Paperless, Part I

By hook or by crook, by laptop or by handheld, I'm going paperless.  

At the outset of my third year of doctoral studies, I get knots in my stomach when I look at the accumulation of books flagged with sticky notes and the crates of binders overloaded with highlighted articles, conference papers, and research studies. 

So, paperless academic reading is my latest "new routine." But I'm taking baby steps, starting with one class. This summer in EP604, I will not print a single page of the assigned journal articles or book chapters  -- not one page of the 521 pages of required reading. (That's more than a ream of single-sided copies.)

Instead, I am downloading the digital files from our course website into an application for reading and annotating PDFs. Then, I am "flattening" and exporting the marked-up PDFs to my virtual library, which, for the moment, is housed at Mendeley.com. (See also my post Working with Mendeley.) Mendeley is a web-based personal citation and reference manager that enables users to store their research documents on remote servers, or "in the cloud."  That means I can access my personal collection of EP604 course readings anytime, anywhere, provided I have a reliable Internet connection and web browser.

Let's be honest here.  Cloud computing may sound all warm and fuzzy and environmentally conscious.  But this is not about saving trees. For me, at least, it's about saving my sanity.

Anyone (read:  "any sleep-deprived graduate student") who has desperately thumbed through stacks of paper at 2 a.m., searching for that singular, seminal piece of writing -- that 37-page, heavily annotated and many-times-read journal article -- only to realize she has left the printout on her desk at school, can understand the value of the "cloud."

Managing one's resources in graduate school has surely never been easy. Now, ironically, digital and web-based technologies provide greater ease and efficiency with which to gather mass amounts of information, while making it more difficult to stay organized. According to Anderson and Kanuka, authors of E-Research: Methods, Strategies and Issues, "...[T]he amount of valuable research information available 'anywhere/anytime' continues to grow," and more time is needed for "assessing relevance and veracity" (2003, pp. 41-42).

When one factors in Hart's assertion that the graduate student "is expected to search more widely, across disciplines, and in greater detail than at undergraduate level" (1999, p. 9), there is major imperative for adopting and refining the practice of reading in digital and online environments.

In sum, my tools for converting to paperless are (so far): 

• citation management software (Mendeley is one example, but I would like to compare it later to Zotero.)
• a PDF annotator
• Dropbox.com

What other tools might I consider?  And, more importantly, what is the value-added of going paperless and what are the costs?  I will explore these questions in future posts.

Paperless, Part I

"Media convergence," succinctly put

A rare treat -- home alone, folding laundry, drinking coffee, and watching CBS Sunday Morning.

Even better, media critic Jeff Greenfield's segment, in which he attempts to capture the meaning of "media convergence" in under four minutes. It's an intriguing exercise, especially within the context of the venerated Sunday Morning, a rather conventionally formatted news program that just marked its 30th anniversary on the air.

As we are all too well aware, a lot has changed in media in these last 30 years. What makes Greenfield's commentary worthwhile are his parting words about "fundamental" values. Do these values endure despite the sweeping changes brought on by digitization, as Greenfield asserts?

It's a great discussion starter.

Another fun exercise: how does Greenfield's definition of "convergence" contrast with the definition put forth by media scholar Henry Jenkins? In his 2006 book, Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide, Jenkins argues that convergence has less to do with devices and technological advances and more to do with cultural practices and heightened levels of participation and interactivity.

What do you think?

technorati tags: convergence Henry Jenkins media media literacy media education technology

"Media convergence," succinctly put

From analog girl to "digimom"

My mother thinks I should hang a calendar in the kitchen so my son can learn his days of the weeks and months of the year.

He is two years old.

"Well, maybe not now, but in the next few years you should consider it," she said.

I told her that in the next few years, I fully expect my son to be able to turn on a computer and launch an Internet browser, much in the same way he can now turn on the TV and even navigate TiVo. At that point, what's to stop him from accessing the web-based calendar my husband and I currently use to organize work, church, and household events?

"Well, it's still an analog world," she said.

No. It isn't, I say.

I am about to be graduated from the University of Tennessee-Knoxville with a master's degree in instructional technology. Had the above conversation occurred at another time and place, it likely would have ended differently, with me earnestly shopping for the perfect calendar per Mom's suggestion.

The 2008 Land of Liberty calendar by Thomas Kincaid looks nice, with the added benefit of exposing my first-born to a bygone era when subtle Christian imagery and blatant patriotism intermingled to form resplendent, light-filled tableaux.

Yechhhh.

If I were going to buy a wall calendar to support my child's intellectual and cognitive development, I would choose one with more transparent instructional value. How about a calendar that not only reinforces concepts like time management and days of the week but also promotes responsible citizenship, the democratic process, and important mathematical problem-solving strategies, like counting down? A civics lesson on every page!

It is an election year, after all.

The point is, my child is not developmentally ready for a calendar, and in the next few years when he is, paper-based calendars will be even more irrelevant than they are today. I haven't owned a calendar or date book in close to ten years since the acquisition of my first handheld PDA, and I don't expect my son will ever have use for one.

Although, I suppose that even by 2010 when he starts Kindergarten, I can count on him seeing and using plenty of analog calendars -- at school.

I joke about being "an analog girl in a digital world," in part because I love the Guy Clark song, but I am serious when it comes to the "unfolding 'literacy dialectic'" described by Colin Lankshear and Michele Knobel in New Literacies: Everyday Practices and Classroom Learning, 2nd edition.

I read New Literacies this spring as part of a semester-long seminar on redefining literacy. The book is largely framed by a "tension" caused by the rapid onset of digital and mobile technologies in daily life and the complex demands this places on teachers and students to merge "old" and "new" literacies -- the "dialectic."

At stake are two divergent worldviews about the role of 21st century information and communication technologies (ICTs) in contemporary culture. Lankshear and Knobel label these worldviews as "mindsets."

The "newcomer," or "outsider," mindset values digital technology for the way it supports old business models and conventional, print-based literacy practices. The "insider" mindset sees opportunity in technology to radically innovate and abandon the business-as-usual approach. The bulk of New Literacies examines insider practices, giving readers a glimpse into the worlds of fanfiction, anime, memes, blogs, podcasts, and mobile computing.

Educators, school leaders, and instructional technologists are struggling to respond to all this change as it relates to the effective integration of technology into classroom learning. More often than not, they "simply end up reproducing familiar conventional literacies through their uses of new technologies" (p. 30).

New Literacies concludes with a challenge to teachers, administrators, and policymakers. Lankshear and Knobel do not advocate unflagging allegiance to wholesale technology adoption that does not honor "insider" sensibilities, nor do they believe schools should be left behind as the exclusive domain of print-based, conventional literacies (p. 259).

Rather, the authors encouraged their readers to just “take a look and see,” to try out the new technologies and experience the new literacies and social practices for ourselves. In doing so, we will begin to understand the implications for teaching and learning. These insights will guide the integration of 21st century ICTs into instruction in a manner that compromises neither the integrity of the cultural practices nor our educational aims (pp. 246-247).

This is my biggest take-away from New Literacies: I don't have to be a practicing classroom teacher to feel the tension of the mindsets. (Note above conversation between dear, ol' Mom and me.) The shifts are playing out all around me as I perform in roles as student, parent, and citizen, and I have an obligation to respond.

It's why I still can't stop thinking about the Rolling Stone March 20 cover story on Barack Obama's campaign strategy. It's a strategy in which the field operations consist of voters organizing themselves with web-based technologies, particularly social networking tools: "In the process, the Obama campaign has shattered the top-down, command-and-control, broadcast-TV model that has dominated American politics since the early 1960s."

It's why I helped my babysitter set up a Gmail account and MySpace page so she could stay in contact with her many geographically dispersed cousins. The babysitter, by the way, is a 44-year-old grandmother of three.

It's why I keep needling my local school board representative to take steps toward re-visioning our school system's outdated appropriate use and web publishing policies.

It's why I am determined to master the text-message function on my cell phone. One of these days.

And it's why I won't be buying any Hallmark calendars for the rest of my natural life.

From analog girl to "digimom"

What is your favorite online "affinity space"?

Cross-posted at the Classroom 2.0 forum.

An affinity space is any place (virtual or physical) that ties people together based on a mutually shared interest or endeavor.

For me, it would have to be the "mommy" blogs that I read daily. I've got about four where I lurk and occasionally comment. I am really inspired by the way these women merge their varying interests in politics, civics, and, of course, technology, with the everyday challenge of parenting. I am even thinking of starting my own mommy blog as the birth of my second child is quickly approaching in mid- to late-June. It's time to start adding my voice to the conversation, and the lazy days of summer seem like a good time to undertake this project!

What is your favorite online affinity space?

My question is inspired by a book I recently finished reading, New Literacies: Everyday Practices and Classroom Learning by Colin Lankshear and Michele Knobel. It was assigned reading for a spring semester seminar on multiliteracies, and it has given me a lot to think about.

The authors' basic purpose is to shed light on the concept of "new literacies," and to invite educators into conversation about "how the new might best be brought into a fruitful relationship with the already established."

The last chapter is a recommendation or challenge of sorts to readers. Lankshear and Knobel think the first step toward merging conventional schooling and the world of new literacies (remix, blogs, podcasts, social networks, mobile technologies, and so on) is for educators to actively pursue firsthand experience with the social practices of digital "affinity spaces," a term borrowed from James Paul Gee.

I am posing this question to the Classroom 2.0 community as well. Classroom 2.0, an international social network of educators interested in collaborative technologies, certainly is an example of an affinity space. But I was wondering about other virtual "hang outs" enjoyed by CR 2.0 members, places perhaps that are not defined by professional interests and obligations but more by hobbies, passions, or guilty pleasures.

And, if you are an occasional or even accidental reader of this blog, the question probably applies to you, too!

So, reader, where do you participate on the Web when you are not consumed with work, school, business, or other obligations? And do your interactions and exchanges within digital affinity spaces intersect with and inform your views and vision for education?

For more reflections on the challenges and opportunities presented by multiliteracies, read my other posts on New Literacies, mindsets, and mashups.  More to come!

technorati tags: blogs multiliteracies "new literacies" teacher/learner parenting "participatory culture" web2.0 technology

What is your favorite online "affinity space"?

For crying out loud!

A longstanding critique of instructional technology is our penchant for adopting whizbang tools only to reinforce traditional pedagogy rather than transform it. Technology interventions in the classroom often bear the mark of "old wine in new bottles."

Here is the best evidence to date: a March 16 New York Times feature on the increasing use of amplification systems in U.S. classrooms.

So all that handwringing over how to transform instruction so no child is left behind was for nothing? The children simply weren't hearing us?

Here is one particularly troubling passage from the article:

The West Orange district [in New Jersey] decided to require amplification after seeing the first-grade reading scores at one school, St. Cloud Elementary, skyrocket to 89 percent at or above grade level at the end of the 2003-4 academic year, from 59 percent before teachers started speaking into microphones.

“That got everybody’s attention, as you can imagine,” said Karen Tarnoff, the district’s testing coordinator. “There was nothing else over the course of the year that was different than in any other year. The teachers and the curriculum remained the same, and nothing new was added other than the amplification system.”

But, of course! Test scores are what drove the reform! (The reform, by the way, comes with a price tag of $1,000 to $1,500 per classroom.) What is even scarier is a testing coordinator who brags that nothing changed in her district for an entire year in terms of evolving instructional practices or curricular approach.

Thankfully, other perspectives are represented in the story. David Lubman, a fellow of the Acoustical Society of America, calls it for what it is: a "triumph of marketing over science."

What do you think?

technorati tags: teachers student engagement technology instructional technology

For crying out loud!

Techno wars: Boomers vs. X'ers

Hello, friends.

I am conducting another little study for a statistics class I'm taking this semester. This project is about testing the statistical versus practical significance of two sample means.

Don't ask.

Just please help out a poor, mathematically challenged grad student and follow the link below to a quick, anonymous online survey. Thanks!

Click here to take the online survey!
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By the way, AFTER taking the survey you may enjoy reading the New York Times column that inspired the survey topic. (I'm withholding comment for fear of influencing the survey results.)

technorati tags: youth teachers media technology

Techno wars: Boomers vs. X'ers