Recently Kids Need to Read blogged an article on the wiki-wire work we did through the high school with the students building the lexicon for The Softwire Series by PJ Haarsma. PJ works closely with Denise & Sherri with Jim Blasingame, but I’m excited from the line that reads “this is what great teaching is all about – combining challenging, creative thinking with resources that drive kids’ passion”; I am honored to be grouped with PJ Haarsma as two visionary teachers who fight to find new ways to engage our students. Here’s a link to the article (with pictures!).

Last year my friend Kerri Mathew contacted me regarding finding a way to hook up a science fiction writer, PJ Haarsma, with students eager to read his book, play his online game, and connect in new ways with young adult sci-fi. Having just come off a year project with Kerri working with wikis and fanfiction, I immediately saw wetpaint.com as an outlet for the kids, and we we’re all a little excited about the author himself being part of the project. To get the kids excited about the book series, Jim Blasingame, professor at ASU and ALAN/NCTE guru, schedule PJ Haarsma to hit two local Arizona high schools including Basha. The kids seemed a little starstruck, but they quickly realized that PJ is a man just like they could be and he has a vision that could be anyone of theirs.

In the late fall semester of 2008 we encouraged the students to move towards an online official lexicon of PJ’s first two Softwire books and his online video game. I was able to procure an advanced copy of the third book at NCTE in November and used it to bribe the students into working faster and more efficiently. By Christmas they had a large chunk of text in the wiki, edited and put together. Two students stood out beyond the others as the shining stars for this project.

Jim’s goal was to present the wiki as a “premier” by the end of the spring semester at ASU. That was tonight. Tonight Jim invited Kerri Mathew, me, PJ, several of my students, Book Babe, media, professors and others to join him in discussing a summer project PJ and his good friend Nathan Fillion of Firefly/Serenity fame are producing, briefly introducing book #4 of The Softwire Series, and then a conglomerate of social media meets literature project of PJ’s.

I spoke at length in this showcase about the wiki, collective intelligence, social media in traditional pedagogical settings, and what the kids accomplished. Two of the students discussed some as well about their role in everything and how they put it all together. PJ explained what he wanted us to still accomplish, and then Jim presented me with consent forms from the publishers who want to publish the lexicon text in the back of the third book’s paperback form. The student and I are very excited about this, and I’ve discussed briefly with Jim how he can showcase some of this at AETA this fall at ASU and my plans to begin to write up and publish my side of this experience.

After a photo shoot and interviews with press and the media manage at ASU’s decision theatre, I headed home. Now the wiki isn’t public yet, but we will be discussing that move shortly between me, PJ and Jim. As for now, I am waiting to get my hands on the manuscript for book #4 this summer.

In 1989 I was a Yearbook staff member and met some phenomenal people, like Jackie Sullivan. She was a tall, thin wisp of a woman who worked in the Children’s Museum on the Northside of Pittsburgh. We lost touch when she graduated but a decade later I was the yearbook advisor in Mt Lebanon High School when the current advisor committed herself to a mental hospital. I didn’t think the job was that bad, and I appreciated the work that spring. I later was the Newspaper advisor in the Tempe district and came to realize the differences between both publications. After coming to Basha I’ve worked closely with Liza Sejkora and the students including yearbook and newspaper conference trips to San Francisco and Denver. One thing that always happens no matter how much we try to deter it, is that the same student pop up in photo after photo and the events are the same year after year, so when I read about the new Eshare program that the BHS Grizzly Gamut was using this year I was pretty excited.

This is how it works. You, as a student or faculty member, can go to an online account set up by Herff Jones to upload photos you’ve taken of school appropriate events, people, etc… This way the pictures that show up in the yearbook are refreshing, of different faces, and taken by more of YOU the students who go to school here. You may upload 10 photos at a time and have the opportunity to write suggested captions for your photos; this doesn’t mean they will all automatically be published in the Yearbook but it’s a great idea and some may be used.

If you are interested, navigate to www.hjeshare.com and enter our school code of 2001092. Locate your photos and upload them. Follow the directions and have fun!

In Novemember at NCTE I headed into a session where PJ Haarsma, the author of The Softwire series, was presenting on Science Fiction and Gaming in the High School Classroom. I was hoping to have PJ sign his up and coming book The Softwire: Wormhole Pirates on Orbis 3. When I walked in, Jim Blasingame, ASU professor and presentation chair, welcomed me, shook my hand, and told me that he wanted me to join the panel. I was surprised, but eager. I joined PJ, Jim, Pete, and a teacher named Kristina on a panel to discuss how to use video games to get kids excited about reading science fiction.

PJ discussed what he and Jim calls the simulated literary experience (SLE), and that reminded me of how we now see more and more trailers for books, instead of just movies. PJ uses video games to hook readers, and he and Dr. Goggin suggest that we need to redefine “literacy”. Literacy is now whatever we want it to be as creator and consumer. We cannot define literacy as just the ability to read and write; literacy in the 21st century included images, audio and video, too (for example see Gee 2003).

The concept of multimodal composition isn’t a new one, but a colleague and I have been developing courses at Mesa Community College that move beyond the traditional formal papers and more into the 21st century multimodal realms.

In what quickly became my portion of the panel presentation, I discussed the use of wikis to generate collective intelligence lexicons based on Haarsma’s The Softwire Series; of (when) the students generate the lexicon, PJ hopes to publish it in the rear of the paperback in March 2009. I just need to better motivate the students to become excited about this entire endeavor. I am also excited that on another level, this may lead to other presentation and publications for us. The power of technology used to increase youth literacies is exciting.

A couple weeks after that presentation, my name popped up on the grid here. I didn’t know the video from the presentation was online. Here it is.

Several months ago now a CFP came through on the use of innovative technology in the classroom. I immediately thought of the work I’ve been doing with Google in my classroom and wrote up a proposal, which was accepted. In June 2008 I sent the first draft to the editors and received their comments back on the fourth of July. I appreciated this process and worked hard on the second draft and had three colleagues read through it. Shelley, Joe and Shirley had invaluable comments and suggestions, and when I sent off the second draft it was with their blessings. This week, the editor, sent me a final draft for my review. I just finished sending it back to her and now we just wait for publication. I will keep you posted, but in the meantime, here’s the abstract:

The migration of online educational needs to tools like Google Apps coupled with the notion that today’s 21st century students are digital natives who have lived their entire lives online, forces educators to find ways to use technology to enhance traditional curriculum. This article examines how one program (AP Language & Composition) incorporates Web 2.0 tools including several Google Applications (gmail, docs, notebook, personalized homepage, pages, calendar, blogger, and talk) into its secondary high school curriculum. Furthermore, this work addresses the gap between students and teachers that occur cross-generationally through a discussion of the successful technology best practices in teaching and learning from a Baby Boomer teacher, a Gen Xer teacher, and then the NetGen students we teach daily.