http://rickleefilipkowski.blogspot.com/2009/06/ci-5472-post-82.html
For this week's assignment, I’d like to go more in the direction of formulating a tentative assignment which utilizes virtual avatars that students can create via FREE web tools such as Gizmoz and Voki. More specifically, this blog post will explore how student-created avatars can be utilized in conjunction with the Critical Response Protocol (CRP) to minimize common engagement and participation barriers (e.g., students' fear of public disclosure due to negative personal perceptions of confidence, ability, safety, and so on), thereby increasing overall student participation, as well as increasing the overall honesty and authenticity of students' responses.
While being introduced to the CRP last spring while working with a group of TC middle school students, I initially found the simple question and response process to afford a very accessible method for students and teachers to explore and COLLABORATIVELY build meaning out of any given text including textual, visual, and even audio texts. In a nut shell, the basic process is as follows, and is of course adaptable to your unique class context:
1.) Present students with an entire text, and / or fragments of a particular text as pictured bellow.
2.) Give students a few moments to view the text, free-write about it, and / or whatever you think they need to do to begin to process what they experience.
3.) Critically analyze the text and collaboratively construct meaning via responding verbally to the following CRP question set.
NOTE: Although there is no fixed order and discussion format (e.g., small group, large group, individual, and so on) that these questions MUST be answered in, the order and format with which students proceed can influence the trajectory of your conversation, as well as the final meaning(s) that are constructed. Basically, progress through the CRP via the order and format your individual teaching and learning context requires.
-What do you notice?
-What does it remind you of?
-How do you feel?
-What questions does it raise?
-Speculate
As students ideally provide honest and authentic responses to this series of questions, students COLLABORATIVELY derive meaning from the text in question from the ground up; the constructivist approach to teaching and learning at its finest.
For more detailed information on the CRP, please visit the following 2 page CRP overview:
http://opd.mpls.k12.mn.us/sites/daf1e7b3-5a92-4df1-9b5c-67189b22643f/uploads/103007-CRITICAL_RESPONSE.pdf
However, because of the personal disclosure inherent to some of the CRP questions, in particular the questions requiring students to access any given text via verbalizing emotional and experiential associations, certain students may not feel entirely comfortable, confident, and / or safe enough to publicly voice honest and authentic responses. And I have to admit, although I'm a relatively outgoing person, I initially perceived responding to the CRP's emotional and experiential questions in front of my middle school audience to be a rather uncomfortable and embarrassing experience. In short, certain students are likely to perceive the CRP as too daunting, risky, humiliating, painful, and so on to effectively engage with.
But what if reluctant students who do not feel comfortable, confident, and / or safe sharing personal emotional and / or experiential associations with the text in question had the capability to distance themselves from their responses? What if students could control the degree to which they are identified with their responses? What if reluctant students where given the power to engage in the CRP's method of collaborative meaning making, but participate with varying degrees of anonymity?
In short, I argue that student-created avatars encourage universal, honest, and authentic participation in CRP activities as common barriers to participation and engagement can be mediated via students' ability to control the degree to which they choose to identify with their CRP responses . In my opinion, this "identity management" capability holds important implications as students are...
-forced to slow down and think through their cognitions as they build aspects of their avatar.
-required to articulate their thinking through writing and speaking. In other words, students can choose to record with their own voice what their avatar will say, or use the software's text-to-speech functionality.
-required to focus their thinking to a 1 minute audio response, or 200 character text-to-speech response.
-and perhaps MOST important, able to CONTROL and "fine tune" the degree to which they are IDENTIFIED or ALIENATED with their response as they manipulate physical, verbal, and non-verbal features of their avatar.
Overall, I see this capability as affording TREMENDOUS instructional implications. For example, students could create their individual CRP avatar responses, send them off to the instructor for further processing (e.g., screen for appropriateness), and later view them as an entire class to continue the process of collaborative meaning making. Whereas such public disclosure of emotional and experiential associations with a text might otherwise be perceived as absolutely HORRIFIC in the eyes of certain students, those experiencing such fears have the unique option to distance themselves from their response via the avatar they create. In other words, depending on how they construct their avatar, the remainder of the class may be absolutely clueless as to which response is associated with which student.
For this week's assignment, I did my best to model what I believe such a process might "look" like. Also, I did my best to further articulate my overall process and rationale via video annotations.
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TASK: After viewing your assigned image(s), create an avatar response to one question found in the CRP. In your response, you must develop a tentative title for your image, as well as explain your reasoning behind the title you create. Have fun!
FURTHER CONSIDERATIONS
Although theoretically sound, this sort of teaching and learning activity is clearly not without its challenges.
Similar to pretty much every piece of technology we have discussed so far throughout my graduate education, there is the issue of access, both in the school as well as at home, that has the potential to create problems when considering such a technology-based assignment. For example, many, many schools either block access to the necessary avatar creation tools via filters, lack the necessary computers to process these sites, and / or otherwise have policies and assumptions in place that consider this type of activity as "fun and games" or "screwing around" vs. serious academic work. Combine these in-school issues with the potential lack of resources and negative assumptions toward "playing" on the computer at home, and we have some MAJOR problems to deal with before seamlessly integrating student-created virtual avatars in the classroom.
Also, this sort of activity has the potential to compromise the learning of certain interpersonal communication skills. Although I empathize with students that deal with issues regarding how they perceive their confidence, self-worth, and so on as learners and human beings, they WILL face future societal marginalization if coping strategies are not acquired. Although I don't doubt that this sort of activity affords otherwise reluctant students a voice, I fear as though these students may lack future necessary interpersonal communication skills if they are COMPLETELY insulated from risk. After all, a great deal of our life-long learning and education comes from taking risks!
Like anything else, our world and education system are dynamic, and it is impossible to completely anticipate the implications of our teaching strategies until we take similar risks as instructors and try them! However, I feel as though the activity and rationale that I have created have merit, and I encourage everyone to take the risk and try it out. And don't forget to let me know how it goes!
IMAGES USED
Permission granted from photographer Megan Petock
http://www.flickr.com/photos/65504858@N00/2210505878/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/65504858@N00/2210508158/in/photostream/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/65504858@N00/2209720369/in/photostream/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/65504858@N00/2209718859/in/photostream/
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