Reflection in Threes - I’ve broken up my reflection into the following three segments: Conference Overall, Specific Sessions, and Liveblogging/Twitter Experience. For each segment, I’ll first give three adjectives to describe my response, followed by an explanation.
Conference Overall
I admit, I did not look at the conference program until about 8:28am Friday morning. Not only was I completely floored by how many different sessions were offered at each time spot, I was impressed by the variety of topics and levels of difficulty that MACUL offered. I ran into a colleague (from my student teaching placement…not a MACer) who told me that there were a handful of other teachers representing our school. I felt encouraged and motivated that teachers in my building are interested in teaching with technology. I also felt encouraged that there was such a wide age range of educators present at MACUL! Seriously, anyone can attend…and more teachers should.
Specific Sessions- Relevant
- Student-focused
- Creative
I attended three sessions – two by the same presenter, keynote speaker
Jason Ohler, an educator and professor from Alaska. Ohler is interested in digital storytelling, a topic that I didn’t really know anything about. I attended his sessions because of the title: “Going Beyond Essays.” Ohler asks, why are we continuing to teach and test for one kind of literacy (traditional essay-writing, pencil-and-paper literacy) when we actually want kids to graduate with a different kind of literacy altogether? Reading and writing is no longer the default literacy, nor is it enough. Ohler defined literacy as the ability to consume and produce the media forms of the day, whatever they may be. In short, whatever kids are consuming (TV, movies, podcasts, games), they should be able to produce.
Ok, so the need for digital literacy. Got it – wasn’t going to argue that point. The part I loved about Ohler’s sessions was his emphasis on story and storytelling. I’m an English teacher, so I already believe in the power of story. Story draws us in. Story helps us express ourselves. Story connects us to others. Good stories matter more than good technical production. I was totally eating it up until I thought about the ACT.
Shoot. Back to boredom.
What about informational text? What about grammar? How can I teach kids to pass that test and still help them cultivate the literacy skills they need in a digital world? I refuse to believe that the two are mutually exclusive…I just haven’t figured out how to hit all those birds with one stone.
Liveblogging/Twitter- Busy
- Self-indulgent
- Limited
I’m okay at multi-tasking, so it wasn’t too bad for me to pay attention and take notes in my own session, keep up with Twitter, and participate in two liveblog sessions. But I didn’t really love being that busy. When it was my turn to liveblog, I realized my journalism skills need dusting off. It was hard to know what to post, how often to post, and how much to summarize vs. respond to what the presenter was saying. I noticed some of this ‘journalistic lapse’ in some of the liveblogs I attended. If the idea is for me to feel like I’m there with you…well, I didn’t feel it. Lots of dead time or posts that didn’t make much sense. Also a lot of play-by-play (“now we’re working in groups”) which I didn’t find terribly useful. I got some good ideas from Twitter and the Liveblogs, like signing up for PBS teachers and tapping into the digitized Library of Congress. I think liveblogging could be useful in the following situations:
- covering a sports event (like a high school game)
- providing commentary on a festival, fair, concert or other stage production
- covering a speech or press conference
The first and third ones seem the most realistic to me – I mean, who’s going to sit glued to their computer to ‘watch’ a liveblog when they could potentially listen to live radio coverage or watch a video feed?
I’m not faulting Twitter for allowing people to be self-indulgent – that’s what facebook is for, right? But I haven’t looked at Twitter since I left the conference on Friday afternoon…I don’t disbelieve you, Liz, that it’s useful for professional networking…but at this moment my network leans far more social than professional. Oh well – it’s fun.
Definitely glad I attended and will try to attend MACUL or a similar conference next year.
