Digipoetry is...

I often refer to digital poetry by the coined term, #digipoetry.

Digital poetry is a novel way of artistically blending images, art, and literacy using digital tools to create vivid and appealing poetic compositions. It often bends and turns in the creation process, bringing to life soft murmurings that stir within a writer's heart. Digipoetry often toggles between a nondigital world (writer's notebook) and a digital notebook platform to produce highly visual pieces of techno-artistic poetry. This genre of writing is imaginative in its possibilities and creative in its approach to letting voice fly. 

An element of "play" is seen in today's #poetryliciouspoetry. In the above image, I smashed apps, Tagul and PicMonkey, to create an image poem in vivid hues. I meandered through different scenarios to let the eye design the final combination. In the image below, I digitized a photograph from Easter Sunday at the beach: families gathering, the ocean roaring, and kites flying above the water amidst the swooning seagulls. To recreate that moment, I blended a beach scene photo that I took with a digitally-drawn rendering of a balloon-like kite soaring high above the beach fashioned in Word. A poem emerged while focusing on the photo and was superimposed onto the image. After taking time crafting the digital rendering, a tranquil scene appeared, much like what I saw at the boardwalk. Mission accomplished! I designed a digital creation that was inspired by springtime and added the #imagepoem to my collection of #poetryliciouspoetry. 

Spring at the shore builds summer hopes in the shifting sands for me each time I visit. 

This past week, the watercolored-sky provided the right backdrop for me to capture a spring day at the beach. I added the digital image poem, created using digital techniques and tools, MobileMonet and PicMonkey, that would highlight nature. 

For digital and non-digital poetry treats turn to Tabatha Yeatts' site for the Poetry Friday Round-up.

I would like to invite the Poetry Friday community to create a digital image poem to grace the growing garden at my upcoming spring gallery, Springsations.

March Musings 12: Blended Learning

As educators of the digital age, do we ask ourselves how do we keep face-to-face contact with students and still make room for digital time? 

Student-centered classrooms are filled with teachers who have direct contact with students in best practices, such as direct teaching, mini-lessons, small group instruction, and conferencing. Digital components are intermixed as students wonder and inquire about topics of interest. Allowing students choice lets them become owners of their learning under the guidance of teachers who are the facilitator/coaches on the journey. Blended learning activities provide teachers the opportunity to make exploration and discovery an important part of each student's day that leads to individual growth as a meaning maker. 

Created with Tagul Word Clouds

Combining a digital element with face-to-face learning is being explored in classrooms across the globe in various ways. Wonderopolis, a free site where the wonders of learning never ceases, provides opportunities for classrooms and individual learners to extend their learning through the exploration of topics of interest via its free, online site. Students who are interested in their topic can continue the learning at home with their parents, siblings, and friends. This technology-based learning can easily be integrated into daily learning experiences during the school day. Small groups of children could join together to study one wonder of the day while another team chooses to dig deeper into another topic. Wondering will lead students from classroom studies to technology-based explorations and discoveries.  

If you are looking for a deeper look at blended learning, you can examine the Edutopia article, Blended Learning: Combining Face-to-Face and Online Education by Heather Wolper-Gawron. In this article, the author examines 5 components needed for blended learning. 

Reflecting on the topic of blended learning offered by Margaret Simon at DigiLit Sunday has allowed me to ponder the idea of keeping face-to-face contact with students while still making room for digital time. Please let me know how you make the two mesh in your classroom and if you are a Wonderopolis user. 

This post is the 12th in the series titled March Musings for Two Writing Teachers' March Slice of Life Story Challenge. 

DigiLit Sunday

All Eyes on Visual Literacy

Image created with the digital tools, Tagul and PicMonkey

Classrooms alive with literacy are filled with noticings, wonderings, and investigations. Teachers are guides, coaches on a journey of discovery as students become the adventurers. 

Idealistic, you may think. 

Look around. There are classrooms across the globe, seeking the path to joyful learning where agency is developed. Here in these havens of learning, small steps are taken to invite vigorous learning in daily.  

What does this look like?

Visual literacy is an entry point. Images fill the room. Words spill out and walls of wonder paint the room a brilliant shade of learning. Gallery walks spark inspiration. Students learn using different modalities, moving from paper to digital mediums and back again. Authentic learning is real-world driven and full of vibrancy, challenges, and new paths of wonder. 

What happens?

Thoughts turn into words communicated through visual and written means. Students' word power is nurtured and developed through conversation, reading, and exploration of new ideas. Vocabulary building becomes more than dictionary work. It becomes a quest of knowledge, turning over words to become the honey that sweetens the pot of knowledge. Students become the curators of their own museum of learning, not just consumers of information.

Read through these interesting facts from the Visual Teaching Alliance.

FACT: Approximately 65 percent of the population are visual learners. 

FACT: The brain processes visual information 60,000 faster than text. 

FACT: 90 percent of information that comes to the brain is visual. 

FACT: 40 percent of all nerve fibers connected to the brain are linked to the 

          retina. 

FACT: Visual aids in the classroom improve learning by up to 400 percent.

FACT: Students who are twice exceptional are often visual learners. 

“When we see, we do so many things: we experience what is happening in a direct way; we discover something we never noticed or possibly never even looked for before; we become aware through a series of visual experiences of something we eventually come to recognize and know; we watch for evolving changes through patient observation.” 

― Donis A. Dondis, A Primer of Visual Literacy: Strategies for Managing the Digital Economy

I am joining Margaret Simon at DigiLit Sunday this week where Margaret is expressing her thoughts on visual vocabulary in her classroom. 

 thank Margaret for sharing my story on how I became interested in the digital tool, Tagul, and also showing my new mantra for lifting voice through written means: Write On!