Week 6 – EDUC 342: Child Development & New Technologies

Week 6 Discussion

lgoochee — Wed, 17 Feb 2016 00:30:05 +0000

I want to comment on the Curwood, Magnifico, Lammers piece, “Writing in the Wild: Writers’ motivation in fan-based affinity spaces.” Overall, I greatly enjoyed this piece, especially in relation to my user interviewing and testing. My child gave me the feedback that she wanted the writing kit to shift in perspective. Instead of being her journal, she wanted it to be the journal of her favorite doll, Frankie Stein ( Monster High). In essence, she was requesting a fan-fiction writing toolkit to write about Frankie’s Monster High adventures. The week six writings couldn’t have been more timely for the development of my product. I ended up redesigning my Beyond Bits and Atoms course “dream toy” prototype around her feedback. The journal became a secret closet for her doll, with a hidden door beneath for the doll’s journal, and a series of other features that could help her through the inspiration and writing process.

I also want to respond to this particular quote in the final paragraph:

Our field needs to move beyond focusing on young adults’ new literacy practices in the wild, or in informal out-of-school spaces, to articulate how teachers can design for new literacies in school-based settings. All too often, technology creates a digital divide across students, teachers, and schools. If young people have self-directed, multimodal, and authentic writing opportunities in out-of-school settings, this divide will only widen.

It seems to me that the educational researchers in this piece are posing uncompelling solutions to the divide between in-school and out-of-school learning. They want students to engage in this kind of self-directed and multimodal writing within the school context, but at the same time, are posing that teachers can achieve this through simply designing surveys, incorporating a closed and safe online writing portal, engage in collaboration, and offer opportunities for students to share work in class. I would argue that most teachers already do all of these things, and yet it’s not anywhere as engaging or invigorating as a free fan-fiction community where relationships to characters and texts are central to the endeavor, as demonstrated in the article’s examples.

On the flip-side, they say that educators shouldn’t try to become pop-culture contemporaries, but what else can they do to meet the child on their level of passion and enthusiasm, and coach them through their writing?

The limitations of a linear curriculum timeline will always inhibit classrooms from feeling authentic in the post-digital-revolution world.

If students had an opportunity to share how they were “writing in the wild” with the rest of the classroom, this seems to be the best way to incorporate how these online communities are impacting them for the better (or not, and teachers intervene). If students were allowed to make teams around works of fiction that they enjoy the most, and choose the skills they want to work on individually in each piece of authentic writing, this seems like another way to create that relationships with characters building element, which seems to be the most central and binding element of fan-fiction.

Also, it’s important to remember that this is only for fiction writing. Students have to learn personal narrative and expository writing too. So, how these principles can be made powerful across other writing modes and contexts is also worthy of thought.

Week 6 Discussion

heylisa — Thu, 11 Feb 2016 16:44:36 +0000

The authors of Writing in the Wild posit that writing in online affinity spaces “motivate young people to write through self-directed and interest-based opportunities to share their work with an authentic audience” (p. 678). While I agree that there are many opportunities for informal learning in these affinity spaces, I worry that we are not seeing the darker side of young adults online. I’m not very familiar with affinity spaces, which may be a ‘safe place’ online for an engaged audience, helpful critique and community, but I have seen the backlash of online journaling where feedback is not very constructive, but rather hurtful. And instead of authentic audiences, commenters were anonymous. By no means do I disagree with the authors point of promoting young people to have ‘self-directed, multimodal and authentic writing opportunities in out-of-school settings’, but rather I would like to have seen them shed light on challenges and how to mitigate them.

Week 6 Discussion

mfaulk — Thu, 11 Feb 2016 08:19:39 +0000

“Writing in the Wild” came to powerful conclusions yet caused me to question the application in practice. Currwood et al. argue that contemporary affinity spaces include a passionate, public audience for content. However, this caused me to question the negative and perhaps unwarranted criticism that could arise from this passionate public audience. Sheena mentions that she is motivated by “more detailed critiques…not just praise” (682). Yet, I can imagine youth who would not react in a similar way. In the classroom, student writing is generally only disclosed to the teacher, who is trained to deliver constructive feedback. If we begin to utilize this public audience as a pedagogical tool for improved writing in the classroom, how can we avoid the potential negative harm that this can cause to students and their malleable intellectual confidence?

Week 6: Writing is fundamental

ccolgan — Thu, 11 Feb 2016 08:03:46 +0000

This week’s reading focused on the role that storytelling and writing can have on a child. It’s so important to consider how and why someone wants to tell a story–sometimes it’s just a matter of giving a person the right tools in order to create a master storyteller.

That might be a robot toy like Sam for early literacy learners or it could be an open forum for recreating a favorite world. Fan Fiction is often dismissed as silly (see Twilight) but it’s also serious business (unfortunately, see Twilight.) Sharing interpretive work, whether it is about The Hunger Games or The Sims, is an important life skill. Teachers can help students grow research and editing abilities through content that is interesting to the individual student. Incorporating these online worlds could help students build and understand audience–a vital part of effective writing.

Jessie, Shelley and I are thinking about ways we can frame writing prompts for teenage girls into our final project for this class. These readings helped me contextualize the importance of free and creative storytelling for children of all ages.

Week 6 Response

mwill5 — Thu, 11 Feb 2016 08:01:48 +0000

In reading the Cassell (2004) article, one section stood out to me in particular:

“Despite descriptions of the multicultural aspects of storytelling activities, and some descriptions of their link to children’s literacy and other aspects of development (Labov, 1972; Lee, 1992; Miller & Hoogstra, 1992), virtually no attempt has been made to integrate their benefits into the classroom (see Pinkard, 1999 for a notable exception). Indeed, the specific kinds of language play demonstrated by African American children is sometimes devalued and belittled to such an extent that African American children lose their desire to participate in the classroom (Michaels, 1981).” (79)

I love the focus of this work on the power of storytelling, and the encouragement of construction rather than consumption. In that context, the above passage took my breath away. Storytelling can be a hugely powerful of a tool for literacy development, but the converse is also true—the stifling, or to use their terminology, “belittling” of narrative is a deeply effective tool for disempowerment. I think this is a crucially important paradox to bring to light. It’s important to think about how we can leverage storytelling in educational design, but it’s also critical to examine how, when, and in what context storytelling is being discouraged, and the implications of those practices.

Week 6 Discussion – Juan G

juang7 — Thu, 11 Feb 2016 05:34:38 +0000

It is clear that peer interactions enhance children and adolescents creative writing abilities. Children and adolescents tend to build on each other’s ideas and get motivated by having an audience. However, I am thinking about the role of parents in this area; I wonder that if instead of enhancing creative writing, parents might limit it because they may have the impulse of pushing children and adolescents to stay closer to reality instead of letting them create very fictitious stories.

Also, I am wondering how we can equip and motivate parents with very limited education to get involved in creating and writing with their children. These parents may have a low self confidence because of their limited skills.

Week 6 – We are STILL social creatures

hajhasan — Thu, 11 Feb 2016 00:57:35 +0000

When reading the article “Writing in the Wild”, I couldn’t help but notice the striking similarity between fan-based and affinity spaces in promoting writing, growth and creativity. We are social creatures at heart, and these examples show the power of social interaction and feedback in empowering kids to become writers. The article does touch upon this a little bit, but I don’t think the point was stressed enough. It made me think that the most powerful technologies are those that facilitate social interactions and scale them on a grander level. When technology is used this way, the power is endless and the benefits are magnificent. However, when technology is insular and inherently lonely, I think it has the potential to bring out the worst in people and promotes regression of skills and interests.

Week 6 response

marcc — Wed, 10 Feb 2016 05:26:03 +0000

I liked the Rogoff (1991) and Doise (1990) citations in Cassell (p. 78), where Cassell writes: “When two peers collaborate, the simple juxtaposition of their actions allows the peers to modify their understanding of their own actions, through appropriating the perspective of the other peer. That is, to apply Rogoff’s notion to emergent literacy, the very fact of telling a piece of a story that follows after the piece told by one’s peer allows both peers to gain a new understanding of the meaning of their words in the context of the story.”

I wonder how much status matters for Cassell’s model of peer collaboration. I’d think that the “balance” of which participant “modified” the understanding of the other would depend on the roles and status of the participants. Not all collaboration is equal; Rogoff’s own idea of “intent community participation” (Week 2 reading) depends on the notion that children observe community activities for a while before assuming greater and greater responsibilities. This is collaboration via a teacher-student relationship, wherein we’d expect the learner to modify their understanding far more than the teacher.

I’d be curious to know how Cassell’s idea of collaboration extends to the “affinity spaces” that Curwood, Magnifico, and Lammers discuss. Quoting Gee (2004), they say that “‘newbies and masters and everyone else’ interact around a shared passion” in these spaces. Surely “masters” and “newbies” must have different roles in these spaces, as suggested in the features they list for affinity spaces. I’d be curious to know more about the roles of leaders and followers within these affinity spaces [aside: can we just call them ‘fandoms’ like everyone else?] and how they influence the conversations within, and especially the influence on young people. Is the language of superfans influencing the language patterns of young fans?

DQC Week 6 – Writing in the Wild

thuygon — Wed, 10 Feb 2016 02:41:45 +0000

I’m curious about if and how the anonymity of the virtual affinity spaces affect motivation of children who use these spaces. Curwood et al. noted that motivation was increased when Sheena received “in-depth criticism”; however, I wonder for the general population- how often do these in-depth criticisms occur? I think these virtual forums do provide a space in which you can be completely anonymous because you are behind a screen with an audience who cannot see you in your flesh- and respond to you in real time. I assume these forums are moderated to prevent vulgar language and harsh criticism, so the writer can be shielded from them before they are posted. If there is a moderator for these forums, I’m curious if this sense of “safety” contributes to the motivated child’s engagement and contributions; and can this “protection” create a false sense of what the real world may be like? If there is no moderator, how does shallow criticism affect their motivation to continue (or discontinue) their practice?

Additionally, I was hoping there would be greater discussion on the initial motivation to write in the first place. Albeit Curwood et al. recognized the study’s limitation in selecting three exceptional subjects- all three had some inclination to write already; the virtual affinity space allowed them more avenues and motivation to pursue writing. How effective is using these virtual spaces in children whose personal interests and interests in writing do not intersect?

Week 6: Adults’ role in guiding storytelling

mjiang2 — Sat, 06 Feb 2016 07:10:32 +0000

Both articles mentioned the importance of peers in storytelling, both as co-creators and as audience. I was wondering what’s the role of adults, including parents and teachers, in guiding and teaching storytelling. It seems to me that storytelling happens so naturally that kids don’t need much guidance – but how might we design interventions can help them get more out of their storytelling process?

For example, by having kids and adults create stories together, they may have much fun and form a stronger bond with each other. In the storytelling class I’m currently taking, we have an organizing question, fun activities, and a design challenge for each class. I also think having some kind of structure that’s external to the storytelling process its might be helpful.