Use of Apps to Engage Students in Collaborative Writing, Great Plains Composition Conference

Richard Beach, University of Minnesota

Handout: Apps recommendations

http://tinyurl.com/c5mlkuh

Use of Apps to Engage Students in

Collaborative Writing

Current book project

• Richard Beach, Chris Anson, Lee-Ann Breuch, and Thomas Reynolds, Understanding and Creating Digital Texts: An Activity-Based Approach, Rowman & Littlefield, in press

• http://digitalwriting.pbworks.com

Apps: Affordances

Affordances not “in” app

App ActivityAffordances created by teachers

Activity App

Affordances: Social practices

• Contextualizing texts as actions/spaces

• Interacting with others• Making hypertextual connections• Collaborating with others• Constructing identities as persona

Affordances not “in” tools

• “We need to understand that meaning is not inherent in our tools (writing, media, ideas, language) nor does meaning reside in ourselves. Rather, it exists in the space between our tools, ourselves, and each other—in the space of design.” Doug Walls, KAIROS

Tools: Recontextualize

texts• Twitter: Move link from one context

to new context• Remix: Copy-paste from original to

new text• Annotate: Add new content to a text

Digital texts: Continuum

• StaticDynamic

• Fixed Open• Monologic

Dialogic

Wiki annotations to a Munro story

Folger Digital Library

Annotations: Hamlet

Rap Genius: Annotations

Evernote: Clippings

Feedback: thesis: Google Forms

Research: Middle school students

• 2011 – 2012: Using of iPad apps (report at end of handout)

• 2013: Use of Chrome apps• Low-income, urban school

A Quick Peek at Diigo

Diigo bookmarking for sharing annotations

1. Add Diigo to Safari (iPad) or Chromebook toolbar

2. Find an online text

3. Highlight sections of the text

4. Click on the icon to add a Sticky Note response

5. Have other students add their responses

Affordances of Diigo: Collaborative Annotation

Affordances of Diigo: Collaborative Annotation

Paired Resulting Argument

More active reading

Alternative perspectives

Alternative response practices

Benefits: Annotations

Discussion prompted by projecting annotations on the pro wind power article

Read one of two con articles and added their own annotations using Diigo and DocAS.

Students responded to each other’s annotations

Generated an argument made up of claim and multiple pieces of evidence

Sticky-note discussion

Data Analysis: Coding Scheme

34% questioning,

22% integrating/connecting,

13% evaluating,

10% determining important ideas,

9% inferring,

8% reacting to other’s comments,

4% monitoring

Results: Diigo Annotations

What app affordances did middle school students employ in using Mindmeister, Diigo, and VoiceThread in studying the topic of weather versus climate?

What benefits and challenges did students identify in using these apps?

What are some differences between use of iPads versus Chromebooks in using these apps?

2013 Research: Chrome apps: Mindmeister, Diigo, VoiceThread

Affordances: Organization, Multimodality, Ease of use

It’s easier and it’s get more into what you going to do because you can use photographs, graphs, and charts and all of that and it’s more easier to show as if you’re doing a presentation to get the person you’re showing this to more into it and to show them what you trying to explain to them.

It organizes your thinking. When you put in bubbles you could tell the difference and you can put it on each side that you think it is. It’s better than writing because you can think of more ideas when you’re using that and you can put images when you’re explaining.

Affordances: Efficiency, Collaboration, Visual

When you’re doing it on paper and pencil you’re just learning from our own thoughts, on Diigo it is more faster and better.

Easier. If it is on paper, you are not allowed to collaborate. It’s online.

You can communicate with other people like if you have a question or a comment on other people’s sticky note or if they have a question you can clarify.

VoiceThread: Multiple audiences

share responses to images

VoiceThread affordances practices

Collaborative shared reading

Mediated by focus on same iamge

Learn from other’s perspectives

Multimodal production

Teacher: Multimodality

The multimodal aspect of this helps kids gel their understanding and further their understanding of whatever their particular part of the carbon cycle was in a way that was not as rich had we been doing a whole class discussion or another reading on the carbon cycle or all watching a video. What was neat was every kid was processing their leg of the carbon cycle in their own way without being guided by a teacher. In a class often we’re going to read about it for two minutes and discuss; they could think about it and talk with a partner about it.

Advantage: iPadsTouch

Speed

# apps

Video/images

Advantage: Chromebooks

Costs

Google Apps

Loading apps

Keyboard (problem: trackpad)

Identity competencies

• Negotiating identities across different social worlds

• Acquiring new, alternative ways of perceiving and knowing

• Making connections across people, events, and texts

• Engaging in critical analysis of texts and the world

• Reflecting on one’s experiences based on long-term identity trajectories

“Habits of mind” • Curiosity, openness, engagement,

creativity, persistence, responsibility, flexibility, and metacognition

• Framework for Success in Postsecondary Writing (Writing Program Administrators, National Council of Teachers of English, National Writing Project, 2011)

Negotiating identities/adopting perspectives: Online role-play

• Issue: Access to information on blocked websites

• Students adopt pro-con roles• construct a persona• employ rhetorical appeals • support their position with reasons • identify and refute counter-arguments• revise or modify one’s own positions

Using a Ning as the platform for online role-

play:

Using Diigo sticky notes to share annotations on related research http://grou.ps/cwhybrid2010t1/talks/5160010/4

Threaded discussion allows students easily follow discussion

Role construction: Adopting different perspectives

EmoGirl: Critique of schoolInternet policies

I think the internet usage policies are ridiculous. The policies are almost  impossible to find. I spent half an hour trying to find them and I'm a young, computer savvy person. 

“Strict Father” cultural model:

• The issue with sites like YouTube is that it is a helpful site when used correctly, but the ratio of students who would use it to the students who would abuse it would greatly favor the later of the two. R-rated sites are not ok because they usually contain information and content that may be considered offensive. The internet policies are very clear, if your grandmother would not appreciate it, then you probably shouldn't be doing those kind of things at school.

Online resourcesHandout: Apps, identity activities, study

report

http://tinyurl.com/c5mlkuhEbook: Using iPad and iPhone Apps for Learning with Literacy Across the Curriculum

http://usingipads.pbworks.com