2.+Composition+Tools+-+Modes+and+Methods

=** ​ Composition Tools - Modes and Methods **=

Traditional tools of composition include pen, pencil, and paper.
=== Emergent technologies have changed the modes and methods of composition. Much of this change has been made possible by GUI (Graphical User Interface) and NUI (Natural User Interface), such as are found in many commonly known Web 2.0 technologies. ===

Web 1.0 versus Web 2.0
Adapted from Brian Carter of Fuel Interactive, http://www.fuelinteractive.com/blog/2008/04/my-social-medianetworking-talk.cfm  
 * ** Web 1.0 was… ** || ** Web 2.0 is… ** ||
 * …corporations. || …communities. ||
 * …Britannica Online. || …Wikipedia. ||
 * …homepages. || …blogs. ||
 * …edited and produced. || …raw. ||
 * …categorized using taxonomy. || …collaboratively tagged using folksonomy. ||
 * …advertised. || …viral. ||

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

Blogs and Wikis : De/Constructing the Language Arts Classroom
In her article entitled "Blogs and wikis as disruptive technologies: Is it time for a new pedagogy?", Kop (2007) discusses the ** tenability of the ** **classical view of knowledge** as it is being questioned in today’s postmodern, technologically driven world (Lyotard 1984; Glaser 1999; Lewis 1999; Lankshear et al. 2000; O’Hara 2002, as cited in Kop 2007). She then discusses how the use of blogs and wikis in the classroom can lead to a paradigm shift positioning students not only as the consumers of knowledge, but as knowledge producers as well. This shift has definitive consequences for our language arts classroom.  =Shifting conceptualizations of knowledge= = **To blog or to wiki? That is the question...** = = =
 * === Where educational institutions were once the arbiters of knowledge providing the social milieu for knowledge construction and acquisition, now Web 2.0 can fulfill that same role on a global scale with boundless possibilities (Lamb 2004; MacCallum-Stewart 2004, as cited in Kop 2007). ===
 * === Guy (2004) argues that “the debate—indeed the war—over what counts as knowledge is intrinsically linked to who gets to say what counts as knowledge” (p. 193). ===
 * === “A wave of young people empowered to create knowledge, not merely absorb it, now flows in and out of the classroom, calling into question the convictions and processes that have served as the foundation of traditional higher education. It remains to be seen whether traditional higher education will adjust sufficiently to truly engage the Net Generation” (Barone, 2005, p. 198) ===



What is HOT blogging?
According to Zawilinski (2009) in her article "HOT Blogging: A Framework for Blogging to Promote Higher Order Thinking," HOT blogging "develops higher order thinking around the new literacies of online reading comprehension (Castek et al., 2007; Coiro, 2003; Henry, 2006; Leu et al., 2007). The approach consists of the following four recursive steps":

The article contains useful explanations surrounding the methodology, as well as numerous examples.
 * 1) Bolster background
 * 2) Prime the pump
 * 3) Continue the conversation
 * 4) Make multiplicity explicit



What do students think about the tools of composition?
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 Clare Lauer allows the students in her composition classroom to construct identities in ways that are non-linear and non-narrative. In her article on “Thirdspace,” she references Johnson-Eiola who argues, "while we live in a time of contradictions and contingency, we often fail to recognize these features in the worlds we live in day-to-day, in our classrooms and offices. We tend, despite all of our sophisticated theorizing, to teach writing much as we have long taught it: the creative production of original words in linear streams that some reader receives and understands" (200).  She also refers to David Ulmer who challenges these linear narratives and allows his students to create Websites. Ulmer allows for invention in ways more complex and messy than instructors often allow and encourages students to explore their selves through images, metaphors, and other avenues not traditionally offered in the composition (or any) classroom.

Students have a goal and decide how to structure and delivery the work they produce to accomplish the __goal.__
==// For example: Jodi Shipka states, // "when called upon to set their own goals and to structure the production, delivery, and re-ception of the work they accomplish in the course, students can: (1) demostrate an enhanced awareness of the affordances provided by the variety of media they employ in service of those goals; (2) successfully engineer ways of contextualizing, structuring, and realizing the production, representation, dis- tribution, delivery, and reception of their work; and (3) become better equipped to negotiate the range of communicative contexts they find themselves en- countering both in and outside of school." == ==// Although this might seem daunting and difficult, the author goes on to point out that " // by providing students with what the cognitive anthropologist Edwin Hutchins would call solution procedure "strips"-relatively stable and seemingly linear sequences of steps that are offered as a means of leading people through the successful accomplishment of a given task (294), overly prescriptive assignments afforded students the possibility of bypassing the inquiry phase as they searched for the "implicit clues that reveal what really counts and what can be ignored in completing a particular assignment" (Nelson 413). ==

The multi-modal framework gives students responsibility for:

 * the product
 * and the specific conditions of delivery

The students then provide a written account of their work and how they accomplished the goal explaining all choices. This is the reflection, the metacognitive piece that allows students to understand their own learning by doing.

More on multimodal literacy:

The new tools created by technology have created changes in the way students compose as well as why the compose. Two new themes emerge:
 * 1) collaboration
 * 2) identity

Composition has traditionally been a solitary task with some collaboration through peer editing. However, with the advent of Web 2.0, composition has taken on a significant element of collaboration.

Additionally, composition through multi-media is a method of discovering, and constructing identity.

Facebook, Technology, and the Tools of Identity
Social Networking has changed the concept of composition. Composers need to understand how to use the technology associated with the construction of identity and the intersection with society and culture. Composition on the Web requires skills associated with technology and the structuring of image and text.

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** The new tools of composition have created a need for new skills. In "Teaching English Language Arts in a 'Flat' World" by Jim Burke, he notes that students need to be... **
 * //collaborators and orchestrators//: organize and manage complex operations involving people, data, money, equipment, and so forth
 * //synthesizers//: bring together multiple perspectives in novel ways
 * //explainers//: use metaphors and story telling to explain complex designs and functions
 * //leveragers//: manage one's self and others in the face of a continually evolving workplace
 * //adapters:// generalize one's skills over multiple contexts
 * //green people:// advocate for the planet
 * //personalizers:// take a generic service and make it human
 * //localizers:// have intimate knowledge of local problems and solutions

Mind mapping ** @http://www.mindmeister.com/?first=true
 * Check out these tools for your classroom:

A great tool for primary students to create comics: [|Comic Creator]

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 * Podcasting ** is a tool that allows students to compose for the ear; they must think about the way language sounds in any composition.

** HyperStudio ** is a software application that allows students to create movies, podcasts, and colourful computer generated art, all in one handy application. Check out what this intermediate school student made in Kaila's [|Journey to the Centre of the Earth].

And finally, these ** repositories **** of tools ** for multimodal composition: Story Telling Links, The Connected Classroom

[|Article on Social Media @ Read, Write, Web]