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.