Where is literacy instruction going next?

So what is the new literacies perspective (Leu, Kinzer, Coio & Cammack, 2004)?

        Based on the readings, I’ve come to the conclusion that the new literacies perspective is based on the idea that technology has changed the way we teach reading and writing. Another important conclusion to note is that because technology is continuously changing, the way we teach our students needs to do the same. More importantly, we need to prepare our students to be able to learn new technologies as they are introduced.

The increasing use of technology for communication and business purposes has a profound impact in education and is changing the way we prepare students for a successful future. “Technological knowledge “provides opportunities to make their personal lives more productive and fulfilling” (1577) Furthermore, it is changing the way teachers are taught. There is a greater than ever need to make changes to the current curriculum to allow for larger use of technology in schools as well as explicit instruction on how to use these technological tools. Moreover, as educators, we need to be prepared to teach students how to adapt to the rapidly changing technologies that are available.

        According to the article, most of the essential literacies needed for school involve the internet, which means classroom instruction needs to teach students to analyze and synthesize the information they find. (And of course the other components we’ve discussed dealing with digital literacies.)

This was not a required question but I enjoyed this section:

I found the section of the article on the technological impacts of society very fascinating and a good reminded to how this current technological age is changing the way we conduct business globally. “Throughout history, literacy and literacy instruction have changed regularly as a result of changing social contexts and the technologies they often prompt” (1574) If we really want to understand this new literacy perspective we need to think about it in today’s social context and the implications it has for the future. I thought this image summed that section up very well:

Finally, our virtual showcase!

        Everyone did a wonderful job on their projects. I had a new wealth of knowledge after checking out the different projects. I think it’s interesting to look at the wide variety of projects we had. I was available via typewith.me for the final project showcase. I had a few visitors and also visited some of my peers’ typewith.me pages.

Dogs do not understand Skype...

So I just thought I'd share that Skype can be a little bit confusing for animals. I was just Skyping with my sister, who is away at college, and I thought it would be nice for Emma (the dog) to see her since I know how much she misses her. Emma went completely insane searching throughout the house for my sister, since she heard her voice but couldn't exactly see the picture.... poor dog. That has nothing to do with class but was pretty hilarious/terribly depressing! 

Skype !

I think Skype is a great tool to use, whether it is for communicating with people in your own town or for communicating for people across the globe. I typically only chat with my family via skype. I have never used it in the classroom but I can see a number of uses for it.

So here is what we Skyped about... (is Skyped a verb? Well.. it is now.) 

Although the new literacy components of reading comprehension overlap with traditional reading comprehension, students need explicit instruction in reading online. Most of our discussion focused on the importance of modeling internet research skills for students since many lack the skills necessary to read search engine results and locate information on the web. Since the new literacies are defined around five major functions, students should be taught EACH feature. Many of our students will find locating information an easy task, but some may not have the necessary skills yet. Having so much to teach about using technology leads me to my next thought…Kailyn and I discussed what the rapid change in technology means for our teaching and our students and the importance in keeping with these changes. The article suggested teaching students, “how to continuously learn new literacies that will appear during one’s lifetime.” Unfortunately, in our conversation we were unable to come up with an answer on how to successfully do this. Creating a way to successfully teach students how to adapt to changing technologies is something I am interested in further perusing.

Maybe I will do that ... when I have more free time  : )

Interesting Historical Video

Hi Everyone!

My Dad e-mailed me this video today with the subject: "If you like history, you will love this video."

The video is pretty cool- lots of things to talk about. I actually thought it had to be a fake at first but have been unable to find information saying otherwise. The way the cars and people move through the streets is almost unbelievable.

Check it out... I'd like to hear your thoughts...

It's been so long since my last post!

I was starting to have a little bit of blogging withdrawal.

I thought I would start with a quote...

“New literacies are essential in classrooms so that equal opportunities are offered to all students” (Barone & Wright) I thought this quote was interesting because in reality students are not given equal opportunities because some schools do not have the technology that others have… just a thought. I talk about it more below as I am super jealous of this man and his personal set of classroom laptops. 

Technology instruction throughout my own education has been implemented through the grade levels. I went to a poor rural district, but we always had computers in the classroom and the opportunity to go to the computer lab for things like keyboarding instruction. I remember once we had a lesson on how to use WordArt on Microsoft Word. I was in 5^th grade and it was the coolest! Our views of reading and writing are changing due to rapidly growing technology which has led to the need for a shift in instructional practices (Barone & Wright). I understand the significance of incorporating various forms of technology into the classroom to meet the rising demands of students as they come into contact with twenty-first century literacies. Many of us are familiar with the technologies but may not have the background knowledge to implement them in the classroom.

Teachers should effectively work to integrate technology because it will allow students to learn the information they need to be competitive in a global economy. Students need skills they will use in the workplace and many employers currently require their workers to participate in electronic environments consistently throughout the day. (Leu, Zawilinski, Castek, Banerjee, Housand, Liu & O’Neal). Almost everyone I know in the business community carries some type of smart phone (which they usually get for free- again I am having a big of jealousy towards other people and their technologies) and many use social networking sites to promote their company. My dad works for a major food company and they have a number of Facebook pages for their products. He recently had to jump on the Facebook bandwagon in order to stay up to date with the current technologies and changes within his company. My sister and I set up his account the other night and he's been all over it since, including messaging his children when we're sitting in the same room. My entire family, including my Grandma, are constantly using Facebook terminology when we get together. The Social Networking dialogue is everywhere and having the knowledge to navigate through such sites is becoming essential.  

Laptops in the classroom provide scaffolding for many classroom topics, help student build background knowledge, and increase student engagement. I thought it was really great that Todd had the ability to give his class laptops for in and out of school use for an entire year, but in all reality the reality of this is extremely slim. Even though many of us will not have access to our own personal classroom laptops (I wish we did!!) we may be able to sign a class set out from the computer lab. In my experience, anytime I ever needed to sign them out they were available. When planning I think it is really important to look at how we can weave in technology through the curriculum. I tried to bring the laptops to the classroom at least once a week for some type of further inquiry. Laptops can be used to extend traditional literacy and help students with comprehension (Barone & Wright)

As an educator, in a forever changing field, I understand how technology can be used to engage and motivate students. Digital technologies are and will continue to be essential for communication, inquiry in the content area, and literacy instruction. The traditional definitions of literacy will be insufficient when preparing students for the future. Students need to learn to acquire skills in order to evaluate what they read and write online. Within the last few years, I have observed a significant increase in the use of technology, particularly with adolescent students. Teachers need to be prepared to bring new literacies into the classroom.

Typewith.me!

I was sharing typewith.me with my sister who is in her first year of college- I thought it would be a good tool for group projects and such.

She shared  a paper she is writing and we used typewith.me to have a little writing conference. I was able to fix a few things which showed up in my writing color and give her a few ideas throughout her paper.

I thought it worked really well and wanted to share that with everyone. 

Visual Literacy

I really enjoyed these readings because in the past I have used a lot of visuals in the classroom to support my Social Studies content material. These readings provided me with new ideas to implement into my classroom instruction as well as new insight into using technology to promote literacy growth of my students. I created a digital story because I was interested in trying out a new technology that I had yet to experience. I found the process of creating the story pretty easy- although I did struggle a bit with the uploading!

In the past I have used the photographs in my digital story to teach Social Studies lessons. I never thought of it as a type of literacy before these readings. Incorporating technology with my photographs will hopefully further motivate my students in class and push them to do more critical thinking about history.

Enjoy! (Keep in mind this is my first try at this!)

By the way, Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss! Happy Read Across America Day!

http://www.nea.org/readacross

Internet Inquiry

After watching all of the videos I still felt like a lot of information was missing. How do we implement these into our classroom? Moreover, Dr. Leu presents as if all of our students will be highly motivated and love using the internet in the classroom. I know that it can be successful if done the right way- but how do we do it? I decided to look more closely at internet inquiry, because, as I mentioned in my last blog, students too often are assigned research projects with little guided instruction on how to use the internet for research. In order to answer my question, I do what I do best, turn to Google! After doing some searching I came across this Read Write Think lesson plan, Inquiry on the Internet: Evaluating Web Pages for a Class Collection. You can check it out below:

http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/lesson-plans/inquiry-internet-evaluating-pages-328.html

This lesson plan explicitly teaches students how to find effective websites. It is for students in grades six through eight but can be modified for other grade levels. Building in extra time to teach students how to effectively use search engines will make a big difference in the long run for both the students and the teacher.

According to Dr. Leu, internet inquiry promotes independent research skills. Through five phases, question, search, analyze, compose, and share, students learn effective research strategies. He suggested scaffolding instruction in both the question and the search phase. I really agree with Dr. Leu when he talks about the importance of student created questions. It’s important for students to create the question because they will be more interested and more motivated to find the answer.

I thought that this website was a better tool for learning about internet inquiry because it provides a little bit more information than the video:

http://www.cast.org/teachingeverystudent/toolkits/tk_introduction.cfm?tk_id=81 (Leu is actually sited in the references.)

I specifically found this information from the website to be useful:

“How can I fit Internet inquiry strategies into my busy curriculum?

Standards at national, state, and local levels call for integrating modern technologies such as the Internet into the classroom. Because Internet inquiry requires fluency with numerous literacy skills such as decoding, skimming, comprehending, notemaking, summarizing, and presenting, it is also possible to address traditional literacy learning standards through Internet inquiry projects. Further, Internet inquiry demands that students ask important questions, solve problems, and work collaboratively, all of which are critical skills in school and in life. However, teachers do need to be prepared to devote sufficient time to inquiry projects in order for students to generalize and transfer essential strategies.”  

This quote also addresses how internet inquiry addresses literacy skills in the classroom.

Technology is transforming the way students learn. I think about the first thing I do when I have a question about something- I turn to Google! Internet inquiry is a powerful tool to use in the classroom because it teaches students how to find information and promotes critical literacy skills. In addition, internet inquiry can be used at any time during a unit since students are creating their own questions.  

I just did an internet inquiry! I had a question. I searched http://www.google.com/ for an answer, I analyzed the information I found to pick out the best resouces, I wrote about it, and here I am, sharing it with you!

I hope you enjoyed my journey through internet inquiry.

How can I use the internet in the classroom?

My experiences so far...

Too often I have witnessed teachers assigning online research projects, telling students which websites not to use, and sending them on their way to start researching. From this point, I watch the students waste a lot of valuable classroom time because their instruction lacked any real direction. Incorporating a variety of instructional models that use the internet add value to classroom lessons but should be taught with explicit instruction. Sometimes, we have too much confidence that our students will be the technological experts. Sure, they can use websites like Facebook and Twitter, but when it comes down to it, do they have the knowledge to use the internet for educational purposes?

Incorporating technology into my lesson plans….

What do I do?

Where do I start?  

When I write lesson plans I am constantly looking online for new ideas and activities I can bring into the classroom. As Leu, Leu, & Coiro (2004) discuss, having the internet as a tool for lesson planning is extremely valuable. I have folders bookmarked with different websites and I am going to spend some time on Delicious to see if my favorite teaching websites can lead me to other resources. I really liked the idea about internet workshop because every student can bring something new to the table and it also allows for student collaboration. I would like to try collaboration between different schools in different parts of the country or even different parts of the world. In addition to internet workshop, I like the student created web folios. The e-mail from Sara Silverman, the Rewards of Project Based Learning, really touched on all of the things I want to do! (Good thing for this blog because now I can go back and look at all the things I saw- and they’re organized in one location rather than piles of paper in multiple notebooks!

What is difficult for me is I do not know what I am going to be teaching. Will I be teaching English Language learners? Or will I be a Social Studies teacher? I think I have mentioned this before, but it really stresses me out. Luckily, literacy development is important across all subjects! Incorporating webquests into the ESL classroom can be challenging because many websites have sophisticated language that English language learners will not be able to comprehend as well as complex navigation which may provide difficulty to students learning English. (Sox & Avila 2009) The same is true with students with disabilities. (Skylar, Higgins & Boone 2007) When designing classroom web quests they need to be planned with English language learners and students with disabilities in mind. If I was designing the web quest and I needed to make student accommodations I would create two or three different web quests for different student needs.

More to come soon...

Digital Storytelling

Incorporating digital storytelling into your classroom provides students with the opportunity to work on a number of literacy skills. Students are required to write to create a script. Since their digital stories will be published, more time is spent creating quality writing. Students go through the whole writing process to create a script. Moreover, digital storytelling requires students to do creative and independent thinking and it is teaching them 21^st century literacy skills. If done as a group project, digital storytelling teaches students to work together and collaborate. Before I thought digital storytelling had to be a video, but after I watched Digital Storytelling in Plain English it turns out it can be podcasts too! The same process that is used to make digital story videos can also be used to create book trailers. I am working with one of my students now to create a book trailer. We’re in the learning process together. We started by watching a number of examples of digital book trailers. Her favorite was for the book Fat Vampire

In addition to an English classroom, digital storytelling can be used across the content areas. I found a digital story teaching a math lesson which I thought would be great to include in the classroom. I would find or create digital stories and make them available to my students to teach math lessons which they may have missed, or they might need extra help with when they go home to do their homework at night. Students could even create the math digital stories and share them with their peers. Here is one example of a math digital story:

Raw Ramen what??

Last week Elizabeth told us we should post a video or podcast to our blogs for tomorrow. I’ve spent the week debating what to post. Should it be educational? philosophical? funny? school related? I simply could not decide! I started to think about what types of videos I had watched on youtube since blogger conveniently has a link for youtube videos. Typically I watch funny videos on youtube- mostly because my family is constantly sharing links we find. My sister created her own account to upload some random and funny videos she filmed…which led me to the Raw Ramen Remix. I know them so my opinion should not count but I thought it was pretty funny… as well as absolutely ridiculous. They had a great time making it so I thought I would give them an audience! It also gives us an idea of what our older high school students may be doing in their free time! In high school making and sharing their videos on youtube was part of their everyday lives. This is technology many of our students are already familiar with. Another reason why using videos and podcasts in the classroom would be great!

Here is the background to the video from Kaitlyn:

"Okay so, me, Chad, TJ and Tommy were hanging out. Every night Chad came over and ate raw ramen...so they all tried it, we were just filming hang out time and all of a sudden tommy started jammin on the keyboard. then TJ was like "duuuude Kaitlyn, lets make a sweet vid!""  

and here it is, the Raw Ramin Remix, for your viewing pleasure:

Something I just found...

Hey guys! I just stumbled across these podcasts when I was looking stuff up on the Facing History website... maybe you can use them in the classroom. 

http://www.facinghistory.org/podcasts

and the podcasts led me to this...

http://www.facinghistory.org/hhb/bear-wasnt

We used this book in Houston as part of our week long Holocaust training. There is also a lesson plan with it. It's an interesting story to read even if you don't use it for anything...

Podcasts

My first experience with a podcast was a free one on Itunes about my favorite TV show at the time, the OC. This was also the last podcast experience. I did not really care for it and I did not realize there were a number of other podcasts out there on more meaningful topics. Now, I think using podcasts in the classroom would be a great idea. Student creation of podcasts could allow for whole school collaboration. I loved the idea about the “online radio shows for kids by kids” (Richardson 115) In high school, our morning announcements were done by the kids in the video and media class. It was one of the most popular classes among the students at my school. Podcasts would also be a great way to do classroom presentations, especially for those students who are too shy to stand up in front of the entire class! And, as I keep saying, we need to offer our students a purpose for their learning and creating a podcast that can be shared with others provides just that. Moreover, podcasts provide students with the opportunity to listen to someone speak beside the teacher. I found it interesting that the students with vocabulary instruction with the podcasts performed significantly greater than those who just received classroom instruction (Putnum & Kingsley 2009). With students creating their own vocabulary podcasts, they’re learning the new words in the process.

I have never tried using podcasts in the classroom but it is something I would be interested in trying in the future. I think I would incorporate podcasting as a classroom station. In the past, I have used the classroom set of laptops quiet frequently, but as Labbo, Eakle, & Montero (2002) mention, like other teachers I really was not sure what to do with them. So, I did a lot of web quests. I cannot wait to be back in the classroom again to try all of these things out! I also would like to try to use Skype as a classroom tool. I think it would be interesting to have students collaborate with students from other schools via video chat. What’s really great about using podcasting and Skype is they are FREE! Skype is also a great way to bring guest speakers into the classroom. Everyone in my family uses Skype- including my Grandma and Great Aunt! Facebook and Skype have helped my entire family (2^nd, 3^rd, 4^th cousins and so on) stay in touch when we are spread out all over the world. Imagine what students could achieve by having tools like this in the classroom!

Digital storytelling response will be posted soon…

I found Wikipedia to be a great way to track current events...

The controversy with using Wikipedia in schools is the fact that everyone has the ability to be an editor. Anyone can publish, modify, and delete information. (Richardson 2010) It is simply online collaboration on a certain topic. In the past, I have used Wikipedia to find quick answers to questions that I have, mostly because it is one of the first websites that pop up in my Google search. Furthermore, I have used Wikipedia as a source for other sources. Using the links at the bottom I am often able to find additional sources which will often lead to even more sources! Oh the joys of the internet! I tell my students that they cannot use Wikipedia as a source, but I do allow them to use Wikipedia to find other sources since many have links to primary source documents.  In Hunt and Hunt (2006) I thought it was a great idea to go in and add or modify the Wikipedia pages as part of a classroom project. It provided the students with a purpose for their learning and gave them part ownership of the Wikipedia page. I think this would be really interesting to do in a Social Studies classroom as part of a research project. I was thinking that maybe the students could pick a topic in the curriculum and look for additional information to add to the Wikipedia page...I’d have to do more research on that idea first though because I can already think of some potential problems… 

My first experience publishing on a Wiki was for Tests and Measurements with Dr. Hardt. Knowing the rest of our classmates would be able to see the questions we created was a somewhat frightening thought at first, especially because Dr. Hardt wanted us to read our peers questions and offer constructive comments.  As the semester progressed I became used to the idea and because more willing to offer suggesting to my peers on questions. I found some of the comments from Wheeler, Yeomans & Wheeler (2008) were very similar to the discussions some of us has last semester.

So to learn more I started following a Wiki…

I have been following the 2011 Egyptian Protests on Wikipedia for the last week. My interest sparked initially because I was interested in learning about the cause of the protests in Egypt and I wanted to follow something that would be changing throughout the week. I think looking at the timeline of events is fascinating, and demonstrates just how quickly information can be posted and spread throughout the world. I found that this allows for a really great way to stay updated on the current happenings in Egypt and could be transferred to the classroom as a tool to track other current events. In regards to the timeline, it tracks the protests as well as the number of deaths that have occurred due to the protests. I was also able to learn about the bombing and burning of buildings throughout Egypt’s major cities. Moreover, I learned that the protestors and journalists are being arrested because the government is trying to silence them. The Wikipedia site also provided a number of links to outside sources including news articles and videos. So far there have been 305 308 331 353 355 citations for this wiki page. I used the slash through to demonstrate how my Wikipedia page has changed since Thursday February 3.

The significant number of online sources has caught worldwide attention to the Egyptian Protests even though the Egyptian government is working towards silencing the people. According to one Wikipedia source, Egypt has even been working to limit internet activity as an attempt to silence the people. I cannot imagine living with such an oppressive government. I wish I was teaching in a Social Studies classroom right now because this would be a great source for students to use to track the protests in Egypt. Students could find additional sources and add to the Wikipedia page. Moreover, I would love to use it to do a compare and contrast to other uprisings that have occurred throughout history.

In addition to news links, I found a number of sources to be linked to Twitter.   

“The White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs posted a statement on Twitter expressing concern "about violence in Egypt" and adding, "government must respect the rights of the Egyptian people & turn on social networking and the internet".^[43]”

Doesn’t this truly demonstrate the power the internet has?

Here is a link to the wiki incase you guys want to check it out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Egyptian_protests

Facebook Distracted me from Posting this Earlier

Social Bookmarking and Social Networking

Before this assignment I honestly had no idea what social bookmarking was. I had never heard of the majority of the websites mentioned in the articles either until this class. Now, I have become fascinated by the online world and have been spending a great deal of time thinking about how I am going to apply it into my current teaching. (Richardson may have sold me on Twitter- but I don’t think I need another thing online to distract me from my work.) There are so many new ways to accomplish things with digital technology. (Alvermann, 2008) When students are on homebound they often receive no interaction from their peers and their teachers just send packets of work with no real explanation or meaning. These readings sparked a number of ideas I am going to incorporate into their lessons soon. Greenhow’s article provided me with resources to start using social bookmarking websites for research. I thought it’d be really great to incorporate into a Social Studies classroom. I’ll be checking out Delicious and Diigo when I get some free time.

Alvermann answers a number of really important questions in her article. “…literacies so powerfully motivating that young people are more and more willing to invest a substantial amount of time and effort in creating content to share with others online” (Alvermann, 2008) Social networking plays such a big role in the lives of adolescents and their engagement is high.   As educators, because they have such a high interest in 21^st century literacy practices, we need to bring that into the classroom to help students acquire the skills they will need to enter into the technological world. Students are creating, editing, and publishing in an online context. With Social bookmarking, students have the ability to collaborate and share in the research process. (Greenhow, 2009) They’re acquiring and using a number of skills without being in the classroom! Moreover, they have an audience for their writing which makes it a powerful tool. Through one of my other readings, Williams, 2008, I found this website http://www.space2cre8.com/. When you choose an account type you can be the teacher, student, or mentor. I think it’d be an interesting website to learn more about. In my opinion, something like this would be a more appropriate classroom social networking tool because of all of the issues surrounding websites like Facebook.  I know Richardson gives ideas for using Facebook in the classroom and backs it up with examples of success, but I am just not sold.

On a last note, Alvermann talks about opposition from teachers but I think using these tools is really a gift. Is there such thing as too much time reading and writing?   

My first blog on blogging....

Blogging connects in school and out of school literacy practices. This week Jen and I spent a lot of time researching blogs to find out what they were really all about. I do not have a personal blog and I have not spent much time looking through blogs in the past. (Although I became such a Facebook junkie I decided to limit my use as a New Year’s resolution.) I know the importance of incorporating technology into the classroom but I never really thought about the technology being something like a blog. I have discovered that bringing blogs into the classroom could lead to a number of positive outcomes because students will have the ability to publish their own work and collaborate with their peers. Using blogs allows students to be creative and gives the timid students a voice in the classroom. The ability to hold an online conversation has incredible power in the classroom and is a great tool to motivate all students to be active participants. Moreover, blogs are personal! When reading through a variety of blogs one of the first things I noticed was the individual voice of each blogger. All students could have the opportunity to upload their artwork, photographs, poems, and so on to make their blog their own. Since I have jumped into the world of blogging I have discovered the power of classroom blogging.

            If I use blogs in the classroom I will start out by having my students read blogs I have selected. This way, students will be able to see the differences between blogs which will hopefully encourage them to take ownership in their own blog by creating something personal. Blogging is also an excellent way to integrate writing into the classroom. While the technical aspect of blogging is easy (something most of our students could figure out without any instruction) the higher order thinking may come as a challenge to some of our students. Really being involved with a blog requires conversation and reflection rather than simply posting entries. The readings suggested explicit instruction and modeling of blogging. “Blogs promote critical and analytical thinking and allow students to create content in ways not possible in traditional paper- and- pencil environments” (Johnson 182). I thought this quote summarized the power of classroom blogs. Blogging provides depth in the regular curriculum and expands the classroom walls.