This is why I am SO glad I took this class:

Internet Literacy

Approaching the unavoidable: Literacy instruction and the Internet 

by Jacquelynn A. Malloy  & Linda B. Gambrell (probably the BEST researcher ever!!)

We talked a lot this semester, especially in Dr. Berta's class, about media literacy and technology literacy. Even since I was in elementary school, the internet has become more prevalent in instruction. Outside of school, kids spend hours online on facebook, instant messaging, and google searching any topic that interests them. I find it funny how many students claim that they don't read at all outside of school, but spend hours on the internet. Kids often don't think of using the internet as reading even though it is. This article brings up some great ideas for teaching students different aspects of internet literacy. It is also important to teach students how to figure out if a website is valid. I think that a lot of older teachers view internet literacy as something that needs to be kept out of the classroom and doesn't have as much importance as "educational literacy". I think that there is no way to stop technology from advancing and students now have grown up without knowing what life was like without the internet and computers, so teachers should embrace it and use it to create new ways to teach! 

Morning Message!!

From Morning Message to Digital Morning Message: Moving from the tried and true to the new  by Linda D. Labbo 

Although teaching early childhood is not my dream job, I do have some experience working in primary age classrooms. Almost every classroom I am in has used a Morning Message in the beginning of the day. Traditionally, a Morning Message, is a whole group writing assignment where the teacher leads the group in writing an authentic piece about the going-ons in the school for the day. Usually it is done with different students coming up to the blackboard. This articles tells about how the Morning Message can be done using a digital program such as KidPix or Powerpoint. Students can use these programs to illustrate the morning message, or use the reading application to hear the morning message read aloud. It also helps students get used to using a computer to type, write and express their thoughts. 

Blogs and Internet Projects!!

Collaborative Literacy Projects: Blogs and Internet Projects by Erica Boling, Jill Castek, Lisa Zawilinski, Karen Barton, Theresa Nierlich 

This article also offers many great real life ways to incorprate technology and literacy together. It offers ideas that teachers have used in all different grade levels and subjects. One activity that really intrigued me was instituted by a third grade teacher. She had a "blog host", a teddy bear named Jefferson Bear, who, each week posed questions for the students to answer in their blogs. Some questions required internet research, such as "What should be done about endangered species?" and others were prosocial questions such as "What should I do about a girl who is being mean to me in class?". Jefferson Bear then took the time to respond to individual student blog posts. I love this idea, and even at a middle school level, it is a great way to get students communicating with each other and using the internet to research. 

Stories About Struggling Readers and Technology by Rebecca Anderson and Ernest Balajthy

This article presented 3 real life vignettes about how various educators used technology to help struggling readers. I really liked that these ideas were actually used and put in practice so that educators reading the journal can use them in their classrooms. 

The third story about Mark, a literacy teacher who is called for help with a tutoring program. The program received funding to purchase computers, a library, and other technology devices. Mark was contacted by the head of the program, because although they had access to this technology, they felt that it was not being used to best benefit the students. This is a usual case where owning the technology does not guarantee improvements in achievement. It is so important for teachers to take classes like the ones we are teaching, so that when technology is made available, it can be used to actually improve the achievement of students. 

Digital Storytelling

This website is a great resource for digital storytelling. I had never used iMovie to create a digital story until this class, but now that I have, I have so many ideas how it can be used in class. I can see teaching students, as young as elementary school, how to create their own digital stories. I created my story about my family so that I can share it with my future students. I think that this is a great way for students to share about their families with the rest of the class. 

When I am home in New York, I tutor a young boy who has severe learning disabilities. He struggles with reading as well as written expression. Although he can't write well, he loves technology. This summer, when I am working with him, I want to help him create and tell stories using imovie. I am sure he would be highly motivated by this and enjoy telling his story without the struggle of using pen on paper.

ipod touch!!

When my younger brother bought a new mac laptop for college, he had the opportunity to get a free ipod. I am SO lucky to have the best little brother ever, because he gave it to me because he knew I had broken my old ipod.  After a few months of playing around with it, I got bored of it-- it seemed difficult to use and was too big for me to jog with it. Now, after reading this article, and seeing the presentation in class, I have found so many new uses for the ipod touch! I really enjoyed the section about how to integrate them in the math classroom (the subject I want to teach)! I think that using an ipod touch as a graphing calculator is a great idea-- graphing calculators are SO expensive and required for upper level math classes. If the money spent on the calculators was spent on ipod touches instead, students could use the graphing calculator application as well as applications for other classes. Graphing calculators are the same price or more expensive that ipod touches. What high schooler wouldn't rather get a new ipod instead of a calculator??! 

Interactive Storybooks

This article presents how to create and how to use electronic books in the classroom. Electronic books are great resources for all students, especially students with reading difficulties and English Language Learners. These electronic books can easily be created in a program like Power Point. After reading a story, students retell the story and teachers put text, pictures, and animation on each slide. They then put a voice that reads the story on each slide as well. Students can play these books during reading time and it helps reinforce the story they read in their own words. They can track print, without having to turn pages, and receive additional scaffolding while reading the story.

This article helped me to make my interactive storybook for this class. I liked the suggestions it gave and the quick tutorial on how to create your own. I would like to learn more about actually recording my voice to read the story aloud. I do think that this article made it seem like creating these storybooks is less time consuming than it actually is. I spent quite a bit of time working with powerpoint, choosing the right graphics and animations to create my storybook. I would like to know more about how to adapt this practice to use with middle school students. I think it would be extremely time consuming to create these books for young adult novels. I think it would be fun though for middle school students to create these books for younger students in the school building! 

Citation for article used: Rhodes. J. & Milby, T. (2007). Teacher-Created Electronic books: Integrating Technology to Support Readers with Disabilities. The Reading Teacher,  61(3), 255-259. Retrieved July 14,2008, from Education Research Complete database.

Lights, cameras, pencils! Using descriptive video to enhance writing!

This article Demonstrates the uses of descriptive videos in the classroom to improve literacy skills. Descriptive videos are originally created for those with visual impairments, can be used by teachers to introduce students to content area vocabulary and foster comprehension. Descriptive videos identify key vocabulary words that normally are not introduced in the video, and offer students a rich description of the setting and actions taking place. Students take this description information presented and transfer it into their writing. This technique can be used with students of all ages and ability levels.

I would love to teach middle school science and I think that this technique would be very helpful. Using a video will motivate middle school students and the descriptive feature would introduce students to vocabulary words in context.  Using vocabulary words introduced by the description, students can write about what they watched and have accurate and precise terminology.

Citation for this article:

Hoffner, H., Baker, E. & Quinn, K.B. (2008). Lights, cameras, pencils! Using 
     descriptive video to enhance writing Reading Teacher, 61(7), 576-579.

Blog #1: NCLB

No Child Left Behind is a hot topic of conversation among educators. I believe the idea behind NCLB is commendable, but a goal that is impossible to fully reach. It is impossible to expect 100% of students to be reading on or above grade level by 2014. I do believe that teachers should teach using research based best practices, but NCLB does not take in account students who have learning disabilities, are English Language Learners, or simply just had a bad day and did not test as well as they could have.

When I was student teaching last year, I was placed in a school in Pennsylvania. Earlier that year, a new student came to the class I was in (I'll call him K). K had just moved to America from India with his family. K spoke very limited English and after a few months of ESL, he learned to decode English words, but did not comprehend much of what he read.  When it came time for state testing, we were told that K did not have to take the Language Arts exam, because he was taking ESL, but he had to still take the math class, because "Math is the same in any language". I was shocked that his math scores would count, because the exam wasn't just simple arithmetic facts. Many of the questions were word problems, and required extended written responses. K struggled with the math exam and ended up crying at this desk from frustration.

NCLB is supposedly research based, but I think that it ignores all of the research that stresses how all students learn in different ways, at different rates, and that standardized exams are not the only way to assess students. I do believe that the government needs to step in and help improve the education system, but NCLB was not effective.