This chapter of Tompkins was really interesting to me, because I have never really thought about comprehension in terms of genre and text factors. I always think of comprehension as what is being portrayed and explained in the story, but there are different types of comprehension that takes place depending on the type of genre. For example, there are going to be different focal points around folklore stories, rather than realistic fiction or fantasy texts. "Students learn about the subgenres of stories and read stories representing each one, examine the structural patterns that authors use to organize stories, and point out the narrative devices that authors use to breathe life into their stories" (pg. 290). Children begin developing these understandings at a very young age, but it is important to teach them the context of comprehension in all genres and elements of text.
Elements of story structure was also an important element of this story. Characters, setting, plot, theme, and point of view are all significant pieces of story structure that students learn and add up to their understanding of comprehension. These element can develop at different levels throughout the students academic years. For example, I am working in a kindergarten classroom right now, and the way they represent plot is through beginning-middle-end stories. Not only do they do this for comprehension when reading a story as a class, but they also create stories that have a beginning, middle, and end. These are the first understandings of comprehension in plot for younger students which later develops in to summarizing, paraphrasing, and key points from the text.
There are countless ways to present text factors to students and it is vital that we do it in a variety of ways which include different genres and lesson plans. Text factors help students understand the text and use comprehension, but "the goal is for students to actually use what they've learned about text factors when they're reading and writing" (Pg. 312). As teachers, we cannot just give students meaningless activities that have them pick out characters or settings and not have it apply to their comprehension of the story, rather give them activities that can connect to their prior knowledge and real life examples.
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Tompkins Chapter 9
This chapter of Tompkins was really interesting to me, because I have never really thought about comprehension in terms of genre and text factors. I always think of comprehension as what is being portrayed and explained in the story, but there are different types of comprehension that takes place depending on the type of genre. For example, there are going to be different focal points around folklore stories, rather than realistic fiction or fantasy texts. "Students learn about the subgenres of stories and read stories representing each one, examine the structural patterns that authors use to organize stories, and point out the narrative devices that authors use to breathe life into their stories" (pg. 290). Children begin developing these understandings at a very young age, but it is important to teach them the context of comprehension in all genres and elements of text.
Elements of story structure was also an important element of this story. Characters, setting, plot, theme, and point of view are all significant pieces of story structure that students learn and add up to their understanding of comprehension. These element can develop at different levels throughout the students academic years. For example, I am working in a kindergarten classroom right now, and the way they represent plot is through beginning-middle-end stories. Not only do they do this for comprehension when reading a story as a class, but they also create stories that have a beginning, middle, and end. These are the first understandings of comprehension in plot for younger students which later develops in to summarizing, paraphrasing, and key points from the text.
There are countless ways to present text factors to students and it is vital that we do it in a variety of ways which include different genres and lesson plans. Text factors help students understand the text and use comprehension, but "the goal is for students to actually use what they've learned about text factors when they're reading and writing" (Pg. 312). As teachers, we cannot just give students meaningless activities that have them pick out characters or settings and not have it apply to their comprehension of the story, rather give them activities that can connect to their prior knowledge and real life examples.
Elements of story structure was also an important element of this story. Characters, setting, plot, theme, and point of view are all significant pieces of story structure that students learn and add up to their understanding of comprehension. These element can develop at different levels throughout the students academic years. For example, I am working in a kindergarten classroom right now, and the way they represent plot is through beginning-middle-end stories. Not only do they do this for comprehension when reading a story as a class, but they also create stories that have a beginning, middle, and end. These are the first understandings of comprehension in plot for younger students which later develops in to summarizing, paraphrasing, and key points from the text.
There are countless ways to present text factors to students and it is vital that we do it in a variety of ways which include different genres and lesson plans. Text factors help students understand the text and use comprehension, but "the goal is for students to actually use what they've learned about text factors when they're reading and writing" (Pg. 312). As teachers, we cannot just give students meaningless activities that have them pick out characters or settings and not have it apply to their comprehension of the story, rather give them activities that can connect to their prior knowledge and real life examples.
Gibbons Chapter 5
This chapter gave a lot of great ideas about how ESL students go about reading, and also how we as teachers can help them with reading and comprehension. One of the most important things to remember about students who are ESL, is that many times the stories are written with the idea that everyone understand the social norms, which is not always the case. Gibbons states, "We should also remember that most children's books are written with the assumption that their readers will be familiar with the cultural aspects of the story and already fluent in the spoken language" (pg. 83). If we approach teaching ESL students in this way, we are setting up a detrimental learning environment for these children because we are not giving them a fair advantage to learn to their full potential. We must remember that there are many implications for ESL learners, and we have to approach teaching them in a careful and understanding way. Familiarity with the language is also important because there are many words that ESL students may confuse with other words or have two different meanings for the same word. These are all things that we need to remember when teaching ESL students and learning how to approach their learning.
There are several techniques that are discussed in this chapter that can help ESL students with comprehension. One of the most important ones is Predicting from a Key Illustration. I have seen this in my own experience in working with children, because if they are confused about a word, they can look to the pictures to try and come up with an idea of what is going on in the text. Although this is not always going to help the students, it is a good starting point for them to try and comprehend what is going on. Another important technique is Jigsaw Reading. Jigsaw reading consists of 3 or 4 people who each read a portion of the text and come together to share and get the idea of what is going on in the text. Jigsaw reading can be a great way to collaboratively work with students of different achievement levels, and it "provides an authentic context for developing summarizing skills, since each group of experts must decide on the key points they are going to share with others" (pg. 90). These are just a few of the techniques that can be used to help ESL learners, but there are many more on pages 85-96 so I encourage everyone to take a look!
There are several techniques that are discussed in this chapter that can help ESL students with comprehension. One of the most important ones is Predicting from a Key Illustration. I have seen this in my own experience in working with children, because if they are confused about a word, they can look to the pictures to try and come up with an idea of what is going on in the text. Although this is not always going to help the students, it is a good starting point for them to try and comprehend what is going on. Another important technique is Jigsaw Reading. Jigsaw reading consists of 3 or 4 people who each read a portion of the text and come together to share and get the idea of what is going on in the text. Jigsaw reading can be a great way to collaboratively work with students of different achievement levels, and it "provides an authentic context for developing summarizing skills, since each group of experts must decide on the key points they are going to share with others" (pg. 90). These are just a few of the techniques that can be used to help ESL learners, but there are many more on pages 85-96 so I encourage everyone to take a look!
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Goin' Clubbin'
I love that we are spending time discussing the benefits of incorporating Book Clubs into the language arts curriculum in an elementary school classroom. One question I have, that hasn’t been introduced yet in class, is: at what age should students be introduced to the idea of Book Clubs? I believe any student, as young as 5, could benefit from the concepts that coincide with Book Clubs; however, do the benefits outweigh the difficulties that would present themselves when trying to get children that young to understand and participate in such discussions? Should Book Clubs be limited to students in upper elementary? I’m in a fourth grade class, and I really wish my CT would’ve incorporated these activities with his students. The class is divided into reading groups and he meets with each group where they have discussion, etc. but I feel like the students are missing out. They lack opportunities to interact with each other, and learn the correct way to socially interact through the medium of a book discussion.
I can’t wait to introduce this idea to my future classroom. However, I think that the way we have been discussing this topic and exploring this topic in class has created a slightly “off” perception as to how easy/difficult it is. With all the ideas being thrown into the mix about having “reading roles”, writing prompts, student run discussions, etc., I feel like it’s easy to misconstrue exactly how much work this will be. It appears, on the surface, to be a very smooth running, classroom led, activity; but, I think that the only reason it appears this way, is due to the large amount of work the teacher has put into it. We’re not getting a look at the work that goes into this process at the start of the year. I would like to spend some time, as a class, discussing ways to introduce the idea of peer led discussions, correct ways to socially interact through book discussions, and how to respond to writing/reading prompts. Students don’t walk in on the first day of school, already capable of participating in an authentic Book Club discussion, it has to be taught; and I would love to spend time talking about THAT aspect in our TE class.
But as I was saying, a Book Club sounds like a wonderful tool to utilize in a language arts curriculum. I think that book clubs would GREATLY benefit student’s abilities to comprehend, as well as help each child develop the strategies necessary to aid in the comprehension process. Comprehension is fundamental to criticizing, questioning, analyzing, and responding to literature. A Book Club can teach students ways to read a story that will help them comprehend and therefore be better participants in class. As we said in class, Book Clubs and comprehension go hand-in-hand, and I think that teachers should take the time and energy to put a Book Club into place in their classrooms. There are SO many resources on the web to help in this process…take a look at a few here:
"How Can I Help Children With Learning Disabilities?"
The article, "How Can I Help Children with Learning Disabilities," was particularly interesting to me because I am a special education major, focusing on learning disabilities. There were a number of great examples used in the text, and a variety of ideas to use in a classroom with children who have learning disabilities. Now more than ever, we are seeing more mainstream classrooms, where children with learning disabilities are being incorporated into the general education class. It is important that we are reaching out to all of the children in our classrooms, to make sure each and every child is benefiting from their education and time spent in the classroom. Just because a child has a learning disability, does not mean that we need to overlook their needs, but foster their development by coming up with proper instruction techniques.
There are several comprehension techniques that were discussed in this article that are extremely important for students. The first way to foster comprehension is to use collaborative learning in the classroom. Working in collaborative learning groups can be beneficial to children with learning disabilities because it allows students to work with students that have various achievement levels. Working with students that have higher achievement levels, might challenge children with learning disabilities and give them a chance to step out of their comfort zone and work with children that they otherwise would not. It is also important for teachers to collaborate with other teachers to come up with the most effective instruction strategies so they can ensure the students are going to benefit from the material. Communication is another key component of teaching comprehension strategies to children with learning disabilities. Communication between students, parents, and the teacher is absolutely vital for students with learning disabilities not only for comprehension strategies but also in terms of behavior and academic interventions. Providing students with the expectations and standards early on, allows them to know exactly what is expected of them from early on, so the communication lines are open and there is no confusion. These are several of the important issues that were discussed in this article that will really help students with learning disabilities.
It is also important to create a classroom environment where the students feel comfortable participating in various activities that promote comprehension. Mixing up the activities for reading and comprehension keeps things exciting for the students which can be more motivating for them to work with and complete. As future teachers, we want to make sure we are keeping the idea of comprehension exciting for students and promoting reading comprehension in a meaningful way, to show children the purpose of such assignments.
There are several comprehension techniques that were discussed in this article that are extremely important for students. The first way to foster comprehension is to use collaborative learning in the classroom. Working in collaborative learning groups can be beneficial to children with learning disabilities because it allows students to work with students that have various achievement levels. Working with students that have higher achievement levels, might challenge children with learning disabilities and give them a chance to step out of their comfort zone and work with children that they otherwise would not. It is also important for teachers to collaborate with other teachers to come up with the most effective instruction strategies so they can ensure the students are going to benefit from the material. Communication is another key component of teaching comprehension strategies to children with learning disabilities. Communication between students, parents, and the teacher is absolutely vital for students with learning disabilities not only for comprehension strategies but also in terms of behavior and academic interventions. Providing students with the expectations and standards early on, allows them to know exactly what is expected of them from early on, so the communication lines are open and there is no confusion. These are several of the important issues that were discussed in this article that will really help students with learning disabilities.
It is also important to create a classroom environment where the students feel comfortable participating in various activities that promote comprehension. Mixing up the activities for reading and comprehension keeps things exciting for the students which can be more motivating for them to work with and complete. As future teachers, we want to make sure we are keeping the idea of comprehension exciting for students and promoting reading comprehension in a meaningful way, to show children the purpose of such assignments.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Comprehension
Comprehension is a very important part of reading. I have seen this first hand from moving from a 5th grade classroom to a 2nd grade classroom. My second graders are more focused on the words than on what the words are saying. I have sat with many of them and stopped them to ask what they read. Some have no ideas, other can remember some points, and there are a few that can remember everything. The focus on my mini lesson is comprehension so I have done some reading on how to teach comprehension and I find some of the ideas quite interesting. I always forget how useful sticky notes are but I have found so many lessons using sticky notes. Also I talked to my CT about comprehension who informed me that when teaching comprehension to students we should use a book that is at a lower level that she knows the student will be able to read easily. This helps them focus on what the words are saying. If she was going to focus on fluency she would use a book at their level. This makes complete sense but I never thought of this before we talked! Some other tasks that my CT has the students do is they take a new book from their classroom library home every night to read to their parents and then discuss what they have read with her the next morning. She has them in different colored groups that represents the level at which they are at. Each morning they come up to her table and work with her. So far I have seen her work with comprehension and give them a fluency test. Working with my 2nd grade class has really made me see how comprehension is a struggle for students when they are young and how they have to focus on what they are reading not just the words.
As for my reading comprehension strategies, I have used them all in the book. As a young student I struggled with reading and was in a separate reading group with a different teacher. I am a slow reader but can tell you exactly what I read! I find that I am always making a picture in my head of what I am reading. This helps me remember because I already have the story in my head and can go back to it. I also find that my mind is always racing so sometimes I have to stop and think about what I just read! If I can't remember than I go back and reread to make sure that I get the whole picture in my head!
Helping EVERY Child
Helping children with learning disabilities is an essential aspect of every classroom. According to the article “How Can I Help Children with Learning Disabilities” written by Joanne F. Carlisle, there are certain steps a teacher can take when developing a classroom that accommodates ALL students. It is very important that teachers realize that teaching to students with learning disabilities is not a rare occurrence. “About 5% of school-age children are identified as having specific learning disabilities (LD). This means that in a class of 20 children, one child is likely to have a learning disability”. What this means is that we, teachers, need to be aware of the steps to take that will allow children with LDs to not only succeed, but thrive. That is our goal for our students, so why would we be comfortable settling with merely having students with LDs to “get by”. That just doesn’t seem fair to me.
As I said before, there are specific steps a teacher can take to ensure that children with learning disabilities have roper educational care. These steps are characterized by “effective communication and collaborative problem solving.” The first step a teacher should take is to identify whether or not a child has special needs and monitor that child. Teachers need to collaborate with others to prepare a proper educational environment for that child. Communication between educators, the student, and, especially, the parents is VERY important. Regular evaluations are also essential. This ensures that, if any changes occur, the student will continue to succeed. Another step that is important in fostering a caring, safe, and educational environment for a child with learning disabilities is to help that child develop a positive attitude towards themselves and their education. We need to have high expectations for these students; they can live up to them! They just need to be given the chance.
In order to successful complete these steps, teachers should be aware of the ways that they can successfully foster literacy development in their classrooms. Classroom lessons that integrate direct and indirect literacy instruction, with the incorporation of a variety of reading and writing activities that occur throughout the entire day is a very important first step. But, first and foremost, teachers need to create a classroom environment that fosters acceptance. This kind of environment will enable students will work collaboratively and respectfully with one another, and in turn, they will succeed.
"I am not a speed reader...I am a speed understander" - Isaac Asimov
Why is reading comprehension important?? Because it is! Although strong reading skills can help students succeed in language arts and reading class, it is really, only, the beginning. Students have to use reading skills in every single subject they study and in every aspect of life. For example, students need to comprehend challenging science textbooks, work problems, directions, text in an application, as well as the newspaper, websites, etc. It is important, as teachers, that we intervene and address the issues that students encounter in relation to reading comprehension. Those who struggle in elementary school may fall so far behind that they will have limited opportunities as an adult. I don’t want that to be the story of my students.
Currently, I’m spending a lot of time working on reading comprehension with one of my fourth graders. She spends a lot of time in the reading resource room and she struggles with vocabulary and using an “expressive” voice as she reads. All of these issues are negatively affecting her ability to comprehend what she is reading. Often, she will have to read, out loud, a story two or more times in order to tell me what it is about. After talking with my CT about this, we decided that in order to help her comprehension, first, we need to address her fluency. If she can pay less attention to the words, sentences, etc. we hope that she will be able to pay more attention to the content. I think that being able to read expressively without and “choppiness” will be extremely beneficial in the long run. When you can read a story with expression, then you have to understand what is going on. For instance, if you read in a monotone then you miss the exciting, sad, or scary parts of a story; but if you pay attention to those aspects and your voice reflects that, then you will have a much better chance at developing your comprehension.
I like to use the process of “predicting” to help students will comprehension too. I feel that it really forces students to pay attention to what they are reading, seeing, hearing, etc. About half-way through a story, I will stop the student and ask them “What do you think is about to happen? Why?” this forces the students to think about what they’ve read and apply it. They also have to explain themselves and their thought process which is a really high-level metacognitive skill that can promote comprehension too.
According to the National Reading Panel (NRP) “comprehension is an active process that requires an intentional and thoughtful interaction between the reader and the text”. That being said, it is important that we ask students questions during and after reading that forces them to think about what they read and apply it. This interaction between themselves and the text will be greatly beneficial.
Friday, February 26, 2010
Comprehension Procedures and Strategies
Reading comprehension is such an important part of literacy in children’s development, but also one of the toughest things to teach children. From my own experiences growing up, as well as my experiences of working with students in my placements, I have found reading comprehension to be a difficult task for many students. When I was in elementary school I saw a reading specialist several times a week to work on various literacy skills including, comprehension, pronunciation, letter/word recognition, and other components of literacy. It was not until then that I realized how my reading comprehension was lacking from my overall literacy understanding, and what an important aspect it really was to being a literate individual. Being a student, it is quite easy to forget about comprehension when reading a story, because it is so easy to focus on fluency and correctly identifying the words. Children can get caught up with reading correctly, that sometimes they are forgetting about what is going on during the story and the comprehensive aspects that they should also be focused on to gain the full idea the story is trying to portray. Although comprehension can be difficult to conquer for students, and a tough task to promote as teachers, it is absolutely essential that we give students various methods to help them with comprehension.
One comprehension strategy that could be helpful to students is KWL charts. Not only did I use these when I was in school, but I also used them last year in my 401 social studies component. These charts allow children to identify what they know, what they want to know, and what they want to learn. This is a good way for students to represent their understanding and misconceptions, but also a great way for teachers to assess what the students know, and what they need to focus on teaching them. Another idea for a comprehension strategy that has worked wonders in the classroom is reading comprehension worksheets. This allows the students to answer questions from the story to make sure they have an accurate understanding of what is going on in the story. It could also be beneficial to give students the worksheets ahead of time, so they have a chance to see what questions need to be answered, which allows them to look for those answers while they are reading. Students will then be more focused on comprehension and have an idea of what they should be looking for in the text. Story maps or graphic organizers can also be helpful to students who are struggling with reading comprehension because it allows them to carefully map out the characters, setting, plot, theme, etc so they know what is going on in the story. These are just several examples among many that have been beneficial in helping out students in my own placements, and have also made a positive impact on my comprehension development while I was in school.
Comprehension is arguably one of the most important aspects of literacy, because it allows us to identify the reason we are reading a text in the first place. Making sure students have the correct resources and proper instruction to further their understanding of comprehension strategies is vital to creating literate individuals. There are many resources out there that can help teachers and students with working out comprehension strategies in literacy, and it is important that we as future teachers, take full advantage of coming up with a list of resources to benefit our students. Here is a link that offers a couple other comprehension strategy ideas, http://www.emints.org/ethemes/resources/S00000737.shtml. Hope it helps!
One comprehension strategy that could be helpful to students is KWL charts. Not only did I use these when I was in school, but I also used them last year in my 401 social studies component. These charts allow children to identify what they know, what they want to know, and what they want to learn. This is a good way for students to represent their understanding and misconceptions, but also a great way for teachers to assess what the students know, and what they need to focus on teaching them. Another idea for a comprehension strategy that has worked wonders in the classroom is reading comprehension worksheets. This allows the students to answer questions from the story to make sure they have an accurate understanding of what is going on in the story. It could also be beneficial to give students the worksheets ahead of time, so they have a chance to see what questions need to be answered, which allows them to look for those answers while they are reading. Students will then be more focused on comprehension and have an idea of what they should be looking for in the text. Story maps or graphic organizers can also be helpful to students who are struggling with reading comprehension because it allows them to carefully map out the characters, setting, plot, theme, etc so they know what is going on in the story. These are just several examples among many that have been beneficial in helping out students in my own placements, and have also made a positive impact on my comprehension development while I was in school.
Comprehension is arguably one of the most important aspects of literacy, because it allows us to identify the reason we are reading a text in the first place. Making sure students have the correct resources and proper instruction to further their understanding of comprehension strategies is vital to creating literate individuals. There are many resources out there that can help teachers and students with working out comprehension strategies in literacy, and it is important that we as future teachers, take full advantage of coming up with a list of resources to benefit our students. Here is a link that offers a couple other comprehension strategy ideas, http://www.emints.org/ethemes/resources/S00000737.shtml. Hope it helps!
Wiki Reflection
After reading some of the reflections from my classmates, I have to agree with all of them when they say that their outlook on literacy has changed since completing this activity. Before completing this project, I looked at literacy as a means of reading and writing and how that relates to literature such as books and articles. I never realized the importance of incorporating a technological component into literacy, until I saw all the different options that you could use to show literacy. I would never have thought to portray literacy by using a wiki, scrapblog, or comic strip, so it just goes to show the various opportunities that are out there to make a unique depiction of literacy. Not every student learns in the same way, so having these different opportunities to present literacy in a number of ways, will only help reach all of our students in future classrooms. This project definitely opened my eyes to incorporating technology into our literacy learning, and how that can strengthen student's development and understanding.
I chose to do my project using a wiki, and within that project, I portrayed environmental literacy. I have always been extremely interested in environmental literacy because earth science and environmental science were always my favorite subjects in school. I have not had much experience using a wiki, so I thought it would be a good idea to create my own wiki and see what kind of preparation went into creating my own wiki. During the process of coming up with my own wiki, I thought it would it was important to not only discuss how environmental literacy can impact students development in areas of reading, writing, and science, but also to show some of the pressing issues that are facing our environment presently (global warming, destruction of rainforests, and endangered animals). When talking about environmental literacy, I came up with various pages talking about the importance of incorporating environmental literacy into our classrooms, and also provided various resources that could be used when teaching these subjects, such as picture/informative books. We know it is important to present these different types of literacies into our classrooms, but without the proper resources, it is impossible to provide students with the necessary information to further their competence in environmental issues, and the literacy around those topics.
Although the wiki did take much longer to create than I had anticipated, I really saw this projects as beneficial because I am much more familiar with how to use a program like this, which means I am much more likely to use this in my future classrooms. Technology is expanding at an alarming rate in today's society, so it is vital that we as future teachers know how to use this technology, but also how to familiarize our students with these options. One of the advantages of using a wiki, is that is can be edited and changed by both the creator, and members, which is why it could be used as a great discussion tool for students that may not be comfortable speaking out in a large class discussion. The wiki can also be set to private so only the members are able to view what goes on the wiki, which is important for confidentiality issues, especially for students who are in elementary school. These are a few of the advantages of using a wiki in classroom discussions, and how that will help portray various types of literacy.
I feel like my wiki was geared more towards teachers because it was talking more about how to incorporate environmental literacy into our education and schools. The wiki also provided various resources that teachers could be used in their lessons plans, so those aspects of the wiki are geared more towards teachers. Some of the links on the wiki are definitely geared towards upper elementary students, such as the links about how children can make a difference and help decrease global warming, the destruction of rainforests, and how to help endangered animals. This shows another important advantage of wikis because it can be geared towards teachers or children, which can definitely help familiarize both groups of people with how to navigate around the wiki and how to directly get involved with environmental issues and actively participating in environmental education. This type of technology allows students to be directly involved by using the discussion post, as well as exploring the different links that are available to them to explore, which will further their knowledge about the environment as well as this type of technology.
Overall, I found this new literacies project to be very beneficial in furthering our knowledge of how to use technology in our own lives, as well as how to use this in our future classrooms. I am very happy that we got the chance to explore these various types of technology and literacy because it opened my eyes about all the ideas that could be incorporated into our classrooms and how to reach all of our future students using different ideas if needed.
I chose to do my project using a wiki, and within that project, I portrayed environmental literacy. I have always been extremely interested in environmental literacy because earth science and environmental science were always my favorite subjects in school. I have not had much experience using a wiki, so I thought it would be a good idea to create my own wiki and see what kind of preparation went into creating my own wiki. During the process of coming up with my own wiki, I thought it would it was important to not only discuss how environmental literacy can impact students development in areas of reading, writing, and science, but also to show some of the pressing issues that are facing our environment presently (global warming, destruction of rainforests, and endangered animals). When talking about environmental literacy, I came up with various pages talking about the importance of incorporating environmental literacy into our classrooms, and also provided various resources that could be used when teaching these subjects, such as picture/informative books. We know it is important to present these different types of literacies into our classrooms, but without the proper resources, it is impossible to provide students with the necessary information to further their competence in environmental issues, and the literacy around those topics.
Although the wiki did take much longer to create than I had anticipated, I really saw this projects as beneficial because I am much more familiar with how to use a program like this, which means I am much more likely to use this in my future classrooms. Technology is expanding at an alarming rate in today's society, so it is vital that we as future teachers know how to use this technology, but also how to familiarize our students with these options. One of the advantages of using a wiki, is that is can be edited and changed by both the creator, and members, which is why it could be used as a great discussion tool for students that may not be comfortable speaking out in a large class discussion. The wiki can also be set to private so only the members are able to view what goes on the wiki, which is important for confidentiality issues, especially for students who are in elementary school. These are a few of the advantages of using a wiki in classroom discussions, and how that will help portray various types of literacy.
I feel like my wiki was geared more towards teachers because it was talking more about how to incorporate environmental literacy into our education and schools. The wiki also provided various resources that teachers could be used in their lessons plans, so those aspects of the wiki are geared more towards teachers. Some of the links on the wiki are definitely geared towards upper elementary students, such as the links about how children can make a difference and help decrease global warming, the destruction of rainforests, and how to help endangered animals. This shows another important advantage of wikis because it can be geared towards teachers or children, which can definitely help familiarize both groups of people with how to navigate around the wiki and how to directly get involved with environmental issues and actively participating in environmental education. This type of technology allows students to be directly involved by using the discussion post, as well as exploring the different links that are available to them to explore, which will further their knowledge about the environment as well as this type of technology.
Overall, I found this new literacies project to be very beneficial in furthering our knowledge of how to use technology in our own lives, as well as how to use this in our future classrooms. I am very happy that we got the chance to explore these various types of technology and literacy because it opened my eyes about all the ideas that could be incorporated into our classrooms and how to reach all of our future students using different ideas if needed.
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