I think that my understanding of literacy has definitely improved throughout the semester. Originally, I thought that literacy strictly dealt with reading and writing. However, with the introduction of New Literacies and Technologies, I can see that literacy definitely encompasses much more. The variety of literacies that my classmates and I have explored, show how there are many different stances on how to teach literacy. I think after looking at my peers' projects, I realize that I do not want to take one stance in particular, rather, I would like to implement them all into my teaching---because I think that they all present ways to learn, while making my students informed citizens. I think this will ultimately make my students want to interact more in their community, and even be a better student/friend/peer at school.
I have also learned a lot about technology and how much this affects teaching literacy. Kids are so intelligent when it comes to technology--always downloading a new computer game, playing a new type of gaming system, etc. I'm sad to say that many times when I am babysitting, I count on the kids to get these things all set up. This project has really taught me the importance of keeping up with technology, because as it improves, students evolve with it. Therefore, the boring old pencil and paper route of learning will not engage my students. Thus, I realize that to keep my students' attention, I need to teach them in a way that they enjoy learning. I chose to talk about my literacy in a scrapblog format, and I can see exactly why my students would like learning this way--it's visually appealing for my visual learners, and it just makes learning look more interesting. A scrapblog is similar to a blog, in that you can add information, however, it looks very similar to a scrapbook, as you can add stickers, different backgrounds, shapes, etc. This product was new to me, therefore, I had to play around with it quite a bit, to truly understand how to use it.
I can also see why something like a blog would also be fun for students. Students these days are so educated in using the internet, therefore, using something like this to learn would seem more like playing a game--i.e. clicking on the different links, seeing where they take you--than sitting and hearing a lecture.
I think in order to provide "effective literacy instruction," one must keep up with the times--so that they can see what students like doing, and how this affects the way the want to learn. I think this can relate in many ways to my technology, a scrapblog. One of the actual "themes" for the scrapblog was High School Musical. While I did not chose this theme, I think that students would be excited in general if they saw they were learning something that included their favorite movie. On the scrapblog, one is able to add speech bubbles, so I could have had Zach Effron saying something about Cultural Literacy, and thus my students would probably think this was cool--since Zach said so.
If I had to chose one of my GLCEs that my ELA lesson focused on, and could also be used in a new literacy, it would be: S.CN.02.02 explore and use language to communicate effectively with a variety of audiences and for different purposes including questions and answers, discussions, and social interactions. Many of these new technologies are on social networks, and therefore, students would be interacting with one another. For example, if I chose to use a blog in my classroom, I could implement a center in which the students blogged on anything they had learned in ELA that day--i.e. reading a books, writing a story, etc. Students who follow could then add their own blog, or respond to one of their peers' blogs--i.e. I liked that story too, because....
I feel that the scrapblog may be a little to advanced for my students--I had to find pictures online, search pretty hard for information, and the program could be somewhat difficult to understand. Therefore, I would use this program to teach, but not necessarily have my students make this technology. However, in order to help my students become more acquainted with the internet, I could set aside ELA time to work on using search engines to find information, as well as, teaching students how to determine whether or not the source is reliable.
I feel that it is extremely important to teach students about technology in school, because in order to keep up with the times, and be successful, one needs to know how to use technology. Therefore, I feel that following GLCEs on technology are important, because I will not only be teaching my students in a way they enjoy, but also helping them be a digital native for the future.
First of all, I wanted to say that I liked how you expressed your progression of understanding of literacy. You mentioned that you first thought it was only about reading and writing. This was my first understanding of literacy as well. Then you went on to describe your understanding of literacy know as constantly progressing and dynamic. I think this is an important open-minded feeling and attitude to have as a future teacher, and it's exciting to see that you do have it!
ReplyDeleteI also liked your commentary about your attitudes toward technology and children with technology. I can empathize with you about feeling overwhelmed with technology, at times, and letting kids be "the experts." Although it is okay for students to be the experts on topics, at times, I agree with you that as teachers, we need to be able to constantly adapt and learn the new technologies as we implement them in the classroom. Your choice for making a scrapblog to aide visual learners is also quite insightful! Going along with your idea of adapting, you also mentioned the importance of "keeping up with the times." I think, more often than we'd like to acknowledge, teachers often loose touch with their students and their kid culture. Although a teacher shouldn't feel like they need to be a kid to reach their students, it is a good idea for the teacher to keep up on popular trends, like High School Musical, in order to teach to their students.
I also liked how you incorporated your GLCE into the blog idea. I have to say that I have never seen my CT, in my placement, teach communication to the students through computers, even though there is one in every classroom. I'm not sure if they have a special with computers even. With this ever expanding technological world, however, it would be silly not to include a technological literacy element within classroom instruction, at least as a supplement. I do agree with you too that the scrapblog may be a little difficult, but it could be a good guided center activity, in which students made their own page for the scrapblog, kind of an extension of the star of the week activity that Erin mentioned. Then, at the end of the year, the classroom would be able to look at and potentially share their class scrapblog with other classes or parents.
Your reflection was very meaningful, and it taught me a lot about where you are in your understanding of literacy and technology's use in the classroom. Good job!
I thought you brought up an interesting tension between teaching content and entertaining students when you mentioned that they are used to using entertaining technology and aren't easily engaged by more traditional assignments. While you discussed that it is essential for us as teachers to keep up with new technologies so that we know what are students are doing AND can incorporate it into the classroom, I think it's also really important to avoid sacrificing content in order to use the technology simply for its own sake. I know that in my CT's classroom, he sometimes uses the smartboard for activities that could be done more easily and with fewer glitches on the document camera or some other basic way. (One example of this was when he used the smartboard before the election and used a website similar to the program on CNN with the "magic wall"...he could touch states to turn them blue or red, and the site automatically added the totals, which I thought was a missed opportunity to incorporate authentic math problems into a social studies lesson.)
ReplyDeleteI think this problem can be avoided by making a concerted effort to keep lessons standards-based and constantly evaluating objectives to make sure that the lesson meets the objectives (which, I think, sounds easier than it is.) I think it's interesting that you tied a lot of the social technologies to a GLCE about social interaction...a lot of the newer technologies do focus on interaction between people and we can easily guide discussions to focus on desired content, or allow students to do more informal writing like traditional blogs/journals.
I'm curious about what you guys think about the balance between informing students and entertaining them...do you think a good balance is possible? How can we achieve it? Should we, as teachers, be responsible for "entertaining" our students, or should they be expected to complete their work whether it is entertaining or not? I've heard teachers argue both sides of this debate...I think it's possible to strike some kind of balance, but I definitely see both types of arguments.