Since the beginning of class, my knowledge and conception of literacy has changed drastically! At the start of the semester, I thought of literacy as the basic "reading and writing" kind of thing. Now, however, I see that there are many different branches of literacies, including emotional, visual, print, social, environmental, and many more. Within these literacies, there is a common thread-- a full understanding of the specific topic is important towards becoming an expert at the literacy. There are so many important aspects of all of these literacies that, in the end, come together to make a person's overall knowledge of the world around them whole. The technology I used informed me that I am not as mush of a digital native as I thought I was! Technology expands by the day, and there is no way to keep up with it 100% of the time. I think it is important as future teachers to at least play around with some of these technologies in order to expose our future students to it as well. My first choice of new technology to explore was iMovie, a program on a Mac computer, which I have played with before. However, it was an older version that I was familiar with. I found the new update version to be more complicated and unfamiliar and it was very frustrating. I still plan on playing with this program to re-familiarize myself with it so that I can use it still in the future. The technology I ended up using was a Weebly (website). It was a lot of fun to explore this technology, because I have never made a website before! I really enjoyed using Weebly.com as my host site because the site guided me through working on my site. I was able to insert web pages and pictures and I learned how to make sub-pages on a main page. This project has showed me that with Language Arts, it is important to include other extra factors into the teaching. Nowadays, it is not enough to read a story and have students write a sentence about why they liked it--there are so many more meaningful ways to get so much more out of the activities that you do in your classroom! Have your students EXPLORE the authors by making websites or slideshows or scrapblogs. This way the student will be more engaged and will actually LEARN from their own projects, and expand their technological literacy.
To provide "effective literacy instruction" means different things. First off, you have to be aware of the types of learners in your classroom--this means having options. There must be multiple options for your students to choose from in order to engage their thinking and give all the learners a fair opportunity in the classroom. Using a Weebly made me realize that if I had more assignments/projects assigned that I was allowed to make a website INSTEAD of writing a 3-5 page paper on, I would learn a lot more and not DREAD doing the assignment. Yes, school is for learning, but I believe that the best learning is done when you are engaged in MORE than just the information-- you are engaged in the assignment as a WHOLE.
If my first graders were going to be using my technology, which I don't think they really would since they are in first grade, I think that they would have to first become more computer literate. They have had experience in the computer lab, but just with playing computer games and not really navigating the web. They would have to be aware of the different components of a webpage before making one. They would also have to be very patient in listening and viewing of examples done by the teacher in order to be able to do it themselves. I don't think it would be beneficial to have first graders making webpages because I think their focus should be on reading and writing at this level and becoming comfortable at a computer in general.
LESSON PLAN
Target Area: Adding Pictures
Rationale: This area is needed to use this technology because it will increase the appearance of the website and give the student more familiarity with using search engines for images.
Objectives:
Students will be able to add a picture box on their webpage.
Students will be able to use a search engine to find an image corresponding to their website topic.
Students will be able to insert the picture into the website.
Materials: Computers
Outline of Key Events:
The students will have been working on their webpage for some time now and the information regarding their topic will be on the page. Now they are at the point of adding pictures.
Students will observe teacher modeling how to search through a search engine for images regarding topic.
Class will follow steps as a whole towards finding their first image.
After first image is found, students will continue to search on their own while being supervised by teacher.
Students will try to find at least 4 images to put on their website.
Closing Summary: Teacher will explain to students that the appearance makes their website more attractive to viewers and also helps to show examples. Give the example of trying to read a book with no pictures!
Ongoing Assessment: Students will continue to use website-making for other assignments. As they progress through the year, their websites should become more complex and also be completed faster.
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Abby—I really like your lesson plan because I thought it fit well with your grade level. Being in kindergarten, I have a hard time relating what we’re learning about technology to the children in class. I know that you could possibly use smartboards, videos or similar technology with children so young, but I found myself wondering how to have them use the technology themselves. Your lesson plan proved to me that it is possible for these children to use the technology but it may be our job to teach them each single step. I agree that these types of assignments are more engaging and therefore I feel like I learn more from them. I think that this is true for younger children as well so I would like to be able to incorporate these types of assignments into the curriculum. I do wonder though what you do if the school you’re in does not have the resources available. The school I’m in has four computers available for the students to use. I have only seen them used to play games at free time and to check the weather on the internet. I wonder if it would be possible to do these types of assignments and lessons if you only have four computers available to you. This is obviously a challenge that we may all come across at some point in our teaching careers. At least we can look at it as a chance to use our creativity!
ReplyDeleteAbby, You brought up some great points in reflecting back to your experiences in working with the new technologies. I especially like what you said about technology constantly updating and how quickly it changes. This does make it challenging to keep up with! Your lesson plan was great and very clear and thorough. I see the importance and benefits of using a weebly or any new technology in the classroom to encourage students exploration and familiarization with such technology. I liked how you brought up the issues of motivation within the classroom. Like you said, it might be a lot more exciting for students to work together in making or dealing with a weebly than simply doing research and writing papers. The exploration and implementation of new technologies leaves teachers with endless possibilities in education!
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