You are viewing the January-February 2011 EVO rendition of the Multiliteracies course.

For the most current version, please click on the links in the SideBar at right.

Week 1: Jan 10 - 16, 2011

Theme: What is/are Multiliteracies?

and Many clouds: A technological lens

This week gathers the participants into a distributed learning network that overlaps with other similar networks. Several  essential frameworks underpinning multiliteracies will be discussed, and these frameworks will be applied to models of how this course might function (more as a seminar in which knowledge is built through connecting and sharing, as opposed to a course in which the learning paths have been prescribed). Many tools which participants can use to foster connections with one another will be introduced. The materials and tools can be sampled and trialed as needed; there is no need to do everything suggested here. Participants are encouraged to keep blogs or wikis to record their progress through the course; discoveries and ways of sharing knowledge with one another through eportfolios will also be touched on.

This course is envisaged to function along the lines of a scaled-down MOOC (though not as massive ;-)

Objectives

By the end of this week or early next (or whenever it's convenient for you) you should have:

1. Introduced yourself to the group (Yahoo Group / Ning), or better, fill in your details at our GoogleDoc
   https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bGH0e5NdXNIDR8rrYrYG5osJA2gLLrvRnPLmD80nv4Q/edit?hl=en&authkey=CN_Vj44N 
2. Linked your introduction URL to our participants list
3. Left an audio message, if you wish: http://www.voxopop.com/topic/0a1f4d2c-70a5-474e-8a19-d50be076c1d9 
4. Enrolled in and familiarized yourself with the features of our
1. Yahoo Group http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/multilit/ and/or http://multilit.grouply.com/ 
2. Ning http://multiliteracies.ning.com/
5. Configured your network tools:
1. Yahoo group and Ning profiles
2. Consider what other networks you are in already or will join (Twitter, for example) and start conversing within them about Multiliteracies (use the hash tag #evomlit, for example)

Also you should have addressed at least one or more of the following projects:

1. Explored and implemented ways of aggregating each other's blogs and wikis, etc .
1. For example, tag at least ONE Flickr photo of YOU with the tag evomlit
2. View the evolving photo planet at http://taggalaxy.de/, using the tag evomlit
3. Check out this presentation for more ideas on tagging and language learning:
   http://braz2010vance.pbworks.com/w/page/27944056/TagGames 
   
2. Set up
• Your RSS feed reader: http://justcurious.posterous.com/turning-push-to-pull-ways-to-filter-through-t

  See the posting here http://tinyurl.com/justcurious100112 for embedded screencast showing setup process

• a space on Pageflakes, Netvibes, iGoogle, or Protopage 
3. Commented on at least ONE of the readings or viewings ( See Content below)
4. Started a blog or wiki journal to track progress in this course
1. Made at least ONE entry
2. Tagged at least ONE blog or wiki posting (or any artifact created for this course): evomlit
3. Visited http://spezify.com/#/evomlit to see what others have tagged

Content

• The introduction "Many Lenses" in Mark Pegrum's From Blogs to Bombs: http://www.newsouthbooks.com.au/isbn/9781921401343.htm; available here: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/multilit/files/EVOMlit2010/pegrum_blogs2bombs_manylenses.pdf
• Jim Buckingham's review: http://jamesbuckingham.net/2010/01/13/blogs-to-bombs-summary-of-introduction-many-lenses-mark-pegrum/
• Carol Tilley: Why Educators Should Embrace Texting, Tweeting and All That Mobile Technology Has to Offer: http://spotlight.macfound.org/blog/entry/playback_why_educators_should_embrace_texting_tweeting_mobile_technology/
• Seminal reading on Multiliteracies: The New London Group (1996). A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social futures. Harvard Educational Review 6, 1. pp.60-92.  Retrieved in 2009 from: http://wwwstatic.kern.org/filer/blogWrite44ManilaWebsite/paul/articles/A_Pedagogy_of_Multiliteracies_Designing_Social_Futures.htm
  Patrick M has written a good critical synopsis of this article: http://pp107pm.blogspot.com/2010/09/thoughts-on-pedagogy-of-multiliteracies.html 
• Stevens, Vance. (2009). Modeling Social Media in Groups, Communities, and Networks. TESL-EJ, Volume 13, Number 3: 

  http://www.tesl-ej.org/wordpress/past-issues/volume13/ej51/ej51int/

• Patrick Murphy, who took the course in Sept/Oct 2010, suggests the introduction to "Educating the Net Generation" by Oblinger and Oblinger.  http://www.educause.edu/EducatingtheNetGeneration/5989

  He says "The introduction really blew my mind and addresses some of the issues of the relationship between technology and curriculum design I've been thinking about. "
  

  Thanks Patrick :-)

• Michael Wesch, A Portal to Media Literacy, a talk on "Web 2.0 and Learning Environments" Presented at the University of Manitoba June 17th 2008: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4yApagnr0s
• http://www.netvibes.com/wesch
• MORE by Michael Wesch: http://hosted.mediasite.com/hosted5/Viewer/?peid=edd5f8a1a0ad4e2fbacee11257dd2950
• Cristina Costa's Diigo annotation of Wesch's blog posting on this topic: http://www.diigo.com/annotated/d255cb8fcd760a1ce625cf909481ab5e
• Folksonomies: E-language http://e-language.wikispaces.com/folksonomies
• Mark Pegrum's From Blogs to Bombs: http://www.newsouthbooks.com.au/isbn/9781921401343.htm; ebook available: http://www.ebooks.com/ebooks/book_display.asp?IID=565711
  
  In Pegrum's introduction, he says: "we need to ask what changing pedagogy and tools will mean for recognised authority and established truth, as information and knowledge lose their traditional gatekeepers, literacy multiplies into multiliteracies, and languages spawn new registers. What are the consequences of collaborative, interactive educational approaches superseding individualist, transmission-oriented approaches? How should educators accommodate the emerging model of collective intelligence, of which we hear whisperings across the web? Is there any way to reconcile the views of the academics who eagerly, if sometimes uncritically, anticipate the benefi ts of ‘the greatest unplanned collaboration in human history’12 with the concerns of those who insist that ‘Internet learning has, so far, been a tragedy for education’?"
  
  This segues nicely into the Keen / Weinberger materials, below:
  
  
• David Weinberger and Andrew Keen debate Weinberger's thesis in "All Things Miscellaneous", posted by Kevin Werbach July 9, 2007 in Conversations Hub: Supernova 2007: http://werbach.com/supernova2006new/downloads/sn-weinberger-keen.mp4

  Full text (of a different debate): http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118460229729267677.html

  Perhaps it's a transcript of this one: http://fora.tv/2007/09/27/David_Weinberger_and_Andrew_Keen

  Author Andrew Keen http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Keen discusses his book "The Cult of the Amateur: How Today's Internet Is Killing Our Culture" as part of the Authors@Google series, June 5, 2007: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lN_n7I0PM3w

• Folksonomies: Tidying up tags, http://www.dlib.org/dlib/january06/guy/01guy.html
• There are more readings in the 2009 archive for week 1

Discussion

Bee (Barbara Dieu) has set out an excellent document on threading in mailing lists: http://edutechsig.wikispaces.com/mailinglist

She says: "The most important rule is the one-topic-per-message rule. If if there are two two things you want to talk about, send two separate messages to the list. This is because decent e-mail clients keep track of message threads, which is very convenient if you want to follow any particular discussion on a list. The list archives are also supposed to be viewable by thread, so don't break the threading. Start from a blank message when you start a new topic. Hit the Reply button on the old message if you reply to an old message."

Take a look at the diagram below in order to understand the steps you have to follow for this session. Please bear in mind that you can create your own Personal Learning Environment.

Scott Leslie's nice collection of PLE diagrams: http://edtechpost.wikispaces.com/PLE+Diagrams

This is Kim Cofino on Personal Learning Networks:

From her asynchronous keynote at the K-12 Online Conference 2009

Going Global: Culture Shock, Convergence and the Future of Education,

http://k12onlineconference.org/?p=424

Download here:

KimCofino2009FiresidechatPLE.mp3

• Here Kim talks about the importance of nurturing networks, how those already in such networks can model their cultivation for others, and six ways to start one. This segment is taken from the K12 Online Conference - Fireside Chat with Kim Cofino, http://www.edtechtalk.com/node/4613
• Vance's blog post on hearing this podcast: http://advanceducation.blogspot.com/2010/01/i-havent-posted-here-for-some-time-but.html

Theme: Many clouds: A technological lens

This week introduces a discussion of how to see new technologies through technological lens or clouds. As teachers we must figure out what different technologies are good for and leverage that to our advantage. The focus will be on key concepts like tagging, RSS, folksonomies, and aggregation. We will introduce sample implementations using these concepts for language learning and explore techniques and tools for aggregation of content on the web.  Participants will learn to tag and configure their blogs and other web artifacts associated with this course in such a way that their content can be aggregated by other participants here.

Diigo and Delicious

• http://www.c4lpt.co.uk/ReadingLists/delicious.html
• Webslide: Jennifer Verschoor has created a Webslides show displaying many of the links above in Diigo

  Visit this page: http://www.diigo.com/list/jenverschoor/evomlitweek2 and click on the Webslides button 

• In 2009 we had Maggie Tsai: "How to Use Diigo for Education" 
• The session was recorded in Elluminate: http://tinyurl.com/090203maggietsai
• An mp3 recording of this session can be found here:

  http://vance_stevens.podomatic.com/entry/eg/2009-02-07T06_54_56-08_00

http://teachersteachingteachers.org/?p=236

And at http://learning2gether.pbworks.com/archiveindex

November 28, 2010:  Jim Buckingham -   Zotero and other online citation tools