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This blog grew out of a monthly literacy study/support group that Kathy Lofflin has been facilitating since 2006. Each year the group has a theme, and the 2008-2009 theme was “Enhancing Literacy with Technology.” One topic discussed was “online communities,” and the idea of the blog grew from that reading and discussion. It was agreed to try “meeting by blog” as an experiment for the May, 2009 meeting.
The way this all works...
How the virtual study group works: Access one of the journal articles and respond to the article and/or my annotation of it. It's usually better to read the article first, but don't let that stop you from commenting. Sometimes the discussion can motivate you to read the article after the fact, and that's fine, too. If you cannot find the article, contact me at klofflin@gmail.com and I'll assist you.
If you provide at least three comments, I will e-mail you a participation certificate.
Interested passers-by: Please leave your own comments and perhaps a clue about where you are in the world.
If you provide at least three comments, I will e-mail you a participation certificate.
Interested passers-by: Please leave your own comments and perhaps a clue about where you are in the world.
About Kathy Lofflin
Kathy Lofflin has been a literacy educator in the Kansas City area for 25 years. Before that she taught language arts, reading, social studies, and journalism, mostly at the upper elementary and middle school levels. She currently is a teacher educator at the university level and directs a literacy center at her university. She spends one full day per week volunteering in a different school and at a different level each school year, working directly with teachers and students. She finds this “keeps her current” and strongly influences her practice in her literacy education courses. Literacy has always been her passion; she began reading at age three and has read anything and everything she could get her hands on since.
Besides reading, Kathy’s passions are nature, baking, making beaded jewelry, old houses and old urban neighborhoods, Jane Austen books and movies, and watching old TV shows on DVDs (favorites are The Waltons, Northern Exposure, Star Trek, and the BBC’s All Creatures Great and Small). She and her husband are owned by three cats, a “cat-tankerous” 18-year-old tortie, a big, gregarious all-white male, and a petite half-tabby, half-tortie who knows how to get what she wants.
Besides reading, Kathy’s passions are nature, baking, making beaded jewelry, old houses and old urban neighborhoods, Jane Austen books and movies, and watching old TV shows on DVDs (favorites are The Waltons, Northern Exposure, Star Trek, and the BBC’s All Creatures Great and Small). She and her husband are owned by three cats, a “cat-tankerous” 18-year-old tortie, a big, gregarious all-white male, and a petite half-tabby, half-tortie who knows how to get what she wants.
About the annotations
During a sabbatical leave in 1996, Kathy Lofflin decided to make it her goal to read for one hour per day in professional journals, to write an annotation for each article she read, and to organize that collection in some way. The project came from a realization that she was receiving (and paying for) 12 different journals, that she read in them only sporadically, that she rarely remembered much of what she had read, and that when she did remember something she wanted to use, she often couldn’t re-access it.
She religiously scheduled her hour of reading daily (even putting it in her date book as an appointment and honoring it as such). It often meant awakening early or reading over lunch, even at times turning away colleagues who approached her in restaurants asking if they could join her. It became sacred time. Each evening before bed she would select an article from the pile of current journals on her desk, to be read the next day, and schedule the reading hour. When the hour ended, she would stop and go on to whatever else needed to be done. Without that limit, it would be easy to rationalize that too much time was being used. If an article took two or more days to read, so be it.
When an article was read, she would write a complete bibliographic entry on a 5 x 8 notecard, then an annotation. She established rules: She had to fill the card front and back, but could not use two cards (they are expanded some for the blog). She originally used a system inspired by Anthony Manzo’s REAP (Read, Encode, Annotate, and Ponder) model, which she learned as one of Manzo’s students during her graduate school years. As time went on, however, the annotations grew more free-form, though Manzo’s original categories still come into play in a pinch.
As the notecards accumulated, they needed to be organized. Kathy began assigning descriptor categories and labeling each card. She now has well over 1,000 annotations under about 150 categories, and the list grows. Over time, it became apparent that the collection could not remain “low-tech” forever. It served Kathy’s own purposes perfectly well low-tech, but as others learned what she was doing, they suggested she find ways to share it with others. Kathy is now trying to move this resource into an electronic database that could possibly go online. She envisions it as “ERIC but with commentary.”
Kathy has found this resource invaluable and has used it for:
*Course preparation and teaching (organization by topic really helps)
*Study group material preparation
*Preparing grant proposals
*Blogs (though annotations are expanded for that)
*Development of a conceptual framework for her university’s education school
*Assisting students and colleagues with research projects
*Discovering new research interests
*Just staying informed on educational issues and trends
She religiously scheduled her hour of reading daily (even putting it in her date book as an appointment and honoring it as such). It often meant awakening early or reading over lunch, even at times turning away colleagues who approached her in restaurants asking if they could join her. It became sacred time. Each evening before bed she would select an article from the pile of current journals on her desk, to be read the next day, and schedule the reading hour. When the hour ended, she would stop and go on to whatever else needed to be done. Without that limit, it would be easy to rationalize that too much time was being used. If an article took two or more days to read, so be it.
When an article was read, she would write a complete bibliographic entry on a 5 x 8 notecard, then an annotation. She established rules: She had to fill the card front and back, but could not use two cards (they are expanded some for the blog). She originally used a system inspired by Anthony Manzo’s REAP (Read, Encode, Annotate, and Ponder) model, which she learned as one of Manzo’s students during her graduate school years. As time went on, however, the annotations grew more free-form, though Manzo’s original categories still come into play in a pinch.
As the notecards accumulated, they needed to be organized. Kathy began assigning descriptor categories and labeling each card. She now has well over 1,000 annotations under about 150 categories, and the list grows. Over time, it became apparent that the collection could not remain “low-tech” forever. It served Kathy’s own purposes perfectly well low-tech, but as others learned what she was doing, they suggested she find ways to share it with others. Kathy is now trying to move this resource into an electronic database that could possibly go online. She envisions it as “ERIC but with commentary.”
Kathy has found this resource invaluable and has used it for:
*Course preparation and teaching (organization by topic really helps)
*Study group material preparation
*Preparing grant proposals
*Blogs (though annotations are expanded for that)
*Development of a conceptual framework for her university’s education school
*Assisting students and colleagues with research projects
*Discovering new research interests
*Just staying informed on educational issues and trends
I'll get this started. I'm bringing a big bucket of spicy Cajun-style fried chicken, and and a big pan of dark chocolate, ooey-gooey brownies unecumbered by nuts or frosting, to be enjoyed in their full glory. What will the rest of you bring?
ReplyDeleteI will make home made chocolate chip cookies for the group. Gerri
ReplyDelete