Skip to main content

Creating to Learn: A Powtoon

The latest creation from this #EDC534 journey is <drumroll> this Powtoon! 

This project was admittedly a bit outside my comfort zone. Write an essay? Sure, I can do that. Develop a collaborative video? That made my palms sweat a bit. As my partner, Jessica Cabral-Lafreniere, and I said over email, collaborating digitally wasn't simple. We used various tools for assistance: email, a Google Doc for co-note taking, then this Powtoon. We came together over a vague theme -- goals of digital learning opportunities in the classroom. We were each approaching this from different perspectives though (me from secondary education, she from primary; me from the classroom, she from a school library), and so what we each saw as goals was slightly different. I was inspired to think about this as I start a new job and begin conversations with teachers at all ends of the digital learning spectrum. It was helpful for me to re-answer for myself the question: yeah, why SHOULD we be getting students creating in our classrooms? Ultimately, I think we were able to build upon each other's ideas pretty organically to form a cohesive whole. Enjoy the fruits of our create-to-learn labor! 

               Published as part of Dr. Renee Hobbs' Digital Authorship class

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

New Literacies Scholar: Spotlight on Elizabeth Birr Moje

Image source: U-M SOE faculty page Dr. Elizabeth Birr Moje is a professor of Literacy, Language and Culture in the Educational Studies Department of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Moje started her career as a high school teacher of history, biology, and drama, and now focuses much of her research in Detroit schools, in predominantly Latinx communities. This multidisciplinary background has certainly influenced Moje’s research, as she focuses her work on content-area, or disciplinary, literacies. She argues that students should be trained to think like experts in the discipline, because “each discipline has its own literacy and...by stripping away the one-size-fits-all literacy ‘strategies’ and engaging students in the way historians and scientists actually read and write, literacy learning will be central, no longer a side dish” (Peterson, no page number). Moje observes that a move towards disciplinary literacy -- and away from textbooks -- is more authentic and more enga...

Online Reading Comprehension: Digital or New Literacy(ies)?

LABELING AND DEFINING LITERACY IN 2019 Like so much in the world of education, there are many terms for overlapping concepts. Digital literacy vs. digital literacies vs. new literacies vs. online reading comprehension vs. digital inquiry is just such a situation. To my mind, all speak to the skills, dispositions, and behaviors needed for full engagement in the 21st century. So why all the labels? On the one hand, many terms for the same concept has a balkanizing effect: efforts become fragmented and progress might stall in the face of ongoing parallel initiatives. I see this also as I get exposed to new networks of people working within parallel and sometimes intersecting professional communities. The connected learning network vs. the digital pedagogy network vs. the media literacy network vs. the digital literacy network vs. even to a smaller but certain degree the OER network and the digital humanities network. There are certainly differences in goals, styles, and membership, but...

4 Reasons Why Creativity Belongs in Every Classroom

When discussing how to implement creative projects in the classroom, a question can arise as to why? What are the benefits of creative learning activities? Actually, there are quite a few. Creativity is good for society. You might have heard before that ours is a “knowledge economy.” Our predominate export is no longer things we’ve constructed, but ideas we’ve generated. And if your economy relies on ideas then it relies on a creative populace. In her article, “ The Cult of Creativity: Opposition, Incorporation, Transformation ,” Kirsten Drotner writes, “If knowledge is an engine of societal survival, obviously new knowledge is its fuel” (p. 78). And you can’t have new knowledge without creativity because, as Drotner notes, “creativity is the precursor of innovation” (p. 73).  Creativity is good for the individual. And if creativity is good for society, then getting creative is good for the individual as well. Drotner writes, “Creativity is a means to an end, namely competenc...