Use of Apps to Engage Students in Collaborative Writing, Great Plains Composition Conference
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Transcript of Use of Apps to Engage Students in Collaborative Writing, Great Plains Composition Conference
Richard Beach, University of Minnesota
Handout: Apps recommendations
http://tinyurl.com/c5mlkuh
Use of Apps to Engage Students in
Collaborative Writing
Current book project
• Richard Beach, Chris Anson, Lee-Ann Breuch, and Thomas Reynolds, Understanding and Creating Digital Texts: An Activity-Based Approach, Rowman & Littlefield, in press
• http://digitalwriting.pbworks.com
Apps: Affordances
Affordances not “in” app
App ActivityAffordances created by teachers
Activity App
Affordances: Social practices
• Contextualizing texts as actions/spaces
• Interacting with others• Making hypertextual connections• Collaborating with others• Constructing identities as persona
Affordances not “in” tools
• “We need to understand that meaning is not inherent in our tools (writing, media, ideas, language) nor does meaning reside in ourselves. Rather, it exists in the space between our tools, ourselves, and each other—in the space of design.” Doug Walls, KAIROS
Tools: Recontextualize
texts• Twitter: Move link from one context
to new context• Remix: Copy-paste from original to
new text• Annotate: Add new content to a text
Digital texts: Continuum
• StaticDynamic
• Fixed Open• Monologic
Dialogic
Wiki annotations to a Munro story
Folger Digital Library
Annotations: Hamlet
Rap Genius: Annotations
Evernote: Clippings
Feedback: thesis: Google Forms
Research: Middle school students
• 2011 – 2012: Using of iPad apps (report at end of handout)
• 2013: Use of Chrome apps• Low-income, urban school
A Quick Peek at Diigo
Diigo bookmarking for sharing annotations
1. Add Diigo to Safari (iPad) or Chromebook toolbar
2. Find an online text
3. Highlight sections of the text
4. Click on the icon to add a Sticky Note response
5. Have other students add their responses
Affordances of Diigo: Collaborative Annotation
Affordances of Diigo: Collaborative Annotation
Paired Resulting Argument
More active reading
Alternative perspectives
Alternative response practices
Benefits: Annotations
Discussion prompted by projecting annotations on the pro wind power article
Read one of two con articles and added their own annotations using Diigo and DocAS.
Students responded to each other’s annotations
Generated an argument made up of claim and multiple pieces of evidence
Sticky-note discussion
Data Analysis: Coding Scheme
34% questioning,
22% integrating/connecting,
13% evaluating,
10% determining important ideas,
9% inferring,
8% reacting to other’s comments,
4% monitoring
Results: Diigo Annotations
What app affordances did middle school students employ in using Mindmeister, Diigo, and VoiceThread in studying the topic of weather versus climate?
What benefits and challenges did students identify in using these apps?
What are some differences between use of iPads versus Chromebooks in using these apps?
2013 Research: Chrome apps: Mindmeister, Diigo, VoiceThread
Affordances: Organization, Multimodality, Ease of use
It’s easier and it’s get more into what you going to do because you can use photographs, graphs, and charts and all of that and it’s more easier to show as if you’re doing a presentation to get the person you’re showing this to more into it and to show them what you trying to explain to them.
It organizes your thinking. When you put in bubbles you could tell the difference and you can put it on each side that you think it is. It’s better than writing because you can think of more ideas when you’re using that and you can put images when you’re explaining.
Affordances: Efficiency, Collaboration, Visual
When you’re doing it on paper and pencil you’re just learning from our own thoughts, on Diigo it is more faster and better.
Easier. If it is on paper, you are not allowed to collaborate. It’s online.
You can communicate with other people like if you have a question or a comment on other people’s sticky note or if they have a question you can clarify.
VoiceThread: Multiple audiences
share responses to images
VoiceThread affordances practices
Collaborative shared reading
Mediated by focus on same iamge
Learn from other’s perspectives
Multimodal production
Teacher: Multimodality
The multimodal aspect of this helps kids gel their understanding and further their understanding of whatever their particular part of the carbon cycle was in a way that was not as rich had we been doing a whole class discussion or another reading on the carbon cycle or all watching a video. What was neat was every kid was processing their leg of the carbon cycle in their own way without being guided by a teacher. In a class often we’re going to read about it for two minutes and discuss; they could think about it and talk with a partner about it.
Advantage: iPadsTouch
Speed
# apps
Video/images
Advantage: Chromebooks
Costs
Google Apps
Loading apps
Keyboard (problem: trackpad)
Identity competencies
• Negotiating identities across different social worlds
• Acquiring new, alternative ways of perceiving and knowing
• Making connections across people, events, and texts
• Engaging in critical analysis of texts and the world
• Reflecting on one’s experiences based on long-term identity trajectories
“Habits of mind” • Curiosity, openness, engagement,
creativity, persistence, responsibility, flexibility, and metacognition
• Framework for Success in Postsecondary Writing (Writing Program Administrators, National Council of Teachers of English, National Writing Project, 2011)
Negotiating identities/adopting perspectives: Online role-play
• Issue: Access to information on blocked websites
• Students adopt pro-con roles• construct a persona• employ rhetorical appeals • support their position with reasons • identify and refute counter-arguments• revise or modify one’s own positions
Using a Ning as the platform for online role-
play:
Using Diigo sticky notes to share annotations on related research http://grou.ps/cwhybrid2010t1/talks/5160010/4
Threaded discussion allows students easily follow discussion
Role construction: Adopting different perspectives
EmoGirl: Critique of schoolInternet policies
I think the internet usage policies are ridiculous. The policies are almost impossible to find. I spent half an hour trying to find them and I'm a young, computer savvy person.
“Strict Father” cultural model:
• The issue with sites like YouTube is that it is a helpful site when used correctly, but the ratio of students who would use it to the students who would abuse it would greatly favor the later of the two. R-rated sites are not ok because they usually contain information and content that may be considered offensive. The internet policies are very clear, if your grandmother would not appreciate it, then you probably shouldn't be doing those kind of things at school.
Online resourcesHandout: Apps, identity activities, study
report
http://tinyurl.com/c5mlkuhEbook: Using iPad and iPhone Apps for Learning with Literacy Across the Curriculum
http://usingipads.pbworks.com