This article discusses how digital and media literacy is integrated into an intermediate classroom. We learn about how a teacher and school brought these new literacy ideas through the use of technology and shares how you could do the same in your own classroom.
New literacies are evolving within our classrooms and it is crucial to prepare the students to understand the current and future expectations. Past models of literacy include paper and pencil but new conceptions now involve the changing or reading and writing by the of the internet and computers. These new resources now include more innovative texts, new reader expectations and new activities. They extend the traditional literacy experiences in the comprehension of information of Internet sources.
It is pointed out, that 95% of K-12 classrooms had access to the internet, in 2005, but most students did not have sufficient time in school with this technology to develop new literacies. The teacher holds the responsibility to bring this technology into her class but it is not an easy task. More than 2/3 of teachers feel underprepared to use technology and face challenges like lack of knowledge, lack of technology, lack of school planning, being fearful and pondering about important points before bringing this into their classrooms.
This article follows a particular teacher who has a 1-to-1 classroom, which means laptops for every student. This teacher established and enforced structured routines within his curriculum and instruction. Getting ready for the day, the teacher would pull up everything he needed for the day, including worksheets, graphic organizers, multimedia files, learning centers, writing prompts, and corrected work. The students can came into his room and be ready to use their technology for the day and enhance and enrich their learning. Students can use their computers to work in a whole group setting, small group setting and working independently. When the students are doing independent work, the teacher responds to the student's writing, lets students complete the digital practice sheets and offers a book study for the students.
An interesting part I found was under the "Breaks in Instruction" paragraph. During recess breaks, the students have the choice to stay inside and engage in non-instructional activities. The teacher encourages the students to send, IM (instand messages), email, going on to kid-friendly sites, etc. Students who do not have access at home particularly like this time. Personally, I do not agree with this activity during this time because this should be a time where children should be playing outdoors. I think children in this day-in-age needs to be outdoors and active. We have a serious problem with children being lazy and obese and I think this engagement on non-instructional activities should be at a different time in the day. I'm all for students learning more about computers and technology but not when they should be engaging in physical activities. **I'm very passionate about children being physically active- It's just my personal opinion **
Reading more into this article, it realt game me some great ideas to use in my classroom. I think computers and technology are a wonderful tool to use with the students. As long as the teacher is choosing the correct applications and devices to use to enhance the students learning, I think a 1-to-1 classroom would be wonderful. As Todd said in his interview,
"Every week when I am lesson planning, I consider how I can best integrate the technology. I don't use the technology just for the sake of using it. I want to use it in a way that enhances learning and best motivates students. I find myself borrowing ideas from colleagues, the Internet, and educational publications. I am a better teacher because I am making my students' learning relevant to them and their times."
I think this is a perfect statement for him to make because it corresponds exactly with what we are learning in our class. It directly relates to education and is very interesting for the classroom. I thought this was a great article to read because it has many different strategies you can use within your classroom and a neat resource to use, when planning for a 1-to-1 classroom.
Reference:
Barone, Diane and Wright, Todd E., WETA Washington, D.C. (2012, May). Reading Rockets: Literacy Instruction with Digital and Media Technologies, The Reading Teacher, 62(4), Available: http://www.readingrockets.org/article/29126/
Rebecca, thanks for sharing this! It was interesting to read about a teacher who is actually in a 1-to-1 and how he is using the technology in his classroom. I agree that students should be outside or playing with one another at recess, but maybe that could be an option for students when they had indoor recess. Or perhaps if they had more than 1 recess in a day, 1 could be having the option of staying in while the longer (probably lunch recess) could be spent outdoors. Just a thought! I also feel that I would probably do something similar to the teacher in pulling up all of the day's resources to be ready to go with the day's activities to be able to transition easily from one activity to the next.
ReplyDeleteInteresting article - their take on new literacies is interesting to note. New literacies is a topic that we will be seeing more and more of as we become more involved in these types of learning environments. Thanks for sharing - nice job on summary!
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