Gaming the Writing Process

May 16, 2012 by

The Art of Video Games 2012What would happen if we rethought the ways that we think and talk about writing and the writing process to use the kind of language and thinking that people use when they play games? That’s the question I’ve been pondering during the several weeks since Katie Salen’s webinar, Making Learning Irresistible: 6 Principles of Game-like Learning.

Last week I talked about how to make a curriculum relevant by thinking like a game designer when you structure your curriculum. This week I want to take that idea a little further by considering how a game designer might teach writing.

Read more about the 3 fundamental ways my teaching will change if I apply the strategies of game play to the writing process in my complete post on the Bedford Bits site.

 

[Photo: The Art of Video Games 2012 by blakespot, on Flickr]

Filed under Bedford Bits, connected learning, Teaching Composition Tagged with

Seeing Connected Learning

April 24, 2012 by

VFS Writing students workshop a scriptLast week, I shared some photos that demonstrate what I think students engaged in connected learning look like. Ultimately, I had to admit that the images might only complicate the issue, especially since none of the photos matches what you’re likely to see in the writing or literature classroom.

Writing last week’s post just led me to more questions: What does connected learning look like? For that matter, what does any kind of learning look like? How can we tell when (and what) students are learning?

Learning is never as obvious as we might wish. I’d go as far as to say that if it were, we wouldn’t need so many standardized tests to know whether students were reaching academic goals. So how can I tell when I’m seeing connected learning? This week, I decided to look back over all the images I’ve chosen and some that I rejected to try to decide what I’m looking for when I look for Connected Learning.

I explain what I see when I am Seeing Connected Learning in my full post on the Bedford Bits blog.

Filed under Bedford Bits, connected learning

What Does Connected Learning Look Like?

April 18, 2012 by

Is this Connected Learning?

hackNY 2011 Spring Student Hackathon

How about this?

Engineering competition puts college students to the test

This week I go on a search for photos of Connected Learning, and I find out it’s no simple task. Read more in my full post on the Bedford Bits blog.

 

Filed under Bedford Bits, connected learning

Rethinking the Classroom for Connected Learning

April 11, 2012 by

ClassroomI’ve always envied K—12 teachers who have a regular classroom where all their classes meet. It’s not just that they have a place to keep their belongings. What I really covet is the ability that control of the learning space gives a teacher to set the mood for the course before she ever says a word. 

Instead, the college classrooms I’ve used are typically bare bones and impersonal spaces. Rows of uniform desks stretch to the back of the room, with a teacher’s desk authoritatively at front and center. Often times the desks cannot be moved. If they are rearranged for group work or into a large circle, they have to be restored to the official arrangement for the next class of students. The usual college classroom is screaming out for a “sage on stage.” It’s not designed for student-driven, collaborative activities.

How can a college teacher rethink that standard classroom to make it more like the high school classroom? How can we make the space better suited to Connected Learning?

I think about the answers in my full post on the Bedford Bits blog.

Filed under Bedford Bits, connected learning

Can Connected Learning Work at the College Level?

April 3, 2012 by

I know that Connected Learning spaces exist at the college level. The best example I’ve ever been in was the Center for Computer-Assisted Language Instruction  (CCLI, now the HDMZ) at Michigan Tech. Students and teachers alike could enter that space and pursue whatever they wanted. I had access to a dream array of digital software and hardware, and the space was filled with helpful people willing to collaborate, mentor, and inspire one another. It demonstrated the essence of Connected Learning principles.

How many colleges and universities would be willing to shift alllearning to that kind of Connected Learning space though? Would schools give up well-defined courses, structured syllabi, and departmental goals? Adopting Connected Learning models would require quite a revolution in how we think about college education—but it’s a rethinking we may need to consider.

Why? Read my full post on the Bedford Bits blog.

Filed under Bedford Bits, connected learning

Bits Week in Review for November 28

November 28, 2011 by

Catch up on your reading with this round-up of posts from last week on teaching composition and rhetoric from Bedford Bits, on teaching English language arts at the secondary level in High School Bits, and on teaching literature and creative writing from Bedford Lit Bits.

A Few Extra Links

For regular updates from Bedford Bits, be sure to sign up for the Ink’d In newsletter (and other resources), like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.

Filed under Bedford Bits, Literature, Teaching Composition

Bits Week in Review for November 21

November 21, 2011 by

Catch up on your reading with this round-up of posts from last week on teaching composition and rhetoric from Bedford Bits, on teaching English language arts at the secondary level in High School Bits, and on teaching literature and creative writing from Bedford Lit Bits.

A Few Extra Links

For regular updates from Bedford Bits, be sure to sign up for the Ink’d In newsletter (and other resources), like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.

 

Cross-posted as a Note on Bedford/St. Martin’s page on Facebook.

Filed under Bedford Bits

Bits Week in Review for November 6

November 6, 2011 by

Here’s the round-up of posts from last week on teaching composition and rhetoric from Bedford Bits, on teaching English language arts at the secondary level in High School Bits, and on teaching literature and creative writing from Bedford Lit Bits. I hope you find something you can use in the classroom or your research!
 

A Few Extra Links

For regular updates from Bedford Bits, be sure to sign up for the Ink’d In newsletter (and other resources), like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.
 

Cross-posted as a Note on Bedford/St. Martin’s page on Facebook.

Filed under Bedford Bits, Literature, Teaching Composition

Award-Winning Sentences

July 31, 2011 by

Stormy nightOne day, Edward George Bulwer-Lytton sat down and wrote what have become one of the most infamous opening lines of his novel Paul Clifford (1830): “It was a dark and stormy night.”

Bulwer-Lytton wrote other memorable lines. He penned “the pen is mightier than the sword” too, but chances are that if you know his name, it’s because of “It was a dark and stormy night.” Part of that sentence’s familiarity is thanks to Snoopy, who works so hard on that first sentence of his novels. If you’ve never quite understood the problem with that sentence, it’s likely that you’ve never read the full thing:

It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents—except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.

Quite the sentence, isn’t it? Since 1983, the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest has honored that epic sentence with a competition to write an equally spectacular sentence. This year’s winner, Sue Fondrie, teaches at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh. The Guardian has more details, including the award-winning sentence which compares memories to wind turbines and sparrows and a groaner of a winner from the Fantasy category.

This post is the introduction from the Bits Flashback for July 31. Read the rest of the post on Facebook.

 

[Photo: Stormy night by Andrew J. Sutherland, on Flickr]

Filed under Bedford Bits, Literature, Teaching Composition Tagged with

Software, Teamwork, & Collaboration

July 3, 2011 by

Google DocsThis week in Inside Higher Ed, Joshua Kim asserts, “The world is divided into two types of people: those who prefer Track Changes in Word and those who prefer to write collaboratively in Google Docs.” Kim’s explanation of the two ways of working with text sparked conversation on the TechRhet discussion list. Some spoke to Kim’s explicit question: “Which one are you?” while others extended the focus to consider different ways to write HTML texts.

Naturally, there’s no correct answer to Kim’s question, and the situation is not as binary as it is presented in his article. That ambiguous quality makes the article and its overarching question perfect for a class discussion of collaboration and teamwork. Students can share their own alignment, and then move on to talk about how Kim’s article is defining writing and collaboration. They can widen the discussion of writing and collaboration to include more tools and kinds of composing. With that groundwork in place, they can then talk about their own teamwork in class. Focus their conversation on how different kinds of collaboration suit different projects and ask them to brainstorm strategies for working together when you have different preferences.

Kim’s article is short, but it touches on how software, teamwork, and how people collaborate—all valuable topics for the classroom.

This post is the introduction from the Bits Flashback for July 3. Read the rest of the post on Facebook.

 

[Photo: Google Docs by BobChao, on Flickr]

Filed under Bedford Bits, classroom activities, Teaching Composition Tagged with , , , ,

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