Teaching to the Test in the UK

This article shows we have similar problems to those in the US - but can US teachers strike?

BBC article.

Planet Rhetoric

Here's an academic blog I found. I think it will appeal to a lot of us. Planet Rhetoric describes itself as: "a multi-contributor blog by rhetoricians and critical theorists, all of whom work within the realm of cultural studies. It seeks to function as a kind of 'virtual colloquy' for academics and students alike, a clearinghouse for ideas, insights, questions, and concerns. The ultimate goal of Planet Rhetoric is to grow organically, adding new voices from contributors all over the world, and to continue to foster an open and ongoing discussion on cultural discourses in all forms."

See what you think: Planet Rhetoric.

Students' Addicted to Social Media

Interesting article. I should say up front, I'm one of them!!!

Article.

Thanks : )

Thanks for all the lovely comments about my pictures and hometown. Of course I should tell you that the reality is very different, but I don't want to shatter your dreams ; ).

So, class trip to Bristol and Bath anyone? We could pop up and see Barton & Hamilton while we're at it, or visit Buckingham Palace maybe? The picture below is of me outside the gates to the palace (some years ago as you can tell!) - shame you can't see more of the palace ; )

Visual and Digital Writing

Every weekend I'm torn between a desperate desire to watch TV (I've always been a TV and movie fan) and the need to read hundreds of books and write various papers - "if only all this stuff was presented in a TV show, it'd be way easier" I inwardly scream. Then today, I was looking at our class Wiki, and even with the stress of knowing the Wiki is due any day now, I noticed how many people included images on their pages. Therefore, when I cracked our Handbook of Research on Writing, I couldn't help but read: 'Seeing the screen: Research into Visual and Digital Writing Practices' (Wysocki, 2008).

I'm glad I read this chapter, because I learned a alot about how the visual has been valued (or indeed devalued) over the years. The author includes a quote from 1948 which describes comic books as "The marijuana of the nursery, the bane of the bassinet, the horror of the house, the curse of the kids, and a threat to the future" (as cited in Wysocki, 2008, p. 600). Comic books and graphic novels are still with us today, showing that whatever criticisms were leveled at these texts, they hold a great deal of interest for a wide audience. The author explains that historically there was a belief that "interpretation of words, unadorned and unaccompanied by illustrations, is what produces the steadily rational beings we often believe we ought to be" (p. 600) - the idea was that visuals detract from the sense of the written word. However, I think most of us would agree that this is counter-intuitive; afterall, children begin to "write" by first drawing and scribbling - writing is a visual medium.

Of course, recently, the digital world has opened up discussions about visual practices and writing. Traditionally, authors have "used rhetorical and subject knowledge to produce and arrange texts" while the power for "readability [and] aesthetics" has been firmly in the hands of the printing press (p. 599). However, today writers have more power to decide how their text, and images, will look using the online medium. Not only is it now extremely easy to insert images into text online, but the structure of text can more easily be manipulated to convey different meanings (p. 606).

I believe that any kind of writing instruction should include aspects of multi-modality in various forms, especially in today's digital age. As I looked at our Wiki pages today, I was struck by the fact that many of them are formatted very similarly to a traditional printed page. In order to successfully utilise the computer and the Internet as media for writing, I think that instruction in how to work with and structure online texts would be most helpful. As Wysocki (2008) puts it, "readers needed [sic] new strategies for reading new digital (and digitally designed print) texts", and I would go one step further and say that writers need new strategies for writing new digital (and digitally designed print) texts.

Keynsham, England

In case any of you want to see a sleepy, little English town, I discovered you can view my hometown of Keynsham on GoogleMaps (maybe it'll help put the Local Literacies in perspective for you) : )

Here's the link: Keynsham.

Mis-representation

I'm in Historical Analysis hell and nothing else is on my radar right now. In fact, I think I'm going to use this blog to spew forth my opinions about what I've read, which I have to keep firmly locked away as I write my academic paper.

I've been exploring the history of andragogy, and oh boy, isn't this the theory everyone loves to hate. Almost every article acknowledges that it has become one of the best loved theories for adult educators in the field, and then they go on to say that there's a "dearth" of research to test it's effectiveness and many of its assumptions are flawed. Now, I don't mind practitioners and theorists taking a critical stance, but they do all seem to have missed the point a little to my mind.

In one of the earliest descriptions of Andragogy (Knowles, 1970), Malcolm Knowles (viewed as the father of andragogy in the USA) goes to great pains to point out that he is not writing a "how-to" for teaching adults, but is instead attempting to engage in "dialogue" with us adult educators who are interested in andragogy. He further goes on to say that people should not read the book looking for "truth", but should instead treat it as a framework from which they can "compare and test your own ideas" (p. 15). It therefore seems in-congruent to me that people should even attempt to test andragogy quantitatively.

Of course, empirically testing a theory like andragogy is near impossible, not least because andragogical classes shouldn't have the kind of outcomes that can easily be evaluated, like tests. My biggest problem with many of the studies I have read are in their definitions of "adult learners" - until you have 'adult' clearly defined, and you can be sure you're following Knowles' definition of adult, you have a weak study in my opinion, although little mention is made of this in the literature.

Finally I am a little shocked at how many studies, even in recent years, cite Knowles' original assumptions about Andragogy published in 1970, or indeed his update in 1980. Since then Knowles updated his assumptions and models at least once more, but this is rarely acknowledged in the literature.

While the articles I have read on this have been full of criticism for andragogy, and I even took this on board when I described the theory as being a 'little passe' during my presentation in class a few weeks ago, I actually still feel that it is a valuable theory and model to use in adult education. Instead of concentrating on the areas that I may not 100% agree with, I will read the updates Knowles and his followers added to the theory to see if my issues are addressed, and then I will take Knowles' original advice and approach andragogy with a "gentle skepticism" and test his assumptions against my own experiences and "adopt those that make sense" to me (p. 16).

Knowles, M. (1970) The Modern Practice of Adult Education.