Ticking Mind Bulletin #8 2011

Over our last few bulletins we have been looking at Web 2.0 tools to use in the class room to support and engage students with writing (for all our previous posts, click here). Our next theme will be to look at tools to help students with critical literacy - particularly towards the media. However, today we are doing something slightly different. We've included with this email a number of news articles that have recently caught our attention because they're all about the use (and abuse) of social media.

The first article comes from that beacon of hard hitting news, MX News. If you've never heard of it, it's the commuter newspaper you can read on the Melbourne train system. The newspaper specialises in quirky human interest stories. The one we liked is about about a public marriage proposal a man made to his girlfriend in a shopping mall in Los Angeles. He was rejected. But that wasn't the only humiliation - it was caught on camera and has now gone 'viral' on Youtube.

The second article we've included is actually a set of two news reports about a fascinating recent twitter controversy Australian super model Megan Gale was involved in. In case you haven't heard (or possible don't care), she's recently been nominated by Who magazine as the world's most beautiful woman for 2011. Anyway, there she was the other week at her local cafe incognito, when she over heard two school girls (who were unwittingly sitting next to the disguised Megan Gale) critically appraising her picture on the front cover of Who. What's interesting is what happens next - Megan Gale begins reporting the whole event on twitter, telling everyone what the girls are doing and asking 'what should I do?' Eventually, she decides to confront the girls. The next article reports the reply the girls made to the media in the form of a fax the next day. 

Both events are interesting examples of the perils of social media. These articles can be used in the classroom as the basis for a discussion: Do people deserve the humiliation that social media can give, or do these examples show that social media has too much power to humiliate people.

Short Films / Big Ideas #4 2011

In our last blog we wrote about two films that take a cynical look at consumerism and how students can respond to these films with their own thoughts. To read about these and all our other posts, visit our blog here.

This week we're writing about a film we know you're going to love. It's called Bottle and it's a most quirky but fascinating film. You've heard of claymation? The process where clay figures are used to animate a film (such as in Wallace & Grommit). We'll Bottle is a version of this - but it's 'sandmation' and 'snowmation'. The film is about a sand figure who lives on a beach and discovers a washed up bottle. He decides to put some sand in the bottle and let the sea wash it out again. The bottle then washes up to a landscape of snow and pine trees where a snow figure finds it. The snow figure is fascinated by the sand inside the bottle (so different from its own landscape) and replaces it with some snow. Then it puts the bottle back in the water to be washed back to the beach. And so a relationship develops between these two figures - who are the same but different. They pass the bottle between each other with new things each time to represent the place they come from. We won't say what happens in the end, but it really is a lovely story. You can find it on Youtube here.   

There are numerous ways this film can be used in the classroom. To begin with, it can be discussed as a 'message film'. We can ask our students: 'What can we learn about relationships and how to overcome and appreciate our differences from these two characters?' It can also provide stimulus for getting students to pass their own 'bottle' to students from another country. There are many sites which offer international pen pal services (via email of course), which can be a great way for getting students to write and exchange information with students from a much different culture to their own. For a list of pen pal sites, click here.

Something else you might like students to do is to get them to pick objects that they feel represent their sense of 'place' - not necessarily our country, but the particular 'place' they come from in it and feel strongly connected to. Students could list what objects they would pick if they were to put them in a bottle to send to someone else as happens in the film. Students could even do this online by creating a Discovery Box - a virtual time capsule tool. Find more about this tool here or a different time capsule tool here.

Ticking Mind Bulletin #7 2011

Welcome to our new subscribers. If you want to catch up on some great ideas for using Web 2.0 tools or short films in the English classroom, visit our blog here to view all our previous posts. In our last missive we discussed Web 2.0 tools for collaborative online debating. Over our next few bulletins we will look at tools to use for digital story telling. 

Digital story telling, as its name implies, is any way we can tell a story in a digital format - be it via digital text, audio, images or video (or a mashup of all of these things). For English teachers interested in the Web 2.0, digital storytelling is a big focus. The better we can use Web 2.0 digital storytelling tools, the more likely it is we can engage students with shaping and sharing their stories and developing their literacy skills.

There are two blogs that are great resources for exploring the world of digital story telling. The first is Ozge Karaoglu's blog which can be found here. Throughout 2009 and 2010 Ozge listed a 100 tools for digital story telling and his list can be found here. Another useful site is Alan Levine's 50 Web 2.0 Ways to Tell A Story.

However, we don't want to overwhelm you with the myriad ways you can tell a story digitally. So here's two quick things can try in class to begin with.

One Word  is a speed writing web 2.0 tool. When you bring up the site it simply provides you with a button to click. When you click on the button it will give you a randomly supplied word, a box and 60 seconds to write on the word you're given. Once the 60 seconds is over you are only allowed to finish the sentence you are on. Once you've finished you're prompted to supply your name and email address, and your 60 second piece of writing is published on the web and you can share the link with everyone in class to look at.

There's a few different things you can do with this tool in class. Firstly, you can just use it as a straight out speedwriting tool - here's the prompt, how much can you write about it in 60 seconds? But you could also move past this onto narrative elements. The random word could be the key part of a story complication. You might say to students that they all have to start with the prompt, 'It was an ordinary day for [insert name] when [continue on with a problem based on the random prompt]'. Or you could use the random word as the basis for some interesting problem solving, such as: 'The key to solving the world's problems is [insert random word here...] because...'

If you've ever used Microsoft Photostory, then Photopeach is a similar product, but just online. If you've never used Photostory, then it is a tool that enables you to easily put pictures into a slide show and add text captions and music. Photopeach can be used for free online. Students won't need to create an account, but will need to supply their name and an email address to create a new photopeach story. Students can quickly upload pictures and then caption them.

What can you do with this tool? One idea is to find 6 or so loosely associated digital pictures and share them with your students. Challenge your students to create a story from these - first by putting the pictures into some kind of order that tells a story, and then by identifying what might be the orientation, complication, crisis and resolution. They can upload them to Photopeach, caption the pictures to tell the story, and then share the story with everyone. To add to the challenge, you might also supply 2-3 key words they must use in their story.

Short Films / Big Ideas #3 2011

Welcome back from the school holidays! This week in our bulletin we are focusing on films that look at our consumer culture and how we can use these in the English classroom to engage our students in thinking critically about the consumer society we live in. In our last post,  we looked at two films - Plastic Bag and Life and Death of a Pumpkin - that could be used as stimulus for students writing about everyday objects, but also began to unpack some concerns of the modern consumer world. To see this post, and all our previous posts, click here.

The first short film we want to look at today is a 2010 Australian short called Life Pscycle-ology. This four minute film looks at the dilemma of Eric Sun, a mobile phone who feels his life is directionless after he is no longer used by his owner. He seeks advice from a psychologist who talks to him about the massive rate at which mobile phones are thrown out, but how Eric Sun can get a new lease on life by being recycled. 

There are several ways the short film can be used in class. Firstly, it can be used as a comprehension activity through asking students these questions:

*What is the message of the film?

*What are three problems to do with mobile phones?

*What is one solution to these problems?

* Why is the film called 'life pscycle-ology'?

Secondly, it can be used as a stimulus for debating the issue of consumerism. Students can discuss and form a point of view on the issue: New technology creates as many problems as it solves. Life Pscycle-ology can be found on Youtube here.

Related to this film is a 2003 UK short Killing Time At Home. It runs for three minutes, and like Life Pscyle-ology, is animated. Killing Time At Home looks at a dystopian world where 'disposable friends' can be bought online and delivered to your home. As their name implies, these friends don't last forever, but are abandoned when their owner loses interest in them. The film is a great way of getting kids to think about and write on this prompt: Technology or buying 'stuff' won't make us happy. Killing Time At Home can be found on Youtube here.

Ticking Mind Bulletin #6 2011

Over our last few bulletins we have been focusing on Web 2.0 tools to use in teaching writing. In our last post, we talked about using online Word Magnets as a tool for developing sentence structure as well as an online Folding Story as a fun tool to get students doing creative writing. If you haven't read our last bulletin, or have only just signed up to our mailing list, you can see all our previous bulletins at our blog here. 

This week we're focusing on Web 2.0 tools to use to help students engage in debates and write persuasive essays. One of the easiest tools to use is Read, Write and Think's essay planner. I know many of you out there are already using it. For those who aren't, this is a simple graphic organising tool to help students plan argumentative essays. Students can map out a contention, three arguments and the details for each argument. Afterwards, they can print off their essay map and it will provide a good visual diagram to help them write it out. It works well for Years 7&8s. The tool can be found here.

Moving on. The Web 2.0 is at its best when it allows students to collaborate and share knowledge. Create Debate is a good tool to allow students to do this on a debating topic. Users need to create an account to use this site, but this is quick and free. Once logged on, a user can create a new debate. Other users can log in and add for and against arguments, or respond to arguments that have already been listed. This is an effective tool for brainstorming for and against arguments as a class, and getting students to think more deeply about arguments through having to write and respond to others. The tool can be found here.

One more tool is A Map - short for argument map. This is visually more interesting than Create Debate, and is also collaborative. A user can log on (no need for an account) and create a debate topic and then add arguments and evidence. These are represented in visual concept chart form. Other users can then log on and respond to different parts of the argument map. Every time someone responds to part of the map, the map is updated. It's a fun and effective tool for mapping out arguments. Both this and Create Debate are suitable for use from Years 7 through to 12. Find A Map here.