Social Media and Purposeful Digital Writing

As compared to other forms of writing, our digital writing often seems to happen at a much more rapid and less focused rate. When we think of status updates, tweeting, texting and even emailing it often seems much more casual than writing a research paper. We should, in fact, be much more diligent about our digital writing since it is writing that will remain around forever due to the internet and "the cloud". If even as adults this can sometimes be challenging we can only imagine how difficult it is for adolescents to really comprehend the importance of taking digital writing seriously. As Troy Hicks points out in chapter seven of Crafting Digital Writing: Composing Texts Across Media and Genres, "It is quickly becoming our duty as educators in the 21st-century to guide our students toward responsible use of social media" (Hicks, 2013, p.138). I think this concept is hard for a lot of educators who are struggling themselves to catch up to the social media craze. Hicks points out that the main goal should be to "help students become intentional" he goes on to say that "if we simply have students sign up with the social media service and then use it in the same way we use other web-based tools - distribute assignments, have students randomly reply to each other on discussion posts - we are not inviting them to think deeply and creatively about how to craft social media texts. If we only use social media to re-create teacher centered instruction we're not using its power to our students' advantage" (Hicks, 2013, p.140). For me personally that is the most difficult concept of using social media and digital writing in the classroom. Luckily in the last chapter of Crafting Digital Writing, Hicks' focus is on modeling and mentoring the digital writing process. He responds to what he calls FAQs or "frequently argued questions" that teachers often ask him about the use of social media and digital writing in the classroom. Next, he walks us through the analysis of several student examples of digital writing. In his analysis of these examples he uses protocols for looking at student work available in the second addition of Looking Together at Student Work as well as his own "Creating a Digital Writing Assignment" which is found in Appendix A of the text. I know that both of these resources will be beneficial to me as I try to move toward crafting purposeful digital writing assignments and moving away from just replacing teacher centered instruction with technology. The largest part of this analysis and of creating digital assignments is the MAPS Heuristic. I've mentioned this before and it involves mode, media, audience, purpose, and situation. Hicks claims that asking students to enter the writing process matters a great deal (Hicks, 2013, p.160). I think that in order to get the conversation about purposeful digital writing started maybe we should first have students analyze their current digital writing, using these protocols and MAPS in an effort to have them contemplate their digital craft and where they are lacking. Whether we are encouraging purposeful and responsible use of digital writing and social media, our students are using it. I'm only friends with students I've taught once they graduate, but I've heard about school related posts by current students. It's interesting to me how students often use their social media to talk about school issues and often in a very negative manner. They have an open forum at all times where they can voice their opinions (good and bad). Two years ago there were several posts about the administration at that time. I was actually shocked at the things that were said about the principal. Below is a current Facebook post that isn't necessarily negative or positive. The original post is from a student that graduated last May. The replies clearly show that positive changes are happening at MHS, and some past students hate they aren't here to witness it! As mentioned previously, I feel that having students analyze their current digital writing (this social media post for example) with Hicks' process is a step toward them becoming more purposeful and responsible in their digital writing.

For more on Hicks on teaching digital writing see Digital Writing, Digital Teaching. References: Hicks, T. (2013). Crafting Digital Writing: Composing Texts Across Media and Genres. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Introduction Video Re-submission

Looking back at my introduction video for ED 529 Survey of Instructional Technology Leadership, I realize that my original video lacked a lot of the presentation techniques we've learned about in class. Although I feel that my video accomplished the goal of introducing myself to classmates, my first video was very simple. In my initial planning I considered the audience and the purpose but did not fully utilize the MAPS heuristic (as I was not aware of it yet!) The MAPS heuristic helps an author determine production elements to enhance their digital writing. According to Troy Hicks, author of Crafting Digital Writing: Composing Texts Across Media and Genres, there are five parts to the MAPS heuristic: mode, the genre of a text; media, the form in which a text is created; audience, the reader, listener, or viewer of the text, both intended and incidental; purpose, the action the author takes, in both an academic and a personal sense; and situation, the context for the writer herself or himself, as well as the demands of the writing task (Hicks, 2013, p. 21). After reading the chapters on audio and video texts, as well as our Google collaboration, I brainstormed ways that I could improve my original video for the re-submission.

As I began the process of recreating my introduction video, I decided to toss the majority of my original video. I followed Hicks' composition process for digital video texts which involves prewriting and drafting, revising and editing and publishing and assessing (Hicks, 2013, p. 114). In the prewriting and drafting stage, I decided against using my original video and audio but instead kept the wording and objective. Luckily I had a copy of my "script" from the original video so I was able to easily choose which wording I wanted to keep and what to omit.  In the revising and editing phase, I focused on the design elements of my new video. Hicks provides several elements to consider when editing digital video and I decided to use music, transitions, text, images, and time effects (Hicks, 2013, p. 111). After looking back through the audio and video collaborations from last week, I really wanted to try using time lapse software. In her collaboration example, Dr. Ray mentioned that VideoScribe has a free seven day trial. Once I checked out VideoScribe, I felt that it would be a great option to both experience time lapse video editing and revamp my introduction video.

The program itself is user friendly and it wasn't as hard as I thought it might be. Time lapse videos give the effect that they take lots of time and skill! Although the software wasn't difficult to navigate, it was pretty time consuming. I think that students would love using this program or one like it but I'm not sure that it would be feasible based on the amount of class time a project would take.

The publishing and assessing, however, wasn't quite as clear cut. It took about 30 minutes to export the video. I wanted to upload it to my YouTube channel so that I could easily embed the video here. I tried multiple times and although the option was there, it would not export to YouTube. I assumed that it had to do with the YouTube filter settings at school. At home, although I could access my account, I could not export the video because the free trial software is on my school computer. Therefore, I will have to wait until I am back and work to try to export again. *Note 11/6/14: The export to YouTube feature again would not work from my school computer (the computer that I had the trial on). Unfortunately, the export to video file is not an option for the free trial version. The only option that I could use was to export my video to a PowerPoint presentation. Then, I had to find a program that would host my PowerPoint presentation so that I could embed it here. I used Scribd. This was another new program to me and it was very user friendly! I was getting a little nervous that I failed big time and that all the time I spent on my VideoScribe was going to waste. Next time, I will make sure to read all the fine print when I am using a trial version (and start earlier)!

I hope that you enjoy my new time lapse video introduction!

Introduction Video by j2pritchett

References:

Hicks, T. (2013). Crafting Digital Writing: Composing Texts Across Media and Genres. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Presentations That Are "Sticky" and Don't "Suck"

It was August 2005 and I was a freshman at the University of Montevallo. It was the first day of classes and I was a ball of nerves. In the weeks leading up to my first college class, I wasn’t nervous about the coursework or even living in a dormitory. I was overly excited about being a college student and looked forward to everything about college life. My nerves were solely because of one class:  COMS 101 Foundations of Oral Communication (Introduction to Public Speaking). Just the idea of giving a presentation in front of a room full of other students and a professor made me sick to my stomach. Not only did I make it through COMS 101 (not without some anxiety however), I ended up choosing a career where I am basically a public speaker every day of my life…

As an educator, creating presentations and public speaking are very familiar territory. Although I sometimes still get a little anxious speaking in front of a group, presenting in front of ninth graders is much less intimidating than colleagues or peers. In our line of work, it isn’t just about a lot of speaking; it’s about creating informative and appealing presentations to accompany our speaking.

Chapter four of Crafting Digital Writing: Composing Texts across Media and Genres focuses on crafting meaningful presentations. I found the most helpful concept in the chapter to be the suggestions or principles to make presentations that are “sticky” and that don’t “suck”. These suggestions are imperative for educators, especially for high school teachers, for reasons that go without needing explanation.

According to Hicks in Crafting Digital Writing: Composing Texts across Media and Genres, the “secret to effective presentations is an intentional focus on craft” (Hicks, 2013, p. 61). Both students and educators alike should concentrate on the core principles of contrast, repetition, alignment and proximity when constructing a presentation (Hicks, 2013, p. 61). Although some of the books that Hicks refers  to were written for the corporate world, their advice about presentations can easily translate to the world of education. These books all point out that there is more to a good presentation than just persuading or promoting a product. The two main factors that appear again and again are storytelling and stickiness (Hicks, 2013, p. 62). In fact, as Hicks later states, “Presentations are often a unique blend of telling a story, sharing information, and making an argument and presentation gurus remind us that storytelling and stickiness are factors that go into delivering an effective presentation” Hicks goes on to say, “It is not enough simply to share information or step logically through an argument; the presentation must contain some sense of passion and purpose” (Hicks, 2013, p. 67). It is a fine line between an informative presentation that is also effective in both “storytelling” and “stickiness” but as educators, this task is imperative for reaching our students.

See my presentation below for the six principles from Chip and Dan Heath’s text, Made to Stick:Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die and Joshua Johnson’s 10 Tips for Designing Presentations that Don’t Suck.

References:

Heath, C., & Heath, D. (2007). Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die.

Hicks, T. (2013). Crafting Digital Writing: Composing Texts across Media and Genres, 61-63.

Image retrieved from http://image.slidesharecdn.com/howtocreatepresentationsthatdontsuck-140716053038-phpapp01/95/how-to-create-presentations-that-dont-suck-3-638.jpg?cb=1405542733

Johnson, J. (2010a, 2010b). 10 Tips for Designing Presentations that Don’t Suck.

Is This Piece of My Digital Writing Worth Sharing?

Often times I feel like I am a character in those infamous information overload commercials. You know the ones. Where the characters spout out random words and phrases that make no sense at all. While sorting through information, sometimes my thoughts become as jumbled and busy as the search engine results on my screen. Not only am I overloaded with information, I am daunted with deciphering between web-based mentor texts. As an educator and student, I spend much of my day "surfing" the net. I research information to enhance my lessons, I try to find answers to my students' (sometimes absurd) history questions and I research information for my own professional and personal reasons. I spend a great deal of time reading others' digital writing, to say the least.

I began my own digital writing as a middle schooler by using MySpace. I loved having my own personal place on the web. I enjoyed "decorating" my page with images, icons, quotes and even music that matched my personality and style. I quickly discovered that I could enhance my page by learning simple HTML (hypertext markup language). Although my digital writing was important to me (and maybe to my "top friends") I'm not sure that I actually wrote anything worth publishing for the world to see.

Troy Hicks, author of Crafting Digital Writing: Composing Texts Across Media and Genres, makes a significant point that in relation to digital writing, "the idea is that we must be deliberate in what we type when we post to our social networks, how we frame a photograph, how we edit video, or any other number of choices that affect the composition of our texts" (Hicks, 2013, p. 20). I wasn't necessarily deliberate in my early digital writing and it doesn't come natural to our 21st century students either. As Hicks states, "students may be 'tech comfy' but they are not necessarily 'tech savvy'. Being a digital native isn't enough" (Hicks, 2013, p. 20). They may be born digital but we are charged with the task of helping them become not only creative but purposeful digital writers (Hicks, 2013, p. 25).

In order to become better digital writers we must even think like digital writers when we are reading web-based mentor texts. Rhinegold offers us the following questions to ask ourselves, questions that perhaps I should have considered as a Myspacer, "Am I simply sharing a link to something that someone else crafted or offering my own succinct commentary on it? Am I composing my own response as a blog post, then sharing a link via Twitter? How much writing am I doing when I share something via social media? Am I intentional about it?" ...and most importantly... "Is this piece of my digital writing worth sharing?" (as cited in Hicks, 2013, p. 33). These are questions that our students should be prompted with in order to carefully think about not only their assigned digital writing, but also their digital writing on social media. Additionally, Hicks formulated the MAPS workshop model. MAPS helps writers see the broader context of a writing assignment by considering mode: the genre of a text; media: the form(s) in which a text is created; audience: the reader, listener, or viewer of the text, both intended and incidental; purpose: the auction the author takes, in both an academic and a personal sense; and situation: the context for the writer herself or himself, as well as the demands of the writing task (Hicks, 2013, p. 21).

Using Hicks' MAPS workshop model and reflecting on Rhinegold's questions, students can take their digital writing to the next level by pursuing written craft that is worthy of becoming a web-based mentor text for others. And honestly, isn't that what we all hope our digital writing will become? When we hit publish, post or send, we hope for likes, retweets, comments and praise that our digital writing is worthy enough for others' use and admiration.

References

Hicks, T. (2013). Crafting Digital Writing: Composing Texts Across Media and Genres, 20-33.

Image retrieved from http://learningedgeadventures.wordpress.com/presentations/reduce_information_overload/

Image retrieved from http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/social-media-modern-marketing_b50969

Rhinegold, H. (2012). Net Smart: How to Thrive Online.