Williams_Josh_SU2012




 * Biography**:

My name is Josh Williams and I am a member of the Teach for America 2011 corps in New York City. I am originally from the Chicago, IL area (Glen Ellyn) and went to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, graduating in 2009 in Finance, with a minor in English. Following college, I moved to Denver, CO to work for a consulting (Aon Hewitt) and to spend time with my brother, Nathan. In early 2011, I realized that the work I was doing at Aon did not resonate with my personal values and I began to seek out opportunities in non-for-profit and child advocacy groups. I was accepted to Teach for America and shortly thereafter became a teacher. I just finished my first year as an 8th grade special education / reading teacher in the South Bronx.

Outside of work, I enjoy playing guitar, snowboarding, spending time with friends, reading (although I should probably do more of it!), seeking new adventures, forming new friendships, being an uncle to my sister Carey's children, running, eating brats and more.

If you'd like to contact me, start a band, or make more friends in this humongous city, you can reach me by email (jwillia6@gmail.com), on my cell phone (630.862.8385) or via facebook. I look forward to this online semester with you!


 * My Life as a Tech User**:



While brainstorming and considering the role of technology in my life, I’ve realized that technology has slowly and surely worked its way into a ubiquitous presence in my day-to-day existence. At this moment I am on vacation in Ephraim, Wisconsin, a fairly remote harbor town with elegant natural beauty; sail boats on the water, sea gulls squawking, the sun hanging lazily in the sky. However, I sit in a quiet café typing away on my MacBook, my iPad not far from me, and a cell phone on the table that can connect me with anyone in the world in an instant. I check it frequently for Facebook updates. It’s funny to me that even in this isolated place I am incapable, or perhaps unwilling, to escape the clutches of technology; I am verymuch logged in, and any alternative seems laughable.

How did I get here? Well, as my life map shows, it all started in the 1980’s, my earliest days. In my youth, I would watch movies and TV with my family, but most notably, I loved to play video games with my brother Nathan. At first it was the regular Nintendo, then the systems advanced every few years; the last console I purchased was a Playstation 2, which is archaic at this time. Then the computer became an omnipresent advancement and was available both in school and at home. I remember thinking it odd at first, although I loved playing 3D Pinball and using the Painting application. However, as time wore on, it became more and more useful, both for social interactions, then for research and schoolwork. Clearly that hasn’t changed, as I’m currently composing this document for a graduate school assignment. Now I use technology for pretty much everything; I stream movies through Netflix, listen to music on Spotify, take graduate school classes through Blackboard, call friends on my Blackberry, write emails through Gmail and Microsoft Outlook; I have countless logins for other random websites and can only remember what these are by tracking them on a password protected Microsoft Excel file. In short, technology plays an integral part in my life, and only by using it effectively can I navigate my social and professional world.

Before I sign off, I want to share with you a definitive moment in my technological life. In 2003, I received my first cell phone, an old, blocky Sprint flip phone; I think that was perhaps the most personally liberating and technologically confining moment of my life. In terms of personal freedom, I would liken it to receiving my parents’ car keys for the first time. With this new technology, I could go anywhere, do anything, and still be in touch with my family and others I care about. I could take photos, search the Internet, and even get directions to anywhere I needed to go. However, it has now become a technological crutch; if I ever leave home without it, I feel naked and lost, like I’ve left a good friend behind and must go back. Consider the panic that occurs when people lose or misplace their cell phones; my roommate even called the police the day she lost her iPhone, although she had no idea where it could have gone. Cell phones have become the golden handcuffs permanently linking us to the wired world. While I love my cell phone, I see it as a symbol of technology’s ubiquity, at least in the modern world. As phones continue to advance, and we become more and more capable of using them for multiple means, I think we will only continue our technological reliance, for better or worse.


 * NETS Reflection:**

and Creativity || I feel like I strongly value creativity and collaboration. In my personal life, I am a writer, a musician, and at one point in time, a filmmaker. I use technology to assist my creations, using programs like GarageBand, iMovie, Microsoft Word, and others. As a teacher, I try to incorporate creativity and group work into the classroom as often as possible. For example, my students created collages that either promoted or protested the country of Panem after reading //The Hunger Games//. My students also created PowerPoint presentations to inform the class of an inspirational person that they felt we should study. Interestingly enough, students indicated that these were their favorite projects in my class this year. However, now that I think about it, I realize I have not included many collaborative projects in class, in which students work together to create something unique. || Design a group project and assessment rubric for the first days of school. This project should require students to collaborate using technology to express who they are as individuals and as a class. || Experiences and Assessments || As a special education teacher, I try to be as multimodal as possible, both with my delivery of content and my assessment of student mastery. For instance, I have used written tests, Power Point projects, collages, and group performances as ways to measure my students understanding of the various texts we’ve read in class. However, what I feel like I struggle with in this category is empowering students to set their own learning goals, and enabling them to pursue their own intellectual curiosities. I also tend to set learning targets for students, then let them kno w if they have met them. I think it would be far more powerful if my students were to take more ownership over their personal progress in my class. || Create a tracker which students can access online, indicating their progress toward the learning goals in my course. Enable students to assess themselves and provide a section for teacher assessment. ||
 * **NETS Category** || **Current Knowledge, Skills and Dispositions** || **Learning Goal** ||
 * 1. Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning
 * 2. Design and Develop Digital Age Learning
 * 3. Model Digital Age Work and Learning || In my personal life, I feel like I am capable using many of the common technologies that exist. By this, I mean I very proficient with using both Windows and Mac operating systems, Microsoft Office, iLife and Gmail. I have a Blackberry that keeps me updated with email and Facebook status updates. I also use phone, email, and in person visits to communicate with parents regularly. I even use SnappSchool.com to send out mass texts to my students’ families, quickly communicating important information about my class. However, one thing I have not done in that past, but that I would like to do in the future, is create and maintain a class website that can house important information about class and even be a platform for showcasing student work. || Create a class website that can house important information relevant to my class, as well as showcase student work. ||
 * 4. Promote and Model Digital Citizenship and Responsibility || I feel like I have an understanding of the risks and challenges associated with digital citizenship. Unfortunately, the Internet creates endless opportunities to pirate ideas and information, as well as an anonymity that enables individuals to act recklessly. However, I have never really considered this all that deeply, or explicitly taught the importance of appropriate digital citizenship to my students or fellow faculty. || Create a lesson plan that explicitly teaches appropriate digital citizenship to students. ||
 * 5. Engage in Professional Growth and Leadership || Even though this class is just beginning, I’m starting to realize the importance of staying up to date on the rapidly advancing digital tools that are available to us as teachers and individuals. It is critical that our students are capable of manipulating these technologies, since they are growing up in a world where digital literacy is be the expectation. I am therefore committed to exploring technologies that I have at this point overlooked, and being more intentional about my inclusion of technology in the classroom. || Create a Twitter account and begin tweeting daily, on a personal level (Personal Use Project).

Complete a tutorial on Prezi and create a Prezi presentation about class expectations for the first few days of school. ||


 * Copyright Clarity**

Check out my presentation on copyright laws and fair use! This was based on our reading of Renee Hobb's book, Clarity: How Fair Use S upports Digital Learning.



Statement on Digital Literacy
 * The Digital Landscape of Today**. George Lucas, the famous filmmaker behind timeless classics such as //Star Wars//, once said, “We must teach communication comprehensively in all its forms,” (Clinton et al, 50). Today, people are communicating globally and instantaneously in forms that were unimaginable in the recent past. Through programs such as Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, YouTube and countless others, people are connecting with one another to forge online communities, publishing their thoughts and creations (including written, visual, and auditory), and interacting with current events authentically to the point of “participatory journalism” (Richardson, 5). As a result of the exponential growth and increasing prevalence of digital technology in today’s society, //digital literacy//, or one’s ability to utilize digital technologies and engage with online communities of information, is a prerequisite for success. Simply put, to be employable and to be an active participant in our democracy, our children must be able to use computers, programs, and relevant web tools to their advantage. Therefore, the purpose of this document is to outline my beliefs as a 21st century educator and articulate what skills I feel my students must develop to succeed in school and beyond.


 * Foundational Skills**. As I ride the 6 Train in New York City, I am often fascinated by toddlers working with electronics, playing games on their parents’ iPhones, and cleverly navigating the many movements required to meaningfully engage with the devices. However, without developing foundational literacy skills, as these toddlers grow up they will only continue to use technology for games and entertainment, and never enjoy the rich intellectual experiences that can provide them with a greater understanding of the world and opportunities for success. I believe that before we can truly engage in any society, online or otherwise, we need five core skills.
 * 1) //Reading//. To comprehend any written material, students must be able to decode words, articulate them with fluency, and “listen” to their meaning. Regardless of format (whether print is online or on paper), our students must develop advanced reading skills.
 * 2) //Writing//. To share our ideas and communicate effectively with an audience, students must be able to compose words, sentences and paragraphs in a variety of forms; articulating thoughts through basic writing will always be a critical competency.
 * 3) //Speaking//. Students must be able to communicate with others orally, both through pre-written speeches and interactive conversations.
 * 4) //Listening//. Students must be able to truly listen to and consider the ideas of others. Students must understand that only through listening can we create authentic learning conversations.
 * 5) //Reasoning//. Students must be able to think critically and logically about new ideas, appreciating what they believe to be rational, while analyzing and refuting what is unsound.


 * Digital Skills**. While developing the foundational literacy skills above used to be enough to succeed professionally, today we must know more. In conjunction with the foundational skills of the past, it is critical that students develop myriad digital skills to succeed in the job market of the future. Many brilliant educators have outlined what they feel to be the “Essential Competencies of Digital and Media Literacy” (Hobbs, 19). However, I have adapted these to my own thinking, and believe there are four core competencies of digital literacy.
 * 1) //Navigating through experimentation//. Digital technologies are constantly developing. As learners in an ever-changing environment, students must understand the purpose of diverse digital tools, and then master them through collaborative experimentation. It is not important to be an expert at every tool. What is far more relevant is identifying our learning goals, and then using the most effective tools to meet our needs, experimenting along the way (Kajder, 24).
 * 2) //Storing and retrieving//. Organization is an essential skill in a tangible work environment, yet it is equally critical in a digital environment where information is ubiquitous. Therefore, students must be able to use folders and other systems to organize files, websites, et cetera, and then easily retrieve them when needed.
 * 3) //Seeking, comprehending and evaluating//. Regardless of the purpose of research, be it for a school project or personal inquiry, students must be able to search for specific information, comprehend it using foundational literacy skills, evaluate its relevance and possible bias, before finally determining its usefulness.
 * 4) //Composing and publishing//. Lastly, if our children are to truly interact with the world, they cannot only be expert consumers of information, they must be able to form their own ideas, compose their own thoughts, and then publish them safely to an intended audience. Only after completing this last step have they truly demonstrated digital literacy and their ability to comprehend and communicate meaning in all its forms.


 * What You Can Expect In My Class**. As a student in my class, you can expect to rigorously develop all of the critical skills listed above. We will read, write, speak, listen and reason with one another. We will use digital tools such as Microsoft Office, iLife, Google (or other web browsers), Wiki pages, Glogster, and other web tools, learning them through collaborative experimentation. We will organize our learning online and in shared folder systems. We will seek out information about specific subjects, digest it independently and as a community, and then evaluate its relevance, credibility, and usefulness to our class. Finally, we will compose our ideas using whichever tools work best, and publish them to one another and the world. The big picture is this; we are here as livers and learners. Our goal is to understand the world and our role in it, share our wealth of experiences, and prepare ourselves, the best that we can, for an unknown, but promising future.

I look forward to sharing the school year with you.

Sincerely, Josh Williams Works Cited

Clinton, Katie, Ravi Purushotma, Alice J. Robison, and Margaret Weigel. //Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century//. Chicago: MacArthur Foundation, 2006. Print.

Hobbs, Renee. //Digital and Media Literacy: A Plan of Action//. Washington D.C.: Aspen Institute, 2010. Print.

Kajder, Sara B. //Adolescents and Digital Literacies: Learning alongside Our Students//. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English, 2010. Print.

Richardson, Will. //Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts: And Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms.// Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin, 2006. Print.


 * Portfolio**

The following is a link to my NEW class website (it's a Wiki!) and a full collection of my Media Literacy and Technology Portfolio. Enjoy!

http://readtogetherleadtogether.wikispaces.com/Media+Literacy+and+Technology+Portfolio