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Teachers Teaching Teachers Talk with James Paul Gee
I had the opportunity this evening to be a part of a conversation with James Paul Gee about his most recent book, The Anti-Education Era: Creating Smarter Students Through Digital Learning. I asked him to expand on the idea of collaborative cognition — his notion of the big-M Mind and why it’s so critical for…
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Summer Institute on Digital Literacy
It’s just six weeks until the Summer Institute on Digital Literacy at the University of Rhode Island. Institute organizer, Renée Hobbs, Professor at the University of Rhode Island and Founder of the Media Education Lab just issued an invitation that provides additional information about the week’s activities. You can see a screen shot here —…
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Seventeen years later, evidence for “a pedagogy of multiliteracies” remains elusive
Yesterday, I had two professional exchanges that highlighted, for me, the pressing importance of expanding students’ understanding of what an informational source can be while reading on the Internet or using digital tools in school. I blogged about this idea a while back…but my conversations yesterday have prompted me to revisit it. Back in 1996,…
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Reflections on the Professional Portfolio
I’ve spent about 30 hours over the past two weeks reviewing portfolios. The portfolio is the final assignment for Master’s of Education and Master’s of Educational Technology students at MSU. The course, (CEP807/ED870) run by Dr. Matthew Koehler, is built to support the iterative design of a culminating, web-based representation of each student’s accomplishments in…
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A real first…
This email goes on the list of best emails ever. Here’s what it said: Good Evening! I attended your presentation at MRA, and was so excited to take your thinking back to the team in our district that is redefining our former Summer School program. We would love to try out the pst2ic3 this summer…
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Summer Institute in Digital Literacies at URI
I’m so pleased to have been invited to facilitate workshops at the Summer Institute in Digital Literacies this July! Other speakers will include Douglas Rushkoff, Renee Hobbs, Julie Coiro, Rhys Daunic, Jonathan Friesem, Mary Moen and Hiller Spires. The institute has been designed for teachers, teacher librarians, college faculty members, graduate students, and professionals whose…
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Fan Fiction
Last week, Zoë obsessively searched the Internet for images of Darth Maul. This week, she is all about Ahsoka Tano from The Clone Wars. As for me, I’ve started using Yoda speak around the house — teeth brushed, you should. For at least two years now, she has written and told herself stories based on…
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Taking Delight in Graduate Students’ Successes
As a graduate student, I have thought a good deal about the nature of student-professor dynamics, and about the investment one makes or feels in students when, like, you, they are already grown up. It’s easy to feel invested in children because, well, they’re children. But what is it that graduate student advisors and instructors…
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Michigan Reading Association Conference
I am looking forward to presenting with my esteemed colleagues, Amber White, Anne Sherrieb and Cindy Lewis from Ruth Fox Elementary School at the Michigan Reading Association Conference in Grand Rapids, Michigan, this coming Saturday. The focus of our talk will be on instructional implications of the [(PST)2 + iC3] framework that I developed to…
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Dinner with Laura Ingalls Wilder
Yesterday, I blogged about the celebration that my daughter’s teacher organized for Laura Ingalls Wilder’s 146th birthday and the biscuits I baked (in truth, that post was mostly an excuse to take pictures of the biscuits!) As an aspiring literacy scholar, however, I just couldn’t pass up the chance to think about how these kinds…