Wikis and Literacy of Emotion & Images

Kajder, S. B. (2007) “Unleashing potential with emerging technologies”. In K. Beers, R.E. Probst, and L. Rief (Eds.) Adolescent literacy: Turning promise into practice (pp.213-229) Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Using the wikibooks.org website, we were able to so set up an annotated text to work alongside our study of the novel…. Our work include[d] various kinds of aids for reading, understanding, and teaching the text, including but not limite to explanatory notes, introductions summaries, questions and answers, charts, lists, indices, references wikilinks, pictures and audio. (p. 223)

Kajder noted that she got the idea to use this in her class when she saw her kids pull out CliffNotes on the class reading. This reminds me of how I sometimes refer my students to Sparknotes, and how they are all very familiar with the site. I checked out Wikibooks and, as described, all these features are available and available for classroom use. I am really excited about this use of technology since this is a format the kids are familiar with, and it engages them because now their knowledge and production would have a legitimate, authentic audience. Students now become teachers and dispenser of information through this medium. The technology is relatively simple so there is little if no explanation to how to use it – the kids have all read Wikipedia, and the same principles apply. My only concern (and surprise) is that this website is not very populated. I searched for popular books and came back with very little information. It is apparently only 5 years old, but I’m hoping more teachers would pick this up as a resource for the classroom. NOTE TO DR. GEORGE: please consider adding this component to next year’s technology class!!!

Kajder, S. B. (2008) “The book trailer: engaging teens through technologies.” Educational Leadership. Volume 65, Number 6: 4 pages

What worked well about Sam’s trailer was his ability to leverage each of these modes to create an effect that speech alone could not have conveyed. (p. 3)

In putting together my own book trailer I engaged on one of the most powerful modes of expression –using a combination of sound and image…. While putting together this one image of people being hanged, I could not articulate in words a viable emotional reaction. (More likely my eyes would skim over it and block its effect.) When I paired it with the cry of a cantor and an animated emphasizing effect, I amplified the emotional content of the image, and I was viscerally affected. These trailers give students the opportunity to see and create emotional texts, emotional expressions. And I do not think there is enough educational emphasis on the Literacy of images and emotion.

However, Kajder mentions that she does not work on tinkering with the applications with the kids, showing the “wows” of the product, I think this may be a mistake. Part of the process (for me at least,) of creating an emotionally expressive film is the affective dimension in its creation – that is, the discovery of the technology, the tinkering, the obsessive tinkering…. These are all an essential part of the learning process that should not be given short sh