Coding Fun with 

Thimble & Piskel 

For my Web Literacy project, I chose Participating with the project #allthestickerz. Working with the Participation tasks on the Mozilla Web Literacy Map provides opportunities to practice the 21st Century skills of problem-solving, communication, creativity, and collaboration. 

The #allthestickerz activity emphasizes coding, composing, connecting, evaluating, open practice, remixing, synthesizing, sharing, and contributing.

The project works with two open source web applications, Thimble (https://thimble.mozilla.org/en-US/) and Piskel (http://www.piskelapp.com). The pre-set code and directions are in Thimble and the real fun is in Piskel where you get to design your very own pixel art. Here is link to my published project https://thimbleprojects.org/climb3mtns/261594/. Students can create more than one Piskel art to add to the pre-set code.

We will be using this project in various classrooms for an end of year activity in CTE, (Career Tech Ed) classrooms and a few Math classrooms. Using this type of project exposes students to coding and provides them the opportunity to understand what coding is and experience it first hand. Many students find this type of learning beneficial in helping them decide if they are interested in coding for a career. Others appreciate it for the fun and creativity it provides. 

To Code or Not to Code

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My Opinion Stands

In reading the two articles, Kids Need To Learn Digital Literacy-Not How To Code, (Larson, 2014) and Code Literacy: A 21^st-Century Requirement (Rushkoff, 2012) my opinion stands with no, we do not need to teach our students how to code. What we do need to teach ALL of our students is the importance of how to work with technology and the important difference between learning to code and learning about code. (Larson, 2014). The analogy used comparing the care and maintenance of a car as opposed to rebuilding the transmission as a requirement to learning how to drive is very relevant to coding and learning technology today.

Mitch Resnick’s TED Talk (Resnick, n.d.) explained that being able to express yourself with technology is fluency. He equates browsing, texting, and gaming as being able to read but not write. Coding in this sense should be incorporated into our classes for engaging projects to draw on prior knowledge and enforce learned content. 

The California Common Core State Standards for writing grades 6-12 define four areas that students should understand and be able to do. They are text types and purposes, production and distribution of writing, research to build and present knowledge, and range of writing. (Kirst et al., 2010). I list these as a small sampling of the standards to relate back to my recommendation above stating that coding can and should be used to reinforce prior/learned knowledge.

What we do need to teach our students is the basic technology skills to understand the devices, software and communication we produce with (not just use) daily. Computer Science courses that encompass these skills and include Web Development, coding and more should become core curriculum rather than infused electives.

Lastly, I would like to qualify my opinion with my many years of experience as a network specialist and CTE instructor of computer repair and networking certification tracks and a technology support and trainer of staff and teachers. We do not need to learn to code, we need to learn drive and maintain the car.

Kirst, M. W., Straus, I., President, V., Burr, S., Cohn, C. A., Holaday, B., … Williams Jack, J. O. (2010). California Common Core State Standards English Language Arts & Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects. Retrieved from http://www.cde.ca.gov/be/st/ss/documents/finalelaccssstandards.pdf

Larson, S. (2014). Kids Need To Learn Digital Literacy—Not How To Code - ReadWrite. Retrieved April 24, 2017, from http://readwrite.com/2014/09/08/learn-to-code-digital-literacy/

Resnick, M. (n.d.). Let’s teach kids to code. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ok6LbV6bqaE&t=27s

Exploring Media Literacy in the Digital Age

Fact, Opinion, and Bias

In this lesson, students will experience the reality of fact vs opinion and the bias that can easily take place when reporting an event.

There will be two events that take place in the classroom:

Event #1 Three students will perform a roll play in the front of the class. One student will be sitting at a desk reading a book with a set of keys under the chair. The second student will walk into the room, pick up the keys and walk out of the room without any interaction between the two students. Student number 3 will videotape the event.

Event #2 Three different students will perform a second role play. One student will be sitting at a desk reading a book. There will be a closed notebook on the desk. Student number 2 will walk in the room and “snatch” the notebook off the desk and walk out of the room. Student number one will look up at the student after he snatches the book but does nothing. Student number three will videotape the event.

Create: Students will now play the role of news reporters. Assign Event #1 to half the room and Event #2 to the other half of the room. Using Google Docs/Draw/Slide or https://www.fodey.com/generators/newspaper/snippet.asp each student will create a news headline and 2 to 4 sentence story of what they just saw. Students will have time to add some visual content or color to make the story look appealing or newsworthy.

Ask several students to share their headlines and text with the class.

Now review Fact and Opinion

Fact is something known with certainty that can be objectively verified. A journalist covering a news story is sent out to gather facts - who, what, where, when. The journalist is not meant to add his/her own meaning to the facts but rather to write down or broadcast everything they see in great detail. Facts are descriptive in nature and can be supported by evidence.

Opinion is belief or conclusion not necessarily substantiated by positive knowledge or proof. This is where the person relaying the story guesses, speculates or fabricates the details about what happened by interjecting his or her own interpretations or judgments. (Strongly held preconceived opinions are referred to as bias).

Analyze: Watch the videos without commentary, to remind the class of what actually happened.

Ask these questions:

What opinions were included?

Did anyone write that the keys or notebook were lost or stolen?

Did anyone report the feelings or emotions of either student?

Did anyone report that individuals were good, bad or misguided?

That the student was going someplace specific with the keys?

Did anyone design their story with visuals that show opinion or bias?

Explain how personal bias, past experience, stereotypes, or a desire to sensationalize contribute to the blurring of lines.

Discuss the consequences of presenting opinion as fact. Does it matter? Do we care? Why?

Explore: Compare to what could be reported in a critical news event.

Lesson from MediaLit Lesson Plan Archive, Did you see what I saw?
Lesson modified to add a second event and visual creation to analyze opinion/bias in media representation. http://www.consortiumformedialiteracy.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=12&Itemid=24. Retrieved April 20, 2017

Exploration of 
Literacy Elements

-Joanne M. Glantz

The basics of traditional literacy are the ability to read and write content and to engage in communication including graphical and auditory. Digital literacy has connections and pulls from multi-skills and modalities. Traditional literacy “consumes” information, sound, video, and learning where digital literacy “creates” information, sound, video, and learning.

21^st Century teachers and students, will need to develop the literacies of information described: Locating and filtering, sharing and collaborating, organizing and curating, creating and generating, and reusing and re-purposing (Summey, 2013)

Students should learn in multimodalities, gathering, processing, collaborating, sharing, and creating. By developing these skills rather than rote learning, students will be able to adapt to change.

In order for this to happen, teacher’s expectations must be that students own their learning and to facilitate the learning as much as possible. Administrators expectations will allow for teachers to take risks, explore, and learn with their students. Students with highly developed digital literacy spanning the emergent literacies (Summey, 2013) will be college and career ready.

The obstacles that I see in this process are the testing practices, both local and state mandated. Administrators and teachers focus on the traditional literacy methods being tested using technology as a substitution tool prefaced in the SAMR Model. (Kathy Schrock, 2011). Until we change the testing practices to measure mastery of skills, critical thinking, and effective communication, we will continue to struggle with digitally illiterate graduates.

Kathy Schrock. (2011). SAMR - Kathy Schrock's Guide to Everything. Retrieved March 18, 2017, from http://www.schrockguide.net/samr.html

Summey, D. C. (2013). New Literacies in a Digital World. Developing Digital Literacies: A Framework for Professional Learning.

Redefining Information Literacy to Prepare Students for the 21st Century Workforce

Robert Monge & Erica Frisicaro-Pawlowski

This reading couldn’t be more timely for me. We have identified a need to create a standard lesson plan for doing Internet research. We want this lesson plan to be available across all the curriculums and not just for ELA writing. Building a bridge between traditional and digital is not the only message here, but bridging between scholarly and work environment/classroom disciplines, information literacy (IL) skills are critical.

As defined in the text, there are three types of learning in a professional environment: Formal, Non-formal, and Informal. (Monge & Frisicaro-Pawlowski, 2014) For sake of this review, we will consider the professional environment as the various curriculum students will study in secondary.

Students and teachers depend on standard Google search and some Web 2.0 tools for citing. Originally, we were going to develop a standard lesson with Google Advanced Search, Scholarly, citing lessons and information on how to search the available databases purchased by the library.

After reading this article, we are going to customize lessons to fit the three types of learning and match more closely to career IL. The librarian and I, hope to work with the teaching staff to create guidelines for each of the various disciplines (p. 73). By working with the teaching staff they have by-in and they see why it is important to teach these skills.

We will be focusing on the recommended inquiry-guided learning strategies of Problem-Based Learning and Challenge-Based Learning (Monge & Frisicaro-Pawlowski, 2014) p. 69. Students learning how to search and discover legitimate sources while apply problem-solving and critical thinking skills will make their learning more significant and applicable to carry into the workplace of the future.

The Basics of Data Literacy

In reading The Basics of Data Literacy (Bowen, M. and Bartley, A., 2014) it was apparent to me why this chapter was chosen for an introduction to the essentials of digital literacy. The authors make it very clear that Science is a probabilistic endeavor (p.4) and data literacy is essential to science literacy (p.3).

Data literacies discussed in this chapter were open-inquiry, higher-order thinking skills, drawing conclusions, and messy data. I was particularly interested in the example provided with the dispersion (scatter) of data around averages. Because science in schools often draws conclusions on averages, (Bowen, 2014) this method of examining date by standard deviation offers a more in-depth analysis of data and the opportunity to draw more accurate conclusions.

This has a profound impact when relating to a conclusion of health decisions and social safety, such as cancer treatment or structural material deterioration rates and many other life threatening decisions made daily from data analysis.

Works Cited

Bowen, M. Bartley, A. (2014). The Basics of Data Literacy. Arlington, VA: David Beacom.

Encourage The Heart

                                      Recognize Contributions

There were so many suggestions and ideas in Chapter 10 of Encourage The Heart, it was difficult to pick just one. 
I settled on the value of quality recognition with the "Take Action" of linking recognition and rewards with performance outcomes so that only those who meet or exceed the standards receive them (Kouzes & Posner, 2012, p.298). 
When it comes to technology we should have clear goals/standards that need to be met in the delivery of digital lessons. Teachers that meet or exceed these standards need to be recognized with rewards that enhance their technology skills even more. There are so many rewards that can be offered from electronic devices for the classroom, upgraded laptop, to paid professional development of their choice. Who wouldn't want to win an iPad or better yet a trip to ISTE!!

Remain Humble and Human

I love that Chapter 12 listed Practice, Reflect, Remain Humble and Human and best of all, ended with a message of Love. 

"Being humble is the antidote for hubris." (p. 341) Hubris was considered a character flaw in Greek storytelling and is certainly one today. We all fall prey to self-confidence from time to time, so this reminder was critical. 

My personal Take Action for this one is to continue to read my daily devotional first thing in the morning, which always seems to have the right message for the day ahead and reminds me to not only be humble gentle and patient, but grateful as well. It's amazing how God works that way!!

Here is today's devotional. See how that works!!