NCTE Fall Conference Feature: 21st Century Literacy Center

Coming to NYC for NCTE? Be sure visit the 21st Century Literacy Center

Visit the 21st Century Literacy Center at the 2007 NCTE Annual Convention in New York to discover a myriad of ways to promote 21st Century Literacy in your classroom. You'll find representational models of 21st Century Literacies from teachers across the country that highlight creativity, learning, collaboration, and critical thinking. Students are at the heart of every exhibit in the room.

In this room, you will be able to:

-View Literacy maps that have been created by teachers, their colleagues, and their classes. The maps take on various forms from print to digital.
-Use the computer to learn more about NCTE's new Professional development program, Pathways to Adolescent Literacy and to ELL.
-Explore the new NCTE website.
-Find lesson plans that have been based on research by viewing the ReadWriteThink site.
-Pick up handouts that will "jump start" your creativity in lesson preparation.
Create lesson plans.
-Attend demonstrations (Daily schedule will be posted).
-Check your e-mail.

New Literacies: Theme of September's English Journal

English Journal Volume 97, Number 1, September 2007 is devoted to New Literacies.
http://www.ncte.org/pubs/journals/ej/contents/125124.htm

Among the essays:
Literature into Film (and Back Again): Another Look at an Old Dog - John Golden
The Book Report, Version 2.0: Podcasting on Young Adult Novels - Robert Rozema
Basement New Literacies: Dialogue with a First-Year Teacher - William Kist
Scrutinizing the Cybersell: Teen-Targeted Web Sites as Texts - Darren Crovitz
Finding Space and Time for the Visual in K–12 Literacy Instruction - Dawnene D. Hassett and Melissa B. Schieble
A New Perspective on Inquiry: A Case Study of Digital Video Production - Jason Ranker
Digital Texts and the New Literacies - Allen Webb

Coming: New Media Literacy Text

Be on the lookout for the new NCTE published text: "Creating Media-Rich Classrooms: New Approaches for Middle and Secondary School Teachers." The text,which is full of rich lesson plans, is expected to be hot off the presses in time for the NCTE annual meeting in New York City. Commission on Media members Mary Christel and Scott Sullivan are the co-editors. To get a sneak peak at the Table of Contents, go here:
http://www.loc.gov/catdir/toc/ecip0720/2007024263.html

2007 Media Literacy Award Winner

In Abigail Kennedy's multimedia class at Pasco High School in Dade City, Florida, podcasting has become a learning tool. For her innovative ideas in the classroom, Kennedy will receive the Media Literacy Award during the NCTE Annual Convention in November in New York City. See this news story, "Students Learn to Podcast for a Grade," produced by WTSP TV News, in the Tampa-St.Petersburg Fl market
http://www.tampabays10.com/news/local/article.aspx?storyid=63230

Facelifts for the Facebook Generation

Excerpts:
"Colleges, catching on to the evolving online habits of their prospective students, are starting to wisen up — and that often means making their online presence more appealing to Facebook-surfing high schoolers."


"Web designers in higher education are starting to embrace the grab bag of technologies loosely referred to as 'Web 2.0,' a realm in which streaming media are readily available, people can share or remix content and communication is always a two-way street."

Link to article: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/09/14/websites