In my district we are heavy users of Grant Wiggings, Understanding by Design framework. He refers to this basic concept as A-M-T, Acquire, Make Meaning and Transfer. When we look at mentor texts with students, regardless of the medium, we are acquiring understanding and knowledge. It is strictly fact finding and information gathering. That acquisition will then lead to students making meaning of that knowledge. Whether that’s through creating a video or writing a piece, they are taking the knowledge of the skill or concept that they’ve acquired and using it for an assignment based on something that we’ve asked them to do. This scaffolding gives them practice with the tool and moves their understanding more towards something that they begin to know. However, “knowing” can’t be the end goal. Even having an understanding can’t be where this ends. Until students transfer this knowledge, skill or concept to their own world and to their own work, independent of a teacher-driven assignment, I’m not sure that they “own” the knowledge, skill or concept.

As I think about this series and the course of events that have led to it, I can’t help but reflect on the idea of all of the knowledge that I’ve “borrowed” from this group. It’s expanded my understanding of mentor texts and of the role that they play in the classroom. When I started blogging with my students 8 years ago, I did so to make for a more authentic learning experience by giving them the opportunity for an audience. We floundered through it and I got better through experimentation and looking to my own mentors online. When we tried our first podcast that year, it was because of the mentors that were experimenting at that time as well. Each of these forays into the world of digital writing and creating provided me with the opportunity to borrow my understanding of content, process and technique from others.

I know that my thinking is incomplete here, but I’m spending a great deal of time considering how this fits into what I’ve been writing about the past week.

More on mentor texts this week from:

Katie DiCesare at Creative Literacy
Troy Hicks at Digital Writing, Digital Teaching
Kevin Hodgson at Kevin’s Meandering Mind
Tony Keefer at Atychiphobia and
Franki Sibberson at A Year of Reading

All posts are being aggregated at Mentor Texts in the Digital Writing Workshop.

The last of the three types of mentoring that I think of when I look at students creations is kind of a combination of the other two, (content and technique). This last mentoring type is “process”. Last year, some high school art students created a promotional video for our district film festival. To create this video they spent around 8 hours drawing the logo for the festival and then we sped it up so that the entire drawing took about 90 seconds. Here’s their video:

I love watching that video.

When we published the video for the festival, I sent the link to Franki’s who shared it with her daughter. She found inspiration and wanted to share her own process as well as try the technique. Valentine’s Day was coming and she was going to decorate a Valentine’s Day box so she set up a camera and recorded her own creation process. She then sped up her video and shared it out.

What’s equally neat about this is not only did a student creation inspire another student. I went back and showed the Valentine’s Day box video to the students who created the first video who were then inspired to continue creating other videos. The recursiveness of these videos and the sharing that can occur is astounding to me as I think about the possibilities.

As I’ve said before, I think it’s really important to understand, recognize and embrace the inspiration that students can get from each other. As a classroom teacher, I think that’s why I always liked the peer editing so much. When I first started teaching I would ask students to give fairly surface level feedback on their classmates writing. But I remember the first time that I added one question to my response sheet; “What inspired you about this piece?” It was as if I had just given my students permission to connect with the writing of their peers and given them a stake in it. That one question changed the way I ran my workshop and my students responded. I think the best part was that they weren’t writing for me anymore. They were writing to inspire each other and it changed the nature of writing in my classroom. It wasn’t magical and it certainly didn’t work every time for every writing that my students did. But when it did work… Wow.

More on mentor texts this week from:

Katie DiCesare at Creative Literacy
Troy Hicks at Digital Writing, Digital Teaching
Kevin Hodgson at Kevin’s Meandering Mind
Tony Keefer at Atychiphobia and
Franki Sibberson at A Year of Reading

All posts are being aggregated at Mentor Texts in the Digital Writing Workshop.

The following video is one created by a group of  elementary students who were  studying ancient Egypt and tasked with telling a story about an event. Rather than write a paper, they chose to tell their story through clay-mation and create their own video. With support for their technology integrator and teacher, they created a storyboard to guide them through their story and began the revising and rewriting until they had it just the way they wanted. By their own admission, they hadn’t ever written that much for an assignment ever before.

Once they had written the story and felt ready they immediately began diving into the clay to make the characters. This was the fun stuff. The stuff they could do without planning, or so they thought. Having never created an animated movie before, they had no idea what was in store for them. They knew they had a story inside that they had written out, but making it come to life in clay was a completely different thing. To guide them, their teacher had them look for examples to show them how to go about making an animated video. They found a few and got started, but after only a few frames, they realized they needed more direction and turned to the teacher for help. The teacher, who had also never created animation before called in reinforcements in the form of the building’s technology integrator. Without this available support, there’s a very real chance that the project would have died right there as the teacher was not what you’d consider a techy. This is the end result.

From where I sit, this was a successful project. The students told their story and showed their understanding and ability to transfer their knowledge to a new medium. However, there are many lessons to be learned through this project’s story including:

1. The students who created this video were creative and resourceful, but they didn’t create clay-mation. They had seen it somewhere and it it had inspired them to try something new. In one of their minds they had a mentor piece that guided them to this point.
2. We can’t assume that because something has to do with computers that students will be able to do it without support. They needed feedback, guidance and instruction to be successful.
3. Bringing in new mediums can change the scope of a project making it more challenging or complex.
4. When given choice and opportunity, students can and will create content that surpasses what we had envisioned.

My next example is from a middle school. In this student’s class they were reading, To Build A Fire, by Jack London. In this case, the student was talented when it came to drawing and also wanted to create an animated story taking an excerpt from the book as her inspiration. She had seen animation techniques and wanted to try something a little more advanced and ambitious. This is her creation.

In this case, the student was inspired by technique as well as content and went about creating because of it. She knew of the techniques and chose to put them to work in their own project.

When a work (be that a video, text or other medium) leads someone to explore a space that is unfamiliar to them and gives them guidance, it can most certainly be classified as a ment0r to the new work. Whether it’s mentoring content, technique or both, these are the basis for much of the creation going on in today’s world.

As this series goes on, it strikes me that each of us involved are adding to the thinking of and mentoring each other through our writing. Thinking about Kevin’s example of the choose your own adventures through video, or Tony’s project with his kids, I will take these “mentor texts” with me as I work with teachers and add to their thinking while they add to mine. The more I think about this subject, the more I see the inspiration that mentor texts can bring to students.

Tomorrow I will pull in the final way that mentor texts can influence the decisions that our students make and inspire them to create. Until then, be sure to check out the posts of the others participating in the series and please, let us know if you are thinking/writing about mentor texts as we are. We want to learn from you.

More on mentor texts this week from:

Katie DiCesare at Creative Literacy
Troy Hicks at Digital Writing, Digital Teaching
Kevin Hodgson at Kevin’s Meandering Mind
Tony Keefer at Atychiphobia and
Franki Sibberson at A Year of Reading

All posts are being aggregated at Mentor Texts in the Digital Writing Workshop.

Trying to be as stealth as I could, I observed him out of the corner of my eye so he wouldn’t stop and I followed him through the rest of his home tour. Hysterically, he was talking about the colors of the walls and the “possibilities” for each room. Asking his bear questions about why he wanted to live here and what kind of work the bear did, it suddenly dawned on me where all this was coming from. On New Years Eve we were with some friends and HGTV was on with one of those shows where they take perspective buyers to different houses and they decide which one they were going to buy. In each home they take a tour of the house, talking about possibilities and the layout. While at the time he seemed far more interested in playing with his friends, this brief interaction with a TV show that was “on in the background” made an impression on him and inspired him to make his own creation.

We haven’t shared it or put it online and probably won’t, but simply the process of creating has changed his way of thinking just a little. When I put him to bed I asked him how his video went. He told me that it was fun to do and his bear learned a lot about the house, (The kid is seriously funny!!) but that next time he’d do it better. I didn’t push to find out what his version of “better” entails, but it was clear that he had learned about not only the technical side (he thought the video was too jumpy), but also about the creative process and he was thinking about what he would do next time.

The timing of this couldn’t have been better. Sometimes those mentor texts that we find aren’t even at the forefront of our thought processes. Of course we need to be meaningful in our choices as we model for students, but at the same time, I think we need to honor our students’ choices of where they find their own inspiration for the things they create.

More on mentor texts this week from:

Katie DiCesare at Creative Literacy
Troy Hicks at Digital Writing, Digital Teaching
Kevin Hodgson at Kevin’s Meandering Mind
Tony Keefer at Atychiphobia and
Franki Sibberson at A Year of Reading

All posts are being aggregated at Mentor Texts in the Digital Writing Workshop.

One of my very distinct memories from my childhood was when I was 7 years old and the second installment of the Star Wars trilogy, The Empire Strikes Back, was released. I hadn’t seen the first movie and didn’t really know anything about it, but my dad was watching the news and there were all these people out in California that were dressed up in all these costumes to see a movie. I remember seeing Chewbacca and Darth Vader and thinking, “What are these people doing?” Here they were standing in line to see this movie, but they weren’t just standing in line, they wanted to experience it and be a part of it. It wasn’t until quite a few months later that I was whisked away to an Indianapolis theater by my father and uncle for my first Star Wars experience. I was surprised to see absolutely no one dressed up as that was really why I wanted to go – to experience the spectacle first hand.

Much has changed in our culture since 1980, but the idea of people participating in cultural events is certainly nothing new. The classroom is no different. As teachers making connections between content and the everyday lives of our students, we constantly bring the outside world into our instructional spaces and invite students to participate. Over the last 10 years, the opportunities to participate have grown exponentially. Much of this has to do with the digital tools and connectedness that we experience everyday. Thanks to the internet, our students have the opportunity to see, hear and experience events on a global level. But typically, it doesn’t stop there. They can actually participate and emulate those events in the virtual world. Recognizing the power of this will be an important piece to seeing how these cultural events can provide mentoring for students for in their digital creations.

In preparing for my part of the NCTE presentation on mentor texts this year, I remembered an example that Michael Wesch had showed during one of his presentations. Wesch, a social anthropologist at Kansas State University, reminded me about Gary Brolsma. In 2004, Gary sat in front of his computer, turned on his webcam and recorded himself doing a lipsync to the song, “Dragostea din tei”, by Moldovan pop band, O-Zone.

This video immediately became an internet sensation being linked to and sent to email addresses throughout the world. While the idea of videoing yourself singing a song that you like was by no means new in 2004, the ability to share with people everywhere and for the video to become viral was. With over 7 million views, Gary’s video is still one of the most watched videos of all time on the internet. With no production quality (watch the video if you don’t believe me), the appeal of this video passes all understanding (at least in my own mind). However, it’s clear that the world was interested. Shortly after the Numa Numa video was created, others started creating videos copying Brolsma’s song and actions. In the following video, a boy who seems to be middle school aged, takes the Numa Numa song and, using it as a sort of mentor text, creates his own video on a webcam and, because of availability of YouTube, he uploaded it and shared his version with the world.

In some way, Gary’s video influenced and inspired this young man to create his own video and share it online. Whether it was poking fun at the original or whether it was because he liked the song or even if he just got caught up in the hype that was surrounding the press that Gary was getting, a video was created and share. Gary wasn’t alone, the next video is of an adult who wanted get in on it.

Each of these videos took the same premise and idea from Gary and copied, expanded upon and emulated his basic ideas. Why they did it is unknown. It could have been just for fun or because for a two year period, that was the thing to do. However, both of these people took the content of the video and used it to make their own creation. They used the “text” as a starting point and went from there.

Not all of the videos that were created in homage to “the Numa Numa kid” were straight copies though. In the following video, a student (of unknown age) creates a video in an animation class as a tribute to the Numa Numa craze. In the video he uses a software program called Maya to animate a lego character watching and copying Brolsma’s actions. While you watch the video, pay close attention to how he uses camera angles and character actions. To a certain extent, he is telling a story while showing his proficiency with a piece of software (which was actually probably the overall goal of the project). From the head turns to the arm movements and even the “head bobs”, creator Jeff Dingman is using the content of the original video as a starting point.

Think about the decisions that a writer makes when composing a piece. Now add on top of that writing, the decisions that Jeff had to make in order to animate his character. While the medium is different and the content was essentially created initially, he made it his own. In the same way, the content of a mentor text gives students a starting point. It’s a beginning, not an ending and the inspiration that comes from there will help to guide them through their creation process.

Students create more and more everyday and have more options for distributing their creations than they ever have. Because of this, their “mentors” are changing as are their influencers and those who inspire them. I would argue that content is only one of three types of ways that these creators can be mentored by texts. The other two I will address in posts later this week. Each of these videos was created using the same base content; a song and a guy in front of a webcam.

Have mentor texts changed? I don’t know about that. It’s in our nature to copy that which we like and to want to participate. In his book, Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century, Henry Jenkins says that,

“Participatory culture is emerging as the culture absorbs and responds to the explosion of new media technologies that make it possible for average consumers to archive, annotate, appropriate, and recirculate media content in powerful new ways.”

We are participants in our culture who take the content that we see and with which we interact and try to frame it in our own lives. Mentor texts in all forms give us that starting point, but it’s important to recognize the need for the meaning of “texts” to be expanded to include content like what Gary inadvertently made with a webcam. We are in a time of change and the mentors that we find all around us, if harnessed, can guide us in interesting, enlightening ways. Just like 30 years ago when folks dressed up to see Star Wars, participation in our culture will drive much of the creation that is made and shared by people of all ages. It’s time to see “text’ as more than words on a page and “mentors” as more than just that which we, as educators, supply our students.

This was my first ACTE event and I was definitely impressed with how it was run and the presentations that were there.

Digital Dossier - Every day information is being collected about you by companies and organizations around the world. This video helps to frame that and makes you think about your privacy in this digital world.

Other Resources – Each of the following sites has a wealth of information on being safe online. While the list isn’t exhaustive, it’s a great starting point for thinking about how to be safe online for both kids and adults. Internet safety is becoming more and more important in our world and it’s rapidly becoming clear that we need to start having some of these conversations in classrooms.

• Common Sense Media – Provides curriculum and resources on media and technology literacy as well as being safe online
• INOBTR – A Missouri based organization established to educate the public on online safety, online predators and cyberbullying
• NetSmartz – Created by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children with resources for kids of all ages, educators and parents
• iSafe – A publisher of media literacy and digital citizenship educational materials
• Parent’s Guide to Internet Safety – Created by the FBI in conjunctions with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children

I write a lot about how the world is changing or has changed and how we must adapt to meet those changes. This is another one of those adaptions that we must make. It’s becoming more and more important for us to take the responsibility to have converstations with students about how to be safe and not assume that these conversations are happening at home or in another classroom. If you’re interested in talking more about online safety what that looks like in today’s world, please let me know.

I must say I was pleasantly surprised. Not because of her score, she was right where she needed to be and certainly has things on which to build. My surprise came from the reflection sheet that was attached to the assessment itself. On this sheet, Molly had identified her strengths and challenges in her understanding of the content as well as a reflection of the process of her learning. She answered questions prompting her to analyze what she did well and set goals for how she wanted to improve for the next assessment. I asked her about it and she explained her goals and told me about what her focus would be for her learning in the coming months. Her awareness of her learning and the metacognition that she had about her learning process amazed me. She was in second grade and could explain to me where she was going AND how she would get there.

As I have thought about this more and more, I naturally turn to the students that I had in my English class. I wonder if I just didn’t give them enough credit to analyze their own learning or set their own goals. If I had to guess, their goals ended up simply being my goals because I hadn’t given them any structures to work through goal setting on their own. Now that I’ve seen what my second graders are doing and the ownership that they have in their own learning, I would most certainly change my approach. By the time Max and Molly end up at Northeast, they will have been looking at their learning with a critical eye and setting their own goals for a full four years. The groundwork will have been laid and they’ll be ready to go. Before talking with my kids about this, I probably wouldn’t have been ready for them. I would assume that I’d need to start from the beginning. Now, I’m not so sure. Would they let me start from the beginning? Absolutely. They’d let me do the work for them and adopt the goals that I set for them giving me the illusion that they had never heard of setting their own goals. However, I’ve now seen this shift at a very young age and I’m confident that they’ll be ready to analyze their own thinking in ways that I hadn’t even considered providing to my own students.

NETS-S

1. Creativity and Innovation – Students demonstrate creative thinking, construct knowledge, and develop innovative products and processes using technology.
2. Communication and Collaboration – Students use digital media and environments to communicate and work collaboratively, including at a distance, to support individual learning and contribute to the learning of others.
3. Research and Information Fluency – Students apply digital tools to gather, evaluate, and use information.
4. Critical Thinking, Problem Solving and Decision Making – Students use critical thinking skills to plan and conduct research, manage projects, solve problems, and make decisions using appropriate digital tools and resources.
5. Digital Citizenship – Students understand human, cultural, and societal issues related to technology and practice legal and ethical behavior.
6. Technology Operations and Concepts – Students demonstrate a sound understanding of technology concepts, systems and operations.

Notice that none of these standards are directly related to a specific software package or specific list of skills that students “need” as they move through life. Rather, these are concepts and ideas that will help students become the capable, curious and confident learners and give them the flexibility to navigate the world in which we are living. These are not lessons that you need to specifically plan, but they are an important part of modern classrooms.

Additional Resources

On ISTE’s site, there is a great deal more information about the NETS and the role that they play in the classroom. Below are some links to specific pieces that may be of interest.

Essential Conditions – These are the necessary conditions to effectively leverage technology for learning as identified by ISTE.

Student Profiles – Broken out by age group, this page gives specific examples as to activities that might be used in the classroom.

PDF of NETS-S – This PDF has all the student NETS as well as performance indicators listed on a single page.

Parkway Technology Proficiencies – A list of “I can…” statements based on the student NETS with general ideas around using technology in the classroom.

Cross-posted to Tech4Practice

Sites referenced:

Google Docs
Etherpad
Mind Meister
Bubbl.us