JKR speaks at Harvard

I have to confess to not being a Harry Potter fan. It isn't that I don't think that the stories would be good it is just that, on the whole, I don't actually read much fiction, and, if I were to start I am not sure I would begin there.

However, I picked up from my one of my feeds (Open Education) that J K Rowling had delivered the Commencement Address, “The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination,” at the Annual Meeting of the Harvard Alumni Association.

The video of her speech can be found here.

The writer of Open Education clearly makes a plea for people in such a powerful position to remember that it is the students' day and that they are there to enhance it and make sure that it is totally memorable for them and for their assembled family members. This is what was said:

Delivering a memorable graduation speech is one of education’s most difficult challenges. Somehow the orator must deliver some words of inspiration that add to the festiveness of the occasion all the while recognizing that the ceremony is about the graduates and not the speaker.

All too often, the presenter instead interferes with the ceremony, serving as a distraction to all present. Under the worst of conditions, the graduation speaker manages to actually subtract from a day devoted to the achievements of those who have completed their college studies. In fact, the tales of such negative moments are legendary.

On the other hand, a properly created and delivered speech serves as the perfect supplement for the special day. Similar to a burst of bright sunshine, a well crafted speech adds a scintillating glow to the events taking place.

Delivering such a memorable talk at Harvard University just might be the most challenging of all. Like the World Series, the speaker is on an especially distinctive stage with a multitude of observers examining every word.

For me the speech was a masterpiece beginning with disarming the audience and then opening a discussion on how failure has the potential to set people free from constraints. She argued that rock bottom could be seen as a firm foundation and that it could be built upon. She went on to talk of empathy and commented that ... well, no ... please read for yourself ... here it is far better in her words.

I was reminded, towards the end of her speech, as she said:

... written by the Greek author Plutarch: What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality.

That is an astonishing statement and yet proven a thousand times every day of our lives. It expresses, in part, our inescapable connection with the outside world, the fact that we touch other people’s lives simply by existing.

... of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle that suggests, if you want to extrapolate the idea, that every time we look at something, or think of something, or do something we affect it. We change it.

So let's look closely at how young people learn ... so we can better understand it and help to change it ... for their futures.

TOWARD A DEFINITION OF 21st-CENTURY LITERACIES

This is a straight quote from the website of The National Council of the Teachers of English based in Urbana, Illinois, USA ... picked from the blog of Will Richardson the writer of Blogs, Wikis and Podcasts. Will has written extensively about the 'read/write web'.

Adopted by the NCTE Executive Committee
February 15, 2008

Literacy has always been a collection of cultural and communicative practices shared among members of particular groups. As society and technology change, so does literacy. Because technology has increased the intensity and complexity of literate environments, the twenty-first century demands that a literate person possess a wide range of abilities and competencies, many literacies. These literacies—from reading online newspapers to participating in virtual classrooms—are multiple, dynamic, and malleable. As in the past, they are inextricably linked with particular histories, life possibilities and social trajectories of individuals and groups. Twenty-first century readers and writers need to:

• Develop proficiency with the tools of technology
• Build relationships with others to pose and solve problems collaboratively and cross-culturally
• Design and share information for global communities to meet a variety of purposes
• Manage, analyze and synthesize multiple streams of simultaneous information
• Create, critique, analyze, and evaluate multi-media texts
• Attend to the ethical responsibilities required by these complex environments

Will the New Framework for Literacy in England and the collected guidance on literacy in other countries manage to reflect this quickly enough to fit our young people for their demanding futures in a digital world? Or will the learners simply plot their own pathways through the institutional maze?

This has a direct link into Ewan's post today about 'The outcomes for Literacy in Scotland'. He picks out all of the best bits ... thanks goodness there are some really good bits ... and the definition of what makes a 'text' is little short of wonderful to my way of thinking to my way of thinking. Might have to buy a kilt soon !

Last Stand in South Gloucestershire

James Watson again was prepared to do his learning openly and videoed the last of the three sessions using Textease Studio CT I did for the teachers of South Gloucestershire. You can watch the video to catch the things I did .... one of the main points, that James picks out particularly was:
...the real point to take-away is the following little secret…
just how easy it was for Doug using Textease CT on the interactive whiteboard?
The evening was really buoyant and people laughed a lot and seemed to enjoy the activities.

You can read some comments from the sessions here.

Its over to an enthusiastic group of teachers now to get going with their own staff and pupils.

Writing

In a session with some PGCE students at the University of Leicester earlier this week a colleague asked the group ( fresh back from their first teaching experience) if they had seen any children writing using ICT rather than pen/pencil. There was good number of positive responses to the initial question so the supplementary,' ... and what software tools were they using?' was asked.

The answers have really made me think !

The first response was 'Colour Magic' ( and I confess that I thought that the student had just made a mistake in her software identification) ... but no. It was 'Colour Magic'... the children had been drawing pictures and using the 'typing/labelling' function to describe their pictures.

Further questioning produced a whole range of application that the children were using to 'write' in that were not writing tools in the pure sense.

This, as I have said, has made me think and ask around further.

What I seem to have discovered (and I should have known)is that children are doing a good deal of writing using software that just happens to have that facility.

I don't know why I am surprised at this but I am ! And it is all to the good ... my hope is that teachers and children alike are making decisions about the appropriate tools for the job and situation that they are in and are using them - transparently.

I would welcome views on this and examples to add to my growing optimism that, at last, things are moving forward.

Y5 Unit 5 Narrative

The descriptions of this unit are numerous and 'The Piano' example is impressive and engaging, at an adult level. If you want a Christmas alternative that is both amusing and fits then try the 'ornaments' mpeg to be found on the Bristol LA site ( along with many other great things for visual literacy.)

Thanks to the Kent Clusterblog for this information.

Podcasting ... easy peasy

Take twenty four, mixed ability, Y6 children with a developing ICT capability, a forward looking teacher willing to 'give it a go', a school prepared to let children try things out, a set of wireless laptops that work with decent microphones connected, a good broadband connection with an ISP that does not block FTP, curriculum idea and Podium and podcasting becomes 'easy peasy' (this is a quote!)

Weather poems was the literacy context with the built in agenda of developing ideas around simile, metaphor and personification.

The children, working in pairs, chose their weather 'topic' and began to brainstorm ideas. These got transferred to phrases and notes and then lines were added to lines. The ideas were then developed in the script writing tool of Podium and allocated to the readers using the functionality built in to the script writer. The groups then, again using script writer functionality, rehearsed their poems.This was the first part of the session with the class teacher leading.

Then I turned up and showed the children how to make recordings using the software and how to import extra MP3 sounds (which I brought with me on a super fast USB drive) and to add images onto their recordings.

It was their turn then ... the initial task was to make a podcast of a single episode with three chapters which was to include their poem and some imported sounds. Many could not find the sounds that they wanted so recorded their own using Podium, saved them as MP3 files and re imported them into their podcasts!There were bees humming, birds singing, snow falling (tickling bells) etc.

About fifteen later it was all done. Poems rehearsed, sounds recorded, images chosen all done and dusted. Fourteen individual episodes all saved as Podium Projects( so that they could go back and add further poems as the year went on) and saved as MP3s so that they could import them into other podcasts they had in mind. And they were all published to the server and a happy group of children wrote down the URL so that they could go home and listen to their recorded works in iTunes.

With time to spare we then did the whole class podcast, one episode/poem. You can listen to the results of their labours by pasting this URL into your favourite aggregator.

http://www.podiumpodcasting.com/~182812/Y6W161107173226/rss.xml

... and not once did the ICT get in the way of the learning. The emphasis was on the quality of the literacy and the opportunity to write, speak and publish to a wide audience.

World News Service for Children

Back in the early 50s when I was in primary school I remember that one of the highlights of the week was to listen in class to the radio. I think we listened to lots of different things from stories to assemblies. Later when I began teaching in the mid 60s my classes missed their playtime each Friday because the BBC broadcast the Look and Read TV series at 10.25 (I think it was) and we had no way of recording at the time. Now much is digitised and available online for anywhere/anytime consumption either as sound or video.

Today's early morning news brought back these memories as I listened to a piece about the BBC's World News for Children, a five minute digest, broadcast weekdays at 07.15 and 12.00 GMT (or, of course, available online).
Monday's bulletin consisted of: In today's international news bulletin for children: Children put to work in Indian factories, Tornado in Australia 'American football fever: New York giants beat Miami dolphins. And our question today: what's the capital city of Mexico? So I went online to listen to the whole thing. The reports I listened to were wide ranging and concerned Africa, India, USA, Australia, UK and Mexico.The BBC news item showed children from Africa listening to the bulletin and in the ensuing interview they gave credence to the information they received. It appeared that one group travelled in a minibus to a centre just to listen.

I was transported back to my early 50s classroom as I just listened ... and I thought of the all the technology that as been put in place since then ... but for five minutes this morning it was the power of the spoken word that held me and I wanted children to be held by it too.

Nostalgically I recall the Queen hit 'Radio Ga Ga'

Narrative

The New Framework for Literacy and Mathematics has an activity for Y5 children which involves writing a narrative from a film stimulus.

Year 5 Narrative - Unit 5 - Film narrative(3 weeks)
This is a narrative unit of work based on film which can be taught at any appropriate point during the year. The unit has three phases with oral and written outcomes and assessment opportunities for teachers and children at intervals throughout each phase.

It uses a video 'The Piano' as its exemplar but other videos that contain perceptions would be equally useful here. Try 'Kiwi'.

As an extension of such activities it would be interesting to follow up with a purely visual context

The activity here is to tell a story in 5 frames :

'Tell a Story in 5 Frames has two important parts. The first part is creating and telling a story through visual means with only a title to help guide the interpretation. The second part is the response of the group to the visual story. The group response can take many forms such as, a poetic or prose rendering of the visualization, a critique on the structure of the story, comments on the photograph, or other constructive forms of response. Telling and enjoying stories should create entertainment for the group as well as offer insight into the universal elements that help create a story for an international audience. The more people who respond , as either story tellers or respondents, the greater the reward for all.'

The aim here is twofold as you can see. For me the power is in the responses to the stories and the genre that they support.

A continuation could easily be the 'Six word story'

'Ernest Hemingway was once prodded to compose a complete story in six words. His answer, personally felt to be his best prose ever, was "For sale: baby shoes, never used." Some people say it was to settle a bar bet. Others say it was a personal challenge directed at other famous authors.'

Have a look at what people have written and then ...adopt, adapt and innovate ... they are only ideas ( prompted by a conversation with Ewan McIntosh)!