Authentic Writing

In the coming decades, the platforms and formalisms scholars employ to display, transform, and transmit information will continue to evolve. Innovations in information management did not stop with the codex. They will not stop with the PC. The purpose of this paper is to explore a specific implication that new paradigms of computing—especially those pertaining to 3D objects and 3D environments—will present for the discipline of history. Put simply, this study suggests historians will need to re‐think the aesthetics of their discipline. Drawing on the experience of the<it> 3D Virtual Buildings Project</it>, it suggests there are two possibilities historians can and ought to explore. The first is to test the efficacy of 3D objects as cognitive tools, tools designed to assist student realization that historical works are models, models that must be distinguished from the objects they represent. The second is to explore the use of 3D‐immersive environments as platforms to display research findings. If Virtual Reality is to emerge as a viable medium for the historical discipline, scholars will need to transform their practice. Assumptions regarding the constitution of narrative, authorship and the scholarly work will all require modification.

This paper explores the impact of NCLB on the behavior of teachers and school leaders and juxtaposes their reactions to the types of teaching and leadership needed to lead 21st century schools, as described by the authors of the 21st Century Schools movement.

In recent decades, student centered pedagogy has provided serious challenges to traditional ―lecture-and-test‖ modes of education in colleges and universities. Advocates of student-centered pedagogy generally proceed from the constructivist position that maintains that learners construct their understandings through their actions and experiences on the world. Student-centered thinking has spawned a burgeoning interest in the use of a variety of different active learning methods in and out of the classroom. These include collaborative learning, experiential learning, problem-based learning, and a variety of other pedagogical methods. However, the theory and practice of student-centered pedagogy is not without its problems. ―Student centered‖ learning is often defined in contradistinction to ―teacher-centered‖ pedagogy. The idea that students must be active in the construction of knowledge is often understood to imply a diminishing role for the teacher in the learning process. Teachers are called upon to relinquish singular claims to authority or power in the classroom. As a result, the role of the teacher becomes recast as one of ―coach‖ or ―facilitator‖. In this paper, I argue that the student/teacher-centered dichotomy is built upon a false premise -- namely that it is possible to parse off the active role of the student from the socio-cultural activities of which the student and teacher are a part. An alternative approach is based upon the socio-cultural-constructivist idea that learning is a form of guided participation in socio-cultural activity. From this view, knowledge in any given discipline is the historical product of socio-cultural processes that have evolved over long periods of time. Such knowledge is preserved and communicated through the cultural vehicle of language. It follows that learning within any given discipline requires mastery of the language-based meanings that define disciplinary knowledge and practice. Such knowledge can only be acquired through active participation in language-mediated learning activities that are structured by more expert individuals. All learning is thus viewed as a form of doing. Pedagogy becomes a task of articulating learning goals and identifying the forms of doing that promote development toward those goals.

Article based on paper presented as part of Panel 24: ‘Looting, Refusing, Negating, Embodying’ ‘Critical Refusals’ Fourth Biennal Conference of the International Herbert Marcuse Society, University of Pennsylvania, 27-29th October 2011

http://www.pdcnet.org/radphilrev/content/radphilrev_2013_0016_0001_0375_0385

http://web.asc.upenn.edu/news/Critical_Refusals_Conference.pdf

Carter details how asking pre-service English teachers to confront their preconceived notions about comics via journaling and creating their own comics seemed to change negative attitudes and build respect for comics as a rigorous form of expression, creation, and for potential inclusion in their K-12 classrooms.

This is a systematic hands on writing process that begins by defining and outling writing skills required for California Content standards. Writing standards are outlined and compared by grade level for a systematic approach to teaching writing for grade levels K-5. Sample projects are summarized and the writing standard for each project is analyzed and supported through each project. Projects were created and executed by Riverside Preparatory School, Oro Grande, CA.

This paper is researched based and concluds with a literary review of the history of writing, emergent language, and classroom application.

This research paper is found also in
ERIC: http://eric.ed.gov/?q=portfolio&id=ED543181
EL TWEEKLY: (1)  http://eltweekly.com/2014/03/research-paper-using-e-portfolios-and-esl-learners-by-maha-alawdat/#respond
(2) http://eltweekly.com/tag/e-portfolios-for-esl/#sthash.nRWcmsqc.dpbs

The goal of combining language instruction with the teaching of core content has been widely adopted in European schools and universities, at least since the 1990s. The concept has its roots in Content Based Language Instruction (CBLI) as well as in the older tradition known as English for Specific Purposes (ESP). These approaches to language teaching influenced the more development in Europe of ‘Content and Language Integrated Learning’ (CLIL). CLIL has what is called a “dual focus,” aiming to develop language skills and content knowledge in tandem. I suggest that all these projects have been inadequately theorized and, drawing on research in the psychology of writing, argue that language is already deeply embedded in disciplinary practice and that writing in particular plays a widely misrecognised role in learning and knowledge creation in the disciplines. This claim has important implications for “integrated” approaches to curriculum development, particularly when such curricula are designed jointly by applied linguists and disciplinary specialists.

The “millennial” historical moment presents fresh dilemmas for race-critical instructors. In addition to being well-versed in colorblind racial discourse, millennial students are socialized in a pop-cultural milieu that implies a more integrated, racially egalitarian world than exists in reality, and includes claims that U.S. society is now “post-racial.” Millennials’ enthusiastic consumption of race in an era of seeming progress leads them to assume an ever greater social distance between their generation and the relics of those they consider “real” racists, as well as between the former eras of de jure white supremacy and the more racially meritocratic structure they presume exists today. In light of such obstacles, race-critical instructors must employ creative strategies to help students understand and identify their connections to larger, structural matters that create and sustain racial inequality at the systemic level. I introduce one successful approach, where students examine the social reproduction of racial inequality by tracing their family histories of wealth and capital acquisition and transfer.

O texto foi elaborado a partir de um conjunto de informacao recolhida em tres Centros de Reconhecimento, Validacao e Certificacao de Competencias (CRVCC). O trabalho realizado nos CRVCC consiste na avaliacao de competencias atraves da experiencia de vida. O processo de reconhecimento, validacao e certificacao de competencias (RVCC) e complexo e dificil tanto para os adultos como para os profissionais envolvidos, o que resulta de um conjunto de factores. Neste texto, optou-se por problematizar a complexidade inerente aos elementos que se consideram estruturantes do processo ? as competencias, a experiencia de vida e a avaliacao. As questoes que orientam a problematizacao e reflexao ao longo do texto sao as seguintes: Qual e a natureza dos elementos que estao associados ao reconhecimento e validacao e que tornam este processo complexo? Que profissoes emergem atraves do trabalho realizado nos CRVCC? As equipas dos CRVCC recorrem a um conjunto de estrategias (p.e modelo metodologico hib...

In Europe and North America, scholars are beginning to shed the assumptions of print culture. They are also only beginning to perceive the possibilities of a computerized, electro-magnetic culture. In this first decade of the twenty-first century, historians face a challenge: how, and to what extent, are we to appropriate the 3D-immersive environment as an instrument of representation and interaction? In many ways, the situation is analogous to that faced by scholars at the close of the Roman Empire. Virtual Reality (VR) - the generation of artificial, three-dimensional, immersive environments by the computer - is the codex of our time. As a medium of communication, it presents new methods for representation, narration and instruction. In this study I suggest how using the 3D Virtual Buildings Project as a framework for discussing what is currently possible and as a prototype for discussing what will soon be possible.

This study examines the use of e-portfolios for ESL (English as a second language) learners. The data were collected by reviewing 11 empirical studies from 2010–2012 in order to synthesize meaningful information about e-portfolios for ESL/EFL (English as a foreign language) acquisition. The studies were coded into two main categories: learning gains, including language proficiency and assessment, and technical skills. The findings showed that using e-portfolios motivated and enhanced students’ writing, language learning, assessment, and technical skills. The findings also revealed that there was a questionable attitude among educators about the differences between using paper-based portfolios and e-portfolios for writing development. Finally, the review suggested e-portfolios for ecological issues and educational purposes.

In this article, we examine how children ages 8 to 10 characterized the audiences of digital videos they made in school. Children's perceptions of their viewers reflected, and in many cases complicated, current theorizing about the vast potential audiences of digital texts. Our analysis of videos and interview data surfaces several findings pertaining to how children characterized their audiences. Children discussed their desire to inform viewers, their deliberate choices about language use vis-à-vis their viewers, ways they predicted and steered audience emotions, and the affective dimensions of sharing one's video with different audiences. These findings suggest that educators and researchers ought to foreground issues of addressivity when theorizing the question of audience for children's digital products. They also raise questions concerning authentic audience in an age of increasing concern about children's safety and security in online worlds.

One of the key challenges currently facing humanities and computing scholars is the generation of new conventions, particularly new forms of narration and representation to support student development of critical thinking skills. Drawing inspiration from the writings of the communication theorist Harold Innis, this study argues that conventions supporting information visualization the production of visual analogues of ideas or patterns represented by text and number can help students apprehend and interrogate concepts. The experience of the 3D Virtual Buildings Project suggests that a program devoted to 3D computer modelling is one way that Innis' ideas might be realized. Through tutorials students learn to reconstruct models of historic Canadian settlements and to translate historic data into numeric information for a 3D model. Most importantly, the tutorials show students that historical models are inherently imperfect, at best partial reconstructions of the past. Through a process of information translation and visualization, students learn to distinguish historical models from the objects they purport to represent.

The authors, an applied linguist and an academic lawyer, describe how they collaboratively problematise and co-develop conceptual learning materials for finance professionals enrolled in a postgraduate study-unit called Legal Risk in Finance. Activities are designed to function as “boundary objects” bridging the gap between two professional visions. These "objects" are intended to help the finance professionals engage for the first time with categories of meaning and discursive practices that are often represented in terms superficially similar to those of their own professional domain. The authors also document their own cross-disciplinary collaboration, which takes place in sites of engagement that together constitute a “back region” relative to the classroom's “front” (Goffman, 1959). In this "second site" the applied linguist qua discourse analyst identifies areas of conceptual difficulty and potential misunderstanding. There have been numerous studies of professional acculturation and socialisation, especially in the medical and legal domains; but as yet little in the realms of finance and finance law. Moreover, the classroom is rarely seen as the site of such processes. Yet for many postgraduate students that is precisely where they first confront the categories of a new professional domain. The role of applied linguists in tertiary curriculum development is another neglected research topic involving cross-boundary professional partnerships.

“Individual experimental studies have shown that groups outperform individuals on learning tasks, and further that individuals who work in groups do better on later individual assessments as well (Barron, 2000b, 2003,; 0&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;#x27;Donnell &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp; Dansereau, 1992).” p19