Putting Visualization on the Map

Here's a link to a storymap made with Knight Lab.

I decided to put together a small map of some of the street art around the Milwaukee area. The images I used were inspired by the fact that they were images of street art around Milwaukee, but the platform that I decided on had a little bit more of a decision process. I was going to use Thinglink.com, but to start making a project (or even have access to explore the site and what it can be used for) I needed to enter an invitation code. Maybe I set my account up wrong. After that, I decided to give Knight Labs/Storymaps a go. Knight Labs was a lot more accessible, and after logging in using google (that’s right, there wasn’t even an account creation process for me to mess up like I potentially did with Thinglink) I was able to go right into putting a map together.

The process of creating the map really only furthered my understanding of Milwaukee’s street art in one way. Although it was a single aspect of understanding that was furthered, it might have been the most real aspect of my understanding so far. Before putting together the 8 major street art installations onto the map, looking up the addresses of each, and being able to see them organized together, I hadn’t really considered the actual location of the murals. After making the map, I realized I drive past most of these on a daily basis. Even though furthering this aspect of understanding might seem insignificant, being able to situate aspects of a texts in the real world is valuable when trying to get readers to engage with the text. It was even enough to make me go back and read an article that I’d already read several times looking for (and finding) new information about some of the murals.

I don’t now nor have I ever questioned the value of visualization since having learned about it. In fact, I really found value in putting together this map, and I’ll probably head out to see some of the art that I’ve been mindlessly driving past as soon as the weather turns. My one hesitation, though, is that even just googling images and locations of street art and then plugging them in to the site that I found to work was a bit time consuming. Of course, my students would have the benefit of me suggesting a site (and maybe even having a fancy invite code for one), so their decision for which site to use might take up a significantly smaller amount of time. I think because of the time it might take I could see myself using multimodal visualization to introduce topics that might be difficult to connect with for some students. I could also see using it for groups of students to put together information to teach their peers something, but I don’t think that I would have developed the same connection with the material if I hadn’t produced the map myself, so I’m not sure if I buy into having students create things for demonstration in the hopes that their peers will learn as effectively from just consuming the project.

Multimodal Blogging Text Set

For those of you used to my blog's normal tone and brevity, I'll offer a word of caution. That tone ends with this sentence, and this is lengthy post describing a set of texts to teach A Thing. This text set was developed with the purpose of introducing students to a daily writing activity that will be ongoing for the entire semester in a 9^th grade English Language Arts classroom In Milwaukee. Students will receive a writing prompt each day and have time to make a blog post in response to the prompt in class as well as a prompt to photograph something in their lives for the following day's prompt. The texts here will be used to shed some light on the benefits of writing a blog, show students how effective image use in conjunction with short writings can be, and present students with blogs that can be used as models for their own multimodal blogs.

Culturally relevant text

Miller, Anna, et al. “Your Guide to Milwaukee's Street Art.” Milwaukee Magazine, 16 Jan. 2018, https://www.milwaukeemag.com/guide-milwaukees-street-art/

This culturally relevant text showcases a wide variety of street art that has been created by local artists all around Milwaukee. Each photograph of art is accompanied by a short description of the artist(s) and the artwork at each location.

Complexity:

StoryToolz gives this text an average rating of 10.7 for quantitative complexity. I agree with this rating and don’t think this would be overly challenging for a 9^th grade student to consume. Qualitatively, I would say this text is only slightly to moderately complex. The photographs are used only as support for the written text and give images to the descriptions of the artwork, the language used is very straight-forward and conversational while using very little vocabulary that will be challenging, and the writing relies mostly on geographic knowledge of the city that most high school students will be familiar with.

Some vocabulary for this text includes reclusive, bienvenidos, prominently, breadth, proverbial, and haven.

Task and reader complexity:

As the first text to go along with the semester long assignment of keeping a multimodal blog, this task is only slightly complex. This text will be the first introduction of using images and short passages together to form a coherent message. This will also be used to motivate students’ interest by connecting the idea of creating blogs that express the world around them as they see it. The text builds on cultural assets of the students because they’re all likely to have experienced the art around the city, even if only by accident. It also builds on their cultural assets because the format is similar to Instagram/Facebook posts with an image and then a short description, so they’ll be quite familiar with the format. Finally, it will build on their cultural assets because it’s a text expressing some of the beauty around the city that they all live in. The accessibility of this task is high, because students will only be required to take a photo of something in their lives and add an explanation of the photo using this text as a model.

Print-based text

Sullivan, Andrew. “Why I Blog.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 19 Feb. 2014, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/11/why-i-blog/307060/

This print-based text situates blogs in the modern world among other types of media production and communication. It’s designed almost like a persuasive essay to encourage others to blog while describing the benefits to the individual producing the blog and the society that consumes blogs.

Complexity:

StoryToolz rates this blog’s average quantitative complexity at an 11.8 grade level. I don’t disagree entirely with this measurement, because the sentence structure isn’t overly complex, and the vocabulary is only occasionally demanding. Qualitatively I would say the text is mostly very complex. Some of the connections to other forms of media are implicit making the text structure very complex and the knowledge demands sometimes on specific related knowledge like the idea of something being postmodern. However, the purpose is easy to recognize and, again, the sentence structure isn’t overly complex.

Vocabulary words for this text may include postmodern, transitory, scant, posthumously, circumspection, and superficial.

Task and reader complexity:

The task associated with this text and the reader will be slightly complex. This text will be included as part of the ongoing introduction to blogs and will be used to motivate students to get involved with their blogging assignments. Because it will be a new subject that they may not have dealt with before, it will have some unfamiliar vocabulary and there won’t be a ton of connection to background knowledge outside of a general familiarity with news and other media. The task associated with this reading will be to create a blog post that explains why they are blogging. This may be more or less accessible to students based on their motivation level regarding their blogs, but the text will give them plenty of knowledge to build a rationale for blogging.

Multimodal text

 “A New Exhibition Looks at Our Complex Relationship with Animals.” Feature Shoot, 14 Oct. 2019, https://www.featureshoot.com/2019/10/a-new-exhibition-looks-at-our-complex-relationship-with-animals/

This is a multimodal text that is explaining an exhibition that took place at Meredith College in Raleigh, North Carolina. The exhibition is about the positive and negative realities that animals face because they share the planet with humans.

Complexity:

StoryToolz tells us that the quantitative complexity of this text ranges between an average of 8.8 and 13^th grade level, depending on the section. Some of the captions on the photos are easy to follow because they’re accompanied by the photograph and aren’t exceptionally wordy, while some of the other information can be a little more demanding. This difference explains the varied level of complexity, which I agree with. Qualitatively, the text structure is very complex. Although the knowledge demands and meaning are only slightly to moderately complex, the text structure is at least very complex because of the contrast between some of the pictures that extend the meaning of the written text and the language features border on very and moderately complex because of sentence complexity and vocabulary.

Some vocabulary from this text may include rambunctious, solemn, euthanized, sanctuary, anesthesia, sow (noun), and cyanotype.

Task and reader complexity:

This text will be used to begin the conversation about how impactful images can be on a narrative. Though it may not build on urban students’ cultural assets (because of the extensive reference to farm animals and the rodeo) it will build well on the students’ background knowledge established by earlier readings and assignments to take pictures at home to use as writing prompts in class. The task with this text will be accessible as the students will be asked to photograph something in their lives that could be used to call attention to some injustice, either tangible or perceived, and explain what that injustice is.

Other Texts

Culturally relevant - catdiggedydog, Written by. “A Day in the Life of a High School Blogger.” Catherine Zhang, 2 May 2014, https://catherinezhang.me/2014/05/01/life-high-school-blogger/ 

Print-based - Bullas, Jeff, et al. “9 Reasons Why A Blog Is Important for Your Career and Life.” Jeffbullas's Blog, University of Phoenix, 8 July 2019, https://www.jeffbullas.com/sponsored/9-reasons-why-a-blog-is-important-career-life/

Multimodal - Eldon, Dan, and Kathy Eldon. The Journey Is the Destination: the Journals of Dan Eldon. Chronicle Books, 2017.

Should We Trust Students to Take Charge of Their Learning? The Answer May Surprise You!

From my brief time working with adolescents in my field work (and a few interviews conducted with some students), I’ve started to get an understanding of “teen literacies” that aren’t all that different from my literacies when I was in high school. Some of the biggest takeaways from being around students and interviewing some of them are the importance of choice (which is a huge surprise only if you’re not paying attention), how a school workload influences students’ abilities and willingness to take part in reading and writing for pleasure, and of course how varied teens are when it comes to their literacies.

Without contest, the biggest insight gained from both interviewing students and just talking with students in general is how important the aspect of choice is when completing things. I know that I also grappled with the notion of reading as an adolescent because so often the only thing that I was reading were things that were assigned to me in classes where I felt less than autonomous.

Because of that (and honestly even before these interviews, because I’ve been paying attention) one of the things that I plan to implement into my teaching is choice. Even if it’s a choice from a list of things, it’s still better than no choice at all. These choices don’t stop at what a student reads in class, though. The students I interviewed all said that they didn’t write much for fun, and the ones that had a strong opinion on the matter said that if they could make a writing assignment that they wanted to do they would enjoy it more. The suggestions for composition always trended toward other forms of academic writing, so I’m sure that bringing multimodal production as an option of a “writing” method into class would certainly get some student buy-in.

Another factor is the school workload. Of course, there are assignments that need to be assigned to evaluate where students are in their learning, but I remember being in school and being assigned things that I had to constantly wonder what purpose they served. I suppose that leads me to something that I might consider trying. Instead of having a “read this by then” approach, maybe I could get away with assigning just a certain amount of reading from some variety of text. Of course, this sort of relates to choice, but I’d also like to keep the workload as small as it needs to be so I can instead encourage students to really engage in texts (both consuming and creating) that bring them joy to foster that healthy long term relationship with literature.

A third thing that I would love to incorporate into my classroom is a vast classroom library because of the varied interests of teens. Naturally there’s the issue of cost and making sure that all the texts are things that aren’t going to get huge backlash from students, but I’m sure with the help of sites like donor’s choose and with a little time an excellent library for a classroom can be pieced together. This is, again, just an extension of choice. It seems like allowing students to choose what they read, when they read, what they write, and how they write might be the best approach to getting students engaged with literature. It’s almost like we should let the students run (or, maybe, lead) their own learning. I wonder if anyone’s written anything on that yet that would support my hypothesis (:O).

Inquiry Blogs: The Real Question

One thing that I’ve given serious thought to because I saw the movie Freedom Writers ages ago and I have a Hollywood image of how powerful it could end up being to build an ideal classroom environment is, of course, keeping a daily write journal. Another thing that makes me want to explore journals in the classroom is that I’ve recently been tricked into picking up journaling by someone who gets paid to talk. An article from Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way about something called morning pages was thrusts onto me, and after reading it I figured I’d give it a go, because why not. I don’t follow all the directions, but essentially, you’re meant to write 3 pages by hand first thing when you wake up to get the creative juices flowing and the cobwebs cleared out for the day. I don’t write it longhand because, well, it’s 2019. But otherwise, I find it really helpful when I engage with it at doing just what I was told it would do, and it’s definitely shaped how I write a considerable amount in a far less considerable amount of time.

Like the example blog that seems to be addressing journaling that was linked on a resource page, I too have too many things in the running for my attention in this blog. There are so many things that I want to know more about that I mean to try to incorporate into my classroom, so deciding on what I plan to do for this blog has been a tough one.

Of course, I have to consider my field work and what experience I have with high school aged children in my life, and that makes me want to explore using multimodality more often and offering it as a choice that can be made on any project. But, I took an entire course on that not too long ago, so I’m not sure I would be willing to devote more blogging to it right now (even though in honesty, it’s probably the single most helpful thing that I can imagine to get more students to engage with course work). There’s a lot of potential with multimodality. It allows for a lot of choice for students and it engages them with technology, which are both likely to get you that precious student buy-in that I keep hearing about.

Hang on a second.

Not to slam on the brakes of your internal reading voice, but I believe my writing what you’ve just read has led me to a painfully obvious resolution to my now silly dilemma. Blogs are multimodal journals. For my inquiry blog I’ll be exploring the use of blogs in the classroom. For anyone that knows me or has read anything I’ve written, I’m sure you’re shocked at the slight meta level that blogging for a classroom about blogging for a classroom has about it, but it does honestly remove the need to choose between the two.

What I already know about blogging is expressed below this in previous blog posts and above this very sentence as I described (as vaguely as possible) what I know about journaling and multimodal composition. A few things that I’d like to know going forward is how to effectively set up a blogging platform that might be able to stay in a closed loop for my classrooms (so it can provide the level of privacy that the classroom walls do), how to ensure that students that may have less access to technology have a chance to participate with the blogs, and probably a ton more that I haven’t even considered yet. I'm not sure right now what resources I'll be using to further research this outside of the book I mentioned earlier, the internet, and perhaps even an instructor that has integrated blogging into their classrooms well. This is about twice as long as this has to be (I mean, if it had to be any length, but, as you may recall, this is certainly not required) so I’m done, for now. Thanks for your time.

this is a digital notepad. it's a metaphor.

Welcome Back

Hey there folks, I'm still James Thomas, and I'm still blogging entirely of my own free will. I’ve put below this post one warning not to proceed, and if you’re reading this you’re probably in my blogging group or just really lost on the internet. I’m currently enrolled in a Currins 545 apparently inaccurately titled “Reading in Content Areas: Middle, Junior, and Senior High School.” As someone that often allows my learning to spill over into my very personal and voluntary blogging, it’s likely that any post following this one for some time may be related to what I learn there, so be ready for that. For now, though, here’s a picture of my two cats, Cat (the mostly white one) and Charles. Also, a link for your clicking pleasure. 

Whoa Now, Slow Down!

Past this point on this blog (a blog that has definitely been created out of ambition and not as a result of force) is content from a previous stage in my life. In that stage I was a different person, doing different courses, and addressing different topics. If you continue reading, I can make no guarantees about the quality and relevance of the information. 

Final Required Blog Post

So, I have a confession to make. I haven't been entirely honest with you (my audience of 2) about the purpose of this blog and how it came to be. The truth is, it definitely was a required blog, and all of the posts were also required. Now that that weight is off my shoulders, I'd like to take a moment to reflect on the content of the blog because, well, it's required. Reflection has always been the hardest part of any composition process for me, and I'm sure this will be no exception. We've been asked (we is myself and other students in my class for the internet archaeologists that will inevitably  stumble upon this some day) to reflect on the posts we've made on our blogs and decide which posts best fit the categories of "professionalism, design, creativity, and people’s choice (as defined as a class)."

All of the posts I'm going to address will be able to be found under this one so long as the meaning of the word under or the default layout of this blog doesn't change, but I'll also be including links in case your scroll wheel or space bar is broken.

For professionalism, I'm going to go with my first blog post titled Smartphones and Social Media can position a class in the Real World. I'll pick that post because it's the least unprofessional, not that any posts are immediately unprofessional though. It was early in my blogging career, and my mind hadn't yet been corrupted with the notion that I can write something relevant and then ramble to get credit for the posts.

For design I'll have to settle on What Does Multimodal Even Meme? this one is mostly because of the fact that I designed something for the post. Though it may be small, I actually had to design that 1st class meme you'll see if you click that link (or scroll down just a tiny bit, it's just below this one). I suppose that makes it my most well designed post. I'm not sure I'm doing this right, but who cares?

As far as creativity, for me the most obvious answer is Getting Drunk on Writing. I felt pretty creative just rambling on, pouring my actions out as words in a blog post in real time to create the post. It's probably technically the least creative in that aspect, because it required such a small amount of actual creativity and was just a documenting of movement in its own creation, but again, who cares if I'm doing this wrong?

After all this self reflection, we've (same we as before, please try to pay attention) been tasked with picking a blog that best satisfies the categories established by the people (this people is the aforementioned we). I'm going to go with Maggie's Blog for obvious reasons if you just click that link (this time you can't just scroll down, turns out that's an entirely different website). Most important in my decision making process was voice, and I couldn't really care less about the other categories the people established (though her blog performs exceptionally by those standards as well). Other categories the people set are categories that could probably be achieved well by a program designed to use relevant images or have "engaging media" and post a ton of videos, but voice is probably not something computers are at the level of creating on their own. So, before society is overrun by Skynet, go read Maggie's blog and experience some human voice.

Also, images are required, so here's the first entirely original image to be posted on this blog. It's a screenshot of the blog. I hope you enjoy it.