I also did my New Literacies project using ScrapBlog, but I decided to focus on emotional literacy. Since the beginning of this class my conceptual understanding of literacy has changed dramatically. It has made me realize that fluency in literacy does not come easy to many people. There are many different types of literacies that need individual understanding of in order to combine and create a final appreciation for literature. The technology I explored was Emotional Literacy and this is a type of literacy that should definitely be addressed in the early grades of elementary school. Students need to learn how to properly express their emotions, not only for writing purposes, but also for their every day lives. This is a communication skill that many adults do not have because they have never been taught the proper way to express their emotions. During my research on emotional literacy I looked up many words in thesauruses to find interesting words to replace boring ones. During this research I realized I always use the same boring words over and over in my writing without even realizing it. Even though I am familiar with unique words that can replace boring ones, I am still stuck using words I feel comfortable writing on paper. It is important that children have a large vocabulary, but it is even more important they know how to properly use those words.

Before this class I did not realize how important prior knowledge is when reading literature. As college students, this is something most of us take for granted. We don’t think about how difficult reading an informational text must be for a student who has no prior knowledge on the subject. When we did the centers in class there was one center focused on idioms. I was shocked to see that many of the idioms I was not even familiar with, I could not draw a picture of the figurative language because I had no idea what it was! This made me realize how difficult the English language must be to learn for English language learners. Not only do they have to learn our crazy grammar rules, they also have to learn the phrases that make no literal sense.

Efficiently providing effective literacy instruction for diverse learners can be done in several ways. This means every individual student learns in a way which helps them succeed the most. With the vast forms of technology available now, providing unique instruction to every student is a realistic expectation for teachers. For example, if a student were to make a ScrapBlog like I did, they would have to have to be knowledgeable in several areas of technology before diving into ScrapBlog. Students must know how to access the internet, upload pictures, and be aware of copy write issues. This technology may be interesting and helpful to one student, but another student may have no interest in a ScrapBlog at all. No only does a teacher need to make sure the new technology will help the student learn, we also must make sure the student has an interest in the technology we want them to use. Technology can also be easily incorporated in curriculum. In the 5th grade a grade level expectation is to write a personal narrative. A digital story or ScrapBlog would be an excellent way for a student to write their personal narrative. They could add pictures and special effects to make the story interesting and personalized. I also believe this would make the project more interesting to read and make.

Literacy Exploration Project

For my project, I decided to use a scrapblog (www.scrapblog.net). A scrapblog is an online scrapbook creator. You can incorporate videos, audio, photos, and text into an easy to use program. Scrapblog also provides designing tools including stickers, backgrounds, and frames, and text boxes. What made this technology so easy to use, was the “grab-and-drag” technology. Everything that you wanted put onto your scrapbook page could be dragged onto the slide. Also, through scrapblog, videos could be easily uploaded directly from other websites, like youtube.com, with just the click of a button. Once you have successfully created your scrapblog, you can choose to publish it. Once published, the scrapblog can be viewed by anyone. Uploading the project onto the class wiki, was made easy because of the “share” option after saving my scrapblog. When viewing the scrapblog, the project can be watched as a slideshow, or the viewer can click arrows to move from page to page at their convenience. Anyone viewing your published work, can leave comments directly under the blog.

If my technological literacy was less developed, I think that scrapblog would have taken me a lot longer to learn. Even so, a fair amount of time was spent just learning the dynamics of the program. For example, I had to learn how to access videos, and how to share and publish my scrapblog.

Before I was accepted into the teaching school, I thought of literacy as being the ability to read and write. When I took TE 301 last fall, I realized that there was a little more to literacy than reading and writing. When I began this class, I could define literacy in one sentence, “the ability to use language to read, write, listen and speak”. My conception of literacy changed again, when I had the opportunity to explore different kinds of literacy during class, for the first part of this project. When reading about different kinds of literacy including emotional, cultural, and environmental literacy, I found that literacy can be defined in much more general terms. I can now say that my understanding of literacy is a lot more developed because from researching environmental literacy and viewing my classmate’s literacy assignments. I someone were to ask me to define literacy now, I would say literacy involves “stepping stones” in learning that enable an individual to develop knowledge and potential, and to participate fully and effectively in society. For example, an environmentally literate person will have the knowledge and skills to make decisions about environmental issues that are affecting their community. A person who is emotionally literate, can express their emotions in an appropriate way which is an important communication skill. And a person who is technologically literate may be able to gain more from their educational experiences.

I now have a better understanding of the importance to provide effective literacy instruction. Effective literacy instruction incorporates all different kinds of literacy into a curriculum. The traditional view of literacy (reading and writing) can be taught through learning of all kinds of literacy in the classroom. Effective literacy instruction results in the development of every student’s literacy knowledge. Also, multiple types of technology can be used in order to teach literacy effectively. If I were to teach scrapblog to Mrs. Tillman’s second grade classroom, I think they would be extremely motivated to use the new technology in their writing. They could make scrapblogs to teach their classmates about a book that they read, or an animal that they researched. Students would be able to revise and edit their projects online. In order to be successful with the technology I think that students will have to be able to: W.PR.02.01 set a purpose, consider audience, and begin to use styles and patterns derived from studying authors’ craft when writing a narrative or informational piece (GLCE’s). Students need to have a plan and set a purpose before they start to use scrapblog, or else their thoughts may be too unorganized. A lot of class time would have to be given to teach the students how to use scrapblog, and the students would have to learn to be very patient when learning the new technology. I think that the benefits of learning a new technology would outweigh the wasted class time, because students would be able to communicate in a new way while developing their literacy skills.

Literacy Exploration Project: Emotional Literacy & Website Technology

I feel like my conceptual understanding of literacy has changed since the beginning of TE 402. In the beginning of the semester I use to think that literacy just had to deal with writing, reading or expressing oneself on paper. Later, I realized that I was wrong. Throughout the semester I learned about book talks, classroom discussions, making connections, building upon prior knowledge, picture walks, comprehension strategies and choral reading. By reading chapters in Tompkins I learned the importance of incorporating reading, phonics, vocabulary, comprehension, literature, content-area study, oral language, writing and spelling into children’s literacy instruction in the classroom. After having the opportunity to work on a new literacy’s project for this class I have learned even more about literacy. I have learned that there are so many different types of literacy’s such as emotional, cultural, environmental, print, digital, visual, social and numeracy. Without having emotional literacy people would not be able to detect others feelings or know the proper way of expressing feelings to others. It is so important that teachers include these types of literacy’s in their classroom in order for students to become exposed and to live a healthier life.

When I first started the project, I needed to take a digital natives quiz. After taking the quiz I noticed that I was a digital immigrant and needed to force myself to learn about new technologies. The only technologies I knew about were blogs, emails, instant messenger and the use of the Internet. I decided to learn how to create a webpage as my new technology. I have always wanted to learn how to make one but previously thought it was too difficult and never tried until this assignment. It took me a while to finally figure out how to design the webpage but towards the end I felt like I had mastered it. After creating my webpage about emotional literacy I realized how important and useful a webpage could be for teachers. If teachers had their students create webpages in the classroom they would be able to share them with other students throughout the building while having fun using the computer. Technology is extremely important to integrate into the curriculum. Technology will affect the way I will teach literacy in my future classroom. It opened my eyes to using webpages, blogs, wiki, digital storytelling, powerpoints and many other literacy technologies that I can use in my classroom. If I create a classroom webpage in the future it will allow the students parents to easily become connected to literacy in the classroom.

It is so critical to provide effective literacy instruction as a teacher to a group of diverse learners in a classroom. This is important for students who all learn differently. Using multiple types of technology can introduce students to different types of literacy’s. If I were to introduce webpage designing to the second grade classroom at Elliott I am sure they would be extremely excited. They could create a class website and have each student create their own page on the website. On their own page they could post their stories that they have been working on for the past few weeks and write personal stories that are informal. This would be beneficial because all of the students in the class would be able to read everyone’s stories. This is part of the GLCE’s where student will be able to explore and use language to communicate effectively with a variety of audiences and for different purposes (S.CN.02.03). In order to be successful the students would need to be patient because creating their own webpage can be tricky. They would also have to edit and finalize their stories before they would be able to post them on the website. Overall, this would allow student’s to create their own stories, read their peers stories and explore a new technology!

Maniac Magee- Vocabulary

As a vocabulary lesson for chapters 1-13, I would provide the students with cards containing the following words on each card:

Clamor, mirage, hallucination, emanate, phantom, hoist, stupefy, pandemonium, lumber, lurch, blemish, wobble, suffice, befuddle, scraggy, cringe, prospect, quiver, infamous, wretch

Students will work in groups of four to find the definitions of these words and write them on the back of their cards. They may use a dictionary, or the book to find the meanings. When they have finished, students will split their cards up so that each person has five different vocabulary words. One student will write a short story containing their five vocabulary words in sentences that make sense. The story can be about anything the student chooses. After the first person has written their story they pass their paper on to the next person who reads the entry and then continues the story using his/her five vocabulary words. This continues on to the next two people. The last person writes an ending to the story with their vocabulary words. Students can ask group members for help when writing their own entries. To close the lesson, students will present their stories to the class.

Vocabulary Lesson: The Gold Cadillac by Mildred D. Taylor:

As a vocabulary lesson, I would have these words in the story: duplex, shrugged, despite, lynch, lurked, strike, drowsiness and splendor.  I would have these words written on the board before reading that part of the book.  Prior to reading, I will ask the students to write out what they think the definition means.  I will have them write their predictions on paper.  After they read the part of the book that has the word, I will have them predict what they think the definition means after they are finished reading.  They may be able to figure out he definition after reading.  As an entire class, we will come together as a group and discuss the words and what we think the definitions means as a group.  I will let them know what they mean and write the definition on the board.  I will put the words on the word wall so the students can reference them and use them if needed.