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.