I have not blogged for awhile, but must get back into the routine. I am starting a new course as I continue to pursue my MET degree called EDET 573: Technology to Enhance Literacy. I will continue to post and have discussions with fellow classmates. I enjoyed the discussions on the blogs in a previous class and I am excited about this new class. I am a 2nd Grade ELA Teacher and have a great passion for reading. Reading is the last thing I do before I close my eyes at the end of a busy day. Look to the right of this post to view my complete profile.
Literacy has always been reading and writing to me. After watching the video recommended for Week 1, several people who spoke on the video were not just using the words "reading and writing" when discussing literacy. In today's world, most do not talk about literacy without involving the words "technology". While reading this week's lecture, I realized that I shouldn't think of technology as a tool. I've always referred to it as a tool. The instructor would like it to be more what we can actually do with it. I like that she is going to provide tools, but give us choices throughout this course.
My expectations for this course are to gain more ways to make the reading and writing I do with students more interactive. This would allow students to be more creative. I would like the students to be more engaged with their reading and writing. Last year, I experimented with Twiducate and was very happy with it. I plan to use it again this year. The students paid more attention to their writing, especially spelling and grammar. By seeing and reading each other's posts, it gave them the extra nudge to want to do better. As the teacher reading their posts on Twiducate, I saw the growth in their reading and writing as the year went along. I'm not ready for my students to be on Twitter yet, but I feel they are ready to blog with my help. During the last course, I added a discussion board to my website/Ning. I am excited to introduce this to my students and use this next year. Click here to see what is new on my class Ning.
Through the last course, we created a Wiki Project, a Ning, and a Digital Story Kit. I look forward to expanding on those in this course. How do you use technology in the classroom to keep your students engaged?
Your discussion board piece is very interesting. Make me a little upset that I opted to transfer hours, rather than take the last course. I am excited to see how this course fills our resource box!
ReplyDeleteHi Bonnie. I enjoyed reading your blog entry... To answer your question, at the high school level, I think we have a unique opportunity to involve student choice when using technology. I think choice is a large part of engagement, because when students are able to choose what they would like to do with the content given, they are naturally more engaged. So, I guess I didn't really answer the question, but I see more engagement when students are given a choice regarding which tool they can use related to technology. I can imagine that is difficult with your kids, because they need more structure than high schoolers.
ReplyDeleteIn the intro of the Literacy 2.0 textbook, they have a great table that lists tools that can be used for different functions, such as communicating, collaborating, and presenting. That was a really awesome visual for me to see which tools can be used for each purpose.
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