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A formula for strategic online synthesis
The anchor standards for reading and writing in the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts and Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science and Technical Subjects (2010) place significant emphasis on the construction of meaning from multiple texts in print and digital formats. To date, however, the evidence for instructional methods that support “synthesis” skills…
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Old-school tech, new school reading: On repurposing transparency film to support multiple text integration online
I’m nearing the end of data collection in a study that (I hope) will provide teachers with much-needed information on methods that support (or don’t support?) 9th grade students’ reading of multiple, multi-modal Internet texts on science-focused topics of inquiry. As I was developing my teaching intervention, I was especially concerned with methods that would…
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On attrition, and new possibilities
This week as I was collecting data for my dissertation research study, I had (another) one of those moments that made me stop and think about why it is that I’m doing this work. In the end, I would like this research to inform teaching practice. In the end, I want this work to help…
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Do students really use multimodal options when reading to synthesize?
Yesterday, I piloted part of my dissertation study with my very Fabulous Research Assistant (FRA) at Albion College. I tested my protocols for think aloud training (putting together a space puzzle) and for the pre-test activity. The pre-test prompt that FRA piloted asks students to read about the impact of common household chemicals, and specifically…
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What is learning? What is technology?
This week, I started teaching the first year cohort of MSU’s Master’s in Educational Technology program in Dublin, Ireland. My colleague, Kristen Kereluik and I, asked our students two questions on the first day: What is learning? and What is technology? Always trying to embed an opportunity to explore the affordances and constraints of different…
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33 Skills for Teachers in the Digital Age — A List I Like
I’m not usually one for “Top 10 Lists of Tech Tools” or “21 Things every 21 Century Teacher should know”. It’s not that I don’t think that these lists offer useful tips — they most certainly do. I just find that these lists (a) quickly become outdated and (b) seldom generate the kinds of…
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Spreecasting: A new frontier in online learning?
Two months ago, I didn’t know anything about spreecast.com. My indefatigable ed tech mentor, Leigh Graves Wolf (who is generally awesome and knows a lot of stuff about a lot of things) sent me a tweet from the SXSWEdu Conference in Austin, TX in March. It went something like this: @mshagerman check out spreecast.com Use…
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Wallwisher: How Would You Use it in Your Teaching?
One of the reasons I love to teach teachers is that they’re always introducing me to new tools that support learning and instruction. My student Katy Jain just introduced me to WallWisher. I love it. It’s an interactive post-it board for ideas. Free. No login required. And it works. Here’s how Katy used it. She…
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Online Learning, Educational Transformations and Me?
One of my students, Brent Zeise, shared this infographic with me (originally published at OnlineEducation.net). I found it incredibly compelling and so I’m sharing it here. I’m currently teaching CEP 820 — Teaching Students Online, in the Master’s of Educational Technology Program at Michigan State University. For me, this infographic is a reminder of the…
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The Simple View of Online Reading — It’s Time to Push Back
Reading comprehension researchers will know that the simple view of reading (Gough & Tunmer, 1986) presents reading (and reading comprehension) as a function of two factors: (a) decoding ability (D) and (b) language comprehension (LC), a composite skill that is not well articulated by the model, but that is generally understood to include vocabulary knowledge…