When I first started, I was mind boggled by the complexity of the online sessions, listening, reading and responding to texts and flicking though different webpages whilst simultaneously writing messages and talking, required me to develop the innate skills of a modern teenager.  During our last session, I was thinking about this, and reflecting on how comfortable I have become with the medium.   The flexibility of the online environment was incredible, I participated in online sessions whilst at school, at home, at the beach, on a family holiday to Queensland and even from Istanbul in the middle of the night.    The structure of the course meant that I could easily fit it in around my already busy life.  My trusty macbook and an internet connection meant that no matter where I was in the world, I could continue to participate in the courses.

Along with this, the development of the cg learner website meant that I can now share my designs for learning with my colleagues on the other side of the world as easily I do with my colleagues at school.  The website provides me with a digital document of what I am teaching.    Now, no matter where I am, I can access and edit my work.   I can easily collaborate with multiple  authors to review and evaluate our designs for learning and most importantly create a document which others can easily pick up and use in the classroom.

Although I had been working with Learning-by-Design as a planning tool for several years, I had never really thought in depth about why it worked so well in the classroom.  Teaching is such a busy profession, I tended to just jump from project to project in a desperate attempt to keep up with the work.   The masters program forced me to slow down and really think about the nature of learning, the principles that lie behind Learning-by-Design and the way that these intertwine with the development of new technologies.   Perhaps, most importantly, the course reminded me of the greater social goals that are inherent in teaching.    The fact that teaching in a modern classroom should be about ensuring that all learners have the skills and understandings necessary to participate positively and productively in a our perpetually evolving global knowledge society.

So while I am writing this final reflection for the course,  I know that this is not the end.   I will write many more learning elements, and continue to review and develop the ones I have already written.  My professional journey will continue down this path, ever learning, ever evolving and always seeking to improve…

For the past year I have been building wikis with the students in my English classes.   Using the ‘free’ wiki website, wetpaint.com I was able to get students to post their own content and share their work, thoughts and opinions.   There have been a few frustrating issues to contend with.   The website broke down and students couldn’t comment.  Those using Mac computers (like me) didn’t have full editing capacity, and then the website started introducing very invasive advertising.   Reading about the latest teen flick or where to get a hot date didn’t really complement our Macbeth discussions very well!

Finally (after several years of promises) our department of education has released its connected learning communities (cLc) website.  The ‘cLc’ has been designed to be a ‘one-stop’ virtual learning environment, in which teachers can keep records of student achievement, provide students with access to feedback and records, share resources and support material as well as providing students with access to collaborative online learning tools such as blogs, wikis and discussion forums.  In the ‘cLc’ each student has their own homepage, which can be personalized and which will eventually contain a portfolio record of their learning across all subject areas.

I have started to shift from my commercial saturated wiki site to the cLc.   Firstly I transferred all my assessment records to site. Now my students can log in and view an individual list of their assessment records.   This has resulted in a mad rush to ensure that they have submitted all assessment items, suddenly they have all become keenly aware of missing tasks!

This led me to start thinking about the capacity of this virtual learning environment to store and display portfolio records of student achievement.   In the past we have used portfolio assessment, but the question of where to store the vast quantities of paperwork that each student accumulated led us to simply hand the work back after discussing it.  Now we can have an electronic record, that students can review and describe in relation to readily available assessment feedback.

Once the ‘cLc’ is fully operational I will be able to click on any student’s name and see all the work they have submitted electronically as well as their contributions to wikis, blogs and forums throughout the course.   This will provide teachers and the students with a comprehensive picture of their learning.   However, this is not just about recording the learning and storing information, it is also about creating learning experiences that build on the learning itself.  My recent experiences using wikis in a novel study have proved to me how such technology can facilitate learning that builds towards and can scaffold further learning experiences.

Finally we have a purpose built tool, which enables us to use information technologies to their full educational capacity!

I am really excited about it.

An important part of using Learning by Design is the ongoing evaluation of designs for learning.    As I move into the final stages of teaching a learning element based on Dai Sijie’s 2000 novel, Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, my colleague Jen Dennehy and I have been reflecting on the successes and challenges we have faced whilst teaching our learning element.

As part of the Lanyon Cluster of Schools Becoming Asia Literate project , co-author of the learning element Rita VanHaren suggested this novel as a means of integrating studies of Asia into the English curriculum.    It is a short novel, translated from the original french text.   The translation is a beautifully written semi biographical story, based on the reeducation experiences of the author during the Chinese Cultural Revolution.    After reading the novel we all agreed that it was text that would really extend the students in our Year 9 level one English classes.   In our initial discussions we identified the main themes in novel and the major ideas that we thought students should explore.

We also recognised that to enable our learners to engage with the novel and its setting, we would need to create connections with their lifeworlds and provide them with a basic understanding of the social changes that took place during the Chinese Cultural revolution.   This initial experiential learning or ‘front loading’ was designed to ‘hook’ our students in to thinking about the experiences of the author and hopefully arouse their interest in finding out more about the hardships he encountered during his reeducation.

Whilst reading the novel, students kept an ongoing record of narrative and character development through a character map in their journals.  This conceptual task was quite successful as it also helped them to keep track of plot and theme development.   Their conceptual understanding of the book was also supported by the construction of a wiki in which they posted significant quotes and reflections as we read the novel.   In addition to this we used functional grammar and cooperative reading strategies to analyse various parts of the novel in more depth after we had finished reading it.  As I write this my class is now moving into the learning element’s final essay assessment task.

Whilst teaching the novel both Jen and I felt that our students were finding it a challenge.   At one point, I even started to think that it was a book better suited to an older age group.  The novel is certainly a much more sophisticated text than many of my class members had experienced, and as many of them pointed out, not the kind of book they would pick up off the shelf.   However, as we progressed through the story, the voice of protest died out and I started to see a growing fascination with the lives of the characters.   While reading through their journal and wiki responses, I kept finding evidence of their engagement with the story, their growing understanding of the historical setting and a sense of their real empathy for the predicaments of the characters.

These responses were pleasing, and made me think that I was underestimating their capacity to engage with a foreign, translated text.  Yesterday, I realised what was missing while we read the novel.   We were analysing various passages at a word and sentence level using the functional grammar framework of mode, field and tenor.   I realised that my students had been struggling to understand the meanings of a lot of the descriptive langugage.  The author uses quite sophisticated language and many different literary devices to create vivid imagery.   While reading the book I adhered to the design of our learning element which focussed on analysis of plot and character development.   Unfortunately this meant that I didn’t allow the class to think as much about the function and meaning of the language.    Today my students looked at various descriptive passages from the novel in depth, and as they worked on their analysis I kept hearing remarks like ”what an amazing description”, “that is such an interesting way of saying that”   or  ”I never realised what that meant” with my  favourite exclamation being “wow this author can write so well”.   They were starting to understand the beauty of the language.  The problem was that I had assumed their understanding of the language and descriptions as we were reading the novel.   It surprised me to find that words like voluptuous, vivacious and lamentable were new to most of  them.   I had read the whole novel without really looking at the conceptual meaning of new words and ways of describing things.    In our post teaching rewrite, I think we will embed this word and sentence level analysis earlier in the learning element so that we can build our students appreciation and understanding of the novel’s descriptive language as we read it.

In hindsight, we can always identify more effective ways of teaching things.   That is the beauty of learning by design.   Our understanding of the knowledge processes helps us to identify wether the missing element was experiential, conceptual, analytical or applied learning.  Using these processes also helps to identify repetition in the learning element.   For example we also modified the learning element whilst teaching it.  The students had analysed and discussed character development extensively through wiki posts and journal reflections, applying their learning in a summative paragraph which was posted on the wiki.  For this reason we decided to modify the end of the learning element by removing an applying task which further explored character development.  This eliminated what we felt would be repetition and gave us more time for the students to work on their essay questions.   The process of evaluation and modification is one which is crucial to the development of quality learning experiences.

I have yet to see my students’ final essays, but after yesterday’s lesson I feel that the novel is a worthwhile text for their age and ability.  It pushed them beyond their comfort zone, and exposed them to new kind of literature  but ultimately I think that they all learnt something from it.  Teaching this learning element has, yet again, reinforced the value of reflective practice and the importance of modifying or ‘tweaking’ our learning designs as and after we teach them.  Learning by design is not about writing curriculum that is set in concrete, it is is about considering our practice and evaluating the way that the learning has taken place and the processes needed to create higher order thinking and engagement with the learning.

This is a tall order, as teaching Shakespeare is always tough.  The students struggle to understand the language and relevance of the texts to their own lifeworlds.   We started with a learning element that had been written by  Christian and Prue a few years ago.  When it was first taught, I was impressed by the way they had scaffolded student understanding of theme and plot, and this was clearly demonstrated through the final essays that the students produced.   However,  when it was taught last year, the teachers found that it was difficult to sustain student interest and enthusiasm throughout the unit.

Was this because the teachers teaching the unit hadn’t been involved in the initial design?

Or had they changed the design so that it no longer fitted together as well?

Or is it that our increasing familiarity with the  knowledge processes make us view our designs for learning with a more critical lens?

Due to a combination of these factors, the team decided that it was best to completely rewrite the learning element, retaining only the texts and final essay topic from the original learning element.

So what have we done to get our students to engage with Macbeth?

Our new learning element now has more ‘front-loading’ before the students experience the text.    We spent several lessons exploring the values and beliefs of the world in which the play was written and discussing the way that these intersected with the student’s own values and beliefs.    This seemed to help students relate to the action in the play and start to engage with the ultimate question of  responsibility for the events that occur in it.  Just as Christian and Prue did, we showed the BBC Shakespeare Retold, Macbeth, in order to build familiarity with plot and themes in a modern setting using modern language.    It is a great story with lots of action that occurs in a fast sequence, so it draws the students in.

Of course, just looking at a modern language version of the play cannot give them the  full experience of a Shakespearean text, so we also planned to show them the Polanski version of Macbeth.    However, before doing this we decided that the students should develop a familiarity with Shakespearean English and a reassurance  that  it is not crucial for them to comprehend every single word spoken.    To do this we designed a series of activities that allowed students to experiment with using Shakespearean pronouns and terms of address as well as translating and performing short excerpts of the play before watching it.  I wanted them to learn to enjoy playing with language and develop their appreciation of the strong visual imagery that is used throughout his plays.

As I write this, I am still teaching this unit.  Once I have finished I will collect my final research, which, I hope will show a transformation in my students’ negative attitudes towards Shakespeare.    My class is currently watching the Polanski version of Macbeth and they seem to be enjoying it, without worrying about what they don’t understand.    We moaned at Lady Macbeth’s cruelty, laughed at the psychedelic mirror scene and sat in horror as the Macduffs were murdered.   The students don’t seem to be phased by the language and they seem intrigued by the question of blame.

As I watch this unit unfold, I have been thinking about my research topic engagement.    It is becoming clearer to me that engagement is not just about connecting to the life worlds of our students,  it is something which must occur on many different levels.  Student engagement with learning is also achieved through developing confidence in new content, which happens through conceptual learning and then practice by appropriate application.  However, I think that, underpinning this there needs to be an  ongoing intellectual engagement, which is achieved through analytical learning.    Getting students to engage in moral dilemmas and apply their own values and belief systems to them is engaging.  It makes the learning personal, it makes the learning matter.    So that when a student passionately proclaims that Lady Macbeth is a ‘bitch’  rather than reprimanding them, I can smile secretly and know that they care about and are engaged in the learning.

These are the moments when I think ‘I love teaching English’.

The evolution of Web 2.0 has changed the way that we communicate.   The internet has changed from a one-way medium into an environment in which people can communicate, create, contribute and collaborate.   It provides an arena for activism, a culture of participation, opportunities for entrepreneurship and is a vehicle for learning and sharing knowledge.

So how does the advent of Web 2.0 impact on education and educators?

Ubiquitous learning is synonymous with cultural change that has been heralded by the development of technology .  Web 2.0 has contributed to a paradigm shift, in which communication, ownership and construction of knowledge has been redefined.    Our students live in a very different world to one that traditional education was designed for.  Learning is no longer confined to the four walls of the classroom.   Knowledge is no longer exclusively held by  the teacher.

Ubiquitous learning and Web 2.0 seem to be inextricably linked.   In Ubiquitous Learning, Cope & Kalantzis (2009) outline seven “moves” congruent with ubiquitous learning.   The practices that they suggest seem to both support and be sustained by the features of Web 2.0.     We see Web 2.0 blurring the boundaries of education, enabling membership of multiple learning communities and enabling access to a range and mix of representational modes whilst building collaborative knowledge cultures.  We can also see that the development of conceptual capacity and distributed cognition are necessary to effectively operate in the world of Web 2.0 – the world of Ubiquitous learning.

So what does that all actually mean for my practice as an educator?

Web 2.0 has changed the way that I communicate with my colleagues.    For example I  use Facebook to communicate with colleagues from my school and the University of Illinois Masters program, I communicate with colleagues from across the world using synchronous software.   Like many other teachers I also use the internet to research topics, develop and share resources and locate audio visual clips using Youtube, Teacher TV and Scootle.   My colleagues and I  have also set up wikis to enrich student communication and enhance learning through collaborative construction of knowledge.

Yet this is just the very beginning of  a shift in practice.

Today I participated in an amazng workshop  presented by digital designer, Jo Kay.    In her guided tour of the ‘Metaverse’ we explored the islands of  Jokaydia and discovered the incredible potential that virtual worlds present to educators.   The potential for engagement, collaboration, communication and problem solving was immense.   As we walked around Dunsinane Castle, surrounded by ghosts whispering lines from Shakespeare’s Macbeth, my excitement began to tempered by the fact that the site is probably blocked by our school network.   In reality, it is going to be very difficult  for me to organise student access to that castle.   This is disheartening because of the immense potential for learning it presents.

The change in cultural practices brought about by Web 2.0 have  evolved so quickly that, to a large extent, education has been left behind.    Electronic devices continue to be banned in classrooms, resources like wikipedia are deemed ‘unacademic’ and educational authorities are hyper vigilant in their efforts to block Youtube, social networking sites, blogs and chat rooms on school networks.    There are valid ethical issues surrounding the concept of student/teacher digital ‘friendships’ and schools have been confronted with a range of issues relating to cyber bullying and the threat of internet predators.     All of these factors have contributed to the slow adoption of Web 2.0 technologies and practices in schools.   However, it is clear that in order to move school educational practice into the world of ubiquitous learning we need to stop viewing these technologies as a threat.

In 2009, Jo Larkin and I wrote the learning element ‘The Migrant Experience’ for the Australian Government Quality Teacher Program.   The project  involved developing an Australian History unit of work which integrated the use ICT’s (Information and Communication Technologies).   We were given funded planning days and support to write and document our curriculum and then share it with our colleagues from other schools in the ACT.

Of course, Learning by Design was the perfect vehicle for us to do this.   Not only does the Learning by Design framework ensure that we develop curriculum with a focus on diversity and intellectual quality, but it also gives  us access to the CG learner web interface, where we documented and  published our work.   We were very proud of our final product, which is a publicly available learning element, that documents our learner objectives, the learning activities, resources, assessment tools and tips for any teachers who might want to teach the unit.

Unfortunately I haven’t had the opportunity to teach this unit, but Jo Larkin (my coauthor) taught it as part of the Modern History elective course in 2009.   She  reported that her students were really engaged in the learning and were able to show transformation through the unit’s assessment activities.     This year,  we embedded the unit in our new compulsory SOSE (Studies of Society and Environment course) course.  This meant that we had to share it with a new team of teachers, in what our school now fondly refers to as a LEO  or Learning Element Orientation.    We met as a group to discuss the activities in the unit, the principles behind our design and the way in which they related to the learning objectives and assessment.   Jo and I are very proud of the learning element, and we knew that it would start our new team off with an excellent example of quality teaching, that provided deep intellectual quality whilst still catering for diversity.     It also gave the team valuable time, which they could use to plan the learning elements that need to be written for the remainder of the course.

Writing the unit

Collaborating to write curriculum is one of the best parts of teaching.   I just love having that creative discussion, thinking of what we can do and how we can do it…  especially when I am working with someone who has similar expectations, beliefs and ideas to my own.   Fortunately working with Jo was very easy, she was clear about what she had to teach, and was building on student learning that had taken place in a unit  about WWII.     We wanted the students to understand a period of history that was crucial to shaping of our modern nation.   We wanted them to understand the issues that the nation faced, the policies and attitudes that existed at the time, and above all, we wanted our students to develop a sense of empathy for the people who immigrated and continue to immigrate to Australia.

Having such clear objectives certainly helped us with the planning process.  Using an LBD placemat to plan a draft, kept us focussed on the knowledge processes.   Just as in the other learning elements I have written, a familiar pattern begins to take shape.    Initially experiential learning establishes connections between the learning and student life worlds.   This is then built on by conceptual learning in which students typically learn the metalanguage or the underlying concepts behind the learning.   Only then can they engage in analytical learning.  As in other learning elements, this cycle takes place several times before students apply their learning.

Once we had the placemat filled in, I typed up the learning element in the  CG learner website.   We assigned modes of learning  and the learning objectives to the learning activities, an exercise which made our assessment purposes clearer and explicitly documented what it was that we wanted to achieve.  As Jo began to teach the learning element, she added in links to resources, primary sources and teaching tools.   We added tips to the teacher side, hoping to make our plan explicit and make things clear for anyone else who might teach the unit.    Ongoing reflection meant that Jo was able to identify learner gaps and modify the learning element by adding and changing some of the activities, to better suit the needs of her learners.    She made these changes as she went along, and after teaching the learning element, changed them on the website.

Learner Diversity

Supporting learner diversity was an important part of the learning element, the Learning by Design framework really enables teachers to design learning that supports learner diversity.  Initially in the experiential leaning activities, we draw on students own prior knowledge and lifeworld experiences to build common understandings.   Opportunities for reflection and learner responses also support and value diversity throughout the learning element.  Using a class wiki is another way that this learning element builds on opportunities for  students to respond to the issues and topics being discussed in class. This enables them to become knowledge creators, part of a learning community in which all student input is valued and counted.   Learner diversity is also supported through student agency,  with the construction of a wiki and use of cooperative learning activities such as gallery tours, think/pair/shares and placemats  valuing and enabling the contribution of all students.

The way forward – converting new believers
Having seen the learning element being taught for the second time by a team who were not involved in writing it, was an interesting experience.   Although we spent a lot of time discussing the why and how of our design, not all members of our team implemented it in the way that we had planned. Those who were familiar with the LbD process, persevered, only changing things slightly to suit their own classes,  and despite feeling nervous about teaching a subject, seemed to grow in confidence about implementing new strategies in their classrooms.  This is particularly evident in the way that they have enthusiastically approached designing the next new learning element for the course.    This was in contrast to the team members who used the same learning materials but implemented them in a more didactic manner.   Supposedly the same learning took place, but the learner diversity was not supported to the same degree and learner agency was not as evident.

I find myself saying this over and over again, a Learning Element is a purposeful design for learning, pulling parts out and not following the entire design undermines its integrity and reduces the effectiveness of the design.    Using a learning element effectively really relies on a teacher’s understanding of and belief in the way it has been constructed and the way in which the knowledge processes build on each other to support diversity, create agency and deep understanding.

Teachers themselves have to be ready to see these things.  They have to question their practice, change the way that they see their role, be prepared to work and think hard in order to design better ways for their students to learn.

Our ideas overflowed, you can imagine the noise of six excited women all talking at once about their favourite horror stories, movies and tv shows.   It was Rita,  our mentor and source of wisdom who kept us on track, and we soon started recording our plans on a Learning by Design placemat.  Using this tool helped us to move from unstructured brainstorming into designing the learning.   It helped us to keep  a balance between experiential, conceptual, analytical and applied learning activities.    We decided to use Edgar Alan Poe’s short story ‘The Tell Tale Heart’, the Dr Who episode ‘Blink‘ and Nick Shyamalan’s film “The Sixth Sense” as examples of texts that made use of horror techniques.  We had planned to analyse each text, building towards the students application of their learning in their own design of a horror scene in storyboard format.   At the end of our luncheon,  we felt that we had designed a pretty good learning element.   That night I documented our unit using the CG Learner website.

During term 4, the team taught the learning element for the first time.   Although I wasn’t teaching Year 9, I watched them with interest as they tried the different activities we had planned.  Team meetings and staff room conversations involved ongoing reflections about the unit and how the learning activities were working.   Some activities were added and some adjusted to enhance student understanding.  The students were really engaged in looking at the genre and at the end of the unit they produced some quality work, which reflected their deep understanding of the the genre techniques which had been studied.   In fact, the unit was so successful that we decided to move our Year 9 curriculum around, to place it at the beginning of the year, as a way of getting kids “hooked” into English.

This year I am on the Year 9 team, so I have  finally taught the horror fiction learning element.   Working with two teachers who were teaching it for the second time, we met to revise and improve the learning element.   We decided to change “Blink” to Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho“, the horror elements were more obvious to the students, and it helped students to see cultural shifts in what makes people feel fearful over time.   We also included lessons on the historical context of the film, so that students could explore and discuss the social subtexts presented.  Finally, we used the functional grammar of mode, field and tenor to analyse the famous shower scene.   By getting students to think about the mode (or film techniques used), its interplay with the field (the action) they could see how the tenor (influences on the audience) was constructed.   Students were asked to annotate screen shots from the scene, analysing the function of each of these elements.   This strategy deliberately modelled their final assignment, which was to demonstrate their understanding of film techniques by designing a horror scene in a storyboard  format.

As we reach the end of this learning element, even with the students yet to complete their final assignments, I can see how we can improve the unit.   More explicit instruction on the meta language of film techniques would better provide the students with language that supported their analysis of the films and construction of their own scene.   I would also like to analyse the social construct of fear more closely.   Why do certain images and scenarios make us fearful?  How have these changed (or stayed the same) through the ages?     This points to the fact that teaching is a constantly evolving science, one which needs ongoing reflection and adjustment in response to the needs of the students.  We will review this learning element, add to it and adjust it, and next year, when it is taught again, perhaps there will be new changes.

To look at the latest version of our learning element go to the CG Learner website or click here.

Yesterday I was driving my car while my seven year old daughter was driving the ipod.  This is something she has been doing for a while now, even before she was fluently reading at school.   As she was selecting her favourite song, it struck me that ipod operation has specific  literacy demands.   To locate a single item (such as a song or podcast) you must be able to negotiate your way through several layers of menus, or lists of words.  Each layer of information can take you in  a completely different direction.  Yet my daughter could recognize the written symbol for music, artist, individual name of artist and the song she wanted long before she could fluently read the readers she brought home from school.   Out of her determination to control the music played in the car, she independently worked out the written symbols and reading paths required to arrive at the music or podcast of her choice.

This is just one example of the way that technology and new media has impacted on the evolution of   literacy .    Websites too, demand the ability to identify groups of symbols, words and images in order to derive meaning.   Both our children started surfing the internet at a young age.  They quickly learnt that they could ‘click’ on different links to negotiate their way through the myriad of choices offered by the web page.

On the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s webpage abc kids, children navigate their way through the site by clicking on a series of different images that lead to various games based on popular television programs.   This way of ‘reading’ seems to suit a child’s natural curiosity, and once they learn about the back button on the browser, they can amuse themselves for ages in an exploration on the text.  With each click they determine where they go and after reviewing the link, how long they stay there.

These examples both show how new media communicates meaning in a non linear way, with the user having the agency to determine their own reading path.   Choosing from menus, clicking on hyperlinks,   making meaning from both images and text, constitutes a new form of literacy.   Literacy is no longer simply the ability to simply read the pages of a  book, it now involves making decisions, choosing reading paths, quickly reviewing words and images and  skimming information quickly in order to an assessment on meaning and relevance.

This type of literacy demands different skills to reading a book.   The sheer volume of information available online, means that today’s kids need to be able to construct meaning from words, images and sounds quickly.  They must be able to link disparate bits of information together in order to construct a congruent view of the world.   They need to understand that such texts are created in a deliberate way, in order to persuade and control readers and viewers.   They also need to understand their own role as creators of texts and the impact that their choices have on the way in which they are viewed and they view the world.

New literacy is far more complicated than just reading a book from cover to cover.   New technology makes us all potential creators and publishers of texts. In social networking sites such as Facebook, millions of people are engaged in constructing texts that convey messages about their identity to the world, or the group they wish to share their information with.

However, new media texts such as facebook are not without their problems:

This clip highlights the need for educators to teach responsible and careful use of new media.  So now social responsibility also becomes part of literacy.    With so much information and agency to create and publish texts, new media users must learn to be sensitive, thoughtful creators and users of such texts.

New media has created a new form of literacy, one which gives users the agency to control, choose and construct reading paths, emphasis and  meanings.  It is crucial that we, as educators teach our students to negotiate their way through new media critically, thoughtfully and above all, responsibly.

Writing is a big part of my life.   At work I write feedback on student work, reports about student learning, reports about  probationary teacher performance, letters to parents, articles for newsletters, curriculum and the list goes on.  This is added to the writing I have to do for my Masters course, this blog, weekly moodle posts, assignments and all the notes I make as I complete the readings.    Despite this heavy load of ‘required’ writing I still choose to write in my ‘free’ time.   I write lists of all the things I have to do.   I write in a journal and I write emails, messages and letters to friends.    It is as if the writing somehow clarifies my thoughts and ideas, it organises me.   By putting pen to paper, or fingers to the keyboard I have to sort out priorities,  and think carefully about what is important to me.

Writing is a skill which goes beyond communication with others, it is also a process which helps one think, formulate ideas, clarify and organise thoughts.   While writing for audience and purpose are important, students also need to be given the opportunity to use writing as a reflective and organisational tool.  McCarthey and Zheng’s paper, ‘Principles for Writing Practices with English Language Learners’ made me think about the importance of reflective writing to all learning experiences.  By providing an opportunity for reflective writing, teachers can help learners to develop conceptual and analytical understandings.   Reflective writing then becomes a valuable tool for developing student metacognition and its processes enables learners to build a critical awareness of their own thinking and  learning.

If writing has such strong links to the way that we organize and order our thoughts, then what challenges does it present to those who are writing in their second language?

Not only do these students have to struggle with understanding a new language,  but they also need to learn a whole new cultural way of structuring their written work.   McCarthey points out the differences between Chinese and English narrative structures and forms, the same is true for other texts and other languages.  Language provides us with a framework for thinking and writing provides a vehicle for recording and and organising those thoughts.   So, learning to write in a new language demands mastering the technical aspects as well as the expected cultural conventions of structure.   It highlights the fact that all teachers need to design learning experiences that draw on, value and build on the linguistic and cultural diversity of the students that they teach.

If writing is such an important skill for thinking it is then crucial that we  provide students with enough opportunities to practice and gain confidence in their writing through meaningful reflective writing experiences.  Alongside this we must  remember the unique cultural and linguistic variants that our students bring to their learning and ensure that this diversity is provided for.

I am late with my blog this week because of the video game Bejeweled.   I’d just kicked the habit on my iphone when I found it on facebook.    I felt this powerful compulsion to beat my previous score and then to beat the scores of other people.    The fact is, I have a problem.   I get addicted to video games and I lose hours in a void that involves trying to beat the highest score or get to the end of the game.   This week’s topic has unleashed my compulsive behavior again.   I buy games for my kids and then I end up finishing them first.  Games like Ratchet and Clank, Jax & Daxter, Rayman, Croc, Pharoah, Sim City and The Sims, have all at various times had a powerful hold over my attention.    In fact I have deliberately avoided buying more games because I know how bad I am.

So what is it that makes them so addictive?

According to James Gee’s , ‘Why Video Games are Good for your Soul‘, I am addicted to the buzz I get from the pleasure of learning.   Perhaps he is right, I love the feeling I get when I solve a puzzle, I love mastering the moves needed to progress a level, to make my simulation thrive, or to beat the monsters into submission. Most of all, I love finding out the resolution of a game’s narrative, especially after spending several weeks trying to get there!

This is a kind of learning that you don’t realize is taking place, one that presents you with incremental challenges, progressively rewards you for achievements and provides regular and specific feedback on your mastery (the death of a character is very memorable feedback!).   When we look more closely at this learning, we can see that it supports the development of literacy, through semantic understanding gained through situated cognition.    (I just had to throw those terms in!)   In other words, video games provide their players with a learning experience, in which they have agency in constructing an understanding of the game through repeated practice.   In many games this takes the form of sophisticated problem solving, a kind of learning that if not presented well, can have the capacity to switch students off in the school environment.

There is a lot that educators can learn from video games.  The narrative structure of the games, incremental increases in difficulty, demand for active participation, and development of the players’ problem solving approaches all contributes to their wide appeal and capacity to engage and motivate players.   While I don’t necessarily advocate video games as a pedagogical tool, I think that teachers can be more strategic about designing learning experiences that utilize some of the features found in these games.

Active problem solving, self paced learning with the opportunity to practise, receive feedback and have agency in constructing understanding and mastery of the learning, seem to be key principles in the success of video games.   Perhaps, transferred into the classroom the same principles can help educators to design learning experiences in which motivate, challenge and engage their students.   Perhaps, we could even make them ‘addicted’ to learning!