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.