Visual Literacy and Web Development

Having gone through this experience of learning about a new type of literacy while working with technology, I feel as though my eyes have been opened. The new technology that I chose to work with was developing a website. Although I have attempted making a website before this project, I quit prior to having much success. Creating a website is a difficult task. When I surf the web, I rarely ever take the time to consider the work that is put into developing webpages. Making a page that clearly displays information, is catching to the eye, and easy to navigate is a difficult task that takes a lot of time. On top of not being very successful with web development, I was working with a topic, visual literacy, which was completely new to me. Although I knew that viewing was a part of the language arts curriculum, I never considered it to be a literacy form. In the beginning of the year literacy to me meant exactly what I had been taught, reading and writing. Even Tompkins defines literacy as the ability to read and write. After taking this class and working on this project it now means so much more. I know understand that being literate now means that a person has the ability to read, write, view, listen and speak. Not only do they have to be able to do these, but do them in different ways that allow them to function in society. With the increase in technology in today's society, this means that people need to be able to preform these actions with many different forms of text and media while critically thinking and evaluating.

When I first started creating my website I grew very frustrated. Similar to my first attempt, I was ready to give up. I attended a workshop on how to use NVU but did not learn much and was still lost in the process. Then I discovered Google Page Creator. It was my life saver. The free Google program helped by providing layout pages, template backgrounds, and was simple and easy to use. Once I discovered the program, I was off to work on creating of my website. I found the process to be tedious. On every page I wanted the viewer to be able to get back to any other page on the site. I do not like it when webpages on a site are not interlinked and therefore wanted to make sure mine were. This was a difficult task because it involved a lot of problem solving. What I ended up having to do was view my site live all the time throughout the process, to make sure the links were working and going to the right page. Once I got the basic layout for all of my pages together and linked together, I stated adding in the information. With my website talking about visual literacy; it was important to me that it was visually appealing. I wanted to make sure that my pictures helped viewers make connections to the text that was being displayed. I also wanted it to be simple and not overwhelming. Typically people will skim a page for information. I wanted my site to be direct and to the point so that viewers would be able to find what they were looking for. By the time that I neared the end and was completing my site, I was very comfortable when working with the program and even excited to create and display my work. This was a 360 from how the project had originally stated, when I seemed to be frustrated all the time when working on it.

Developing a website was a great technology to use when learning about visual literacy. The two go hand in hand. With the internet being a huge source of information, students are increasingly turning to it to find resources. When doing so it is important that they know how to visually evaluate websites. One of the first things people do when they open a page, is look at the layout, pictures and other visual features of the site, prior to reading any information. Having the ability to visually evaluate material will allow students to be more literate in an increasingly visual world. Media is everywhere in today’s culture. Students need to learn to use the proper tools to understand, create, describe and evaluate the visuals around them.

Providing effective literacy instruction to diverse learners is important when teaching students to become literate individuals. Visual literacy is a great learning tool for ESL students, visual learners and is a necessary tool for any literate person. Developing webpages can help assist children in their literacy because they will have to evaluate and critically think about the process and stages of development. They will also have to consider what other viewers will interoperate and think about when they are viewing the site. This is a concept that is sometimes surpassed in other literacy projects.

I reviewed the first grade GLCES because I am currently in a first grade classroom. Having first grade students develop a website may be difficult. Some alternative ideas would be having them evaluate websites. One idea that I had was having a teacher create a website on their classroom. This would create a contextual activity that the students would be able to relate to better, resulting in higher motivation and engagement. If students evaluated different sites they could focus on looking at the text and visuals that the site offers. By participating in this activity students would be able to view knowledgeably, and respond thoughtfully to both classic and contemporary texts recognized for quality and literacy. (L.RP.01.02.)

In order to perform this activity students would need to be somewhat aware of how to explore a webpage. This could be taught in prior literacy lessons. Viewing would be a major aspect of this project in order for students to be committed. Viewing a site includes looking at all aspects of the site. They would need to read the information and understand the visuals, while making connections between the two. If there was text on the webpage that said “Today is sunny” and a picture of rain was displayed next to it, students would need to recognize that this is a bad visual because it does not support the text that is displayed with it.

Overall I think that teaching students about webpages from an early age would be very helpful to them as learners. As I previously stated, the internet has increasing become the main source of information. Knowing how to evaluate information and visuals will be critical for students to be literate in the multimedia world that is facing all of us today and even more tomorrow.

Visual Literacy and Web Development

Having gone through this experience of learning about a new type of literacy while working with technology, I feel as though my eyes have been opened. The new technology that I chose to work with was developing a website. Although I have attempted making a website before this project, I quit prior to having much success. Creating a website is a difficult task. When I surf the web, I rarely ever take the time to consider the work that is put into developing webpages. Making a page that clearly displays information, is catching to the eye, and easy to navigate is a difficult task that takes a lot of time. On top of not being very successful with web development, I was working with a topic, visual literacy, which was completely new to me. Although I knew that viewing was a part of the language arts curriculum, I never considered it to be a literacy form. Literacy to me meant exactly what I had been taught, reading and writing. Even Tompkins defines literacy as the ability to read and write.

When I first started creating my website I grew very frustrated. Similar to my first attempt, I was ready to give up. I attended a workshop on how to use NVU but did not learn much and was still lost in the process. Then I discovered Google Page Creator. It was my life saver. The free Google program helped by providing layout pages, template backgrounds, and was simple and easy to use. Once I discovered the program, I was off to work on creating of my website. I found the process to be tedious. On every page I wanted the viewer to be able to get back to any other page on the site. I do not like it when webpages on a site are not interlinked and therefore wanted to make sure mine were. This was a difficult task because it involved a lot of problem solving. What I ended up having to do was view my site live all the time throughout the process, to make sure the links were working and going to the right page. Once I got the basic layout for all of my pages together and linked together, I stated adding in the information. With my website talking about visual literacy; it was important to me that it was visually appealing. I wanted to make sure that my pictures helped viewers make connections to the text that was being displayed. I also wanted it to be simple and not overwhelming. Typically people will skim a page for information. I wanted my site to be direct and to the point so that viewers would be able to find what they were looking for. By the time that I neared the end and was completing my site, I was very comfortable when working with the program and even excited to create and display my work. This was a 360 from how the project had originally stated, when I seemed to be frustrated all the time when working on it.

Developing a website was a great technology to use when learning about visual literacy. The two go hand in hand. With the internet being a huge source of information, students are increasingly turning to it to find resources. When doing so it is important that they know how to visually evaluate websites. One of the first things people do when they open a page, is look at the layout, pictures and other visual features of the site, prior to reading any information. Having the ability to visually evaluate material will allow students to be more literate in an increasingly visual world. Media is everywhere in today’s culture. Students need to learn to use the proper tools to understand, create, describe and evaluate the visuals around them.

Providing effective literacy instruction to diverse learners is important when teaching students to become literate individuals. Visual literacy is a great learning tool for ESL students, visual learners and is a necessary tool for any literate person. Developing webpages can help assist children in their literacy because they will have to evaluate and critically think about the process and stages of development. They will also have to consider what other viewers will interoperate and think about when they are viewing the site. This is a concept that is sometimes surpassed in other literacy projects.

I reviewed the first grade GLCES because I am currently in a first grade classroom. Having first grade students develop a website may be difficult. Some alternative ideas would be having them evaluate websites. One idea that I had was having a teacher create a website on their classroom. This would create a contextual activity that the students would be able to relate to better, resulting in higher motivation and engagement. If students evaluated different sites they could focus on looking at the text and visuals that the site offers. By participating in this activity students would be able to view knowledgeably, and respond thoughtfully to both classic and contemporary texts recognized for quality and literacy. (L.RP.01.02.)

In order to perform this activity students would need to be somewhat aware of how to explore a webpage. This could be taught in prior literacy lessons. Viewing would be a major aspect of this project in order for students to be committed. Viewing a site includes looking at all aspects of the site. They would need to read the information and understand the visuals, while making connections between the two. If there was text on the webpage that said “Today is sunny” and a picture of rain was displayed next to it, students would need to recognize that this is a bad visual because it does not support the text that is displayed with it.

Overall I think that teaching students about webpages from an early age would be very helpful to them as learners. As I previously stated, the internet has increasing become the main source of information. Knowing how to evaluate information and visuals will be critical for students to be literate in the multimedia world that is facing all of us today and even more tomorrow.

New Literacy Reflection

Jennifer Horton
The new technology I explored for my new literacies project was the MacBook progam iMovie. This program takes video clips and pictures and helps you convert them into movies or slideshows by adding sound, text, and transitions. Using the technology the way I did with only pictures is similar to digital story telling, but with movies it is much more unique. I had previously made slideshows in powerpoint but this program made the slideshow as a whole instead of step-by-step as powerpoint does. This was also different for me as I learned how to apply music to the whole slide show as oppose to each slide, and I also learned how to record my own voice over the music so I could narrate the show.
At the beginning of class my understanding of literacy was focused around
reading, writing, and comprehension. From review in class and Tompkins I recalled that literacy involves vocabulary, fluency, phonics, phonemic awareness, and comprehension. From further reading and our class web assignment my understanding of literacy grew even more to include cultural literacy, emotional literacy, and digital literacy which all tie together and interconnect around print literacy. I now believe that because of the growing and connecting world we live in today, to be a truly literate person, you must have knowledge in all of these literacies and not just print. Exploring my MacBook and the imovie feature of it helped me learn about myself as a literacy learner. It made me realize that I was not as technology savvy as I previously believed and that I can easily become frustrated and experience “overload” by working with a technology I’ve received no previous instruction on how to use.
As my knowledge about literacy continues to grow, I begin to get a deeper understanding of how literacy in language arts should be taught. Creating the concept map, reading Tompkins chapters 2,7, and 8, discussing them in class through sharing personal experiences, and creating the graphic organizer helped get me to where I am now with understanding literacy. These experiences showed me that you will have all types of literacy learners who are stronger in some aspects of literacy and need more work in other aspects of literacy. It is important to address all types and all concepts of literacy to build students who are strong in all aspects of literacy.
To provide “effective literacy instruction” to diverse learners is to provide instruction on all aspects of literacy: vocab, fluency, phonics, phonemic awareness, and comprehension. The important part however, is to provide instruction of these aspects in a wide variety of literacies: print, cultural, emotional, and digital and help students explore how those literacies all relate to each other and build upon each other.
This new technology required a lot of commitment from me to download the pictures and music into the program, organize the text, time the texts with the slides, and figure out how much time to keep each picture on the screen and how to time the text to match up with each picture. I also had to get help from the technology experts at MSU which took extra time. I needed to understand my computer’s microphone and recording capabilities, and how to navigate through the program to add each feature. Although I did not use this technology for actually making a video, I believe students who work well with powerpoint could be successful in using the program to make a skit or presentation for the class. However if the students were simply making a slideshow of pictures with text, I would recommend using powerpoint because I believe it produces similar results with less complications. I also believe developing a strong understanding from powerpoint can help K-8 students be more successful in high school and college as powerpoint is frequently used for presentations where iMovie is used much less often.
Exploring this new literacy helped me develop a deeper understanding of literacy instruction. However, exploring a new technology that I had no background knowledge about was frustrating and at times I wanted to switch to a more simple technology I was already familiar with. This taught me that when encouraging my students to explore new things I need to give them a sufficient amount of background information to reach the goals I set for them without making their stress levels so high that they want to give up.

NEW LITERACIES

My conceptual understanding of literacy has changed a lot over the past ten weeks. I have become more aware of literacy all around me. Before this class I did not really give much thought to anything except regular print literacy. After exploring different types of literacy and researching information, I am more aware of literacy in different places. This is important for my growth as a teacher candidate. It is my job as a teacher to expose my students to various types of literacy whether it be cultural, environmental, etc. For my students to understand the importance of diversity within literacy, I must understand diversity within literacy. Before this class, I did not really think too much about how to expose my students to various types. I thought I would obviously include everything I could but now I realize how much scaffolding needs to be done. Connections have to be made. This is something I learned in this class and about literacy in general. It is great to read a lot to students but connection need to be made apparent to students. Students must also understand the purpose of the lessons. Before this class, I thought as teacher you could tell the students why it is important to learn concepts but you have to show them the importance as well. For example, phonics is not only an important skill so someone can sound out a word and hear the sounds but so they can learn words in the future. The students need to see the necessary links between concepts and life. I have also learned a lot about the technology aspect of classroom literacy. Technology is an asset that has not value. It also students to gain insight into a whole new world. For example, in Digital Photo Telling, students are exposed to worlds far away from them or the world they live in. Prior to this class, I thought digital photo story was just something done for weddings or graduations. Now I know this technology medium can be used for any concept in any grade. It is also very easy to work with for students to use by themselves. The technology I explored just adds details and evidence to my understanding of literacy and my way of thinking.
The technology that I explored helps provide effective literacy instruction to diverse learned in several ways. This type of technology (digital photo story) aids in the teaching of any concept by adding pictures and sounds along with text to explore any concept. Effective literacy instruction means relaying a concept(s) that touches all students of all backgrounds, races, genders, socio-economic levels. The instruction is not bias in any way and does not explore one-sided arguments. Students can relate to the instruction and feel like the concept is meaningful. Students are a part of the lesson and share ideas. Digital photo story can help with this because students can share their own stories through this technology. This can connect everyone in the class. This also builds classroom culture. This technology can be used in any curriculum in any grade. The teacher could use this technology to do a picture walk, explore the theme of a story, create another medium for writer's workshop, and more. Since the author of the digital photo story can add sound/voice to the story, the students are increasing their skills level not only in reading but in writing, listening, and speaking. The students can better grasp the concepts if they are passionate and having fun with their ideas. This technology really informed my teaching involving literacy. This showed me literacy instruction isn't dry and repetitive. Every day and every concept can be different. It is up to the teacher to effectively teach literacy using many different mediums. The GLCE's outline many different skills that can be developed through the use of techonology. Communicating with others, exploring text features, reading graphs, making connections, taking postions, and providin evidence for ideas are all things that can be shown through digital photo story. This medium is prefect for all age levels and many concepts. Using specific ideas, teachers can use this program to their advantage and bring the whole class together.

Vocab Lesson Plan

I wrote my lesson plan out before completing the readings for this week and suggested doing a discussion-based lesson where the students work in groups to find the meanings of different words used in the text that are unfamiliar to the students by discussing how the word is used and looking at the text around the word. I would then have a whole-class discussion about why the author might use those kinds of words and what kind of tone/feeling he sets in the reader by using that type of language. Looking back on the readings I really like the ideas of vocabulary field trips, and word sorts, but I feel that the vocabulary difficulty of this book lies in the words that are "southern" or written the way they are spoken instead of the way they would be spelled in gramatically correct English.

Vocab: Mini-lesson

I would make a word wall as a class, and as an extension activity for the children I would have then create Cluster Grams (something like a word chain) from the selection of words on the word wall. The world wall would give the class as a whole an opportunity to review the words that are “interesting, confusing or important…” (Tompkins, pg 209). Not only could the class discuss the words put on the word wall in the moment, but the words would be available for students to observe, use or expand upon in other subjects and writings as well. Students would make word chains as an extension activity; however, I would not focus on making actual chains for the assignment. Instead students would take five to ten words from the word wall and connect them in a word web adding the relating words to a cluster off of the word web. This activity would serve as a visual exercise for the students, but that could be continually added upon over time. When discussing the use of word walls and word cluster grams, I would continually stress the uses of such activities outside of the classroom. The word clusters would be located in their vocabulary notebook as an on-going project for the students.

Vocabulary Mini Lesson

Introduction:

Reading is one of the most important methods for students to learn new words. When reading a book it is important for the teacher to highlight vocabulary words that are related to the focus unit or thematic unit. Children can also find words to focus on through book club roles such as the, “Word Wizard”. Once these words are set aside to work with, mini-lessons can be developed to teach multiple meanings of words, etymologies, idioms, dictionary use, and other word study skills. Teaching mini-lessons on the meaning of individual words is one of the main guidelines for teaching vocabulary. The following is a mini-lesson that focused on the book Mississippi Bridge.

Words to focus on during the mini-lesson:

· Racism

- The belief that people of different races have different qualities and abilities, and that some races are inherently superior or inferior

· Prejudice

- An unfounded hatred, fear, or mistrust of a person or group, especially one of a particular religion, ethnicity, nationality, sexual preference, or social status

· Depression

- A period in which an economy is greatly affected by unemployment, low output, and poverty

Mini-Lesson

1. Prior to reading the story the teacher will introduce the three new words, and explain how it is going to be important to understand the meaning of the words in order to understand why people behave the way they do in the story Mississippi Bridge. The teacher can begin by giving the students some background information on the setting of the story.
2. Next Students will make prediction on what they think the meaning of the word is and record whether their answer is a guess or if they think they really know it. Then the class will read pages 7-24. This part of the story will really put into context the idea of the time period and how racism, prejudice and depression are key vocabulary words for the unit. Students will re-predict again.
3. Next students will receive a worksheet. On one side there will be the three listed words and on the other there will be three definitions. The students will need to draw a line connecting one word the correct definition. When completed the class will review the worksheet and make corrections to make sure all students have the correct answers.
4. Students will work in pairs. Each group will be assigned one of the vocabulary words. Together they will have to create a small poster that includes the definition and a picture that represents what the definition means. They will present it to the class when completed. The words will then be added to the word wall.
5. To asses the students I will ask each of them to write the definition of each of the words. Then I will ask them to use the word in a sentence while writing about the story Mississippi Bridge.