A Guide to Documenting Learning Read online

  How do I prepare my learning-thinking message so it is seen/heard by my intended audience?

  What are the best ways to prepare my media artifacts and message so that they can be interactive (liked, re-shared, retweeted, or re-mixed)?

  How can my shared artifacts become a source of learning for others?

  Digital Citizenship

  How does documenting learning ask learners to actively display digital citizenship? Heick (2013a) describes digital citizenship as, “The quality of habits, actions, and consumption patterns that impact the ecology of digital content and communities.” MacMeeking (2013) notes that, “The more our students are online, the more information they will encounter. It is important for them not only be able to access this information, but also to be the best digital citizens that they can be.”

  Documenting is based on the premise that students and teachers will display quality habits and actions throughout, and beyond, their academic learning opportunities as they display respectfulness and lawfulness, while contributing to an ever-growing digital world as thoughtful digital citizens.

  Here are ten digital citizenship characteristics that the documenting learning process fosters (see Image 2.2):

  Privacy in Respecting Confidentiality

  Maintaining privacy becomes a necessity when documenting learning. What is appropriate to share with others and the world? Where is the invisible line that may not be crossed? When artifacts are being readied to be shared or amplified, one’s own privacy as well as others in the artifacts must be considered. Students and teachers need to learn how to capture learning without showing people’s faces (e.g., recording backs of heads, or using a pixelating tool prior to sharing) unless given written permission. Likewise, it is important to be conscientious about sharing any information that could be exploited by others (e.g., location, name, phone number, address, interests).

  Image 2.2

  Copyright Observation Using Proper Attribution

  When engaged in the learning process it is not uncommon to use resources, ideas, and works created by others. It is therefore important to ensure that copyright attribution becomes a natural part of the process when curating, sharing, and amplifying artifacts. When one’s learning-thinking is made visible—whether text, image, or multimedia—it is required by law to reference the original owners of any included content, as well as provide reference to authors and their intellectual properties. If this is an area that has been ignored or overlooked in your classroom or school, it needs to be addressed head-on to ensure learners and teachers are modeling correct behavior and being mindful digital citizens concerning their actions when conveying their documentation to the world.

  Responsibility for Online Behavior

  When placing artifacts online, it is imperative that it is done so respectfully. Documenting raises awareness of the learning process, including the need to embrace failures and mistakes. This vulnerability must be protected. Allowing malicious or hurtful comments orally or textually must never be permitted. Documenting the learning of oneself or others is not about shaming, but about embracing and correcting misunderstandings, gaining new perspectives, progressing one’s understanding by sharing and amplifying the learning, and celebrating and showcasing the learning. Just as with privacy, there is an invisible line that is not to be crossed when deciding what can be shared to accurately and strategically represent the learning process without embarrassing learners. Netiquette is a term often used by school and districts to express the need for responsible behavior and expected protocols as Internet consumers or producers.

  Respectfulness for Other’s Viewpoints

  Learners will most likely deal with more subjective comments versus objective ones when sharing and amplifying their artifacts with the world. For example, when a student posted his thoughts concerning a current-event issue in a blog post, he was quite shaken when a commenter made a strong, rather personal attack concerning his main points. When the student showed the comment to his teacher, she did not immediately remove it or tell him to, “Just ignore it.” Instead, she asked him some thought-provoking questions: Why do you think this person may have had such an intense emotional response? Where does this person live? What life experiences may be influencing his comments? By clicking on the commenter’s avatar, they eventually got to the commenter’s Facebook page and began to put two-and-two together. The student drafted a response and asked his classmates for their thoughts and input. Eventually, he posted a response to the commenter. Soon after, the commenter posted a new comment in the thread wherein he apologized for his harshness and shared insight into why he used the tone he did when expressing his thoughts.

  Participation in Digital World Communities

  The digital world has bridged the gap between consumers and producers. In an analog world, it was difficult and expensive to join the ranks of publishers and purveyors of thoughts and ideas, but in today’s online world, information is freelance and accessible to anyone with an Internet-enabled device and a connection. Documenting amplifies the notion of what it meant to be learning collaboratively regarding who is teaching, and when and where learning takes place. Participating in and contributing to a global learning community allow learners to be digital-world citizens. For example, we can learn about how to dubstep from a preteen (scan QR Code 2.11).

  QR Code 2.11 Scan this QR code to view This amazing girl mastered dubstep dancing by just using YouTube.

  http://langwitches.me/dubstep

  Engagement With a Broad Audience

  Engaging with an audience beyond oneself live or digitally can vary due to what is being documented, how it is being documented, and how the learners are sharing and amplifying the artifacts. Social media feedback by the target audience can range from active forms of conversation (e.g., comments on a blog, writing or replying to a tweet) or passive forms (e.g., receiving likes, reactions, retweets). Both students and adult learners need to learn how to engage in active forms of digital communication and providing meaningful feedback.

  Connecting and Networking Opportunities to Amplify Learning

  Participating in digital world communities implies a commitment to not simply joining existing communities in a passive manner, but actively connecting and networking with its members. Documenting learning was originally based on the Reggio Emilia-inspired pedagogical documentation model, which did not consider the ability and need to share, amplify, and obtain feedback in real time in a digital world because these capabilities and technologies were not available and accessible at the time. New applications and opportunities for connecting learners to share their thinking around the world is becoming commonplace. Proactively and strategically sharing and disseminating artifacts that represent thinking in visible ways empowers students and teachers during the school day, and most importantly, beyond.

  Exploration of Worldwide Learning in Action

  As Heick (2013a) suggested in his definition of digital citizenship, it is about an ecology of digital content and communities. An ecology is focused on the organisms’ relationships—one to another and to their physical surroundings. There is a need to explore how other learners are learning beyond the limitations of one’s own classroom walls, country, or continent. Likewise, learners should be available to “be discovered” by others who want to learn from them. Documenting allows a local learning organism to interact with worldwide learning organisms who are technically living and breathing in the same ecosystem and desire to gain insights into how one other thinks, believes, acts, and reacts to similar topics or themes.

  QR Code 2.12 Scan this QR code to view a variety of Sylvia Duckworth’s sketchnotes.

  http://langwitches.me/duckworth

  Authenticity in Sharing One’s Voice

  When documenting over time, a learner develops his or her own style, which becomes recognizable by others. For example, two well-known sketchnoters’ images are recognized just by quickly scanning their work. Each has her own voice that is conveyed throug
h a personalized use of font, color, images, and layout (scan QR Codes 2.12 and 2.13).

  As learners are involved in multiple opportunities to express their visible thinking, they begin to have a recognizable style and voice. When sharing and amplifying artifacts, one’s voice needs to be truthful and forthright, including answering the following questions: What do I see in myself as I observe my learning at this moment in time? How can I best convey my understanding of what I am learning and where I am in my learning process?

  Creation of Learning-Thinking Artifacts

  Documentation artifacts are creations that include interpreted information and explanations of the visible thinking and understanding. Anderson et al. (2000) conveys that the highest level of the revised Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives is creation. Today’s digital world consists of an ongoing exchange of both consumers and producers (contributors). If learners never have documenting opportunities that involve creating digital content to be accessed and interacted with locally or globally, they will forever remain consumers, which means being only a partial digital citizen.

  QR Code 2.13 Scan this QR code to view a variety of Silvia Tolisano’s sketchnotes.

  http://langwitches.me/langwitches-sketchnotes

  It’s Time to Take Action!: Chapter 2 Action Step

  So far in this chapter, you have read about three now literacies: basic literacy, media literacy, and digital citizenship. Share a documenting opportunity (even if you would not have called it that before reading this book) that involved your students or yourself applying one or more of these three literacies during a learning experience.

  In your tweet, Instagram description, Facebook post, or blog post, include annotations and/or annotexted artifacts that express characteristics of your selected literacy or literacies.

  Remember to use the #documenting4learning hashtag on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram, or by mentioning @documenting4learning on Facebook and Instagram, and @doc4learning on Twitter.

  Global Literacy

  How does documenting learning support global literacy? Asia Society (2015) defines global competence (literacy) as the toolkit a productive, involved citizenry used to meet the problems and opportunities of the world. In addition, they state:

  In the curriculum, global competence challenges students to investigate the world, consider a variety of perspectives, communicate ideas, and take meaningful action. A globally focused curriculum engages students in their own learning and motivates them to strive for knowledge and understanding. And a curious, inspired student strives to learn more in school and beyond.

  Notice the last sentence: And a curious, inspired student strives to learn more in school and beyond.

  Documenting learning is about just that: providing phases, routine, platforms, and tools that inspire student and adult learners to strive to learn more academically, personally, and professionally in and outside of school time.

  Here are nine global literacy characteristics that the documenting learning process fosters (see Image 2.3):

  Awareness of Self in Context of World’s New Knowledge

  As students and teachers document their learning, abstract concepts related to beliefs, perspectives, understandings, and practices become visible. This can be frightening at times as it causes oneself to become cognitive, and metacognitive, regarding who he or she is within a cultural context of the world and the people who inhabit it. Identification of one’s own cultural uniqueness may not meaningfully occur unless learners are engaged in documenting opportunities that encourage reaching out to and learning form a global audience.

  When learners can articulate their cultural identity, they are more likely aware of what influences their motivation, desire, practice, and decision making. The ability to stand back from oneself and become aware of other’s cultural learning values, beliefs, and perceptions (why they learn, what they are learning, and what they plan on doing with the learning) is important for students and teachers to experience. Identifying and reflecting on what comprises the attitudes, actions, products, and performances of one’s culture in light of a growing awareness of the similarities and uniqueness of other cultures can be enlightening. A strategic component to creating artifacts in terms of global awareness is for learners to be conscious of how their artifacts may explicitly or implicitly convey personal cultural points of view when making thinking visible that may be different than other’s cultural viewpoints.

  Image 2.3

  Interpret New Knowledge

  Learning from and with others takes place via reading, viewing, hearing, and interpreting artifacts from around the globe. Learning also takes place through a symbiotic relationship among the owners of the artifacts: the thinking conveyed and interpretations made by the learners engaged in the documentation process. Background knowledge and cultural beliefs play a role in interpreting new knowledge. The realization of cultural differences expands one’s understanding that there are multiple ways to express facts, ideas, opinions, and arguments than may have been initially thought. Documenting opportunities cognitively and metacognitively deepens the understanding of one’s own practices via interpretation. This reflection process goes even deeper when learners engage in knowledge and interpretation discussions with learners and experts from around the world.

  Analyze and Synthesize New Knowledge

  Analyzing can be defined as the act of critical examination to determine the elements and specific features for the act of explanation or interpretation. Documenting learning gives students and teachers opportunities to do so by examining the captured learning in detail for nuances, patterns, trends, and implications for future learning and teaching. Synthesizing can be defined as the act of combining what is known to create a new or more complex understanding. The exchange of the thinking created, shared, and amplified around the world enables learners to analyze and synthesize varying perspectives, content, and resources that expand and challenge their own thoughts, ideas, and beliefs. This is true for students, as well as teachers and administrators. Many teachers we have worked alongside have commented on how their repertoire of pedagogies and instructional techniques and methods have been affirmed, challenged, and expanded by transparently sharing their professional learning and growth with educators around the world. The same has been true for administrators who have been willing to share and amplify their own professional documentation artifacts.

  Apply New Knowledge

  The better the artifacts portray evidence and interpretation of the learning being captured, the easier it becomes for readers, listeners, and/or viewers to gain insights that can be applied to their own learning. When learning through analyzing and synthesizing artifacts, whether one’s own or others, learners grow in their own understanding as they apply their new or deeper knowledge to new situations, problems, or issues. Documenting is especially important during the process of creating new information, such as piloting new ideas or action research. It is critical that learners know how to document their own learning and apply their gained knowledge in meaningful ways with intended audiences.

  Experience Multicultural Perspectives

  As mentioned previously, documenting learning from one’s cultural perspective influences the learning and understanding conveyed in artifacts. The term global simply means outside of one’s locality. Learners in one town, city, or state can learn much from students and teachers living in another. Students’ and teachers’ understanding broadens in terms of histories, values, and viewpoints of global citizens. For example, skyping with a classroom halfway around the world who is also struggling with a similar water-conservation problem adds perspective for both classrooms, and will most likely influence considerations and solutions for the task at hand in both locations.

  QR Code 2.14 Scan this QR code to view the video People react to being called beautiful.

  http://langwitches.me/beautiful

  When connecting and experiencing other’s cultures it does not take long to discover people ar
e more similar than different regarding love, lifelong desires, and values. Take an amplified video created as an experiment by a high-school student in an arts-focused high school in Chicago titled: People react to being called beautiful (scan QR Code 2.14). When watching the video, a viewer cannot help but notice the surprised looks and emotions conveyed based on the simple act of being told they are beautiful inside and out. After viewing this video, a teacher in an Arkansas high school decided to do the same, but this time asked teachers to capture shared moments of why particular students make them want to come to school. The same physical and verbal expressions are evident in both videos (scan QR Code 2.15). The visible action of touching the hearts of students in Chicago being shared and amplified led to students in Arkansas knowing they are loved as well. (If you would like to participate in this project, use #beautifulpeople and #documenting4learning when sharing and amplifying your video on your selected social media platforms.)

  QR Code 2.15 Scan this QR code to view the video Students react to being called important.

  http://langwitches.me/important

  Create New Knowledge

  If you have chosen to take the #beautifulpeople challenge, you will be creating/producing new knowledge and sharing it with the world through amplification. Whether videoing veterans, family members, synagogue attendees, or administrators in your district, when documenting the reactions of those being told of their worth and value, it also informs audience viewers as learners as well. Documenting opportunities provide avenues for creating artifacts that convey new knowledge and bring awareness of global issues. For example, in March of 2017, Cable News Network (CNN) launched a project #MyFreedomDay, “When students around the world did amazing things to raise awareness of modern-day slavery. . . . Students at hundreds of schools, spread across six continents, came together to form a global community, shining a light on [this issue].” From school panels and presentations to silent film-videos and black-and-white photographs, students as contributors created, shared, and amplified their voices, while acting on behalf of those whose voices are often silenced.