The Business of Education

A year ago, I was in a workshop with a group of other educators when an interesting discussion developed. We were deconstructing advertisements and discussing the pedagogy of media studies. Somehow, the discussion shifted to talking about schools as businesses. With opened ears, I listened as they criticized a number of policies and practices that they attributed to the evils of business theory. I agree that our product and profit is very different than a regular business, but I think the education system lacks the visionary and competitive thinking of the business world. So, for this blog I'd like apply the strategies from Cohen's What's Wrong with Social Marketing? to the school I teach at. Hopefully, the ideas I share here can be applied to other schools, or better yet, other organizations.

Encourage employees to participate in social media as company representatives
There are a few teachers at my school that participate in social media as a professional practice. Mainly, these few staff members are using twitter and nings as well as blogs. Through their PLNs they’ve been able to develop an online reputation for our school. As a result, we see special programs come to our school and get recognition from board administration.

Integrate social media marketing into annual corporate budgeting and marketing planning processes
We have a shrinking school population. As an English public school in Quebec, we are very restricted to who can attend our school. As the English population disintegrates from the community, and Quebec at large, we are faced with school closures and extremely restrictive budgets. Every year the school board places a small ad in the local newspaper about our school. Last year, the English School Boards Association developed a campaign, “Go Publique”, to promote English schools. Social media is an untapped avenue for marketing our product to a targeted audience without accruing the huge costs of regular media campaign.

Create social media-friendly content on a regular basic
Schools generate a lot of warm-fuzzy news that is great for social media. I used to try to update the website with recent fundraiser results, successful school projects, and student achievements. Updating the website became unmanageable with the frequency of updates so I switched to a blog. Luckily, the principal has taken over the blog and made it a success. Now, I’m wondering if social media communities might be good way to go.

Extend the reach of company events online
The school does a lot of exciting events and it’s difficult to draw out the numbers from the community. Normally, when we have an event, like last year’s Fashion Show fundraiser, our best marketing tool is CBC radio. However, CBC broadcasts to Anglos nationwide (QC) which is akin to using a bulldozer to make a sandcastle. A social media community could be an easy way to reach out to alumni and school supporters. Social media marketing could also provide an easy way to reach our target audience.

Gather customer input and feedback for market research purposes
A lot of misconceptions about schools can develop in a community, as I’ve learned. Social media can be an excellent way to become aware of misconceptions or weaknesses and develop a strategy to address them.

Expand human resources' reach and effectiveness
Good schools are a result of good staff. We have a seriously difficult time attracting the right staff to our school. With targeted marketing through social media we can get the young, qualified professionals that we’re seeking.

5 Reasons Teachers and Students Should Twitter

1) Collaboration
Today's education places a strong emphasis on group work, and rightly so. Students develop invaluable critical skills by listening to a variety of ideas and perspectives while developing their own thoughts. Twitter is a means of continually sharing ideas from a myriad of perspectives.
2) Experts
Teachers and students alike can instantaneously connect with an expert in any field. It took me only a few minutes to find and share ideas with a number of experts in the field of education and technology. The ease of connecting with experts is remarkable.
3) Reflections
My students are beginning to moan when I say the word "reflection." But, reflecting is a necessary component of learning. Twittering is a means in which students can reflect upon school activities and what they've learned. If students are asked to twitter about school activities, they'll be participating in self-reflection (without the moaning).
4) Feedback and Idea Development
Twitter is an excellent forum for getting instant feedback on ideas. I teach at a school where the same students are together for years. Sharing and developing ideas through twitter helps my students gain new perspectives and fresh constructive criticism.
5) Resources
Most twitterers, especially the better mindcasters, are continuously posting weblinks. The internet is a big place and some great resources can get buried in google. Twitter helps users connect with a variety of new, thought-provoking, and useful resources. Teachers can continually be learning about new developments and resources in their field.

You can set up an account at Twitter

Twitter: The Good, the bad, and the Ashton Kutcher

I first heard of twitter a year ago and was baffled by its usefulness. However, the website's popularity has caused me to reexamine and revisit the site. If you are new to the site, twitter is a site in which users frequently broadcast brief updates, usually of one or two sentences long. When I first visited twitter, I saw little value in the social network, but as an educator it's my responsibility to understand and utilize new media.

Many micro-bloggers use twitter as a means of broadcasting meaningless events from their life. This form of status updates, popular on facebook and msn, are refered to as lifecasting. Ashton Kutcher, a frequent and popular twitterer, is a quitessential lifecaster. Despite logic, Ashton is on his way to becoming the most popular person on twitter. He's become so popular that he has recently challenged the national newsnetwork CNN to a twitter popularity contest. CNN represents another form of twittering known as infocasting, where small amounts of information are posted. Despite their usefulness, infocasts can often become hollow or superficial. However, a valuable infocast to follow is education where useful news about education trends and developments are posted.

The brighter side of twitter is called mindcasting. Twitterers that are mindcasting will never share their meal choices or bad date experiences; instead, mindcasters share thoughtful ideas and useful resources. Anyone can tap into the thoughts of some of the world's most innovative minds, which is a great resource for any professional, especially educators.

Top five mindcasts to follow for media literacy teachers

1) Jay Rosen: "I teach journalism at NYU, write the blog PressThink, direct NewAssignment.Net, and try to grok new media. I don't do lifecasting but mindcasting on Twitter." Website Twitter
2) David Parry: "I think about things, and talk about things with students, and get paid for it. (Emerging Media Prof. at UT Dallas.)" Website Twitter
3) Scott McLeod: "An Associate Professor and Coordinator of the Educational Administration program at Iowa State University and director of CASTLE." Website Twitter
4) Alec Couros: "Professor of educational technology & media at the Faculty of Education, University of Regina." Website Twitter
5) Scott Meech: "Technology in Education isn't the Future, It is the Present!" He is an expert in education and technology. Website Twitter

Oh and don't forget about me, =) jordankent

For more information, here's a link to a Twitter handbook for teachers

Shakespeare 2.0

The following is a project I designed based on Shakespeare's Hamlet. Feel free to use project idea in your classroom. In addition, after I began this project I discovered Classroom 2.0 had an online conference related to Shakespeare media projects entitled "PBS & CR 2.0: Remixing Shakespeare for 21st Century Students." You are able to watch a recording of the conference by clicking the link.

Introduction
Traditionally when studying a Shakespeare play, teachers have students write an essay, memorize and present lines, act out a scene, and complete reading responses. Although those are all valid assignments, I think Shakespeare should be paired with a contemporary project idea. Shakespeare’s plays are some of the oldest texts that students study in high school, so it’s understandable that many students feel disconnected when reading Shakespeare. This project takes the power and innovation of web 2.0 to help bring Shakespeare into your world. It is my hope that this project will help you connect to Shakespeare.

Project
You will be creating a myspace page or a blogger page for one of the characters in Hamlet. This task will require you to have a solid understanding of Hamlet; however, it could also be very fun.

Tasks
· Set up a myspace page or blogger page
· Research your character
- - Skim through the play to the point we are in class.
- - Take note of every scene in which your character appears
- - Write a quick summary of your character’s actions, motives, relationships, emotional state, personality, etc. Make sure that when you’re taking notes that you write the act and scene.
· Write a blog entry for every scene that your character appears in
- - Write a minimum of one paragraph about the scene from your character’s perspective. The paragraph should have at least five full sentences.
- - Use everyday English, not Elizabethan English. Better yet, use colloquial language including slang.
- - Remember that most blogs, or at least the type of blog you’re creating, is like a diary. Don’t hold anything back; be honest. Capture the emotional state, motives, and personality of your character.
- - Don’t use msn lingo. If you write plz instead of please then I will cry.
· Find a suitable passage that would be good to memorize (Sec. 3: 4 lines; Sec. 4: 6 lines; Sec. 5: 8 lines)
- - Identify the passage
- - Understand the passage
- - Determine how your character is saying the lines
- - Memorize and rehearse
- - Record yourself saying your lines (you’ll have an opportunity to use my webcam) - - Post it on your page
- - Reflect =)
· Have fun and make the webpage reflect your character. Play with colours, fonts, pics, etc. Make sure you have reasons for your choices because I’ll ask you to explain them.

How to get a 4+ or better
· Make sure you are meetings the expectations aforementioned
· Interact with another character in the class (very easy and fun if you’re using myspace)
- - If you’re Ophelia and a friend is Hamlet, write love letters to each other
· Do an original writing piece
- - If you’re Claudius you can write a “How to Murder Your Brother” article
· Anything else that is above and beyond the expectations and demonstrates reading and writing skills.

RU keepn ^ w/yr studnts?

I can't help but cringe when I read text messages or instant message chat. I'm not quite sure why. It might be because usually when I read this abbreviated language it is inappropriately in essays, stories, and exams written by my students. I'm sure I'm not the only teacher that shares this experience. Or, it might be because I know that my students spend more time chatting on instant messenger than on their homework. Or, it might be because part of George Orwell's prophetic novel 1984 warned about the simplification of language. Is text messaging a form of Newspeak? Or, it could be that I feel left out.

Nonetheless, text messaging has a legitimate place in today's English classroom. Despite my anxieties, text messaging and instant messaging chat provide excellent teaching opportunities. There is an endless list of possible of ways to include text messaging in the classroom.

• Discuss and explore the affordances of instant messaging.
  
• Create a dictionary for text messages and instant messages. An activity focused on text messages will help students make the distinction between it and proper spelling and grammar.
• Have students invent a new texting word. Text messaging is a language created and used by youths. Students should be proud of their texting ability, not ashamed.
  
• Read books that use text messaging to build literacy skills. Recently, I bought a few books from Lauren Myracle's Internet Girls series, including TTYL; TTFN; and L8R, G8R. The books are written entirely in IM (instant messages) and are a big hit with teens.
  

Word Clouds

Think about the text that you encounter in a typical day: the billboard you pass on your way to work, the newspaper headline you glance at, the advertisement that pops up when you check your email, and etcetera. The majority of text that we encounter in a day is not a part of sentences or even phrases. Most text that we read are a collection of key words from which we generate meaning. A new website came across my desktop that I think captures this fragmented form of literacy. The website is www.wordle.net and it builds word clouds. Word clouds, also known as tag clouds, is a recent concept map that is composed entirely of keywords or tags with more prominent or important word being weighted heavier. The word cloud below is a created based upon my blog.

Considering the novelty of word clouds, the classroom uses of this text are still being discovered. Here are a few suggestions of ways that you can incorporate word clouds into your language class.

Reading texts

• When reading information texts, one of the strategies that we teach students is to draw out keywords. The identification of keywords can help students establish context, identify writing conventions, makes connections, and develop a general understanding of the text. To use word clouds simply copy and paste text into the text box on www.wordle.net and the site will generate a word cloud. I have done this with a speech by Barack Obama on the topic of race and the word cloud that it generated was a beautiful text that captures the new president's ideals and hope (see word cloud below).
• Another idea is to have the students respond to the word clouds as texts. Create or find a word cloud and have students discuss it. Students will be able to explore the text's tone, topics, and voice. In addition, students can creatively make meaning from these texts.
  

Writing Texts

• Word clouds can also be used to help students write. Create or find an imaginative word cloud and have students write a story inspired by the word cloud. This is incredibly effective as you'll see when you explore wordle.net because you'll be inspired to write.
• Most contemporary English Language curriculums require students to create media texts. A word cloud is a unique and aesthetic text that students can compose to express complex ideas and thoughts.

Film Making Essential to Media Literacy

I, like many other secondary English teachers, am excited by the ever-growing interest and development of media literacy in education. English teachers are now helping students read and create a wide range of twenty-first century texts.

Although film has been around for nearly a century, it is only recently that students can fully experience the film making process. With the availability of digital cameras and free editing software, students can now make films with ease. Most inexpensive digital cameras now come with video recording. However, video recording is not required; instead, stop motion is a creative and effective film style that can be accomplished using digital pictures.

The film making process can be divided into 5 easy steps:

1) Film codes and conventions: Before my students begin their film project, I always teach a few lessons on film codes and conventions. Although most students are immersed in film and television, many students are not conscious of the thinking that goes into camera angles, background music, lighting, and etcetera.

2) Storyboarding: The most important stage in film making. Storyboarding looks like comics without the talk bubbles. This task is crucial so that filming goes well.

3) Filming: The filming stage is dependent upon the task given. If the task requires students to film in different locales, a schedule is required.

4) Editing: Editing can be done on a variety of free software. The two preferred programs are Windows Movie Maker for Windows and iMovie for Mac. Both programs have the ability to edit video, add transitions, add titles, and create effects.

5) Presenting: The presentation portion of the film making process is crucial because it gives students the opportunity to explain their decisions. Through the presentation, students can make connections to other texts, discuss particular conventions, and reflect upon the film making process.

The benefits of film making for students

* Students are excited by the idea of trying something new
* Students have quick learning curve when it comes to cinematic conventions
* Students are able to express ideas and narratives that they are not able to through writing
* Film making builds cooperation, organization, and communication skills
* Students understand and appreciate the art of film