The Rest of The Story

Narrative Writing

Narrative writing comes naturally to some students. For others, a lot of them have a difficult time putting their thoughts into words. For some, they even struggle with picking an idea to focus their narrative on. This text provided us with multiple ways to incorporate technology with narrative writing. One quote that really stuck out to me in this reading was, "Without a doubt, we want students to both see themselves, literally and figuratively, in the narratives they write" (Hyler and Hicks, p.37). In today's generation of students, I think incorporating technology with narrative writing provides and even better opportunity to see student's personal voice and flair in their writing. The book discussed using writer's workshop for narrative (or really any type) of writing. Writer worskhop provides a great opportunity not only for students to experience the writing process with different genres of writing, but also for a teacher to get small group or even one-on-one time with their students and build rapport with each and every one of them. Additionally, by working one on one with students in their narratives, we are getting to know them through their writing as well. Some students come across as shy, but you get a sense of who they are through the things that they write about - especially with the narrative writing genre. 

I loved reading about the opportunities digital storytelling creates for student writers. When reading, I couldn't help but feel it was targeting older students in upper elementary or even high school. As a UPK teacher, I tend to have the primary grades in mind when reading about incorporating technology in the classroom. As such, I did some exploring on the internet, and came across a great resources that discusses six different iPad apps that are elementary appropriate and great for digital storytelling! Consider this a "Find Six" from Educator's Technology :)

Hyler, J., & Hicks, T. (2014). Create, compose, connect!: Reading, writing and learning with digital tools. 

Mindfulness

According to Dr. Amy Saltzman, mindfulness is "paying attention to your life, here and now, with kindness and curiosity" (Saltzman, p.1). To me, the two key terms in this definition is kindness and curiosity. Kindness goes a long way, and unfortunately seems to be a lacking character trait in many individuals these days. Additionally, curiosity is one of the most critical skills in children, but unfortunately it seems to evaporate for many over time. I think both kindness and curiosity are critical components for learning and living, so I enjoyed this definition of mindfulness since it encompassed both of these traits.

        An important point Saltzman made in this article was that we ask students to pay attention yet we never teach them how. I observe this over and over again in the classroom. Many times, teachers will ask students to do something (multiple times) yet they never teach them HOW to do something, so the fact that they expect this from their students is a little silly. Paying attention is a great example. Recently, I took an Effective Teaching workshop through BOCES. Through this professional development training, I was taught to assume nothing when it comes to having a group of students on day 1 in your classroom. That means, it is our responsibility as their educator to teach them how to raise their hand, how to walk into your classroom, how to come prepared for school, how to walk in the hallway, etc. That way, the students are on "your agenda" and understand your expectations because you taught them your expectations. I think teachers lose sight of this when it comes to behavior management because they end up spending so much time redirecting behavior and yelling, when it could be a simple fix of "re-teaching" the student the particular task they seem to be forgetting, or maybe not even know in the first place.
       It is Friday afternoon, and I'm just getting around to reading this article. I love the idea of the "Still Quiet Place" for meditation in the classroom with young ones. I really wish I would have read this earlier in the week and tried it with my group of UPKers. I'll definitely try it on Monday and report back on how they reacted. I have some bold personalities, so it'll be interesting to see how that goes! Additionally, I looked up mindfulness in the classroom and came across an article that discusses mindfulness in higher education. The article also includes different examples to try in the classroom, though some ideas are expansive they can easily be differentiated to fit a variety of learners and grade levels.
      As I think from a literacy specialist perspective, I know we are very limited with our time with students. Oftentimes, we only see groups of students for 30 minutes a day. The article stated a simple 5-15 minute session will help younger children become familiar with the Still Quiet Place. Would you incorporate mindfulness meditation/the still quiet place in your room as a literacy specialist even though you're already pressed/limited for time? If so, how?

*Update: Do you ever wake up early on a Saturday morning and decide you want to watch the news and stay really attentive on everything going on in the world to start your weekend? Yeah, me neither. But for some reason, that's how I started my weekend, and am I sure glad I did! While I was watching, one of the segments that came on was about meditation. What are the chances?! Turns out, one of the news casters had a panic attack ON AIR while he was giving a news report and has since turned to meditation. From that, he wrote a book and has an app (Free!.... at first)  to help people start the meditation process. The app has different videos and readings that allows you to mediate anywhere anytime, at your convenience. I immediately downloaded the app and perused through to see it's features. It's called 10% happier, and I recommend it if you're now motivated to start meditating on  your own.

It's Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens by D. Boyd

Chapter 2: Privacy 

At one point in our lives, we were all teenagers. We all understand the struggle of trying to keep our lives private, especially from our parents and other adults. However, there was also a certain part of our life that we wanted public and shared - especially with friends. Today's teens have a bigger challenge with this private/public balance because so much of their life and sharing takes place online through social networking. As Boyd explains in this chapter, "There’s a big difference between being in public and being public. Teens want to gather in public environments to socialize, but they don’t necessarily want every vocalized expression to be publicized." This is difficult in terms of social media because online conversations, such as comments and posts on Facebook, can easily be viewed by the public and other individuals you may not necessarily want to be involved in that "conversation".

 Network privacy is a more difficult type of privacy to acquire than the privacy of teens prior to those in the technology age. For example, some teens may have taken their friends to their room, posted a "Do Not Disturb" sign on the door, and whispered a conversation in hopes of nobody eavesdropping. Today, teens have a lot of conversations online or through text messaging. However, these words are written not spoken. As such, the conversation can easily be accessed long after it's over. This could bring up controversy as time passes. Network privacy take skill, knowledge and awareness of policies, programs and conditions to fully understand in its entirety. As such, teens need to be aware of the program and network they are using, and it's privacy policy. Without the knowledge and skill of navigating a network appropriately, a conversation or information may not be as private as one would assume.  As Boyd states in this chapter, "Much to many adults' surprise, teens aren't looking to hide; they just want privacy". Thus, we know teens want privacy. However, it is important for them to be knowledgeable of network privacy in order to achieve the privacy they are looking for.

Chapter 7: Literacy

This chapter focuses on the question of today's youths being digital natives. This was very interesting for me to read because that is such a common term I hear lately regarding individuals who were born in this technology era. After reading the chapter, I very much agree that not everyone born after a certain date is a digital native. To be a digital native, you really have to immerse yourself in the world of technology and understand the ins and outs, multiple uses and variety of skills that go with technologies. As such, a 14 year old with an Instagram account isn't a digital native solely because she was born in a year where technology was very much present in the world around her. Rather, an individual, regardless of age, who utilizes many forms of technology, has a variety of skills to teach and understand technology, and connects with others by doing so is a digital native. By definition, according to this chapter,  “Digital natives share a common global culture that is defined not by age, strictly, but by certain attributes and experiences related to how they interact with information technologies, information itself, one another, and other people and institutions. Those who were not ‘born digital’ can be just as connected, if not more so, than their younger counterparts. And not everyone born since, say, 1982, happens to be a digital native.” This quote truly summed up what it means to be digitally  native. Again, age has nothing to do with whether or not someone is digitally native. Rather, their use of the digital world makes them digitally native.

Similarly, this article written by Mark Prensky talks about teaching a generation of students very familiar with the world of technology and the challenges faced by teachers who are less familiar with technology than their students. It provides a different perspective on the term digital native, but still interesting to read relative to the world of modern education education.