students on this journey as well ... helping them see that it just wasn't about creating a magazine based on their own ideas, it had to meet a variety of needs and we were jugglers as well as sellers of our vision.

And then there is dialogus - the dialogue which enables disparate views to come together... to leapfrog off each other, to listen carefully and pull out an essence in what people are saying - to capture that and build on it. We wished to allow student voice in the yearbook - through interviews focussing on students as well as quick vox pops. Every interview gave us new perspectives about the story and the culture of the College - so our initial themes for the yearbook morphed and grew. For example, the pages on "hanging out around college" turned into the theme of friendship - what does friendship mean to you? Pages looking at individual student stories became a theme of following your passion - What is your passion?

So my students are learning how to be ethnographers. For some, this entering into the essence of the 'other' was a key in helping them move away from ego-centricity (from being concerned with the 'I' to being more concerned with the collective). It also helped them become more self-reflective - what were their own values and why and how were they different to others? I saw a growth in ethical sensitivity - Can we really say this? Can we put words into someone's mouth?

When I ask my students what they gained out of this project the first overwhelming feeling is a sense of pride - of being part of something new which they birthed. And then there is the sense of belonging, the people skills, the confidence. I now have only a few weeks until the end of year and I feel that for many of the students this project has opened a door where they are only now ready to learn.... I wish I had another 6 months with them to build on the gains we have made.

For example, one boy wanted to be in control of the graphic design of the book but despite the opportunities I gave him to train in a new publishing program INDESIGN, he preferred to stay safely with what he knew (Photoshop). He and I have subsequently unpacked this - what is it that stops him from learning something new and what are things he hangs back from? How can he name his fears and start to move on? So although he missed out on some aspects of the yearbook, he is now tentatively moving out onto his learning edge in other areas rather than staying safe.

I could have moved on from the task of the yearbook into the next task but I have spent several weeks in various modes of debriefing. I think this is where the learning happens. So perhaps this is the purpose of education - to help students be integral beings, to have integral experiences - to learn to be and to become. To be comfortable in reflecting on themselves and their experiences - to celebrate who they are and to vision where they might want to go. Yes, we have a created a physical product but to see that as all that has been achieved is missing the entire point of education.

But the beauty with a heartfelt project of this kind (one which expresses the soul of the participants) is that it not only works at many different personal levels but also at different layers of the education holon... hopefully it will be sending out ripples beyond our classroom. We hope it might help the students and teachers really see themselves. I hope that it might spark debate about what the purpose of education really is!

Beyond a modernist and postmodernist yearbook?

2006-10-15T07:38:00.000+11:00

The space that I have been in the last 8 weeks has been mad headless chicken mode. Yes, I have been project managing the production of a revolutionary concept of the yearbook for our College. Luckily, before (and now after) that mode I had time to do a little reflecting, or what might have happened would have been less than revolutionary.

Our brief was to bring the yearbook concept into the 21st century and the first response to that
might be looking at the technology ... make it digital... and yes there is a multi-media DVD to go with a print format. But what is different about the 21st century is the sensitivity we now bring - our culture has moved from modernism well and truly into postmodernism and possibly into the beginnings of a more integral view.

Perhaps a modernist yearbook might document student achievement (academic and sport) and have subject reports about what the class did that year. But a postmodernist yearbook is more interested in capturing the essence of experience, giving voice to the participants and celebrating the learning and growth... more interested in the being and becoming, rather than the doing. It captures the mood and the culture. It uses metaphor to tell the story. Through highlighting individual stories it tries to speak to the reader in helping them remember a way of being in order to re-tell their own stories to themselves and each other.

So we have a printed full colour 24 page magazine (instead of the usual 80 - 100 primarily black and white pages) which brings in some of the postmodern sensitivities - consisting of themes and metaphors - the notion of college as a movie, a game, following your passion, meeting challenges, going deep into the heart of you and identity crisis.

Where is the usual stuff? Well some of it is on the DVD... but now the DVD represents far more students and their work with music video clips, videos of the snow trip and the major production, dynamic photostories of classes, events, video class products, podcasts of poetry, radio plays as well as an extensive photo album .... and only a few text based subject stories.

Together they perhaps make an integral yearbook... the doing and the being, the individual and the group. And perhaps in the space in between the soul is to be found!

Assessment - unpacking what lies underneath

2006-08-10T13:33:00.000+10:00

So far I have been reflecting about assessment from a very pragmatic point of view - e.g. how can I help students connect better to the process of assessment and the standards. In doing so I have seen that the assessment standards are not entirely consistent with student development...

So when we write standards are we thinking in terms of a student's natural development? Are we thinking in terms of development lines or intelligences? (ego, psycho-social, multiple intelligences, moral, perspectival, spiritual... there are over 80 different lines listed in Wilber's Integral Psychology!) Or are we thinking in terms of how a task might get harder? And what is the difference?

But wait, there is more. From a spiral dynamic point of view we can see how approaches to assessment might fit into particular cultural worldviews or perspectives...

Blue meme - authority based culture
The teacher gives a final mark based on a system which is largely invisible to the student. It comes out of a culture where truth and objectivity is valued and there is an expectation that truth can be delivered by an authority.

Although in many ways this assessment culture is the least transparent of the ones I am outlining, within this paradigm there is a false belief that assessment is something that can be known.

Orange meme - enterprise based culture
There are some standards and goals which are transparent to both students and teachers - a student can be rated against these fixed standards by themselves, the teacher or their peers.

However while the standards might seem explicit, within them are implicit values - e.g. valuing autonomy, discernment, initiative... Whose values are these and do we agree with them?
And how subjective are the interpretation of these? E.g. discernment could be seen as intelligence and critical thinking when interpreted from an enterprising worldview, or could be interpreted as wisdom (heart/mind/soul) and insight when interpreted from a spiritual point of view.

So although these standards might seem to enable "objective" measurement, they are actually problematic.

Green meme - postmodern/relativistic/inclusive based culture
In this culture one would question the role of assessment - what and who does it serve? What is the point of setting generic goals and standards in the first place?

Here there is an awareness that each student is a unique evolving and unfolding human being and that trying to fit their learning into subject criteria and standards might be partial, misleading (being subject to interpretation) and detrimental to student self-esteem. In this cultural meme, assessment is likely to be designed with the student to fit their own personal goals and experience, being flexible and reflexive as students reflect on their learning and themselves, past, present and future...being and becoming. It may not involve rating against standards but rather involve personal folios and telling one's story in deeply reflective ways leading to self-realisation and transformation.

The problem with this system is how do employers or further training institutions interpret such highly personal forms of assessment.

Integral meme - including and transcending what has gone before - (yellow)

In an integral assessment system it is recognised that all memes have something of value - they each contribute a partial "truth" - they are appropriate at different times and places, each with limitations. So in an integral assessment system, one would be looking at a multi-layered system that could meet the different needs of students, employers, parents and teachers. An integral system would make the limitations of each cultural assessment mode transparent. It would recognize the problematic and unsolvable nature and keep the tensions alive.

Students would be aware of their own very complex development as a human being, as well as their learning of skills, knowledge and attitudes. They would be able to manipulate various "assessment" processes to help them make sense of this journey.

What do you think? What system do you think you are using or would want to use?

How can you help students self-assess across 5 stages?

2006-08-04T07:41:00.000+10:00

We just had the mid-year assessment task for journalism. Students came in to work on a self-assessment. They had to

put together either a digital folder or a paper one,
complete a summary page of what they have done (or is in progress - or which was canned) - products and media reflections, with hyperlinks
answer questions related to each criteria (eg Critieria 1 : Take an example of where you have been involved in communicating with others (team meeting, editing, explaining, interviewing) and discuss what you have done well, not so well and where you could improve for the future.)
rate themseleves for each criteria based on stage level and award of A, B, C - using the huge book of standards as well as my "Journalism - the video game" as guides.

The purpose was to help them reflect on what they had done and learnt in order to act as a leaping off point for the rest of the year. So rather than providing examples which might have "demonstrated" understanding, I was looking at them taking examples of what they had done and through their reflection demonstrating understanding.

I was extremely pleased with what resulted. I think the summary sheet was an excellent way of student's realising how much they had done. The criteria reflection yielded many insights and greater commitment to what they need to achieve for the rest of the year. I assisted some students to unpack things which I felt were significant learning moments.

Some student reflections:

Working in teams: "I think that Jescador hasn't quite got it together as a team yet. As we know, computers are taking over the world and we are rapidly replacing face to face communication. There is a lot of communication amongst the students but not all is appropriate....
My role in the team is being sub-editor, and I have decided that I need to get off my butt and get more involved with Management of Jescador and helping to organize other students in the class."

Solving Problems: "One of the biggest problems I have faced in journalism this year was the time I took to complete one of my articles and it was long overdue. I solved this problem by sending it home via email so I could work on it at home giving myself a firm deadline. From that experience I learnt that I work a lot harder when I am pressed for time and deadlines are due."

Critically appraising work: "I think that for this criterion I need to be more factual and less opiniated to produce a succesful article."

Although there are 10 criteria in the course I gave students the option of how many to reflect on... if they thought they were Stage 3 they could reflect on only 4 criteria, 7 for Stage 4 and all 10 for Stage 5. I did this because I felt that as one increased in stages we would expect a greater reflectivity and ability to articulate.

Then after reflecting on the criteria students rated themselves for each criteria against the standards. Some just guessed and some tried to do it carefully. Most were in the ball park of what I might determine for them... some I worked with them in helping them to rate themselves.

However, I have one boy whose reflection does not come up to the standard he has given himself. I am thinking that I need to go back to him now and give him an opportunity orally to justify his understanding.... he is in the class as a photojournalist. I gave the students the option of writing their reflections or recording it, and I think in future I will suggest this might be the better option for him. As with another boy, I also imagine that he can reflect well if interviewed. So does self-authoring self-reflection indicate a higher standard, or just a particular skill that I need to help students to build?

Another interesting thing... Rather than saying "I am at this stage and I am assesing myself only at one stage level" when students rated themselves for each criteria they moved across stages - so they might give themselves a stage 3 B for teamwork but stage 4 B in producing products. With the online stuff we are doing - most are operating at Stage 4/5 in the technology criteria. Given the breadth of the criteria and the implicit learning styles or multiple intelligences which underpin each criteria I think it is not unusual that students might be spread out across the stages. I also think that giving them a multiple stage profile is far more productive for them in seeing where exactly they need to go to improve rather than just rating them at one stage.

I also believe that the Journalism as a video game metaphor that I have used to explain the nature of the stages was very useful in helping them to see the stages in a way that makes sense, rather than trying to understand the very confusing standards book. I know that it has helped me in freeing myself to percieve the criteria and standards in a new way.

So in summary I am really pleased with how this went - this really was assessment as learning as well as assessment for learning (diagnosis) and assessment of learning (summative). The bummer now is chasing up those students who didn't turn up and ensuring they too go through the process.

Just in time teaching

2006-07-25T07:33:00.000+10:00

I was reading an article about how a school might look like with personalised learning and a time-table suited to match. To support student independent learning they use a lot of on-line learning and make time for teachers to design resources. Students then access these in their own time, when they need it. It made me think about how I have been using just-in-time learning in journalism and the role of technology. How might it change from teacher in control of the learning to student in control?

One aspect of Holisitic Education is the notion of learning for the present as well as for a distant future. So enterprises, like producing a magazine, are wonderful for creating reasons for students to learn just now - either just-in-time skills to help them do a task, or just-too-late when they might have made mistakes - they have debriefing, learn from that what to do next time and/or discover the need for training.

So if some students were wanting to get advertisers I might suggest a training session which I run beforehand to learn the principles of cost-benefit selling and to do some role plays... or they might want to be gung ho and go out there without training, and very likely come back with no advertisers. After such "failure" or meeting obstacles they are ripe for learning and realise that they need it. I find often that a few experiences of just-too-late are far better in helping students be independent learners - they begin to look for the training they need, rather than me pre-empting and dishing it out for them.

So here I am - the trainer in the classroom... but with the availability of on-line tutorials, screen casts and training CDs now, the student has access to a more diverse and more readily available training resources.

But how do they know where to look and what to ask for? So I am still working on how to give them an expectation to look for something themselves and know where to look.... and to learn to ask people in the class who might have done it before. And googling might not be the most efficient option.

We have a journalism portal with quite a few connections to websites and some on-line training courses - eg BBC journalist site - how to do interviews etc. But the students don't really use this as a resource. I think part of the problem is the lack of graphics which the portal software doesn't allow for - so there is just a list of websites. So I need to find some time to create something with pictures that indicate what the websites can provide and create a culture of going to look here if you need something.

But then students need to experience finding what they need here to keep coming back. So I need to do quite a bit of work vetting potential websites, ensuring they load on our system, and provide quality learning experiences. But I also need to realise that this is just a stepping stone - an exemplar of what they should expect of quality on-line training to help them be more discerning when they google for themselves.

Another issue with the screen casts and tutorials is that students really need ear phones. So I am wondering whether requiring students to have their own ear phones to take to class (and not leave at home) might be part of the new learning culture.... and not seen as not participating in class!

Meanwhile, my new editor Lewis, the game master, asked the IT help services if there was a training CD for Frontpage (so he can edit the on-line magazine and learn new tricks) and organized his own training without any indication to me. He knew what he needed and where to get it.

My students will soon be doing a midyear reflection on the journalism criteria - and working out what level of the journalism game they want to be assessed at. I think it is a good opportunity to ask them where they think they need more training - in journalism skills, using technology, management....

How can I do this much sooner in this course?

Creativity as an intrinsic motivator

2006-07-20T16:34:00.000+10:00

I have been talking about how learning something new can be a creative experience... we are creating new meaning and insight which gives a sense of achievement, pleasure and is intrinsically motivating. But where does this fit into the whole spectrum of creativity?

Carlisle Bergquist has synthesized the research into creativity by saying we can consider it as four stages:

1. Necessity – a natural learning process of the child – they are not aware they are doing it and it occurs as a natural part of the make-meaning process…. Creating new understandings and insights – often as a response to dealing with difference or anomalies.

2. Analytical – self aware and conscious of the process of creativity. Students are actively and consciously creating products, understandings. Creativity can be developed by processes, ways of thinking and seeing, and metacognitive tools.

3. Synthesizing-innovation – individual opens up to the process and allows - incubation, living the problem, passionate attunement.

4. Connection with larger reality – a transformed consciousness which experiences the creative expression of the world.
and I will add one of my own...
5. the creative transformation or evolution of self - perhaps the ultimate in creative endeavor is to create self.

What might it be like to activate all these aspects of creativity for our students?

In my journalism class I have some students bubbling with energy - on a high from the creative process - the sense of creating a new article, getting the words and the graphics right, expressing what they want to get across in a creative way. When it is going well they seem to be in the flow, in control, and their eyes shine.

But this is only one sort of creativity. My physics students experienced another sort - the make their own meaning and insights kind.

It is interesting that in my PhD studies I am using a research methodology called writing as inquiry. Basically, through the writing process itself, you reflect and through that reflection you make new insights and the writing changes as you change. It is hard keeping the same tone throughout. Yes, writing is creative, not just in the sense of creating a product and expressing something you want to express - it is also learning in the NOW... insight making... and it is also transformative and self creating.

Can I help my journalism students then be creative in not just in creation of a product but also in personal meaning making and insight, perhaps leading to creation of new selves? It is interesting that the higher stages of the journalism syllabus require the student to make clear arguments and to keep their tone all the way throughout an article. These standards are coming from a value system which I think is modernist - authoritarian / monological style of writing - it is what we might value in an essay. It is about marshalling the facts, ordering them to construct the readers understanding. There is no room for emergence, rather one writes after one has already gained the understanding.

Yet postmodern research writing methods have shied away from the academic essay notions - moving to much more emergent, eclectic, self-reflexive, dialogical, open ended, problematic (based around dialectics) genres which take into account the reader's learning and being - enabling them to make their own insights rather than being inexorably drawn into a conclusion. I value these genres. I have experienced the capacity for personal transformation as well as creative insight making and expression. I wonder how I can help my journalism students experience this as well.

And they want to. Bo, my editor already has recognised that the nature of journalistic writing is changing becuase of the advent of blogs - there is an openness in one's ways of writing in this reflective diarying. There is an invitation to the reader to participate... it is becoming more multi-perspective... moving towards open space technology (and that will have to be another post!).

So how can I be using all this to create a fully creative classroom. And wouldn't that be a class that you would love to be in?

Yes, I, the teacher, have such wonderful opportunities to exercise my creativity. When I haven't experienced it for a while I tend to forget how full of energy I get, propelled forward by the excitement of it all... the creative classroom is about me being in the Zone! It is my very own computer game!

Intrinsic versus Extrinsic motivation

2006-07-20T15:33:00.000+10:00

Last night a teacher described to me what happened in a physics class that he was taking as a relief teacher. A boy was playing a game on his mobile phone instead of doing his worksheet on physics problems. The teacher came up to him and gave him a motivational talk - reminded him of his aims, and basically sold the benefits of doing the worksheet in terms of how it would help him meet his aims (to pass physics and enable him to be an engineer.) The boy later on said to the teacher how much he appreciated being put on track again, rather than wasting time.

That is extrinsic motivation. Have a distant goal and a plan of how to get there. It is very valuable for our students to have goals, to be helped to see and clarify goals, and sometimes to be reminded of them...

However.... why was he playing games? Was he bored? Why wasn't he intrinsically interested in what he was supposed to be doing?

It is interesting that one principle of holistic schools according to Scott Forbes is that education should be for the present - not just for a distant future.... it needs to be intrinsically important NOW. So what does that mean?

To continue my theme on learning through computer games, it seems that the Zone that students get into is about NOW learning. I guess I have usually thought of NOW learning in terms of learning a skill which we will use right away. But I am now thinking it is something more - a process, a state of being - a place of creatively making connections, seeing patterns and rules and having insights. It is a state of dynamism and excitement, can be fuelled by curiosity (a desire to know something), or a desire to achieve something.

I remember back to my own teaching of physics in the latter part of the 90's. Very rarely would a student be off task (and if so it was usually because of a major calamity in their life). Students were engaged fully, even to the extent that they would come to class early, stay late, and continue discussing physics ideas into their next classes. They were curious and motivated. I had worked on improving their scientific and inclusive discourse skills and they loved teasing out ideas, critiquing theories and coming up with their own. Yes, they were hooked on the continued insights they were making.

So what is different about my physics class to the one with the bored, off task boy? Well if you are doing worksheets which always start with an easy problem and gradually construct understanding bit by bit, there is really nowhere for the student to participate in the creation of ideas and insight. What sort of approach then enables students to feel the creativity and buzz of making insights and connections for themselves?

Well I was very interested back then in exploring teaching approaches based on Gregory Bateson's ecology of the mind. He says that we teachers need to avoid making things too linear and connecting everything for our students. He would deliberately mix up the way he facilitated learning - sometimes linear, sometimes complex, sometimes rational, sometimes metaphoric, sometimes dialogical - some aspects which resonated with each other, and some which created dissonance. The aim was to have enough diversity, complexity and feedback (sounds like a real ecosystem) to enable students to create understanding for themselves - to make their own connections, to have their own insights. And aside from the fact that this creates greater sustainability and longevity of understanding it also creates pleasure... because learning something this way is very pleasurable and provides intrinsic motivation.

So while a worksheet which constructs understanding step by step sometimes is useful, it really isn't deep and complex enough to fuel weeks of scientific discourse and exploration. What is?

Now that would giving away too many trade secrets!

Welcome to my new subscribers!

2006-07-20T15:27:00.000+10:00

Welcome to my new readers and I hope you will feel comfortable enough to make comments. I am doing quite a bit of thinking and wondering at the moment... beginning to make connections between issues of teaching my current class - journalism - and issues in teaching maths and physics.

I am not sure where all this wondering will lead and how rigorous and useful my thinking is. I can only get so far through my own navel gazing - I need to hear alternative views and perspectives in order to refine my ideas further.

So please feel free to add your experiences, questions, alternative views to mine... and hopefully I will be able to read your blogs and add my own comments....

Does the game metaphor work with students?

2006-07-19T14:34:00.000+10:00

I just introduced the notion of "Journalism the video game" to my journalism class - introducing them to the levels and the challenges. Most seemed to tune into the metaphor.... value adding it. I am hoping now to use it as a shared story about assessment which I can build on and refer back to. I am feeling very optimistic that this might be a powerful metaphor.

I had a good conversation with the two editors, Lewis and Bo, about it ... they both said they really liked the game metaphor and could identify with it. Lewis talked about his own LAN experiences - he is leader of a "clan" of 20 people around the world in the Warcraft game and he strategises and manages their assaults or invasions. I asked him that if he was already doing that there, then was he being challenged enough here in class and what the next level might be like for him in journalism to keep him in the zone. He said he wished Journalism could be offered as a pre-tertiary class because he really would like to do it again next year but operating at higher level.

We then started talking about the Jecador online magazine and I asked Lewis if he felt he could get out an issue on Friday. He didn't think so. I say, "well I know of one story already blogged and two just about ready to be blogged." He said, "what... I didn't know that" ... and then he got cross "I went around and asked everyone and I really didn't get any useful response - Rowan said he wasn't working on anything at the moment - he didn't tell me had a story blogged, ready to be connected! Why didn't he tell me? Did he email the link to us and why not!"

"Hmmm," I went, "What do you need to do to ensure Rowan knows what to tell you and when? Did you make it clear what you needed to know? Is it your responsibility as team manager or is it his? How can you make the responsibilities clear? Perhaps this is your current "game challenge" to improve the communication, help people understand their role... you can't get to the next level without mastering this!"

Lewis looked at me nodding his head as if a light bulb had gone off. Had I somehow put it in terms that he could identify with ... making the "challenge" clear and making it worthwhile aiming for... beginning to unpack the hidden rules in organization management? It will be interesting to see how committed he is to mastering this new challenge.

Meanwhile Bo is very interested in the design challenges, deciding to concentrate in this area rather than than management of staff. He still wants to "Mwahahaha change the world" but now through effective design using powerful images. Both Lewis and Bo are reconceptualising the look and technical structure of the magazine to suit these new design considerations. Hopefully they will come to realise that they need to share this vision with the other students in the class and ensure a sense of ownership.

I am well aware that the game metaphor is problematic and simplistic, yet it seems already to be a very useful device for helping students clarify their goals and their strategies.

Being in the zone

2006-07-18T12:55:00.000+10:00

A key aim of games is to keep players in the zone... I would liken this to being in place where you feel you are making new connections and insights. You are both alert and dynamic, while receptive and reflective - fully aroused yin/yang energies. In this place you are creating in every meaning of the word - creating new insights and perspectives, creating products, creating social relationships.... creating a new self.

It is interesting that this series of blogs that I have been writing - four in one day - is very pleasurable. It is about being in the zone... an opportunity for developing layers of meaning making which result in deeper insight and understanding. I am playing a game with no rules nor levels, except the ones I choose to give myself - with my own game goal of trying to go deeper into the heart of things.

Yes, I have spent a bit of time doing it, but I feel it is time well spent. I am alert, interested, excited about going into my class tomorrow... because I know I am now someone else and I am interested in how this person will be.

How can I help my students experience the zone in my classes, to create new selves, and to feel comfortable in helping these new selves explore the world in new ways? How can I help them create game rules for themselves and then throw them away?

Yes, if I have an avatar which reflects who I am as I evolve what would that avatar look like today? Something with wings, perhaps.

Some reflections on journalism as a game

2006-07-18T12:47:00.000+10:00

Now that I have birthed the notion that journalism assessment standards could be linked to game levels, a couple of insights have emerged...

Insight one... have we got our standards wrong?

When you look at the media syllabus standards, you will see that the higher the stage, the greater requirement for autonomy and independence. Yet in the game sphere, the higher the stage the greater the collaboration and the complexity - learning how to deal with inter-dependence.

Interesting. Why do our current standards value independence? Is this a throwback to authoritarian education systems where we value experts and independently held knowledge? What might be new values in our current digital/social age and how might these be better reflected in our standards. Perhaps our current standards don't make sense to our students because they seem to go backwards in skill level rather than evolving in complexity.

Perhaps when we educators value rigor, we are valuing rationality and linearity - whereas students are creating a new type of rigor - socially connected, intuitively sensitive, complexly organised. Hmmm?

Insight 2 - have I understood what level and part of the game my students are playing?

No. And I think I have got it wrong. I wonder now by reconceptualising journalism as a game with levels whether I can be more strategic in seeing my students needs and what challenges might keep them on the edge of the seat engaged at at their learning edge.

Take Bo, the co-editor. He has been bored lately. He hasn't actually written much in terms of journalism articles for Jescador, the student on-line magazine. (Yet, other students are absolutely engaged in following a story and getting it published. ) Why doesn't Bo want to write when he has an aim of wanting to change the world and the media? He has his own blog with 11,200 readers who keep coming back. Yes, it is one genre, one niche audience but he understands what his readers want and is delivering. He has mastered Level 2 of the journlaism game already, prior to even coming to class, albeit within a small aspect of journlistic writing. Should he be aiming to broaden out his skills at this level or move on? I have been trying to get him writing but now these game levels seem to indicate that maybe to engage him I need to introduce higher order challenges for him. How can I build on his skills and use his strong drive to change the world?

Bo moved on pretty quickly from writing articles into managing the graphics/ technology side of the magazine - creating an overall product - putting it together in frontpage and making flash advertising banners. Initially he found that interesting and challenging, and had a lot of pride in his products, but now finds that aspect repetitive with no more new challenges unless he revamps the whole look and the set up.

His next level was taking on a management role of the team, but he just didn't engage with this - he can collect ideas, and lead ideas meetings but doesn't yet have the skills of managing the team, and it didn't help that I was picking up the pieces to make sure people got their stories in. We moved to having two editors, who work together. Lewis is a slick operator, moving around the class, checking what is ready to go in, what the obstacles are and solving problems - exactly what I would expect of an editor. (he has coordinated collaborative LAN games and is extremely capable.)

It is like true leadership is just too far beyond Bo's line of comfortability and by me putting in a co-editor I have reduced the need for Bo to deal with his weakness - Lewis has ended up doing it all rather than them sharing. So Bo is getting fidgety again - he is looking for design challenges elsewhere - like a completely new publication rather than dealing with the issues of the current one in terms of people skills.

So where do I go from here? I am interested in finding out if the game metaphor and story is useful for my students - does it help them get a clearer idea of the levels and what to aim at? Does it give them the motivation to master a level? Will it help Bo to see what he has achieved and what he hasn't - and that to achieve a game Level 6 (Mwaahaaha... I want to change the world) that he needs to ensure he has mastered prior level skills. At the moment he can't really see the importance of management skills to his own goals. Perhaps we need to help students taste the upper levels to give them reasons to go back and flourish the lower ones, integrating more basic skills with higher picture thinking?

This makes me really wonder about how to conceptualise assessment so it really is assessment as learning, as well as for and of learning.

I will keep you posted...

Journalism - the video game!

2006-07-18T10:23:00.000+10:00

Yes, this exciting and challenging game is out now!

The goals are clear – get as many readers as you can, try to write what you want and try to change the world. Now - if only it was that simple… because as we know, each level has its own challenges and the goals and the goal posts keep changing.

This is a game that will take more than 150 hours to master with over 21 different levels carefully tailored to keep you on the edge of your seat wanting more. Let me tell you about the first few levels and the challenges to expect…

Level 1 – your aim is to get an online presence where you write your first blog and get your first readers. You get points based on the number of people who read what you write. There is a bit of technology to master but you have a game mentor who can help and if you tune into the game network you will find plenty of other players who can be a guide. (of course they get extra points for helping). Your biggest challenges might be overcoming a fear of making your writing public, finding something worth writing about, or interviewing someone you don’t know.

Level 2 – it is now not just enough to get reader numbers, points are awarded on how many comments you get and the type of comments. If you are writing articles which are biased, poorly informed, derogatory, hard to read then you will get some pretty negative comments and this is not good for your score. But don’t worry, your game mentor can guide you to a toolkit of journalistic writing and research skills which you will continue to master up the levels. You can use your readership numbers and comments to experiment in finding what works and what doesn’t, how to generate conversations with your readers and how to keep them coming back. You will be searching for interesting ways to present your ideas using technologies such as podcasting, photostories and flash.

Level 3 – At this level you now get greater points for beginning to make a difference to the world around you… how does your writing and graphics change readers opinions and actions? You will probably now find yourself writing about more sensitive social issues – things which you believe are important to you and your readers. And as a result you will have stirred up the censorship police - a major obstacle to overcome before you can move to level 4.

You can choose many different ways to beat the police – ignore them, kill them (they get resurrected) – but these won’t work. I don’t want to give the game away, but the key here is finding allies, collaborating with other players and coming up with a solid group presence which you can use to negotiate with the censorship police. You will have to understand their deep issues and the system constraints and come up with solutions. You might have to find compromises where you can’t write exactly what you want – but you get extra points for creatively finding ways of doing so within the agreed codes of practice.

Level 4 – now you are part of a journalism team, you have to come up with agreed team goals – you are not just writing what you want, but your writing is informed by a team vision. You are working under team guidelines and ethical codes of practice. You get points for acting responsibly, helping others, and meeting team targets. The whole team gets bonuses when reader numbers and satisfaction go up. You get bonus points if any of your published articles create a difference. Your biggest challenges are staying motivated now you are part of an organization, finding out the rules, trying on different team roles and working your way to the top.

Level 5 – to move to level five you have to take on a team leadership role. Here you get points for co-ordinating aspects of the whole magazine, ensuring a common team vision, and balancing a cohesive team vision with individual visions so that the team is functioning well and happily. Your aim is to help the whole team grow as people as well as journalists. Your own leadership vision of what the magazine is and what it is for can now infuse others and you will get points for the impact the whole magazine has on your social environment. Your major challenges are to tactfully and ethically manage people – dealing with slackness, inappropriate writing, incompetence…

Level 6 upwards – this is where you are deliberately shaping the social world that you are in as a result of your magazine, or growing media conglomerate – influencing policy, changing perceptions and people’s actions. You are a considerable influence in your immediate and global sphere. You are being challenged now to develop a big picture view of social structures, political structures and major issues. Now that you are a big player in world decision making you need to find strategies to deal with so much information, so many different people, so many different perspectives and find ways of complexity management.

You also need to predict the consequences of what you publish and how it might impact on the global situation. So while now you have more and more power to publish what you want, you are faced with the challenges of the ethical implications … good intentions are not enough and you have to learn to deal with the complex ethical minefields – it isn’t just “right versus wrong”, but “right versus right.” You get points for positive transformation of the world… helping all its citizens to evolve appropriately.

Level 21 – jumping right ahead – who can you expect to be when you reach level 21, one of the higher levels of the game? You now have a global and cosmic consciousness – you are so in tune with the world, spiritually and ethically that intuitively you know what to say and do for the most positive transformation of the whole system. You can work on any level in the system to do what is needed using all the skills at hand. What you want to say is what the system needs to say and what the system needs to hear. It is no longer about getting readership numbers; it is about impact, time-lineness and deep listening. At this level the good player knows that in listening to what is needed to change in self, they will have the key to changing the world.

So that is a little taste of Journalism – the video game. Want to play?

Can I sell assessment by using a game metaphor?

2006-07-18T09:54:00.000+10:00

I have been continuing to read Prensky about the role of video games in students lives and the implications for education.

Prensky describes facets of games -

the role of levels which enable players to learn basic skills through doing; moving into greater complexity and collaboration.
the role of game mentors who give players help, training and resources when needed.
the role of AI which adapts to students learning - understanding their strengths and weaknesses and providing support while at the same time gently moving players into their uncomfort zones.... deliberately with-holding stuff they might need.
And the learning zone - this is the zone that is just the right amount of engagment - enough challenge, enough rewards, enough learning edge, enough complexity - and when you are in it you are feeling good because all the right endorphins are running to your head!

Ok, now I believe in Holistic Education... so where do video game metaphors come into soul based, connected, transformational learning? Well if video games are where a lot of kids are at, maybe entering into that metaphor and then value adding it with soul might prove interesting.

Anyway, I slept on it and I woke up this morning wondering if I could design a journalism game. Or whether in fact my journalism class was already a game, but perhaps I needed to make it clearer to the students.

The media syllabi have been rewritten in the last couple of years, moving from a one level course with 10 criteria to a course which can be assessed at 5 stages of 10 criteria with A, B, C, t standards in each - 150 different standards. I found it really hard getting my head around it all and the students found it quite inaccessible. How do they know what stage they are at, and at what ranking? I am keen for self assessment but the documents are so unweldy... a thick book, dense text, teacher jargon. And with this new syllbus I have found myself moving back into being the arbitrator, whereas my classes in the late 90's were based on student self-assessment and setting their own targets and seeing how they were reaching them.

So now I am wondering if I can perhaps get across the standards and stages using the video game metaphor - because after all many students are used to games with up 50 or more levels and are used to debriefing forums where they discuss the hidden rules of the levels. They are motivated to do so because they really want to master that next level. But in journalism there isn't that motivation. The notion of attaining Stage 4 versus Stage 3 has no real point for quite a few of my students who are doing journalism as an experience. Why not? How can I tap into the strong drive that students have to master game levels as well as tapping into their skills for game reflection?

I will continue to think about it. Meanwhile I have written for my students a game advertisement for journalism which might help them to see how the stages unfold and why perhaps it is good idea to move up the stages. Yes I have made individual competences into a story. See the next post. What do you think?

On-line censorship - know your product

2006-07-16T08:27:00.000+10:00

In Jescador, our on-line magazine, there has been a vox pop on "what do you like about sex?".... a gay advice column called "poofters and dykes" and a girl describing a bad drug trip....

Some teachers have been concerned...

"students shouldn't be giving advice - they are not trained counsellors"

The student hosting the gay advice column runs a support group for gay teenagers dealing with "coming out" issues which meets monthly at a coffee shop in town. Another student wants to write about Depression and where you can go on the net for help....
What checks and balances might you put in place? When might it be appropriate for students to give advice to others? Peer mentors? What training might they need?

"What image of the school are we projecting? The students need to understand they are writing for an audience, not for themselves!"

The students see the audience as a College student audience, not a parent audience, prospective student or teacher one. They have done detailed thinking on the market segments of their audience - different subcultures, their interests and needs and are writing articles based on that. But should they take into account the greater audience?

"The College intra-net should have a PG rating. Prospective students could see the contents of the intra-net."

All our College students are over 15 and have moved from a PG rating into M (and even MA and R) in their own reading and viewing. They are looking for articles which reflect their maturity. What rating is suitable for the College (16 to 18 plus) age group? Should the intra-net of a College reflect the age of students?"

It is now available for the whole world to see - what message are we telling the world?

While the Jescador magazine is on our intra-net and not available for outside viewing, the blogs where students write their stories are visible on the wider net - so if you google search key words a student blog may come up.

In teaching journalism one always comes up against issues of censorship when students are producing magazines for an audience of their peers. They want to cover social issues - sex, drugs and rock and roll. They want to cover issues happening at school, highlighting injustices. Some want to give advice to other students. Some want to voice their own opinions.

Their experience of doing journalism brings a greater awareness of responsibility in what and how one reports ... greater balance, checking facts, aware of the ramifications... but until these lessons have been learnt what happens? Can we allow students to put out their products to the world in imperfect states?

When doing a print magazine there usually are quite a few checks - it can't be printed until all the articles are in and editted (though mistakes still get through), there is a limited print run, and soon it is in the bin. Out of sight and out of mind. And sometimes a magazine gets banned.

But with our online magazine it is a lot easier for individual students to get something out there quickly in blogland without checks. All the articles stay on-line unless we pull them. It has taken a bit of time to put team structures and thinking in place which teases out issues of quality, plagiarism, censorship, ethics, audience, aims of the magazine... and in the meantime what is happening?

Just last week my two editors presented a powerpoint to the principal to address the concerns of teachers.... stating clearly the team goals, their notion of where the censorship line is and how they will place M warnings on articles which they think deserve it, their complaint procedure and what their quality control process is. They did it with comittment and passion and careful arguments. It was based on experience... they had already canned one article which looked at music lyrics on drug themes, saying it was poorly written, self indulgent, with an ambiguous message.

But it has taken us a four months to get to this point. And in that time we have had 10 issues of Jescador.

READ HERE... The thoughts of the co-editor of Jescador on Freedom of Speech

Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants

2006-07-15T15:39:00.000+10:00

I am just reading a book "Don't bother me Mom - I'm learning" by Marc Prensky. Not a book that I would normally read - one of my husband's sitting on the coffee table ... but once I got started I was hooked by its easy conversational prose.

It is about this new digital generation of students (the digital natives) and how interactive learning in video games or on the net is now their preferred way of learning - it is complex, multi-tasking, fast paced - and in comparison normal learning delivered by us teachers (the digital immigrants) is BORING and unchallenging.

How do you know if you are a digital immigrant? Do this checklist... and see how thick your accent is... (Marc's term)

Printing out your email (getting your secretary to print it out is worse.)
Turning to the internet for information second rather than first
Reading the manual for a program rather than assuming the program will teach you how to use it.
Needing to print out a document written on a computer to edit it, rather than editting it on the screen.
Thinking that real life happens only off line!

Hmmm. I didn't do too well. I remember suggesting to a journalism student to print out her article so the sub-editor could read it. She just looked at me as if I had said something stupid. Yes, even though students might be sitting in the same room they have a chat link going with each other, sending stories and pictures via email and then letting the other person know by chat that it has been sent. The story is editted and sent back with no verbal conversation taking place.

I remember asking the editor to help another student once and nothing happened. He was sitting in his seat and the other student in theirs. I said "Come on Bo - Rowan really needs your help." Rowan then says, all done, all fixed. I was astonished - it was all done over chat. Yes, it is hard feeling like a dinasaur. I need to start learning this new language.

Marc Prensky says there becomes a problem when "digital immigrants" are teaching "digital natives" - the thick accent gets in the way of learning. The natives are used to receiving information more quickly than immigrants are able to dispense it, they prefer to be networked rather than working alone, prefer graphics before text, and prefer to pull random things together for themselves rather than it be ordered. They also thrive on instant gratification and rewards (moving to a new level).

Well at least we have a system of high fives and little dances when people post a new blog story... and the immediate feedback from the reader counter going up!

Empowering students

2006-07-09T08:56:00.000+10:00

I want to empower my students in my current journalism class but I am faced with different conditions than I have been accustomed to as a result of the increasing level of technologies. I want to move from being too teacher directed to student directed. Not only is the technology hampering this devolvement of power, but many of my students seem to have less get up and go than my previous journalism classes.

Have they been socialised by our curriculum? Is it easier to sit and listen to a teacher talking, or be part of a discussion group than have to commit to completing something for the good of the whole team? Are they mature enough? Development wise they should be well and truly moving from the ego development stage of socialised mind to self-authoring mind. What does it mean to help this transition?

One girl said to me yesterday that this was her hardest class (even though her other classes are pre-tertiaries). Why? Because she is not required in her other classes to produce products in class.

I month ago I introduced students to the DISC model of different management styles - D for Directive and leading, I - for influencing and ideas, S - for stabilising and ensuring needs of the team are being met, C - for conscientious and getting the work done as directed. I suggested that each of us had a profile where we might be stronger in some areas than others.

Only two students said that they considered themselves as Directive and indeed they were natural leaders who I had used to run sessions and take the whiteboard pen. One student considered herself Influential - she came up with lots of ideas but unfortunately never stayed still enough to see them through. About four students identified themselves with Conscientious. There were no people who considered themselves as team builders. So where were the rest? Spread across? No, they suggested we should have fifth category - B for bludgers!

Yes I have my work cut out for me now, because I believe that one of my teaching roles should be that of assisting student transformation as well as their flourishing. How can I help them mature from socialised mind to self authoring mind to the next level - plural mind?

Here are some comments by my 1998 journalism students who I asked to reflect at the end of the year how their notion of empowerment had changed as a result of the course...

I think for me, at the start of the year, that empowerment basically meant honouring the right to free speech and being able to follow your own truths while everybody realises that you have a right to do so. Now, I have also realised that by empowering yourself you are given the power to influence others through your own example. I think that influencing others is a power I have really developed over the last 18 months, because now more than ever I am willing to accept my own personality (good and bad) and become more self-aware. I would not have been able to embrace my own individuality without the freedom to do as I like – the freedom you have given us in this class.

At first I thought that empowerment was a feeling of nirvana, euphoria, absolute bliss. That being empowered meant being happy with one’s self. I now think that empowerment is the ability to make others feel this way.

For me, being confident in who I am and what I live for is followed by a sense of direction and empowerment. There are different sources of empowerment for everyone. Bad stuff is going to happen to us and it is how we deal with it and overcome it that will determine to what extent it affects us. The more empowered you are the more likely you will pick yourself up and continually live in hope for a better day.

During the year my confidence and self-esteem has been on the increase. Now I feel I could just about do anything if I put my mind to it! Especially with journalism. I came into the class thinking “Am I doing the right thing?”, and now it is like “What the hell! I will give anything a go!”. So empowerment means a lot more to me now.

I think empowerment has changed for me. At the beginning of the year I wrote a poem about empowerment and since then I have become more like the person I wanted to be. Although this has been the case, it is not through achieving my goals,rather it is in learning about myself … that I am a stronger person in controlling myself than I am in controlling others.

I think empowerment is the urge to enable yourself to grow, to push yourself to learn, letting yourself learn more, wanting to learn.

These are students who transformed and flourished in the development stages - each starting in a different place, going on their unique journeys. (I will bring some more of their comments in later to compare with my current students). How can this remind me of what I need to be doing?

Print versus on-line : classroom management issues

2006-07-08T10:09:00.000+10:00

When moving to a new technology base there are obviously a lot of issues regarding coming up to speed with the technology itself – both for students and the teacher – as well as how that technology might work in practice. And then there is the impact that the technology has on the organization and management within the classroom.

When I was teaching journalism in the late 90’s students had to come to grips with desktop publishing programs, printing, scanning, digital photography. So the technology has now moved to frontpage, blogs, polls, podcasts, photostory, more complex digital photography, photoshop, flash, digital recording and editing (Audacity). Why might this cause a change in classroom management?

In my 90’s journalism classes, students would be working in autonomous teams (consisting of 1 to 10 students) – each with a different magazine of their choice (teenage, social issues, sport, what’s on, satire, new age etc). Their first task in these groups was to present a business plan for their magazine to myself, the principal and the education officer from the local newspaper. It forced them to vision it before they began – fully owning it, though a new vision may emerge during the year. They would then put out 2 to 4 issues per year per magazine, set their deadlines, get advertising, manage finances, and negotiate with printers. The learning was incredible – they had to get out of the classroom and run a real enterprise. They found that some people in the group were more slack than others and that deadlines might not be met and they had to resolve many interpersonal and team management problems.

My role was more of a facilitator and trainer of just-in-time skills and just-to-late debriefing. I probably spent half my time developing journalistic and enterprising skills and the other half leadership and interpersonal skills. At the end of the year students would feel that they had learnt far beyond the scope of the course, a sense of exploring who they were, a new respect for difference and others and a sense of their own abilities.

Few were in my classes because they wanted a career as journalists – they saw it as an experience.

OK, that sounds wonderful. How can I do that now with this new on-line magazine format? I took over the course after it had been running for 8 weeks. During that time there was a real emphasis in skilling up the students on the basic technology in order to put stories on blogs… to get them writing and interviewing. The current teacher then created a frontpage site to link those stories (based on the class design) – he had admin rights to attach it to the student intra-net portal.

It is interesting that the higher level of technology had the impact of immediately reducing student ownership of the process. The students had done some visioning of the online magazine – but no business plan. The teacher collected the stories and put them up on the website. Now, this meant that students could see their work in the public eye within a few weeks of starting the class and start getting feedback … but at the same time their sense of accountability to a student owned entity was not really there.

My first task was handing over the ownership of creating the frontpage website to two students who had the technical skills to update the page (without causing major problems to the College website, or losing the on-line magazine in the process). And I made one of them editor - so now it was his responsibility to collect the stories and make sure that they happened in time. I set up team roles including ethics chairman, marketing and sub-editors and we developed processes for quality control and ethics/ratings checking – every story has to go through a sub-editor before publication to a blog.

But even though people had certain responsibilities (some performing them exceptionally well, while others have done nothing) I was still concerned that there was a lack of ownership and accountability just because the enterprise was one large group. Yes, there was one lesson where we should have got all three new stories up on the web but only 2 were ready. There were three additional stories that should have been finished but none of the students involved had a sense of the importance of their story to the final product. A breakdown in communication between the editor and his staff? No sense of accountability? No sense of the whole?

And I wasn’t helping by acting the teacher – encouraging students to be on task, helping with ideas and writing strategies, pointing them to other students to show them something if they were stuck with the technology. I needed to devolve responsibility… to work with students to recognise the issues involved with the classroom management of such an enterprise and help them to come up with strategies to solve them. In one lesson I even wore a gag … when some students asked me something and I answered (in a muffled way), another came up and tied the gag much more tightly calling out “can anyone help with this problem.”

So now I am finding my way into assisting my students into finding greater power. We talk about it a bit. Perhaps we are ready to work on smaller group projects now? Perhaps a single magazine also gives opportunities for learning? The trick is keeping in mind the issues and looking at what learning opportunities for the whole class emerge from every problem that arises and not trying to solve them myself.

Meet my class...

2006-07-07T15:36:00.000+10:00

So why is journalism part of a project of exploring new directions in curriculum?

Because the nature of journalism is changing… few young people look at a newsletter and their average time spent watching TV is now 18 mins. I had some students in my class who were completely ignorant of the miners trapped underground at Beaconsfield despite the overwhelming media coverage. So what are they engaged with? Internet use and games are now where the action is. Why look at something static when you can be part of on-line communities chatting to your friends, writing comments and getting immediate feedback.

Meet one of my students… Trish. She is writing an article on drugs for our on-line magazine Jescador. She has decided to write about an experience of a friend who was given a hallucigenic drug without his knowledge. He turned up to her place scratching the walls and thinking spiders were out to get him. But she doesn’t seem to be working on the article – she is on chat yet again!!!

“ahem,” I say
“No, Sue, I am doing work – I am asking my ex-boyfriend who gave 2C-i to my friend what exactly the drug is and what the effects are – he should know he is a drug dealer.”

I take a deep breath and bite my tongue. She has been very depressed since she came into the class but has really perked up as a result of doing the article….so I don’t want to appear too judgmental. I am also balancing here the fact that this quite personal, yet very interesting and revealing article is going to go on our internal web site and the college doesn’t want to be seen to support drugs. How can this article inform the discussion about drug issues rather than just being self indulgent? Then there is the fact that she values information from “expert” friends, rather than those people that we would consider experts and despite my encouraging her to add some more objective research to her article, or to get another side (eg. a counsellor) she still writes it very much from a personal point of view. And then there is the fact that she herself has told me she takes ecstasy for partying and sees nothing wrong with going out with a drug dealer.

How might you respond now to Trish? Yes, this journalism class is the vehicle for many things… and I will talk about that another time, not least of all my own ethical development.

So where is media heading? The big newspapers worldwide are now on-line – and some see readers as participating in news coverage ... imagine instead of the 100 journalists employed by the company a resource of 20,000 potential journalists. So how do we adapt to a world of multiple perspectives, written from personal point of views? Is there still room for “reporting news”? What new standards might apply? How do we become more discerning in such a world, without choosing the easy option – to tune out? What skills do I need to be teaching in this thing called a “journalism class”? How can I encourage my students to not just be competent with this new technology (podcasts, photo-stories, blogs, polls, digital recording, creative commons), but to understand the issues of it – to develop their own standards and sense of discernment?

Why are these students here anyway? A soft option? A place to experiment? A place to have a voice, to make waves?

Yes, my students all have College blogs – they put stories, photostories, polls, podcasts and personal reflections on their blogs. They get comments from staff and students and through such immediate feedback they are learning… far more than if they were writing for a print magazine. When they get lots of hits they feel powerful and successful… when few people click onto their stories, they re-assess their headlines and opening paragraphs. How can they grab people's attention? Who are their readers and what do they want to read or listen to? How can they generate more interaction? Some are still terrified of writing anything but most are oblivious to the fact that they are now exposed to the world. And they have a regular audience of about 150 readers (20% of the college) who click onto their new stories every week.

One boy has his own personal blog which recently got its 10,000th hit.

My head is spinning… what about yours!

Hear the interview with the co-editor of the magazine.

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