Collegiality vs Teamwork and Digital Technologies

We re-aligned our computer courses last year.  Our school formerly was one of the few with a Computer Studies Department, with computer science and computer technology courses all existing under a single banner.  Last year the department was dissolved and computer science was put under the Mathematics Department while computer technology was re-integrated with the Technology Department.

I transitioned from Computer Studies Head to a co-head of Technology, but I'm finding working in such a diverse (we cover everything from metal work to food school to digital design) department challenging.  With so many horses pulling in so many directions, I can't help but feel that digital technologies tends to be a second thought.  Rather than feel excluded I've been finding ways to develop a stronger digital technologies continuum.

The computer lab has always been next to the design lab, though run by different departments.  Now that we're on the same team so to speak, I've been re-thinking how digital technologies, always minimally represented in terms of classes, should work within the school.  We've been developing an integrated digital technologies curriculum in order to facilitate that.

With the dissolution of Computer Studies the realigning of our school's digital technologies was inevitable.  No longer is Technology Design the lone digitally focused technology course in the department.  Combined with Computer Technology, our digital technology courses can now offer a continuum of learning across a wide variety of digital platforms.

I initially felt that dissolving the computer department was going to be bad for the discipline, but now I'm feeling a new synergy.

By drawing together our digitally focused technology courses under the many common threads they share we're able to offer 9-12 curriculum in a wider variety of areas.  For students in a rural area where digital-tech doesn't have the social impact it has in more urban settings this is a big deal.

The first step was to diversify our high-tech offerings.  I argued successfully at Heads for Tech-Design to offer Robotics (our tech design teacher has a background in it).  I also argued successfully for a Software Engineering option that would allow students interested in the field to experience industry standard practices around software development rather than the mathematics focus offered by computer science.

From the junior grades students get a wide variety of choice in 11 & 12 around what aspects of digital technology they want to pursue.  And even if the student isn't going into a tech-focused profession, they are at least able to develop the kind of digital fluency that will be handy in any 21st Century workplace.  Of course, digital-tech doesn't end at the workplace.  If we're going to graduate citizens capable of communicating in the 21st Century, they need to have digital fluency.

I always felt isolated as the head of computers with only a part time comp-sci teacher who wasn't interested in collaborating.  Now that I'm the co-head of tech, or perhaps Head of Digital Technologies fits better, I'm able to empower our tech-design as well as my own computer-tech fields and build a more complete set of options for our students to benefit from.

Change isn't always easy, but in this case I feel like it's led to a good place where teamwork and a common goal has replaced cold, distant collegiality.

A 9-12 Digital Technologies Continuum with a healthy variety of choice that will develop graduates ready to take on the challenges of the 21st Century:

The layout is so helpful I've expanded it out to the Technology Department as a whole:

Poetry

We're moving into poetry in the senior academic English class I'm teaching.  Poetry is one of those things that can seem a bit pretentious, especially to high school students.  We looked at contemporary lyric poems to begin with.  After some Practical Magic and other free verse I thought it might be time to take a swing at it ourselves.  I'm curious to see what students bring to class today.  Hopefully writing about something that interests them will remove that pretension and let them get some ideas on paper in the relatively unencumbered contemporary lyric format.

In My Pocket

あ and ん

alpha and omega

binary beginnings and silent ends.

ones and zeroes?

no,
math is an abstraction
but
certainty is in the machine.

waves relentlessly pound our shores,

pass through us

quantify us

connect us

ensnare us

constant attention demanded

by

this raging sea of yes and no,

profound and banal

personal collective

private crowd.

information constellations

in magnetic grips

lighter than a glance,

more certain than a second thought.

frozen moments of certainty

tumble to an event horizon

making sense of the senseless

at a ferocious rate.

I have a text!

Literacy, Engagement and Marketing

The latest WIRED has an editorial by Clive Thompson about Minecraft and literacy.  In the article it is suggested that Minecraft (and other video games) have engaged reluctant readers to the point where they are able to overcome their reading problems and devour challenging texts with near perfect accuracy.

I usually enjoy Thompson's reach, he tends to push back assumptions, but in this case it feels hyperbolic.  "Minecraft is the hot new videogame among teachers and parents".  It was three years ago, but then it hasn't just been sold to Microsoft for billions (with a "B") of dollars.  Sometimes I can't tell if it's hyperbole or marketing.

Thompson goes on to state: "Minecraft is surrounded by a culture of literacy." So is any hobby, video games are not magical because of this.  Motor vehicles are surrounded by a 'culture of literacy' - look in any magazine rack.  Back in the day Dungeons and Dragons was surrounded by a 'culture of literacy' with books and magazines galore.  Movies are surrounded by a 'culture of literacy' (IMDB, Entertainment Weekly etc), so is technology in general (WIRED).  That we read and write about the things that interest us is hardly a shock.  Why should video games be any different?  Many reluctant readers are willing to read material about a subject that interests them.  That this is newsworthy is a bit baffling, what is more surprising are the assumptions further on in the article.

Interest and engagement are key elements in developing basic literacy skills, no doubt, but the article goes on to imply that engagement through video games can somehow overcome illiteracy.  This is going from hyperbole to gross over-simplification.  I've already got my doubts about gamification, but championing gaming engagement as the solution to illiteracy isn't respecting the complexity of the skill, though it does sync well with valuations in gaming companies.

Back in 1973 when I was a three year old learning to read my grandmother would read me a bit of The Magic Faraway Tree and then say she was tired and put it down, usually at a critical part of the story.  I'd struggle through the text using the light from the doorway, desperately trying to find out what happened after she left me to go to sleep.  I have no doubt that she knew what I was doing.

I suppose WIRED might have written an article about that, but Enid Blyton doesn't have the market reach of Minecraft or the magic we desperately want to believe inhabits our brave new and oh-so-very-valuable media.

I'm a strong reader.  I can't remember a time when I couldn't read.  For me it meant independence and the ability to satisfy my own curiosity.  There is no doubt that my determination created intense engagement at a time when reading wasn't easy for me, but it was just the first step on the long road of literacy.  I wasn't displaying illiteracy one day and then suddenly became a fluent reader the next because I was "really, really motivated".

Thompson quotes Constance Steinkuehler (of whom I'm a fan) on the effects of video game focused literacy.  Middle and high school struggling readers were asked:

"...to choose a game topic they were interested in, and then she picked texts from game sites for them to read—some as difficult as first-year-college language. The kids devoured them with no help and nearly perfect accuracy."

How could they do this? “Because they're really, really motivated,” Steinkuehler tells me. It wasn't just that the students knew the domain well; there were plenty of unfamiliar words. But they persisted more because they cared about the task. “It's situated knowledge. They see a piece of language, a turn of phrase, and they figure it out.”

Situated knowledge plays a key role in literacy.  Scaffolded understanding and context awareness are inherent to good reading.  On a micro level it assists vocabulary and parsing written conventions like punctuation and grammar.  As we build our understanding of written language we're able to comprehend more complex texts using previous experience; literacy builds on itself in this way.  

Contextualization also assists a reader at the level of themes and ideas.  Being conversant in a video game allows you to make assumptions about words and concepts you would otherwise have no link to through the text.  No doubt many of those struggling readers were able to accurately guess vocabulary and concepts from their own experience, the text becomes a secondary resource, literacy a secondary skill.  Large scale contextualization can help a strong reader parse a complex, unfamiliar text, but if it is being used to parse familiar concepts and materials I'd argue that it isn't assessing literacy that effectively.

Literacy isn't merely the repetition of familiar ideas, at its best it is the ability to deeply comprehend new ideas through a written medium.  Video games might offer a hook that helps reluctant readers engage, but to suggest that Minecraft or any other game could act as a solution to illiteracy is more than misleading, it's dishonest.  It's also why complex, long term skills development like literacy is best left to education, where quarterly earnings and attention grabbing don't attempt to outsell learning.