I've been exploring Pinterest.com lately. While I enjoy the recipe-sharing and craft ideas as much as the next person, it seems to me that it is a great vehicle for sharing ideas in a transliterate way. In Pinterest, the user creates 'boards' which are a collection of 'pins'. Each pin is represented by an image of some kind, a short explanation and probably a link to somewhere. I created a collection of images, links, ideas, and learning objects that I might use in next week's Transliteracy Institute. You can check out my Transliteracy board here.
One of my pins is this:
On the surface this looks like a lovely tribute to Whitney Houston. But what's wrong with this picture? Do you know? Whitney Houston sang those words, many times. Many other performers sang this song. Lorelei Gilmore karaoke'ed them on The Gilmore Girls. But it was Dolly Parton who wrote the song. She's the one who strung those particular words together in that particular order, and she's the one whose name should be in that attribution above. Certainly Whitney Houston's interpretation is unforgettable, but she did not write the words. What a great tool for learning about the responsible use of images and text, don't you think? (And who created the image? I didn't even go there!)
Here's Dolly Parton singing her song in 1974 on Hee Haw! I picked this video out of many on YouTube because Dolly introduces the song:
We're busy planning the Transliteracy Institute at Bucks County Community College. This new professional development activity will happen during our Spring Break, March 12 through 15. Twelve participants will join Jackie and me for four days of intense exploration and inspiration, not only in the worlds of information literacy, media literacy, and digital literacy, but more importantly the spaces where these worlds intersect in learning.
We'll be blogging about our adventures with this institute, but to start
out, here's an explanation of these institutes at Bucks. They are very
effective vehicles for providing professional development, usually
lasting four days and including one day of working independently.
Generally, they are offered during breaks from classes. Participants are
required to create an assignment that they can use in their course, and
on the last day we share these masterpieces with everyone. Participants learn about the institute topic and useful tools for
encouraging student learning in that area. (Glogster, Voicethread,
Windows Moviemaker and Timetoast are on the agenda for this year's
Transliteracy Institute.)
Our Learning Studio: Site of the Transliteracy Institute
Previous institutes include Online Learning, Integration of Knowledge (a team-taught capstone course required for graduation), Information Literacy, Media Literacy, and Universal Design. Jackie has led the Media Literacy Institute three times, and I've led Information Literacy four times. We co-lead these institutes with "classroom" faculty not only to give us credibility, but show the importance of the collaboration between the two worlds. What better way to bridge the gap between two intelligences (or silos) than to stand in-between the two?
Our experience with the Information and Media Literacy Institutes has provided us with a toolbox of effective techniques to use in the Transliteracy Institute. I won't reveal all of our secrets yet, but we will be featuring a panel of faculty currently using transliterate assignments in class, a great ice-breaker, and some group exercises that help participants get some hands-on experience before creating their ultimate assignment. We won't share this with our participants right away, but we're looking forward to learning a lot from them, too.
For now, watch the silly Transliteracy Institute trailer we made to entice participants:
