African American Vernacular English

I just finished reading the Richardson article for today's class.  The article talked a lot about African American Vernacular English (AAVE), and how student's "mother tongue" is discouraged in the schools.  The article also discussed how this can lead to various student behaviors, one of which being students "acting out" or having "bad attitudes."  

I started thinking about my experiences in schools thus far.  I remember various times, especially in my second student teaching placement, where I had students (second or first graders) acting out to an extent that they needed to be removed from the class.  There were a few really defiant kids, who often needed to be physically removed by my CT.  I remember one or two times where African American children were being removed from the class, and one of the paraprofessionals from the classroom next door (an African American man) happened to be in the hall.  I watched, as he talked to those kids, and noted how they responded to him completely differently than the white teachers.  I naively thought that it was only because he was black himself, but now I realize that a huge part of it was his ability to communicate with them in their "mother tongue", which the white teachers did not have the ability to do.

So now I ask, how can white teachers reach African American students in a way that he was able to, when we have no experience in speaking AAVE?

musicovery.com

Pierce inspired me with Pandora (because we use it at work quite a bit) to look around for other music sharing sources.  What I found was a very cool concept that I have never seen before.  Musicovery.com is french site for music streaming that goes far beyond "favorites" and personal stations. It actually selects music for you based on mood.  The graphical matrix to choose music is simple but elegant and innovative.

The first learning experience was simply finding that I could get out of the French mode and into English. Though you do not have to register, you can. You have to give up some personal information (email, sex, age). What struck me is that it is very heavy ad based. However, you can pay for the service ($4 USD per month) for no ads, better quality streaming and additional features. I'm sure the music you choose will filter into the ads presented to you. 

It made me think more about how we pay for free media and entertainment by selling a bit of our attention. This brings me back to the passive/active consumer idea ...mainly, because my first pretentious thought was, "Well, the ads are O.K. I can handle it. But, can a kid?" Wait a minute ...why can't a kid handle it? Media literacy is a skill I truly believe I have. I don't hate ads. They tell me about cool "stuff" I might really actually want to buy. And, I actually enjoy looking at ads of all kinds and picking apart what they are really selling, how they are doing it, and will it work. It is interesting stuff to do. Sometimes, I buy.

Media is not just thinking critically about ads and programming. It is also understanding the narratives (example would be cuts: swipe, fade, roll ...how does time pass in each one?). How about reading Of Mice and Men AND watching the movie. What story is being told in each? That Pepsi ad: did the story appeal to my desire to have a Pepsi or was it really a desire to have friends? Skip the soda and call a friend.

So, free mood music for ads ...perhaps. I can also choose to turn it off. Part of having literacies is not a greater social justice but a kind of personal justice. Liberation and my iPod. Heh.

Verveearth Web 2.0

For this week's Web 2.0 assignment, I selected an experience from the Go2Web20.net resource sent out by Professor Larson. While there was certainly a number of sites to choose from, I selected www.verveearth.com. This website maps the Internet's content on to a global map. Because the information is presented in map format, the site allows you to surf the worldwide web in a whole new way. You have the option of looking for Internet content via geography or by content categories. This allows you to access content from your own area as well as gain information from different areas. It also allows you to add your own blog and website. I found this website to be pretty cool and unique. It could be a great resource to connect local voices as well to gain perspective from different locations. I was surprised by the location of some blogs, while others were certainly a little more familiar, such as Larson's blog “Literacy, life and learning.” The website provides a great tool to connect people with common interests as well as similar surroundings. All in all, I enjoyed this experience and could see myself utilizing it in the classroom.

Pandora - saving my sanity

For this Web 2.0 I created a personalized radio station. Pandora is my new best friend at work. It was incredibly easy to set up. All you need to do is create an account (30 seconds) and type in your favorite songs or artists. Pandora will create different "stations" based upon your interests. There are no commercials, it's free, and it's all your favorite music. During my free periods I can now enjoy grading or planning to music. I've had many students create their own stations on my account, so as an incentive I can allow students to listen to music during class (when appropriate), and they really do enjoy sharing their interests with the class. For my first web 2.0 assignment I created a MySpace account. I had the intention of using it to as a teacher tool. After creating and understanding MySpace, I do not think this would be an appropriate form of communication. Students convey personal information and utilize their right to freedom of expression on the internet. I felt that, in a sense, I would be "crashing their party". Orlando made a great point during his visit. If we choose to use new forms of literacy, we should aim at allowing it to belong to the students. Anyway, with Pandora I think it's a genuine new literacy. I'm engaging with new technology in expressing my own interests, and my students can create as well!

Ovi Web 2.0

For my web 2.o I decided to pick one from the e-mail list Larson had sent out. There were so many to chose from, it was hard to only pick one. I decided to do Ovi because it is an online site that allows you to share your pictures, videos, and more, very easily. I send my mom, family, and friends pictures all the time through e-mail, and I usually have to shrink the picture so that the e-mail sends, and so that the receiver can open it easily. Ovi is the solution to e-mailing pictures! It is fast, great quality, and you don't have to be a member to view the pictures. The account is free, and it was very simple to start. I only had to provide a username, password and an e-mail address. They never asked for my personal information, although under user profile, there are options to put your contact information, etc. From there it brought me to their main homepage, where I uploaded some pictures directly from my computer. You can name them however you want. I then created a channel, where I selected certain photos from my media, and could directly enter e-mail addresses to people I wanted to view this channel of pictures. There is a tab for contacts right at the top, so you can store people's addresses there for future e-mailing. The site also had some privacy selections that were very easy to follow, which allows your channel to be private. This way, only the people you are sending the channel too can view the pictures. The literacy I used here was technology. I used the internet and located computer files. Since I am familiar with how to upload pictures, it was very easy for me. Even someone with little to no experience with uploading pictures can use the site. It is very user friendly. On the right hand side of the page, there is an "actions for this page" area, where items you can choose are highlited. So it gives you steps in accomplishing what you want to do. I think the site is great because it not only gives you a way to easily share photos or videos, but you can view other peoples pictures too. Some of the other pictures on there are really interesting, and you could use them for presentations, or just for the sake of browsing. It is a way to connect with people through the use of pictures, videos, and other forms of media. I'm including the main homepage and not my direct site because I want to keep it private. http://share.ovi.com/

SecondLife web 2.0 assignment

I've done most of the things on the list, so I decided on SecondLife, one of the online virtual worlds populated by people who do everyday people things, but on the computer in a virtual world.

After registering and downloading the software you begin by selecting a name and an "avatar" which is a virtual person. Once you log on the first time you are in a tutorial section which guides you through the basic movements and physics of this world. It also gives you your first opportunity to edit your appearance. I was amazed at the number of attributes that were editable, especially the facial features, but really throughout the entire character.

I had a chance to learn how to talk with other's who were logged on which provides an interesting context to the concept of chatting online with people you haven't met. In addition to the normal concerns about chatting with strangers, every person has an avatar that (most likely) bears no resemblance at all to what they really look like (or even what gender) but this does give an interesting opportunity to explore communication divorced from typical assumptions. Both parties might have switched gender roles or ethnicities or heights or weights, and so it would be interesting to analyze the difference in communication that takes place when someone is able to define themselves completely separately from their real-world physical appearance.

This world is complex and I only began to explore it, but it is easy to see how people could become addicted to having an entire "second life" online where they could do and become things they might not be able to in the real world. It would be interesting to have a class set up their own community online and be able to interact through avatars with classrooms from elsewhere in the real-world since it would be live and real time, but without some of the limitations of video conferencing. Second life offers the possibility of endless creation of virtual things so that any resource could exist in a virtual classroom, shared by any student around the world.

Also, from the standpoint of a digital literacy, the thought processes behind the physics and construction of the world (and the early hints that you can contribute to the building of this world) as well as the social networking components definitely stretch brain muscles that are not used by making a powerpoint or surfing the net.

Interesting all around . . . and it might actually be more stimulating and enriching than watching TV, so I can understand why some people choose to spend their free time in second life. I, however, barely have enough time for my first life!

Pierce's Video

I was watching the video Pierce uploaded to YouTube for his Web 2 project, and I noticed that the people it highlighted were all the famous ones from the Civil Rights movement - Jackie Robinson, Rosa Parks, Malcolm X, MLK.  This is pretty standard.  If you're lucky and get a more in-depth video, you might also hear about W.E.B. DuBois or Booker T. Washington.  You're less likely to hear about Hiram Revels, Langston Hughes, or Mae Jemison, all of whom made significant contributions to African American heritage.  Obviously you can't talk about everyone, but there are advantages and disadvantages to sticking to the core few.  Do African American youth today feel as able to connect to these figures as youth in the past?  Or should we present a new and more varied approach?