New Literacies

I decided to work with social literacy within virtual environments for my new literacies project. I was enthusiastic to work with virtual environments because I had never used a virtual environment that would allow me to interact with other people. One of my friends met her future husband on a virtual environment and although I thought it was odd, I decided to use this opportunity to understand her situation better before making any further judgments.

What I found within second life was far from what I was hoping for. Plagued with advertisements, scams, violence, drugs, and sexual content, I was somewhat disappointed and unsure of how to continue with my project. It came to me that I should use this as a learning experience and share my findings with everyone, rather than scrapping it and trying something new. Although there were some worthwhile sites in second life I felt that the majority of what I found was something that the rest of the class should be warned about. I think I carried this out effectively by beginning my presentation on a much more positive note. As I began to unfold the world of second life to my classmates I began introducing them to the much darker side, and I think that I shocked and horrified several classmates. I think this was really effective because it allowed them to experience what I felt, except that they never had to actually witness or discover things that I found.

One of my favorite projects was Katie's map mash-up that mapped teaching salaries across the U.S. I think that this particular New Literacy brought me in because it made me think about my future and how where I choose to live and teach will affect how I live. It was a very extrinsic motivator but it was effective.

New Literacy Wrap-Up Post

The technology I chose to explore was digital story telling and visual/print literacy. I had heard and viewed several digital stories beforehand, but I had never made one on my own. I decided to use visual literacy because the students I work with at the Child Development Center often times can't read or write. They do engage in story telling and seem to enjoy being read to during group times, but they mainly express themselves through drawing. I read them the book "May There Always be Sunshine" by Jim Gill. We then discussed what they would also like to there to be in the world. I then had them illustrate their idea and record their voices into imovie using a microphone. Since I work in the College of Education tech center I completed the rest of the project there. I scanned the illustrations in and then matched the voices with the particular pictures. I also imported the song of the book and have that playing throughout the story. This fits in with my current definition of literacy. Digital stories are becoming very popular and can be done in multiple ways. It is a way for students to interact with stories, develop their own stories, add on to stories, work in groups, use technology, etc. In most grades literacy is emphasized. In early childhood retelling stories, adding onto to stories, playing with language, and using creative language are all essential. Digital stories can be used across the curriculum and incorporated into all grade levels. Multiple standards and benchmarks can be addressed depending on what subject the digital story is implemented in and the process. For examples having students view and recall details from a story will meet different benchmarks then having students create their own digital story and present it to the class.

Fostering independent learning

I thought the articles about having children figure out an unfamiliar world on their own were very interesting. I will use the strategies discussed because it fosters responsibility in children. It encourages them to take charge of their own learning and not depend on others too quickly. It think it also empowers them to believe they can successfully figure out the meanings of unfamiliar words and encourages them to develop strategies to use when reading in the future. As a teacher, I will use this strategy with all grades. It can be used from lower elementary to high school. I often still encounter words that I'm unsure about and have to look up online or read within the context of a sentence. I also liked how this strategy reaches across subjects because a student can be reading for science and still develop strategies for figuring out an unfamiliar word.

Tech Day

I thought the technology class was interesting, but I felt like we got a very brief overview of so many different things that it was hard to take it all in. For example, when I reflect upon that day I think about the digital paper and the coffee table with the multi-touch screen and all the wireless capabilities. Although those things will probably be more commonplace in the future, it is hard to apply them right now, especially on a school's budget (or my own!)

I think using technology in the classroom is very important for several reasons. First of all, students love using computers, and the more we can get them interested in what they are doing, the better they will learn. Secondly, computer skills are such an essential part of life today, and it will be even more important as our students enter adulthood. Computers can also be a very powerful tool for teaching if they are used correctly so we, as teachers, need to be educated about them.

February 21st Post

The Applegate article in our course pack was really interesting to me. I had never heard of classifying students in the way that they respond to what they read. As I was reading the article I would remember some of the students in my first grade classroom and how they respond in similar ways. I liked that the article addressed each of the different ways that children respond to what they have read but then it also explained what that meant. For example, they didn't quite understand what they read, or they are not sure what to say so they tell you what they think you want to hear. I think that it is really important to recognize these different “profiles” that your students may have when showing their comprehension. It is essential then that you address that and help them become better and understanding and comprehending what they read. I wish that we could have talked more about this in class instead of just reviewing it with group 6's presentation of the readings.

I thought that the part of the book we read in class The Secret Life of Bees was good. The book intrigued me and I think that I would like to read the whole thing on my own. I am confused on what we were looking for in the section that we read. It would have been nice to be able to go more in depth with that, it may have been something that I would have liked to integrate into my classroom.

February 14th Post

When reading the chapter one of Tompkins I liked the way she described classroom communities. She says that there are ten specific characteristics to a classroom community: responsibility, opportunities, engagement, demonstration, risk taking, instructing, response, choice, time, and assessment. I think that these ten things really give a nice wide variety of the dimensions that an effective classroom community should have. She then also gives a teacher's role of each of these and also a student's role. I would really like to implement these into my classroom some day and the table that she gives on page 23 is an easy way for me to do create my classroom community that will benefit me and my students.

I liked the technology day that we had on the February 14th. Even though she went a little fast in explaining some of the procedures for doing the technology, I gained a lot from this experience. The scrapbooking on the computer was fun and working with and editing the different clips from online videos. I was amazed by some of the technology that she presented to us. For example, the table that you could manipulate with your hands, and the paint brush was really cool.

There are many things that were brought up in class that I would have liked to talk about a bit more indepth. When we were going around in our groups quickly about the Thompkins text, I think we could have done something much better with that, however time did not allow. We all came up with a lot of cool ideas to use in a classroom when integrating all the pieces that help to improve reading comprehension, but we had so much else to do we did not get to discuss to a point of usefulness. In one of our special education classes this was all we did all semester. We came up with many many strategies on how to get children to comprehend better. It was a hard class, but definitely one that I have learned the most from. The strategies that we were exposed to go way beyond what the Thompkins text presents us, although that is a good base. I feel that in our regular ed. classes these are just things that we touch on for a minute, such as in class today, but I feel that we as teachers need to spend much more time on it.