Visual Literacy and the Classroom

"Although the definition of literacy remains a hotly contested topic among educators and researchers, it is hard to deny that technology is driving the debate. While reading and writing will most likely remain at the heart of standard literacy education, educators should reconsider what it means to be literate in the technological age." This was the opening sentence in the latest article I found called Visual Literacy and the Classroom, by Erin Riesland. With that opening sentence the article drew me in automatically, because it is a statement that many are not wanting to admit is true. What exactly does it mean to be literate in today's society.

According to The New London Group, "one could say that its fundamental purpose is to ensure that all students benefit from learning in ways that allow them to participate fully in public, community, and economic life." So what skills does an individual need then to participate fully in public, community, and economic life these days? From what I believe you need to know how to read, write, as well as use a computer. More than likely you aren't going to come across a job today that doesn't involve a computer. Even fast food chains, department stores, etc are using computers to check customers out, etc.

According to the article, "One major transition is the Microsoft PowerPoint takeover of nearly every office boardroom and college lecture hall. PowerPoint’s saturation has created the sudden need for every office meeting or group gathering to show dynamic multimedia presentations, regardless of content." Looking back at my own education through college I can't remember a course that didn't involve the professor using power-point to teach the material. Usually it was just lecture format, however the use of power point for creating presentations has taken the world by storm and more than likely will not be going away any time soon.

This article challenges what the common culture believes to be the essentials of life. I felt that it was a worthwhile article to read if you get the chance.

Riesland, Erin, Sept. (2005). Visual Literacy and the Classroom. Available: http://www.spnd423.com/readings/Visual%20Literacy%20and%20the%20Classroom.pdf

Let's Talk 2.0

I have finally started having the chance to go through all my educational magazines earlier this week. Looking through them I wasn't looking for anything in particular just trying to honestly clean up space in my office. I came across an article titled Let's talk 2.0: Whether it's Web 2.0 or literacy 2.0, it's a whole new way of thinking by Michele Knobel and Dana Wilber. Instantly this article grabbed me because we have been talking about Web 2.0 in our class and the variety of tools it offers. Since I am still developing my own definition of Web 2.0 I was eager to read the article.

The article started off by asking the reader to think of literacy 2.0 as a new mind-set- or a new ethos- as well as a new practice. According to the article Web 2.0 contains three components: participation, collaboration, and distribution. An example of participation would be this blog here that you are reading, which allows people to leave comments, review work that I have posted, as well as respond to my own opinions. For collaboration wiki's, multi-player online games are each examples of collaboration. For the final component You Tube would be a great example of distribution.

So how does all this lead into calling Web 2.0, Literacy 2.0? According to the article individuals are digital applications, networks, and services; and they are developing ways of reading, writing, viewing, listening, and recording that embody Web 2.0 tools. These tools that are being developed are focusing on Literacy 2.0, which is challenging how schools traditionally have valued a single author for one piece of work but instead now to collaborate together to create a unique piece of text.

This article provided the reader with a variety of Literacy 2.0: Online Resources, below are just a few that we have not discussed previously in our course
- Delicious (www.delicious.com) A free social, Internet bookmarking service
- Fanfiction.net (www.fanfiction.net): A public affinity space devoted to writing and reviewing fan fiction
- Jing Project (www.jingproject.com) A free application that enables you to capture whatevers happening on your computer desktop as a video with voiceover
- KeepVid (www.keepvid.com): Enables you to download a copy of videos from such sites as YouTube.com

These are just a few of the many Literacy 2.0 online resources that this article provided me to find out more I encourage you to read the article. It will offer you a whole new look into Web 2.0.
Knobel, Michele and Wilber, Dana. (2009). Let's Talk 2.0: Whether it's Web 2.0 or literacy 2.0, it's a whole new way of thinking. Educational Leadership, 66(6), 20-24.

The use of Ipods for literacy

I will admit I have never owned an Ipod or any type of MP3 player and as I am writing this blog post a friend of mine is sitting next to me and briefly saw this statement and stated the following, "You have never owned an Ipod or MP3 player, you are so out of the times."

Today in class we discussed the use of Ipod's or Mp3 players within the classroom. I found this very interesting because never having owned one or even worked with one I never saw what it was capable of. All I thought was that they could play music that you have downloaded to it. I realized today that Ipod's and MP3 players offer more than just downloading and listening to music. You are able to upload educational items such as Bailey's Book House, educational videos,etc. You are also able to record, which provides your students with the opportunity to create things such as podcasts.

Some ideas that I came up with for using Ipod's or MP3 players would be to have the students taking them home and interviewing community members, or other individuals for whatever topic you are currently studying in your classroom. Another idea would be with ELL students who are struggling with vocabulary can have flash cards on the Ipod to see an image, hear a word used in a sentence, and read the word in text—and do it as many times as they need to in order to understand it.

Web 2.0

Throughout the past three years I have heard so much about Web 2.0 within my educational technology courses. Yesterday I was introduced to a few more Web 2.0 tools that our out there. The first Web 2.0 tool that I was introduced to was the following website called read-write-think. Now I have come across this website before when looking for specific ideas on lessons, however that was it and if I didn't like the lesson it provided I moved onto a different site. I had never really explored this website prior to yesterday, and I have now found a new favorite website. I really like how the website is organized as well as the amount of information it provides not only educators but also students.

Another two Web 2.0 tools that we discussed was childrensbooksonline.org and storyplace.org. I love how these websites provide so many different tools and resources for the educator. I feel that students could really get involved with the stories on these websites as well as with the games. I recently have been looking for other websites that I can have the students use within the classroom during center time and I believe that these two websites will be actively involved in my classroom this fall.

You Tube in the Classroom

Currently I am signed up to receive newsletters from Edutopia, which is just a website that mainly deals with incorporating technology into the classroom. I received a newsletter that contained the heading of "How to Use You Tube in the classroom". Without even looking at the newsletter my mind started to wander on how it could be used as an educational resource.

My current use of You Tube consists of bookmarking my favorite current music videos. I don't really watch the videos, its used more as a way to listen to music when I am working on the computer or around my office. I never really used You Tube for anything else besides searching for music videos, so obviously had never considered incorporating it into the classroom.

Finally I decided to look over the newsletter. The newsletter contained a link to an actual video about using You Tube in the classroom. The discussion on it was very informative as well as the video itself. Here is the link to the video
http://www.edutopia.org/digital-generation-youtube-teaching-video

I have also been recently introduced to teachertube.com, which is a site where teachers have placed videos that they have either created or students within their classroom have created for other educators to use. It contains not only great videos for literature, but also some great videos over other subjects such as math and science.

Now obviously before using anything off of you tube for educational purposes you are going to want to view the entire video first, and make sure that the sole purpose of showing the video is educational and not just as a filler for time.

What ways do you think that You Tube could be used in the classroom?

Blogging in the Classroom

Prior to this course I had never been fully introduced to the blogging world. I always thought it was a place where people could feel free to write about whatever they wanted that was open to the public for viewing. Now since I am not a big lover of writing I never saw the point of it as well as what the big deal of it was. I was also always worried because I am not the best speller or the best writer and didn't know what people would think of me when viewing my blog, etc. Coming to the end of this course I had found that my views on blogging and the possible use of it in the classroom to have changed dramatically.

I now see blogging as a way to share information back and forth from other viewers. Since starting this course I have become part of a variety of other blogs and have found myself searching other educator blogs for ideas on not only technology integration but everyday activities as well. I have responded to these blogs that I am a part of and have had people respond to my opinions. Its been very interesting with the kind of ideas I have found as well as the people that I have met through blogging.

I think blogging could be used very successfully in the classroom. It would just require lots of work to start up from the teacher, however I think the benefits of it would outweigh the amount of time to get it started up in your classroom. I see blogging being used as an efficient way to connect classrooms whether in the same school building, school district, state, or across the country. Having students express their own thoughts, writing up book talks, student journals, etc would be a great way to allow students the opportunity to meet people from a variety of other cultures, as well as see the viewpoints of other individuals. I also think that opening up a blog for parents might also be a great way to incorporate blogging into your classroom as well as building a community with your parents. This idea is still in the processing stages, but its something that I might consider.

There will be many things to take into consideration if starting a blogging system in your classroom such as discussing blogging etiquette, etc. You need to make sure that your students know how to blog and what the purpose of the blog is. All things you do in the classroom needs to have a purpose, which means that you need to have a purpose and goal behind the students blogging.

Flip Cameras in the Classroom

I was introduced to flip cameras last Fall in CI 403. For a group lesson using the flip camera we had the students partake in an inquiry based lesson, where the students where given the substance of Oobleck and asked to develop questions about it such as what would happen if I heated it up, or froze it, etc. After the students came up with their questions we then had them pick one, test it, and record it using the flip camera. They needed to state the question they were answering and what happened. Then the students created their movie where they stated what they were testing as well as recorded their entire testing process. Once they created their video we had them show it to the rest of the class. Having the students show their videos to the rest of the class aloud other groups to see what other students were testing and what occurred to the oobleck in their experiments. After viewing all the video's the students were divided individually and told that they were going to be going on a trip to the planet oobleck, where they would need to collect a sample of the substance. They needed to create a ship that could land on the planet, taking in all the information they had gathered from the experiments conducted and videos watched.

After being introduced to flip cameras I fell in love with them. I found them to be very self explanatory in the process of recording data, and think that they could be very useful with any age group. In the future I would like to attain at least two flip cameras for my classroom. I think with the preschool age group I would use the flip cameras in small groups ( 5 or 6 students). Some ideas that I came up with for use of the flip camera would be having the students use it with retelling of a story, school tours for new students, record daily activities in the classroom and then showing the video to the parents open houses or conferences to demonstrate student learning, recording of field trips to extend learning after the field trip, etc. Most of the above activities are for teacher use, however that doesn't mean that it doesn't have any possibilities with the use of students. These are just ideas that I have come up with off the top of my head.