Digital Storytelling: Synthesizing My Multimodal Journey with #WalkMyWorld 2016

There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you. – Maya Angelou

WEEK NINE: Collect and curate how you used different modes (i.e., images, text, video, and audio content) to reflect on your past, present, and future identities. This week, #WalkMyWorld invites you to produce a digital story that synthesizes your journey over the past eight learning events.

Digital storytelling weaves multiple media sources into a compelling narrative that moves beyond stating a sequence of events by inviting the audience to think about what they believe and challenges them to consider a different point of view. When you have time, watch Emily Bailin's 17 minute TED talk as she explains her research with the power of digital storytelling.


Notice how Emily Bailin starts with a question,"Where am I from?," and then applies the inquiry process to examine her life's journey as an educator, until the finished digital story has a captivating beginning, a compelling middle, and a convincing end. Using the same mentor poem, Where I’m From, by George Ella Lyon, I synthesize my digital story using three different mediums. How does your engagement with my story change when you engage through different mediums:
1. I used Storify to collect and curate a few tweets from each learning event, click HERE.
2. I used Google Docs, to write my poem using words, click HERE.
3. I used Animoto and Soundcloud to create my digital story, click below.

Invitation: COLLECT your multimodal content from the past eight learning events. CURATE your digital story using digital tools like Storify or Diigo Outliner. SHARE your creation on Twitter using the hashtag #WalkMyWorld #LE9. It’s time. What will you share? Explore.Play.Create.Learn.

Interested in learning more about #WalkMyWorld, visit: walkmy.world

Reader.Writer.Scholar: Reflections for #WalkMyWorld

Is poetry still relevant in a time when educators prepare students for high-stakes testing in school while students read and write on cell phones, iPads, and laptops out of school? I asked this question during my first semester in graduate school and used the findings to write a blog post for the International Reading Association’s TILE-SIG blog. As I reflect on my experience with the #WalkMyWorld project, I realize I was replicating my first study. Instead of examining the effects multimodal composition had on 5^th grade students’ engagement with poetry, I was examining the effects multimodal composition had on ME. Here are my findings.

READER: My engagement in #WalkMyWorld began as a reader. As I scrolled through the Twitter feed, I selected poems by the media that provoked curiosity. I was amazed at the quality of poetry and found myself rereading poems with a critical eye to determine how the author crafted the text or used multiple modes to evoke emotion. In order to improve my ability to write, I used the author rather than the media as the criteria for selecting which poem to read. Eventually, I moved away from my night time routine of reading facebook posts to reading Twitter #WalkMyWorld posts.

WRITER: My engagement as a writer evolved from isolated poems to recursively generating a poem throughout the day. Initially, I took a picture, wrote a poem, posted it to #WalkMyWorld, and then crossed the task off my “to do list.” Now, a word might spark the need to take a picture or a picture might dictate the words. As my involvement in the project increases, I notice a greater sensitivity to the natural world and language that surrounds me. I learned the importance of taking a picture the instant nature sparks my attention. Thinking about my audience motivates me to go back and retake a picture in order to adjust the quality. In the beginning, I generated poems by selecting words from my own schema. Now I collect words and phrases throughout the day by typing them into the notes section in my cell phone. This recursive shift continues to improve the quality of my writing and enjoyment in the composition process.

SCHOLAR: My engagement as a scholar integrated my theoretical understanding of multimodal composition and my passion for poetry. The #WalkMyWorld community held me accountable for increasing my creativity. At the same time, #WalkMyWorld collaboration gave me support as I tried new techniques and technologies. For example, @dogtrax interactive poem inspired me to write an interactive poem about the sunrise. Even though Twine was easy to use as a multimodal composition tool, I struggled to embed the poem on the Internet. I used Twitter to contact @dogtrax for help and we spent several days collaboratively working to solve my technical issues. I also used Twitter to invite the #WalkMyWorld community to write a poem on Goggle Drive. This way I was still involved in the learning event but I shared the responsibility to write a full poem. I was so excited to see how the poem grew and changed as different authors added their voice.  Click HERE if you want to read or write more into the poem.

By breaking down barriers of creating, collaborating, and sharing multimodal poetry the #WalkMyWorld project aligned theory, research, and social media. Today is your chance to make poetry relevant by joining the #WalkMyWorld project. Share your thoughts on how the project enriched your experiences as a reader, writer, and scholar.

9 Reasons to Use Twitter in School

If you are already on Facebook, than you have the skills you need to create a Twitter account. More than one billion tweets are sent every 2-3 days across Twitter, which has become a social network of significant importance in every continent, and almost every country around the world. Twitter isn't just all fun and games, it has many benefits for educators on the go. In addition, you NEVER have to Tweet a thing, you can just follow researchers, organizations, and authors. If you do not have a Twitter account yet, watch this tutorial to help you sign up:



 Laura Walker's blog,  gives us 9 reasons to use Twitter in schools.
1. Together We're Better - Teachers can access a stream of links, ideas, opinions, and resources from global professionals. When I am standing in line at the grocery store I scroll through my Twitter feed to discover new ideas shared by the leading researchers in literacy. This is so much faster than typing in Kelly Gallagaher's website and then Kylene Beer's website. This feed is similar to Facebook's newsfeed. 
2. Global or Local: your choice - It is up to you who you choose to follow, you can connect with people from around the world or you can follow local people. For the first six months I typed in researchers and authors I liked to see if they were on Facebook. If they were, I followed them. Now I can see what topics are being researched and or written about. Here are a few people for you to start to follow:

@Scholastic -  The official Twitter account of Scholastic, including Scholastic Book Clubs and Book Fairs. Tweet us with your thoughts on books & education!

@judyblume - Are You There, Twitter? It's Me, Judy

@The_Pigeon (Mo Williams) C’mon! Just once around the block!

@donalynbooks (Donalyn Miller) reader, teacher, blogger, author of The Book Whisperer, #nerdybookclub and #bookaday facilitator, #titletalk co-host

@KellyGToGo - (Kelly Gallagher) I teach, I write, I travel, I talk—to help kids become better readers and writers.

@KyleneBeers - Educator. Speaker. Author. Tech-savvy wanna-be. Sometime blogger. 2008-2009 NCTE Pres. 2011 CEL Leadership Award.

@gailandjoan (The Daily Café)

@TheScienceGuy Bill Nye, Science Educator seeks to change the world.

3. Self-Awareness and reflective practice - Reflect on what you are doing in your classroom and see what needs improvement. Teachers on Twitter can share these ideas and support and challenge each other. 
4. Ideas workshop and sounding board - Twitter is great for sharing ideas and getting instant feedback. You can get different opinions and criticisms to help you improve what you're doing in the classroom. 
5. Newsroom and innovation showcase - Twitter helps you stay up-to-date with the latest news or developments in your point of interest. 
6. Professional development and critical friends - Teachers can talk about what they are working on or struggling with and get helpful ideas from other teachers or professionals. 
7. Quality-assured searching - Trust the people you follow so that you can value their ideas. This will provide you with higher-quality information than a Google search would. 
8. Communicate, communicate, communicate - You will learn to become better at expressing your professional thoughts to others in 140 characters. 
9. Getting with the times has never been so easy! - Twitter is not complicated at all! Go to twitter.com and create an account. Also, there are plenty of websites that offer advice for getting started.

Thank you for reading this blog, now go make a Twitter and tweet all your professional thoughts and ideas! Don't forget to follow me: @readingsecrets

Digital Portfolios

Are you looking for ways to teach students how to use digital portfolios? This video by Central York High School art teacher, Katlyn Wolfgang is just what you need. I can't wait to begin applying her suggestions and allow students to share their work with the world.


We would love to hear how you use digital portfolios in your classroom. Make sure to visit Katlyn's youtube channel for more videos.

3 Ways to Begin a Blog

It can be scary to share your thoughts and feelings with the world. If you don't want to blog for yourself, blog for your students. They need a guide on the side to show them the proper way to use a blog.

1. Mentor Bloggers: Why recreate the wheel? Start your training by following other bloggers like Angela Maiers or Cal Newport. Add comments to their posts and ask for suggestions on how they schedule their blog writing.

2. Follow the Formula: Take the fear out blogging by following a formula. Talent Culture wrote a wonderful blog post explaining the 10 easy steps. Once you have practice blogging, you can move away from the formula and get creative.

3. Let Students be the Experts: Don't feel like you need to create content right away, instead, invite students to blog first and you respond to their posts. When students are empowered to teach their teacher, respect can lead to inspiration.

I would love to hear the steps you took to begin a blog. Share your ideas below or on my facebook page. When we embrace technology, we send a message to students that says we value their literacy.

5 Ways Blogging Extends Your Curriculum

Did you ever stop to thing about the word, BLOG? I didn't. I just mindlessly adopted the word into my vocabulary and never gave it another thought. That is, until today when I decided to write about blogging for my college class.

I discovered the word, BLOG is actually a contraction for the words, "Web Log", shortened to weblog - we = BLOG. A blog is an online diary where people share their thoughts and daily activities. A blog is a perfect way to being to move from a controlled email communication to a more open form of communication. Blogs can engage students in a digital forum to share their thoughts and reflect on their learning. If you are nervous about trying a blog, let me remind you of your target audience and why you, as their teacher, need to have experience blogging.

Now that I have established a need to blog, here are five ways blogs extend your curriculum.

1. Curriculum note taker – Students take notes during class on the blog. Students can go home and look at notes. Teacher can print and copy notes for whole class. Parents can go on to site and use notes to support their child with homework and improve school-home communication.

2. Curriculum reviewer – Student looks over notes from the week and writes a blog reflecting on major themes and ideas, asks questions, and makes general comments about what was learned throughout the week. Students could also make predictions of what will be learned next. Students can post comments and add information to the blog.

3. Curriculum tutor – Student records tutorials to help with homework and projects. Students could also reflect about the day by providing review questions. Here is a free site to help students begin recording: http://www.screenr.com/ Embed tutorials into the blog for continued learning. Eric Marcos of Santa Monica, CA has collected hundreds of math tutorials for the world to enjoy. Here are some benefits to recording and posting tutorials within your blog:

Benefits to producer: When I am explaining the process, it helps me understand the concept on a deeper level. I have a different way to explain the concept. The tutorial increased my motivation to do the homework because I knew others would hear what I had to say.

Benefits to watcher: I relate better to peer voices because they use familiar language. The delivery of seeing a video helps make the process more concrete. I am able to stop and rewind at my own pace. When my parents don't know how to help me, we watch the tutorial together.

Benefits to teacher: I can practice and record at home and then show it to the whole class, at a station, or allow students who are home sick to watch from home.

4. Curriculum producer – Students create videos prior to a unit (acceleration and build background knowledge), support topic during unit (other examples) or for review. You can get a free educator account at: http://www.animoto.com/

5. Curriculum researcher – Students search for websites, videos, blogs, tweet quotes, and assignments that would improve the unit for future students. Each site can be linked within the blog for easy access and less paper. Students can explore the sites on demand, while they are on the go, or over the weekend.

How do you use blogs to extend your curriculum. Post a comment below or share on my facebook wall. Remember, blogging isn't about perfection, it's about collaborating, communicating and creating better ideas with other educators from around the world.