Week 12 - multimodal texts

BABR 8 intro -

Images, audio, and video are all common characteristics of multimodal text. All are included in the text help give the reader a deeper connection to the text and build a better understanding. In the 21st century, teachers are called to incorporate multimodal texts and learning into the classroom. Many of the Common Core Standards reflect the push towards multimodal learning.

Images

• Flickr - students and teachers can look for images on Flickr by search words. The text used a term "folksonomy" that I had not heard of before. The search terms for Flickr images were created by users as opposed to an outside source. 
• Google - google is a great resource for students and teachers to find online images by using search words.

Copyright 

Copyrighted images can be used as long as it fits with the "fair use" provisions. Criticism, comment, news reporting, and teaching all apply under the fair use provisions. It is important to teach our students about copyright and citing sources. Each website has its own copyright rules. Flickr has specific usage rules for each user. Users may require permission or even payment to use their images. Flickr has a section called "Creative commons copyright" that means that students do not have to ask for permission before using these images. 

• Images - need to be used in good faith 
• Text - brief quotations used to make a point 
• Audio - brief clips 30 seconds or less can be used 

Image Creation 

The smartphone or a tablet can be a great classroom tool for the students to be able to create their own images. Teachers can create a classroom Instagram or snapchat account for students to upload their images for classroom use or assignments. 

One interesting online tool I want to try out is VoiceThread. Students can import an image that they found online and add audio or written comments. Other students, teachers, or even parents can then comment their own thoughts on the VoiceThread and start an educational conversation. 

Haiku Deck is a good tool for presentations. Many times research presentations can turn into reading off a powerpoint. Haiku Deck encourages students to use more images to convey their information than a bunch of words. 

High school students used photography to create web-based autobiographies. They wanted the images to be highly intentional and personal. 

Responding to Images

It is true that images can be worth a thousand words. Students need to be able to form an opinion about images and describe what they think and feel. We also should encourage them to think about the photographer and the intended purpose for the image. 

Questions - 

1.  Image copyright is not something I think about often. I guess it is different because we use quotation marks and have specific citation rules for texts. How do you teach copyright rules? As a general lesson or tied to a specific lesson/project? Maybe this lesson could be tied with internet safety?

2.  What age should kids start learning about copyright?

3.  Have you ever asked kids to do a photography project? This interests me. I think it turn into a good writing project if students write about why they chose to take that photo and what they think about it.

Analyzing Digital Design

We need to get our kids think about how design of a text affects their understanding. A good activity to do this is giving kids a bunch of different sites to visit with various levels of design complexity. It is good to have a discussion about design, particularly the multimodal features of a text, and how they help our hurt comprehension. Analysis of digital texts is important before kids create their own digital texts because it lets them know how to design the text to suit their readers. 

Process - print vs digital 

When we read a digital text, we usually have a purpose for visiting the website. We may want to find out about movie times or find a new coat for the winter. Many times with print text, we are just reading to learn. Our eyes move left to right on the page. With a digital text, our eyes may go to the prominent feature(s) or the specific area of the website they need. If websites are too cluttered or the reader cannot find the information he/she needs, the reader may give up or go to a different site. 

Questions - 

1.  Do you think digital texts (and digital design) encourage our culture of skim reading? I feel that sometimes this is harmful because students do not want to read other than to find an answer. 

Dalton article - Level Up - Multimodal Composition in Social Studies 

This article taught me a new term! Level up means to improve in the gaming world. The author wanted to "level up" his multimodal composition skills. Working with his students, he found that his students were highly engaged and motivated to participate in writing these multimodal compositions. Dalton actually teamed up with a fourth grade teacher who taught mostly bilingual students. The kids composed the compositions using an iPad during social studies. Dalton introduced the lessons by showing them various digital designs to get them thinking about how design affects comprehension. The students' project was to be to create a digital poem with using an e-book. Dalton showed the students how to do this in small groups in the hallway throughout the week. Students were involved in the entire process of creation - from writing the poem, to typing it in (or voice to text), to finding images/videos to accompany their poem, to recording the audio for their book. Some students became "expert recorders" and helped students one-on-one with their e-book and recording. It took several composing sessions for each student to complete an electronic book page, but it was a learning process for all. Multimodal composition in elementary schools is a practice that is pretty new and will require more work than other text composition, but is worth it for the students.

Questions - 

1.  I know I need to "level up" on my multimodal composition skills as well! Have you had a multimodal composition project in your classroom?

Answer a question or two and provide some information about the sections you read :). Thanks! 

Week 12

Hi friends!

This post is about what we all need to read for this week.

All: BABR 8 intro and assessment section, BABR 9 design principles

Courtney: Dalton article, Images sections (ch 8), intro and analyzing digital designs, summary (ch 9)

Neka: Ebooks article, Audio sections (ch 8), presentation tools and creating e-books (ch 9)

Breanna: Digital storytelling article, Video sections (ch 8), online sites for sharing writing and learning to code (ch 9)

Angela: Ranker article, creating digital storytelling section and summary (ch 8), analyzing readability of digital texts and citing material (ch 9)

Main post will be up later this afternoon and I will be here tonight and tomorrow to comment! :)

Week 11 - Boche & Blinded Manuscript

In the Boche article, the author emphasizes the increasing need for multimodal text use in the classroom. CCSS ask that teachers begin emphasizing complex texts during reading instruction, instead of just teaching comprehension strategies from them, and in the midst of Web 2.0 that includes multimodal texts. Text should be the focus of literacy blocks. He says "the goal is to help students read and understand better and to view literacy as more multifaceted" (Boche, 580). How can we teach students how to break down multimodal texts for meaning? For my students, I think that I usually read the actual text first when I am modeling, then the pictures, diagrams, etc. I usually tend to view videos last as they tend to summarize or extend the content of the text itself.

In the Blinded Manuscript research paper, the researchers viewed teachers modeling and teaching 'close viewing' as a strategy with classroom games. They implemented an "I do, we do , you do" approach to playing the games in the classroom with students. They emphasized playing with the class in order to model the use of academic vocabulary and close viewing strategies. I loved their idea of 'gaming circles' of students playing together and using the strategies taught! How do you already model close viewing in your classroom? If you don't have a classroom, how do you think we could we effectively model close viewing for students?

Multimodal texts include various forms of 5 semiotic systems: linguistic, visual, spatial, audio, gestural accoridng to these graphics. Do you guys agree with these 5 forms? Would you include any more, or make any arguments against any of these as varieties of 'text'? 

How do multimodal texts help readers move to a deeper understanding of content? I feel that multimodal texts support various types of learners by providing multiple presentations of the content, meaning readers are given many different forms and levels of the subject matter. A video can explain, in deeper detail, or even in a different way, something that text cannot. Text can leave holes in understanding, which makes room for deeper information gleaned from visual and audio sources. 

What type of multimodal texts do you use in your classroom? How can you help your students critique them? I use eStudies weekly to go along with our classroom social studies units and they are decent. They are technically mutimodal, but the forms of text are separated by tabs. So we read the digital text/news article that goes along with the lesson, then we have to click on the videos tab to view videos about it, and then the photos tab to view images from the time period, etc. If they were embedded my students could get some practice maneuvering through a digital page like that. What do you guys use?

Has your definition of 'text' changed since these readings? How so?

Week 10: BABR 10/11, J 9, Castek

BABR 10 talks about the fact that different media (mediums?) are appropriate for different forms of feedback and assessment. For instance, some digital tools are most appropriate for students' self-assessment, and some are more suited for feedback from peers and teachers. What are some tools that you can think of that would be useful for each of these types of assessment? 
I love the idea of doing reader-based responses to provide feedback to and among students. I feel like this would be especially helpful in digital environments where writing incorporates text as well as other components like images, video, etc. that need to be integrated seamlessly. I also think that it's especially useful with digital writing because there are so many digital tools that allow for easily sharing these responses--one that I'm thinking of is VideoNo.tes, which would allow students to annotate their thinking with videos or with any sort of audio or written work that could be turned into a video. If you had students do peer review with reader-based responses, what guidelines would you give them, or how would you model it for them?

One of the teachers in the Castek article discussed the challenge of creating assessments for online comprehension and research that are "simultaneously authentic and motivating" (548). How do you think we can best accomplish this when we assess students with digital texts? 

What form of digital assessment do you think would best suit your current or future teaching situation, and what purpose would it serve for you? Consider whether it would be more suitable for you to provide static electronic feedback (intertextual vs. marginal/end commentary) or dynamic electronic feedback (asynchronous board discussions, recorded oral feedback, synchronous chats). If I had to pick one, I think that I would choose intertextual static electronic feedback. At the high school level, students would need to do fairly print-heavy writing quite often, even with multimodal texts. I feel like that type of feedback would be really useful for me, especially if I were taking a reader-based response approach, to tell them my thoughts at different points during my reading. I think that makes it easier for students to pinpoint specifically what they might need to work on, since they see where I had those thoughts, even if my comments remain fairly overarching.

BABR 11 discussed digital systems for automatically evaluating students' writing. I am really wary of them, especially considering the concerns listed in the chapter. Do you think these automatic evaluation tools could ever be viable methods of assessment? If so, how would you implement them in your teaching situation?

Have you ever used a program or service for maintaining records and data related to students' assessments over time, or an online service for building student portfolios? This year, my school implemented MasteryConnect. I really like it for its data analysis--it can let tie individual test questions to academic standards so you can see students' progress with each standard over time. The problem is that it only really allows for multiple choice assessments, and there isn't much of a way for me to enter scores related to other types of assessments. It's useful for rote knowledge related to language arts concepts, but I would ideally like something a bit more comprehensive and literacy-focused and less test-prep focused.

Looking through some of the rubrics in chapter 9 of Johnson, I can estimate about where my students would fall within the dispositions discussed in the chapter. I think that a lot of the types of assessments that the chapter discusses would be useful for helping students improve their new literacies skills through reflection, and the rubrics would be most useful for monitoring their progress. Which of these assessments do you think would be best for promoting growth and progress with students' new literacies dispositions? Personally, I like the idea of using checklists like the ones provided in the chapter. I feel like it creates a tangible tool for students to use to monitor their own behaviors, as well as showing them how they are doing.

Week 9

J7 talked about several different ways that students can collaborate and share writing. They include zines, blogs, wiki, vlogs, digital stories, digital anchor charts, and digital writing notebooks. What are some online writing that you have used in the past or are interested in using in the future?

One of the struggles I have in having students write is a lack of access to technology. What are the benefits of using online tools in the classroom for writing? What the potential challenges/disadvantages in the classroom for writing?

BABR 7 discussed collaborative writing and the challenge of engaging students in this process. What topics have you/would you have used to engage students in collaborative writing?

Week 8: BARB 5, IRA

BARB 5 describes several ways that students can take notes to deepen their comprehension of digital and traditional texts. I struggle with finding an appropriate way to take notes in kindergarten. I am also wonder if it is even a skill that I should be asking students to develop so early on. When do you think note-taking is beneficial to your students? How do you use note-taking in your class? 

BARB 5 also lists many social networking tools that teachers and students can use in the classroom. I think that using social media has many benefits, but right now I do not have access to enough technology to use it within my classroom. I also notice that kindergarten parents are very hesitant to have their students on even child-friendly social media sites. They were very nervous about kidblog when I sent my permission slip home! What are the potential benefits of using social media in your classroom? What are the potential challenges/disadvantages of using social media in your classroom?

IRA discusses how students can use critical literacy to explore questions/problems they find in the world around them. Students at different ages need different learning experiences and levels of scaffolding to engage in critical literacy. What do you think critical literacy in general looks like at your level? What activities do you/would you use to engage your students in critical literacy? What supports/extensions do they need?

We are supposed to divide up the following readings to summarize and connect:
Wood
Literacy Circles
Kingsley
Byrne

Week 7: J8, Leu, DeShyver, BABR 3/4

In the Johnson chapter this week she discussed inquiry in the classroom, specifically, as a way to influence every aspect of learning for students. Inquiry is a process to be carried out that begins with asking questions. Students are naturally curious in many ways and this chapter made great points about how to facilitate and "manage" questioning from students. For example, I really liked the FQR chart on page 135 and want to adapt it for my third grade class. Students can work together to synthesize an informational text you provide (or even read as a class), then ask a question they have regarding it, and make a connection to their findings by writing down a response. After that, students could carry out the inquiry process to research their question further. I think that the toughest parts in elementary classrooms will be to teach/model appropriate and effective search strategies and phrases, and also how to evaluate a source for reliability. How do we even model and practice this in an elementary setting? 

The articles were very insightful and reinforced the importance of inquiry as a process that needs to be modeled and practiced through classroom activities. Generative synthesis is different from synthesizing for meaning in that it involves inferring and using creativity to contribute something new or different to ideas already established. In this new information age, you can find almost anything on the interest if you use appropriate search phrases.  Generative synthesis takes the summarizing of information learned a step further by asking learners to creatively construct knowledge by repurposing and reinforcing existing ideas. By reinforcing, learners are able to background check their own ideas and locate sources that validate their thinking. By repurposing, learners are able to evaluate existing ideas and creatively think of new ways to integrate or modify them to fit their situation, while keeping one important aspect the same. Can you think of ways our students already use reinforcement and repurposing? How can we model, and have students practice generative synthesis through inquiry? 

These BABR chapters go into the inquiry process for us again, but Dr. Beach was not kidding about the resources! I have narrowed down a functioning list of elementary and secondary resources that I think we could try out and evaluate on here this week. Choose a few to try out and have at it!

Elementary:
-https://www.choosito.com/ This website filters searches for students and teachers BY READING LEVEL! (sorry, I got a tad excited there)
-http://sp.askkids.com/docs/askkids/ Ask.com for kids aged 6-12.
-symbaloo.com Students can search using only teacher-approved websites and social media.
-http://www.activelylearn.com/ MUCH better than AR!
-http://www.eduwidgets.org/#/
--https://www.proboards.com/
-https://www.mindmeister.com/ Similar to bubbl.us

Secondary:
-http://www.iseek.com/iseek/home.page This is a search engine for academic research.
-https://www.choosito.com This could be awesome for secondary as well!
-https://scholar.google.com/ This is a google search engine for academic research that helps create citations too!
-https://vimeo.com/12861706 This video explains (in a hilarious way) how to use phrases and terms when using search engines.
-http://www.noodletools.com/noodlequest/ This form helps researchers narrow down their search engines by pointing them in the right direction (super cool!)
-http://www.factcheck.org/ Gives them the real scoop on news and facts heard in the media.
-https://educlipper.net/about.html Very cool Pinterest-esque website for the classroom to share.
-http://www.teenreads.com/
-http://www.activelylearn.com/
-http://www.eduwidgets.org/#/
-https://www.proboards.com/ A chat specifically for your class to discuss in!
-https://www.mindmeister.com/ Similar to bubbl.us

That was a lot! Happy researching!

Week 6: J (4, 5, 6), Javorsky, Wolsey

Javorsky discusses the wide variety of features and formatting that appear in digital stories. I have noticed that high quality e-books can be difficult to find when putting together my listening center. Does anyone have a good resource for digital stories (especially ebooks or ebook apps)? Right now I use Apps Gone Free.

Johnson’s table 5.4 shows a list of criteria when choosing digital texts. What criteria do you/would you/could you use to pick what digital stories your kids read? Some criteria that I have for ebook apps are: 1. Does it read the words to the kids? 2. Does it highlight the words for the kids? 3. Is this a book that I would read aloud to my class? 4. Are there features that may be too distracting for my kids (noises, effects, embedded games)?

I thought chapter 6 of Johnson was very interesting because I had not considered how important it is to directly teach children to comprehend the digital texts they are reading. One resource that I use whole group, small group, and individually with students is PebbleGo. It is an online encyclopedia for early childhood that reads to children and has multimedia includes videos, pictures, and other graphics. When I read an article whole group, I model and practice how to use the headings and pictures to preview the text, how to use context clues before checking the glossary for a term, etc. I sometimes have students draw a picture or write about a piece of new information or a interesting/favorite/confusing part to monitor comprehension and to help students practice communicating their comprehension. How do you/would you/could you model, practice, and assess children’s comprehension of digital texts?

Wolsey and Johnson both talk about the idea of using technology to build students’ vocabularies. This is an idea that I am struggling to figure how to fit into my own practice in kindergarten. How do you/would you/could you use new literacies to build support your child’s vocabulary?

The Three C's: Collaboration and Communication for Comprehension

I really liked the character journal activity using social networking. Related to this week's topic, it can foster both collaboration and communication, and like the article said, it connected to several learning standards. I think that it would be really interesting to combine this activity with blogging. Students can use blogs to reflect on their learning experiences with the social media project, and they can discuss connections between the text they are reading and their lives. Like the chapter in Reading, Writing, and Literacy mentioned, blogging can help foster a classroom community, and the collaborative and reflective aspects of it could support their learning with the inferential aspects of social media project. They could also provide research sources and give each other feedback in the form of a discussion that does not intrude on the social media page itself.

I love the King/Queen of the Day idea discussed in chapter 3. Obviously in my setting as a high school teacher, it would have to be tweaked. I think it could be a great way to build the classroom community, and it would be an awesome opportunity to spotlight students who have shown exemplary skill at a particular activity or who have something unique to contribute to their peers' classroom experiences.

To answer my question below about the IRA Digital Discussions article, I would love to go into my English classes tomorrow and have them collaborate to create a 3-minute podcast. We are reading House on Mango Street, which has very short, poetic chapters that are best read aloud. I plan to have my students write their own "chapter" based on their experiences in a week or two, and I would love to have them experiment with punctuation and flow while they read their work aloud. 

Some things to think about (you don't have to answer all of these):
- How do you think digital storytelling supports students' literacy learning?
- In what ways can online communication support students' ability to make inferences in ways that traditional activities do not necessarily support?
- What potential is there for using social media in your teaching situation?
- On page 31 of Reading, Writing, and Literacy, there is a great list of phrases that help build the classroom community. What language resembles the kind that you do/would use in your classroom? What language do you not use that you could implement to foster a better classroom community?
- The IRA Digital Discussions article lists several platforms that can be used for educational purposes. Based on your current teaching unit (or one you've taught in the past, if you are not currently teaching), which one would you pick if you were to use one of them in your classroom tomorrow? How would you use it?
- In your current/past teaching situation, would you find it more beneficial for students to have synchronous discussions or to have asynchronous discussions online? For what purpose would you use them?
- Are there any questions you'd like to address face-to-face Saturday?

WEEK 4 - digital texts and new literacies

The readings for this week all asked the same question - how do we plan to integrate technology into our lessons while at the same time remaining true to the state standards?

Reading Today

Education is changing through the use of technology, but it does not mean that our students are. This article had some very interesting points about different assumptions that some teachers make about the use of technology in the classroom. Contrary to popular belief, many students do not know how to use technology tools (even if they have access to them) and incorporating technology does not automatically make for a great lesson. I had a professor tell our class once that technology can make a good teacher great... but that is only if the teacher is good to begin with. The teacher must have the knowledge to implement the technology and the teaching knowledge to be able to attend to her students and meet their needs. We also need to spend time to make sure students know how to use the technology tools before they use them. Using a new literacy tool is different from using an older literacy tool, and even advanced students may struggle. We need to know that and be attentive to the issue.

We also need to make sure we know WHY we are using the technology and not just using it because it looks good. We need to work with other teachers and get their ideas on integrating tech in the classroom and be informed together.

Hutchinson

One interesting part of this article spoke of the frustrations teachers sometimes have with technology. Sometimes, it seems easier to not use technology because it you don't use it, it can't break! There are times that troubles with technology, or our confusion or the confusion of our students can get in the way of the lesson. I know that I have experienced those moments when technology stops working and I had to make adjustments. I have also experiences moments when explaining how to use a piece of technology or program got in the way of the real teaching.

Although digital tools can frustrate teachers, I think we need to think of ourselves as constant learners and adapters to technology. From the article, the authors say that "digital tools and environments alter what it means to be literate". This is absolutely the case. And, like it or not, the digital age is not going anywhere. This is why the integration of digital tools and new types of literacies in our classroom is so important.

The planning framework TPACK (Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge) is a way for teachers to plan a meaningful and complete lesson that includes elements of technology, pedagogy, and content. Until this class, I had not heard of this framework for teaching, but it absolutely makes sense and is similar to other frameworks I have used. As with all lessons, we need an instructional goal to know what the students need to learn, we need to know how we are going to teach the students to reach our goals, we need to figure out our tools we need for the lesson and how these tools will aid instruction, we need to know potential issues with the tools we are using, and we need to know how instruction will change if there are any issues with the tools used. I also like the idea of writing a reflection on the lesson after the fact to note how it went and if I would do anything differently.

BABR (chapter 2)

The chapter mentions another planning framework - substitution, augmentation, modification, and redefinition model. This model makes it easy for a teacher to substitute a digital tool for a non-digital one. Augmentation allows students to demonstrate their learning in some way. Recording students in some way can allow for students to become teachers themselves and share their learning with their peers or even the internet! Technology is changing the way learning is taking place and knowledge is shared.

We need to teach students to use digital texts and tools the same way we teach them how to use and comprehend books. We need to teach students to use the same skills and strategies that they use for physical books for digital texts as well. Such as making connections between texts and their own life, looking at the text from different perspectives, and learning how to select appropriate texts.

Digital tools can be so helpful to assist with instruction inside the classroom, but also can assist with communication outside the classroom. A classroom blog, website, or blog can be helpful to provide students and parents with useful information that they can access at home.

We know that choice can be a huge motivator! I love the idea of letting student choose which technology tool they will use for their learning. How fun! We can also let students choose how they will show what they learned.

The part I really loved is the section on helping students who are struggling or have disabilities with technology in the classroom. How powerful is it to be able to use a digital tool to show students something that they cannot experience in person! There are some kiddos who simply do not have the background knowledge to comprehend certain texts. It can be made more difficult if that student is an English Language Learner or from a different country. Providing the students with texts that include images, video, and audio can bring the text to life. There are so so many ways to differentiate using technology!!!

Questions open for discussion!!
1.  Do any of you keep a teacher reflection journal? I love this idea!

2.  Have you or anyone you know had success with a flipped classroom format? How does this work for students who may not have much or any access to a computer outside the classroom?

3.  Do you spend as much time teaching students how to read digital texts as you do teaching them to read printed texts?

4.  I love technology as a tool for differentiation, but one worry I do have is other kids seeing a student use technology and think it is a privilege and he/she is getting special treatment. How can I prevent this?

Thanks ladies!!

Week 3 (J2, Bruek, O'Byrne)

This week's readings have me thinking about literacy tools in new ways. Both the TPACK and the IRT models of incorporating technology into everyday instruction show us that the purpose of using new literacies is to deepen student knowledge of content. The seamless merging of content, technology, and pedagogy seem like common sense as I think about use of new literacies in my classroom (they are meant to deepen content knowledge - duh!). But when I began thinking about the reality of how we use technology in my school building, I realized that what seems to be so simple and straightforward is not happening in classrooms at all. Instead, teachers are using laptop carts and iPads to almost just "entertain" students because they are simply playing games and using interactive gaming websites to practice skills. Content is not being thought of as a guiding force for using the technology in the first place. It's almost as if students are just getting play time, so that the teacher can work with small groups or assess a group of students, which I understand the need for, but then the technology is not being used to deepen any content knowledge at all. Do you guys see this in your buildings as well? Or are teachers using technology in ways that either assess, or build upon content knowledge? Does it look different at the secondary level, Angela?

One program my school used to utilize, and that almost served as a middle ground between what I see teachers doing in my building and the IRT model, was tickettoread.com. One this website, students were reading stories and assessed on comprehension strategies to build their 'club house'. The students loved how interactive it was, and teachers loved that students were deepening their comprehension through practicing on digital devices. We were able to teach them to highlight text and search new vocabulary words, also. It wasn't the perfect program, but it served a great purpose if used in the right way. We were so sad when our administration decided not to buy licenses for our building again! Something else that I have downloaded onto my phone that can be used to practice comprehension skills is the app called Epic! On this app on my iPhone, I can download books from the Epic! library for students to read on my device. Each book has a GE reading level, lexile level, and most of them even have AR quizzes for them (another program my school utilizes). I allow certain students to use my phone to read in the hallways during bathroom breaks, etc. and they absolutely love it! This isn't following a TPACK or IRT model of integration, but it does provide good practice for my kiddos. Has anyone taught or used the TPACK model to integrate technology into their classrooms, for the purposes of deepening student knowledge? How so?

In the Bruek and O'Byrne articles, I found the idea of the open learning network very interesting, too! It seems to get pretty tricky when thinking through sharing licenses and things, but it made me think of the way so many teachers use teacherspayteachers.com to reuse and reinvent things for their classrooms. I know this isn't a way to share strategies and experiences with other educators, but this is the closest thing I know that related to what the articles were saying. Has anyone had experience with Open Education Resources that support access to knowledge for teachers and students?

Week 2 (Knobel, J1, BABR 1, Reading Today Mandarin Art)

While reading, I had a realization about how critical it is to expose students to and empower them with digital tools early and often. Some students come into the classroom with a great deal of experience in using digital tools, while others have had very limited experiences/access outside of school. The sooner we close the gap in basic background knowledge/experience, the more powerfully technology can be used to foster new literacies in all students.

Even though Writer's Workshop and Author's chair usually involve more traditional methods of writing, I noticed that these routines could be a great way to model and practice skills needed for new literacies. For example, as children write for and interact with their peers as an audience, they are generating creative ideas, communicating their ideas through written words, oral expression, and drawings, and and reflecting upon their writing after receiving feedback. These are all important skills that teachers must help students develop so that they can use the same skills with digital technologies both inside and outside the classroom.

Below are some questions I had while reading:

1. What skills, knowledge, processes do you think are most important to equip students with in order for them to develop new literacies? How can we help students develop these abilities through traditional and digital means?

2. How do we encourage students to use digital tools as resources in the classroom in addition to traditional resources (word wall, classroom library, reference books)?

3. How do we help students view digital resources as tools for information, communication, reading, and writing as opposed to for entertainment such as games, videos, etc.?