Reflection on New Literacy Skills

Reflecting on the New Literacy Skills

I think the most striking revelation that I had about teaching new literacy skills to my students was how ill-prepared we ourselves are as an institution to really teach these new skills effectively. Throughout our discussions it is apparent that many districts are simply restricting or blocking access to the tolls necessary to meet this challenge. Instead of sheltering the students from the evils of the internet, we should be teaching them how to use their new skills and judgment to weed out the bad from the good. If they are not exposed to and given guidance on using these new literacy skills they will not know how to deal with it when they do have to put their knowledge to the test in the working world.
With the knowledge I have gained from this course, I intend to expose my students to the internet at a younger age than I currently do. Having them practice inquiries that meet their needs. That is of course, if I still have a job teaching computer lab. If not, I feel that I am much better prepared to utilize these new literacy skills in a self-contained classroom environment.
I would like to learn more about using Wikis and blogs to work with other students around the country and the world to collaborate on projects that affect the students’ communities. I feel that these are the skills that the students will need in the future and the best way to acquire these skills is to practice them. I would also like to share what I have learned this term with the other teacher’s in my school, so we can begin to build a network of collaboration and cooperation within our building. We could start small by having the grade levels work together creating Wikis that they can use throughout the year. We can them connect with other schools in our district and around the world so that our students can practice their newly developing literacy skills.

Comic Life PD

Went to the Peggy Nottebart Nature Museum Tuesday to get to know Comic Life software. We got to roam around the Nature Center and take photos to use in a comic strip depicting one of the Science Standards. It was a blast and I think my students will really enjoy using this program. We got 62 free licenses for attending.

Purpose Statement

I plan to determine if screen casting will help Third Graders complete their projects in a timely manner. This is an important step in determining if some of the new technology, like screen casting, will improve students’ understanding of basic steps in programs like Power Point or Word. I feel that having this extra helper to go to when students are in doubt will allow them to work independently. If this type of assistance proves beneficial, it can be implemented to all grade levels.

Research in class

Pursuing my degree in Technology in the classroom has opened my eyes to many possibilities to help my students become accustomed to using all the tools in the computer lab. With this in mind what I’d like to research is the use of screencasting in the lab so the students will have the ability to view the process again and again if they need to go through the steps in different applications. I am constantly reteaching how to do these steps, especially on long term projects, where students pull ahead or fall behind the pack. I would like to see, if given the opportunity to access the screencast during the project, if it would help the students stay on task and be able to complete the assignment in a timelier manner.

Reflection

Reflection

After completing this course, it has shown me a couple of things. First, it has shown me that many of the things that we do in my classroom are in line with the learning theories we covered in the past seven weeks. It has also shown me many new tools, as well as ways to utilize these tools that I had not done in the past.
As far as being in line with the learning theories we studied, some of the lessons that I use, like the Chicago web quest, fit the constructionist learning theory in which the students learn by building their own artifacts and presenting them to the group. We follow some aspects of the behaviorist learning theory by rewarding the students for successful completion of repetitive skills practice programs, like Education City and Key Skills.
What I have really become more aware of is evaluating the technology as an instructional tool or a learning tool. I recently attended the Illinois Computing Educators conference in St Charles Illinois. I sought out sessions in which technology was used as a learning tool as opposed to an instructional tool and picked up some great ideas for future projects. A couple of the ideas are to have students use screen casting to teach each other shortcuts or techniques they use while working with the programs on our server. The students can also develop pod casts to share some of the knowledge they have gained studying various theme units for the following year’s class to use as a resource. I also would like to incorporate student produced video in a similar manner. Having them develop video versions of stories they are reading to share with their class and classes that follow. These are a few of goals that I would like to attain with my students in the next couple of years. Not only will the students develop technology skills but by reviewing, revising and redoing the content they have learned to present it to others in one of these multimedia formats, they will be building lasting connections to the content in their minds.

Voice Thread

http://voicethread.com/share/897266/

Connectivism and Social Learning in Practice

This week we looked at Cooperative Learning as an instructional strategy for social learning. I think it works well for multimedia projects such as video where smaller groups can work on the various parts of the project and then bring it all together in much less time than would be possible for individual students. The main thing you have to be careful with for this type of activity is to clearly define the roles of each group and each student within the group so that everyone is contributing. We need to “help students understand what is expected of them and how their participation will be evaluated.” (Pitler, H., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M., & Malenoski, K., 2007, p.141)
Cooperative Learning also works well for Web Quests, because the group members can research parts on their own and then bring them back to share with the other members of the group. Taking this to the next step with technology would be having the students share their findings with the other groups using a blogs, wikis or even a chat room. That way they could post the links where they found their information with the others so they would have access to the information for themselves.




Pitler, H., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M., & Malenoski, K. (2007). Using technology with classroom instruction that works. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.