Chapter 9

       In chapter 9, Johnson focused on assessments for new literacies. She discusses the shift from traditional, paper-pencil grade books and assessments and explains ways to shift into assessment for the world of technology. The chapter goes over the importance of student involvement in their assessments, which can be done in teacher-student meetings where teachers directly provide feedback. Another great way to provide feedback is to use blog comments, online sticky notes and audio. Johnson goes over the importance of students’ peer work, and explains how to use great assessment tools for this and for digital projects. As Johnson points out, Common Core will eventually be requiring online assessment, which really opens my eyes in how important it is to teach children the proper uses and benefits of technology.

       One of the ideas I really found to like from chapter 9 was the use of digital portfolios and online notebooks. Teachers’ gradebooks can be messy, and often times I have noticed that students’ work sometimes gets misplaced. These are issues that can be solved with online resources. The digital portfolio is a nice way to keep all of a student’s work in one place. Because it is online, teachers can include videos and photos of the student’s work. This brings the portfolio to life. Online notebooks, such as Evernote , allows teachers to keep students’ work in one place, but to also keep notes on it. These are great resources in that it allows teachers to share students’ work with other school staff and families. In previous posts, I have discussed the issue that I noticed with the woman I nanny for, where she receives overload of her twins’ school work. By keeping the students’ work all together in an online portfolio parents can view it without feeling overwhelmed or without feeling the guilt of getting rid of it.

Chapter 8

   

 Chapter 8 put a great emphasis on the importance of students asking questions and becoming a researcher. By this, I mean that students need to ask questions to further their learning and think in an alternative way and to get the most meaningful questions, students need to explore and do research.
       This chapter is important because this idea of researching and forming questions is a skill that is important for children down the road. In college students are required to think critically and participate in research for assignments. In life in general, these skills are also important. For student's later success, these skills need to be introduced and reinforced early on. This chapter goes over many great ideas to get these skills introduced.
       The lesson on 'wonder questions' is one of the activities that I found to be a great way to introduce these question building and researching skills to young students. This lesson involves teachers showing students pictures of common, every day things in their community and posing questions that they are wondering about. Students then do the same, working in small groups to come up with questions they are wondering about the photos. Later, students will research these questions to find answers and share them with the class. This to me, seems like an awesome way to get children to begin forming questions, because it shows that there can be great questions about simple things that you normally wouldn't think to ask questions about. It is a great introduction to forming questions, but also research.
       Throughout my education, I have had many research assignments. It wasn't until my freshman year of college that I finally got down the skills of researching, even thought I had done many research assignments in high school. I still see students in college struggling to find reliable sources. This is an important concept that I feel isn't introduced properly or early enough. There are so many great ways, that can be enjoyable for students as early as elementary school. These skills need to be continuously expanded on as students get older, so they are prepared for college and later, the professional world.

Chapter 7

                                

     Chapter 7 focused on using digital writing to help students with their writing process. There are many different ways that teaching writing using digital writing is beneficial, such as using online webs and using digital mentor texts. The strategy that I wanted to focus on was the use of blogs as response journals, and embedding media into blogs. This is relevant to me right now because this class was the first time I ever wrote a blog, so I thought it would be fun to talk more about them and play around with the different media features possible.

     The text explains how blogs are easy to use, provide opportunity for commenting on peer’s work, and the ability to provide extra information using media. One of the easiest and most basic forms of media that can go into a blog are images. I typically always post a picture at the beginning of my blogs as it makes it more interesting and draws reader's eyes to my post. I chose this image above because it demonstrates how a photo makes you want to read somebody's blog and draws a reader in. Another benefit to including images might be that it explains something you discussed in a better, simpler way. For example if you are talk about the water cycle, an image of the water cycle might help explain the information that you discussed, in a simpler way to understand.  

     A second form of media that can be embedded into blogs are videos. If I am explaining how to make guacamole in my blog, readers might not understand how to peel an avocado the right way, and explaining it using words just might not do it for them. The link is right there, and available for viewing with just a click. Inserting videos into blogs are great, however the text does make a valid point in saying that sometimes it takes away from your blog. Therefore, it is important to make sure it is absolutely necessary, and does not take away from your own work. 

     The final form of media I will discuss is the use of embedding audio into a blog. Maybe you are analyzing a song, and you want to add the audio of the part of the song you are discussing. This gives readers a better idea of what you are talking about. You may also choose to include audio or podcasts of yourself speaking to clarify something. 

     These are all great forms of media to include into a blog that the text reviews. I am so happy to learn about all of these great features for my future as a both a student and a teacher. 

Book Review

                                       
The Pout-Pout Fish by Deborah Diesen is a great read for children exploring their destinies and learning that it is okay to change them. In this story, the Pout-Pout fish encounters many other sea creatures that encourage him to be happy, but he continuously tells them that he was meant to spread "dreary-wearies." This book is an awesome way to promote language development as it uses rhyming, alliteration, and many great vocabulary words that children might not encounter on a day-to-day basis. Read this story with your children or students to see the captivating illustrations and happy ending.

Chapter 6

Chapter six was about how to scaffold comprehension of digital literature. Throughout this text we were introduced to many different ways to build comprehension. Think alouds were encouraged for introducing some of these comprehension skills. This means that the teacher literally “thinks out loud” as they are going through the digital text or resource.

Some of the comprehension tools introduced in the chapter were features that are built right into the text, such as animated illustrations, online sticky notes, or hyperlinked vocabulary. Other features are online features, such as Google lit trips and online book reports/reviews. One of the tools that I found the most fascinating was the virtual author visits.

The authors emphasized the importance of getting to know the author of literature, and their background to their writing. This made me think about how important that truly is. When I began researching Mo Willems, for the module 6 explorations assignment, I learned so much about the books that I read every single day to the child I babysit. This gave me a whole new look at these books that I thought I was so familiar with. For children to understand the author, they are digging deeper into the stories, from the author’s standpoint.

Meeting authors is obviously difficult to do, along with being costly, so the internet creates this much easier and much more affordable way to get to know an author. I think this would be important to do several times throughout the school year, on authors that teachers spend a lot of time on.

One author I can remember learning a lot about in elementary school is Dr. Seuss. This is the only author that I can remember learning about, and it was not as in depth as it could be today with the use of technology. The things I learned about Dr. Seuss still stick with me today, which shows how important getting to know an author can be. 

Chapter 5

       Chapter five explored many different e-book resources. Some of the resources were read alouds (stories read out loud while showing motion pictures of the illustrations), some were books online available for reading on your own, and some were online magazines. E-books allow readers to view hyperlinked resources and videos to help further explain information, highlight important text, and get definitions for unfamiliar words.

       This chapter was very relevant to myself because, believe it or not, I just got my first e-textbook this semester and it was for this class. It blew my mind as soon as I began this course that my first e-textbook was for this class, which focuses on technology and even has a whole chapter on e-books! I was very wary of getting an e-textbook and had always ignored the offers that were constantly given to me when I would go to rent my textbooks each semester, but I finally went for it. I was nervous as to how it would go, but luckily, I chose the right class to try it out in. For myself highlighting is the best way for me to understand and interact with the text. I have never been able to highlight throughout my college experience because I rent my textbooks. My absolute favorite part about this e-textbook is that it allows me to highlight, in many different colors, making it easier to go back for information and helping me understand important points. Something as simple as this really transformed my reading experience, so I can only imagine how it can change the reading experiences of students with all of the many different features that e-books today have. This class, and this chapter in particular, has opened my eyes so much to the positive uses of all of these online resources. A few months ago, I would not have thought to use e-books in my classroom and introduce them to students. Today, I am excited to explore new ways to incorporate them into my future classroom!

Chapter 4

Chapter 4 is about increasing student’s vocabulary and fluency using web resources. There were two big IRT lessons that were introduced: Read Aloud, one for younger children and one for older children. In the lesson for the younger children, new vocabulary is introduced by selecting a picture book, selecting words that are important to emphasize and then showing a video to help students understand the word better. Instead of just reading a story and doing an activity, this includes videos to help show the students what the word means. I personally thought this was a great idea, as visuals often help many students, especially as children growing up around technology. The part that interested me though was the Read Aloud lesson for older children. In this lesson, teachers select a learning resource to read aloud, rather than a picture book, and highlights important vocabulary. Next, teachers choose and model a multimedia resource for students to use to help learn the vocabulary words. Reading this section took me back to learning vocabulary when I was in elementary school, which lead me to focus on two different aspects.

First, this section discussed choosing online resources to introduce to the class, and made a point that children aren’t typically involved in reading about news. When I was in elementary school we used to get TIME for kids magazines, and I remember it was what I dreaded most about Fridays. This was always boring and just not interesting to me, or anybody else in the class. Looking back, I understand why these were important, but they were just not given to us in a way that made us interested in what they had to say. This section in chapter 4 listed all sorts of online news sites directed at children. This is one of those times where I feel technology really is beneficial in the classroom. Children are interested in using technology, and by reading news online there are other links and videos that are probably more interesting to children than just reading from a magazine. This is a great way to get children on board with reading about the news, and also about learning new vocabulary.

The next part that had me thinking was about how incorporating multimedia into learning these dreaded vocabulary terms really helps get them into your memory. Another thing I could not stand was learning vocabulary words. I remember the small, orange vocab books we used to get that listed 20 words a week that we had to plug into sentences and memorize for the quiz on Friday..just to forget the definition minutes after the test went away. If there was some more interaction with the words, and more visuals to help better understand the words, I think I would have taken A LOT more away from vocabulary classes. Fortunately, for children today they have this opportunity. This chapter changed a way to integrate two of my least favorite parts about school, into a much more fun, interactive and interesting way to learn vocabulary and keep up on the latest news. Technology just keeps looking better and better to me!

Chapter 3

Chapter 3 was called “Creating Classroom Community and Connecting with Families.” The chapter wasn’t the average description of building a classroom community and family involvement, instead this chapter described different activities that can be done using technology. This was an interesting approach, as I have never heard of the many different ideas in this chapter. This chapter had two great examples which both creates the classroom community and gives the families a chance to be involved. 

For me, the part that I want to speak to is how the family is involved in these projects. Creating projects online allows parents and families to go in and view a child’s work. This makes the family feel welcome and engaged in their child’s education. However, the part about this that I find to be one of the best aspects is that family can go in and view these projects and it’s different than just receiving complete papers in their child’s folder. As I have most likely mentioned, I am a nanny for a single mother of three children. Two of the children are twins and just started kindergarten. The papers the children come home with are ridiculous. There are at least 5-10 pages of completed work in each child’s folder every day. This is super overwhelming for the mother to receive every day and at the end of a long school day and completing homework, the boys don’t really care to explain what they did on all of these papers with their mom. The kids have been in school for about 3 and a half weeks now and the stack of papers is getting very high. Of course as a parent you can’t help but feel guilty recycling all of your kindergartner's precious school work, but the stack of papers gets crazy and just creates a mess.  These papers are so overwhelming that they end up being meaningless and just get thrown into the messy stack. But, creating projects online allows the parents to go in and view it, where they can hear the teacher’s introduction on the project and hear their child talk about it. How awesome is this! No cluttered papers, and an interactive, more meaningful experience to view your child’s work. The parents can go in and comment on their children’s work, where the child can then be excited to go to school and see their personalized message from their families. Parents can also include children in viewing their work, where they can talk about it together, and the families have more of an idea of the meaning behind the projects and know what to ask the child about it. 

This is much more meaningful than just receiving papers and projects in a child’s backpack at the end of each day. I have never thought to use technology in such a way as this chapter described, to promote classroom community and family involvement. I am glad that I was introduced to this, as I can now use this in my future classroom and prevent families from messy, cluttered piles of school work! 

Internet Reciprocal Teaching

In chapter 2, a teaching strategy called reciprocal teaching and internet reciprocal teaching was introduced. I loved the idea of this because I think this approach could be very helpful and beneficial in the classroom. The idea of internet reciprocal teaching is for the teacher to introduce a concept or website, and then a student will have to teach the class about it. After the student teaches the class there is typically a project given to the class to be done independently or in small groups. I love how there was a way to turn reciprocal teaching (the same process but not involving technology and instead from a text) into a modern way to teach students about technology. Being able to tweak lessons to fit the most current concepts is very important.

I think that this strategy would work in classrooms for two main reasons. First, when a student knows they are responsible for teaching the class something, they are most likely going to make sure they learn it very well. This allows each “student teacher” to learn a concept very well. I am sure it is something they will never be able to forget after learning about it and then presenting it to their peers. The second reason is because students generally, from my experience, enjoy listening to their peers. It is a change of scenery from the teacher talking to them, and it is somebody their age that they relate to. The student may have a way of showing the information in a way that makes sense to other students their age that they can relate to. Allowing the students to teach the class makes the lesson more exciting, and fun for the class.

This approach to learning new technology is probably best for students at an older level. When I first read about it I imagined it happening in a high school classroom. But, after thinking about it I think it could work in any classroom. I am studying early childhood education, so for me it was important to think about how this could benefit myself. It made me think that even young children can become the teacher for the hour and teach their peers about something. For example, I have seen kindergarten classrooms that are able to reserve iPads for some time. A student, or a group of students could work with the teacher to explore an app and then that student can explain to the class how it works. This could also be done by doing things on the smart board. This teaching method is overall such an awesome way all around for students to learn about new technologies! I can’t wait to implement it in my own classroom someday! 

Shifting My Views On Technology

       

         There was so much information in chapter one that really had me thinking in a way that I have never thought before. So many people, including teachers, see technology as a horrible change in children’s lives. I myself even have had negative views on technology, but after reading this chapter my view has been transformed. This chapter really brought to my attention that whether technology and the internet are negative or positive for a children’s learning, the fact of the matter is, is that it is not going away. Whether a teacher believes in it or not, technology is only advancing and it will only take over education more and more, so to help children learn and develop into the best adult they can be, it is important to use technology in your curriculum and teach children how to appropriately use and learn from it. I have never thought of technology in this way and I am so glad that I was introduced to this new way of thinking.

       Throughout all of chapter one, the page that really stuck out to me was page 12. This page basically described how teachers are not always the most educated when it comes to technology, and that because of this, they often feel “intimidated” and decide to pass all the technological teachings over to the designated computer teacher. The author’s response to this was very true, as the time spent with the computer teacher is not nearly enough time to prepare a child for the world of technology they are entering.  I couldn’t agree more with the point the author made here. Teachers need to stay up-to-date, and educate themselves on as many digital and technological resources they can incorporate into their student’s learning as this is how students are learning today. Instead of feeling intimidated teachers should learn to take what the children offer and research it, because chances are, it could be a great resource that children will take a lot away from.

       The most important and enlightening lesson I learned from this chapter was that whether myself, teachers, or anybody else likes it or not, the digital world is taking over and it is better to prepare students for this than to stick to our own beliefs and set children up for failure in their future. Literacy is just one of many areas that are going digital, and accepting this and using it in the classroom will only benefit children for their future.