Beyond School

First, a mini-photo essay on my own point of view about privileging writing over speaking when grading in the collaborative, networking, multimedia century:

Three weeks after the Diigo stampede, I’ve been concerned that the new trend of putting Diigo annotations on posts instead of leaving comments in the thread was a negative thing. Only Diigo users would see the conversation, and the post’s comment thread would be left poorer for that.

But after a wild four-hour storm of 74-and-counting comments on my Muhammed Ali post about privileging writing over other communication strands when we grade, it occurs to me that Diigo might come in handy here. There are so many incredibly insightful comments there, and the issue is so relevant to the futures of our students, that I fear the sheer bulk of comments might dissuade new readers from discovering the gold shining here and there.

Diigo highlights and annotations of the thread might help. If you want to take part in this experiment, go at it. It could be a great way to demonstrate the value of Diigo highlights and annotations as a complement to, instead of a substitute for, blog comments. Because the debate – particularly the one between Benjamin Baxter, who maintains that writing should constitute the bulk of a student’s grade in English/Language Arts and history classes, and opposing viewpoints that grades should more equally credit speaking, graphic language, and more, as articulated by Arthus Erea, Adrienne Michetti, Kirstin “Keamac,” Dean Shareski, Claire Thompson, Sylvia Martinez, Carolyn Foote, and many others – that debate never seemed to reach any resolution.

It sounds like I’m piling on Benjamin here, but I don’t mean to. Fifty million people saying something is true doesn’t make it so. Moreover, Benjamin works in an inner city school, and his arguments are rooted in his perception of what best helps his students’ futures. It differs with mine, but I’m in a different context. And we’re all running on varying assumptions about things like the future of work, the purpose of schooling, and more.

But that thread drifts into so many tangents – the high school freshman Arthus v. high school teacher Benjamin debates are priceless, but sometimes distracting (or am I wrong?) – that I see Diigo, again, as possibly helpful here. Highlight and annotate the strong assertions, the weak rebuttals, the evasions of direct questions and the red herrings, and let others add comments to those annotations.

(This connects, by the way, to a conversation with “Uninspired Teacher” Tom and Charlie A. Roy on the “Schooly Speeches versus Real Talks” post, about using juries instead of judges in mock trials – or better, real ones – to improve that old practice.)

Peter Rock said it took him an hour to read that post and thread (but he also said he read it slowly). That scares me. So many comments in that thread don’t deserve burial in the noise.

So head on over to that thread, if you’re a Diigo convert – especially if there’s a Diigo group on assessment - and have at it.

At the same time, far be it from me to dictate rules. If you want to just comment instead, of course that’s okay.

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Photos:Toksik by The Sizemore McCabe Project, Continental Paper Grading Company by quinn.anya, Spring Branding Near Crane Oregon 1982 by mharrsch

1. How Radio News-Writing and -Announcing Make for Ideal, Literacy-Focused Performance Assessment
2. “Uninspired” Tom’s Laugh-Out-Loud End-of-School Year Post
3. Creating Critical Readers: A Too-Easy Diigo-Google News-Student Blogging Project

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