New Literacies

My first thought when considering social media usage in the classroom is: security and supervision. These days children are bullied worse and more frequently than ever before because of the myriad ways that children can communicate. If we created a secure social media account that was confined to classroom use, it could be a fun and useful tool for students to share what they learn outside of the classroom. For example, I can imagine a thematic hashtag that could be used for students to point out examples of a classroom topic while going about their daily lives. I see social media as a supplemental mode of communication rather than the focus of a lesson or a primary means of performance/evaluation. Social media also has interesting potential as an unofficial metric for progress. For example, a teacher who follows a student on social media will have a better understanding of their grammar skills, priorities, and visual capabilities. Social media is a great tool for sharing important l...

In my experience, multimedia presentations are a great way to engage classroom audiences and provide musical, comedic, or visual breaks from otherwise verbally dense lessons. For example, when leading a high school lesson on depression outreach, I utilized a web comic called Hyperbole And A Half . After asking the class what they thought depression was, I introduced this humorous comic strip by a young lady suffering from depression. This provides a comedic and honest representation of a previously stigmatized topic. Multiple simultaneous vehicles for delivering information are valuable for providing contextual learning opportunities, and information is retained more effectively when students have interest in learning. By diversifying the media through which we disseminate information to our students, we increase the odds that a group of students with different learning styles all enjoyed some level of interest and retention. At the end of the presentation I include this video th...

First, I found the three graphic organizing software options I used to be vastly disparate in ease-of-use and overall aesthetic. From easiest to most challenging: Popplet, Inspiration, Google Draw. Popplet was my favorite, because it was very fast-moving and intuitive to navigate. However, there was no mechanism (that I could find) to delete a concept bubble once it was created. This hindered the editing and organizing phase of things, and created frustration near the end of my project. Inspiration was the second-best GO software I used, but I found its interface a bit more difficult to navigate, and the style and layout less attractive than Popplet or Google. Google Draw required more work than the other two programs, and the time it took to navigate between formatting tools seemed to defeat the purpose of what should be a quick organizational strategy. When I hear the word, "brainstorm," I think of fast free-writing without time for second thought. For this reason I still...

I am excited to use digital audio tools to create a podcast within my classroom. I see a podcast as a unique way to document our progress as a class, as well as a platform for students to practice getting comfortable with both silent and out-loud reading. I'd like to create an opportunity for students to work in pairs and interview each other with thoughtful questions and original thoughts on recent readings. I also foresee using digital voice recordings to gauge student improvement in phonetics and annunciation, both for my assessment of the student and for independent student work. I explored the Sundry Notes application mentioned in Hutchison and Colwell and found it to be easy to navigate and very useful. The capability of the application to merge written text and audio files could make for some very engaging lesson plans.

I downloaded and read the following five books: For ages 3-6 : -Everybody Gets Angry -Jaden Toussaint the Greatest, Episode 1: The Quest for Screentime For ages 6-8 : -The Light Princess -Witch School -Sunny Under the Sea I like the ease of use and transportation, and the fact that they are space efficient and don't need to be shared. I think the colors and brightness of the illustrations go a long way in engaging and developing a sense of imagination and fun while reading. One potential pitfall with ebooks is that they tend to be less consistently edited and formatted, which could cause small but stubborn problems for impressionable readers. Another slight drawback I foresee is the lack of tactile relationship between reader and book that can enhance the experience of reading for children. Touching a book, turning pages, carrying it home - these are intangible actions that augment a love of reading. A book on a desk is a reminder to read, and an invitation into a stor...