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.

Voc. Lesson with Mississippi Bridge

Carrie Podrasky: Vocabulary Lesson: Mississippi Bridge
This text is a prefect example of the opportunity to have a very beneficial lesson centered on vocabulary. With large amount of southern vernacular used by the author through out the entire book, students will probably find at least one word on each page that they are unsure of. As a teacher, I would plan my lesson around exploring the types of words and structure of language used in this story. To begin with, I would make a list of about 20-25 words that as a class we wanted to use for further exploration. I would write the words on the chalkboard or a large piece of paper. Using a dictionary or thesaurus, each student would write the meaning of the word and use it in a sentence or draw it in a picture. The main point of this lesson is to explore words less commonly used in this region but are used in other parts of the country. This could be a whole class activity, individual, or small group. It would depend on the age level and reading level of the class. This lesson could also relate to a social studies lesson.

2/20 Comprehension

Comprehension is a thinking process. It is a creative process that varies among individuals. When people read the same text they may not walk away with the same outlook or information. Because every individual does not have the same background knowledge, are reading for different purposes, have different fluency levels, are at different reading levels and responded differently to text, people comprehensions are different. Different comprehension strategies help people who comprehend differently.

There are eight different comprehensions strategies. The strategies that I use the most are visualizing, identifying the big ideas and monitoring. I believe that I visualize the text because I am a visual learner. Like Tompkins states, I place myself in the story. As a result one of my favorite genres to read is realistic fiction. This is because it is easier for me to place myself in a story that could really happen.

As a child and still to this day, I consider myself not a very strong reader. Due to this fact, it has always been important for me to underdertand the big ideas so that I do not get lost within the text. I find it hard to remember everything within a text. This creates a problem because I am very good at summarizing what I read however I am not as good when it comes to making connections or looking into deeper meanings.

Because I do not always comprehend what I read, I often have to monitor what I am reading. Ways that I most commonly monitor myself is by asking or researching background knowledge. If a story does not make sense from the beginning, it is difficult for me to become interested in it. I also try to make note of what the story reminds me of, in regards to my life and my experiences. By having this personal connection I am able to remember and comprehend more. Last because of my lower reading level I will often ask myself if I understand the words I am reading. This is most commonly the problem with me comprehending what I am reading.

Learning about the different factors that influence comprehension and strategies that people use to comprehend, helped me learn a lot about myself. Knowing the factors that I lack in, also show me what I need to focus on as a learner. Also it reminded me that as a teacher, not everyone is going to comprehend material the say way that I do. Overall this chapter was helpful.

2/20 readings-comprehension

Although I have previously read Tompkins last year in TE, it was interesting for me to re-read chapter 7 and make note of things I do and don’t remember. One thing I do remember that I think is important is that comprehension doesn’t just begin when students are reading. Comprehension begins before the students read (pre-reading) as they activate their background knowledge that relates to the text. It is interesting to look at this and realize that because comprehension depends on both the reader AND the text, different people will often “comprehend” the same text in a different manner. I don’t think I considered this fact when I was planning my lesson plan to read a picture book about “Duke Ellington” to my students, but I was thoughtful in picking this book because the students previously read a book “Bud, not Buddy” that has many connections to Jazz, they are learning about Black History Month, and they are also learning about the Harlem Renaissance in class. I am interested to see which students use this knowledge to make connections with “Duke Ellington” and which students do not.
One important thing I didn’t remember as much about was how teachers must play a part in activating student’s background knowledge, because sufficient background knowledge is a prerequisite for comprehending a text. Teachers can’t just expect the students to activate their prior knowledge on their own, and if students do not have adequate prior knowledge the teacher must decide if it is world knowledge or literacy knowledge that they need and then provide experiences and information to develop that knowledge. This interests me most because I wonder how it will be to learn about each one of your students and consider their previous knowledge and whether or not it needs to be accommodated before reading a text.

2/20 Blog -- Comprehension

As adults we don't often think about comprehension as a strategy, we just do it. Whether reading the daily paper or plugging through our favorite textbook… we don't often think about the strategies we use on a regular basis to understand the material presented. Many of us were taught specific skills at an early age like those presented in Tompkins. These skills are mainly based on the reader as an individual such as engaging prior knowledge of the subject, looking for the purpose within the text, and using skills to decipher difficult words.

Through comprehension, we as readers, make predictions about the text, summarize meaning, connect one reading to another, question the text, etc. I realized throughout the Tompkins chapter, I often connect texts to one another. For me, this strategy is effective in not only increasing my understanding of the materials, but also in helping me recall the information. I also noticed that I focus a lot on the purpose of the reading. School readings I am often more critical and monitor my comprehension more; this is very different than when I read for entertainment purposes. I look for different outcomes from the text when I am reading for a purpose (assignment, research, etc.) than when I am reading for fun.

Applegate, Quinn and Applegate present a series of reader profiles when it comes to comprehension. I think that as a college student, I sometimes read text as a “politician” that is I look for details I think my instructor wants me to find. I’m sure that this strategy has pluses and minuses as I may mislead myself into thinking one subject area is more important than it is (according to the instructor) or I may not connect on a personal level with the text as much because I am too busy focusing on what I think is going to be assessed.

2/20 Post- COMPREHENSION

Carrie Podrasky- After completing the readings for today's class, I feel like I have a better understanding about my own skills involving comprehension. I got a lot of information out of Tompkins chapter 7. In particular figure 7-1 on page 225. Prior to this reading I do not think I realized all of these factors play a huge role in the reader's ability to comprend. I knew factors like content and structure along with motivation played a role but I did not realize inferences and strategies like visualizing and questioning were componets of comprehension. This figure made me think back to experiences I have had as a reader. I can think about times I have read books for lesiure and gotten so much more out of them than I typically do from a text book on something I do not care about. This observation can usually be made by anyone but I never realized all of the reasons why this is true. My own mind makes a purpose out of the reading even if I do not do it consciously. I know if I am reading for a class I enjoy and can get a lot out of I will be more likely to comprehend and understand the content. If I am doing a reading that seems pointless I probably won't comprehend 50% of the information. I also like the figure 7-2 on page 229. This is an excellent tool for teachers. For me, as a student this highlights areas that I am skillful in as well as areas that I need some work in. I realized I do a lot of visualizing and summarizing. However, I do very little predicting. I tend to do more predicting when it is a picture book but that is about it. I think that after reading all of the articles especially the one about special education on angel (Carlisle) I need to work on buliding all of my skills involving comprehension. I need to be able to teach my future students all of the straegies to help them not just the ones I am best at. They will benefit if I become skilled in all areas. Tompkins also talks alot about explicit instruction to develop and encourage comprehension skills across subject areas. It is true that comprehension skills developed in literacy activities will help students to succeed in all areas of school. Also writing tends to get left out of "comprehension" exercises. All of the tools taught for reading with comprehension can be applied to writing with comprehension. Concepts/vocabulary learned from reading will be applied to the writer's work along with learning what it means to have purpose with words. Overall, it is important that teachers to foster all types of comprehension skills. I learned that I was not aware of many skills that help students to become skillful in comprehension and this reading has helped me to become a better reader and hopefully a better teacher.

Hi, all. It looks like your blog is really taking off! Don't be afraid to pose questions to each other and push your peers to really examine their thinking. If you have a question posed to you, think of it as an invitation to think critically about your beliefs/teaching/understandings, etc. The beauty of these blogs is that you can just throw out food for thought, without the pressure of whoever gets the question necessarily having to answer to the rest of the group.

Choral Reading Response

Our group read Dr. Seuss’ “Foot Book” together as a group. Each person was responsible for reading a page, or small passage from the book. Although, we were each responsible for reading a page on our own, there were distinct similarities between our readings. As a group, we actively discussed reasons for what words would be stressed, how fast or slow we would read the text and were we would pause. We noticed that many of our decisions were based on skills we collectively gathered over the years. We instinctively made choices about what words would be stressed and where we would pause, etc. In accordance to the Michigan GLCEs, our group constructed rules for the way we would read and present the text.

Reading response

It is very interesting to see these different theories in practice, and now that I have more knowledge about the theories it will be fun to put them into practice for myself. In my placement, my CT uses Response-Centered talks in the classroom a lot. Although, as with most things, it is not used exactly as described in the text, but the overall concept is the same. The children respond in similar ways discussing the text looking at different themes like being responsible. What does that mean? How do we show we are responsible? Etc. The children investigate these different ideas through a variety of selected texts. It appears my CT takes great care in selecting the stories he reads to the class, and in the types of probbing questions he will ask the students to get them more engaged in the discussion, or simple to spark deeper thinking about the messages presented in the text.

It appears that the students not only enjoy discussing different themes within the text. They get excited when they feel they have something important to say or want to offer up a new insight to the group. I believe this type of discussion and emersion in the text will be beneficial to the students. Delving into complex issues will help the students learn from what they are reading. McGee would suggest students are better able to construct new knowledge from both reading and discussing together.

In order for this type of discussion to go well, students need proper instruction, prompting and skills to effectively participate in such discussions. Students may have a difficult time jumping into this new type of communication. Many students are used to just reciting simple facts about the stories they have read, not really enaging in the story and different ideas from the stories they read. Many students will need explicit instruction into ways (and for some maybe given the permission too) disect the story. There are a few students within the classroom that need more scaffolding than others. They need the extra push to expand their thinking about the stories. And with a little prompting they begin to come further and further out of their shells.

02/06 Blog

~Bridget Daugherty- 2-6-08 blog~I am a digital immigrant. The term emergent applies to my own digital literacy because I consider myself to still be developing in this area. Although I was not familiar with all of the words in the quiz, I did know several of them. The ones that I was familiar with, such as blogs and wikis, I feel comfortable using in a teaching format. After taking a technology class, I learned several resourceful ways to use these tools. For example teachers can use blogs for parent newsletters, leaving parents the option to leave comments or questions. Wikis are a great resource for collaborative work with the students. I know I have a lot to learn, and am excited about learning it. I feel digital literacy can be very resourceful in education with the rising of resources and students interest. Digital literacy and emergent literacy are clearly connected. An aspect of emergent literacy is children learning to read and write early in life. Digital literacy can compliment this idea through the use of the internet and CD programs. There are many programs that are available, even at the preschool level, where students can learn to read and write at a young age. With the high appeal that these programs have, children are drawn to explore more then with other sources.

Am I a Digital Native or Immigrant?

I would consider myself a digital native given my familiarity with the terms on the quiz and the fact that I use technology in every facet of my day, from my morning alarm (I typically use my cell phone for this) to my computer (which I couldn’t live without it). Most everything I do is with digital technology or including digital media. I find computer work essential to both my studies and my professional work; without the computer, internet and my cell phone, I am absolutely convinced I would be lost.

The new digital age can be tied to the idea of emergent literacy presented in Tompkins’ text. The term applies to young children employing different skills such as listening, story telling, letter recognition and others when learning to read. The most important element of the emergent reader is that literacy development occurs at a very early age. This terminology can also be applied to the digital age of today. Today’s emergent techie is exposed to digital media at an extremely early age, from interactive television shows (such as Dora the Explorer and Blues Clues) to text messaging (something my nine year old niece is all over) the emergent techie is fully immersed in the digital age. This total emersion does have a significant impact on the types of activities these children will participate in and the methods of communication we as new teachers will need to employ to reach these children.

Digital Native

After taking the quiz I believe I am a digital native. Although I am not very familiar with wikis and modding, I was very familiar with the rest of the terms. The article says digital natives have appetites for technology and new media, which I definitely have. I also believe myself to be a digital native because I use technology to study, work, play, relax and communicate.
I enjoy using technology for multi tasking or “parallel processing” as the article calls it. I like to listen to music, talk on the phone and/or watch television while I do homework. I also agree that my forms of communication rely much less on the phone and more on email, text messages, chatrooms…etc. Lastly I believe I am a digital native because the article described digital natives as being more interested in fantasy elements whether past or future. I am a big fan of fantasy elements and would like to implement these in my classroom to make it more exciting for them encouraging participation and increasing learning. The article makes a point about technology in the classroom that educators need to identify learning strategies of digital natives learning how they process information and developing ways to maximize these students’ potentials. Although I am familiar with technology I want to learn more about how to use it to maximize my students’ learning potentials.

2/6 Digital Native/Immigrant Quiz

Carrie Podrasky: I am a digital immigrant. The term emergent applies to my own digital literacy in several ways. I am familiar with most of the words in the quiz but not all. I am still developing in my knowledge about new kinds of technology. I still have a lot to learn. There are several connections to be made between this information of digital natives and Tompkins ideas about emergent literacy. The more a student is exposed to the information or ideas the chances are higher that they will develop quicker. For example, in the digital natives quiz, if I was more exposed to different types of digital media I would be a native instead of an immigrant. Children can be compared in a similar way. Children can develop into a developing reader with practice, activities, scaffolding of concepts, and so on. It matters how much time and what kind of time it put into learning and developing. Tompkins writes a lot about adding variety to experience. This relates to the quiz because all of the digital terms in the quiz are for different activities and uses. Exposure matters as well. Mainly, the responsibility of exposing students to various form of literature to help them develop falls on the teacher. It is also important that children have a range of experiences during their emergent literacy stage of development.

Choral Reading

Bridget Daugherty: 01-30-08 Choral Reading Blog
During the choral reading activity my group read The Foot Book by Dr. Seuss. When reading the story we looked at different aspects such as pitch, tempo, tone and rhyme. After talking as a group and re-reading verses of the story several times, we came to several conclusions. First we decided that the tempo we were reading at was fast. We next looked at pitch and found that repeating words such as “feet, feet, feet” were higher and faster. We also noticed that there was a lot of stress put on the rhyming words because they were fun to say.
After looking at the eighth grade GLCE’s I realized that by working in our small groups and listening to the class I was able to extend my speaking, listening and viewing skills. When my group was discussing The Foot Book, we talked a lot about how much focus we put on the rhyming and repeated words, a writing style Dr. Seuss is famous for. We talked about how students can learn from this particular structure of writing what rhyming words are and how to best emphasize that they rhyme; such as using each rhyming word at the end of a sentence. After looking at each factor that determined how we were interpreting the writing, we were ready to deliver our presentation through a choral reading.
After performing our choral reading session, I was able to watch and listen to other groups perform theirs. It was amazing to know that we were all performing some styles of choral reading and to listen to how different they all were from each other. After watching all the groups go, I took note, that this type of reading would be a great way to reach out to different types of readers. With the great amount of variety, it would reach out to both strong and weak readers.
Overall, I believe, choral reading could be very successful in the classroom .By taking the time to perform the stories in TE, I truly saw the benefits. It was hard to believe, well reading through the GLCE’s, that such a small activity, covered speaking, listening and viewing skills.

11/30 post

During this activity we read “The Foot Book” by Dr. Seuss. We did choral reading in the form of small group reading. One person in the group held the book and each person in our group read one page of the book, or one stanza of the poem. Then we discussed the characteristics of our reading and shared what we found with the class.
After viewing the handout: Michigan’s Grade Level Content Expectations, It was clear that the choral-reading activity required me to use or develop certain speaking, listening, and viewing skills. When working on the activity and presenting to the class, I used speaking conventions. I used the tone of my voice and changed the pace of my speaking while reading the poem to enhance the meaning of specific words or phrases. My group noticed that we usually raised our voices and spoke faster during the repetition words of our poem. For speaking discourse, after reading the poem as a group we discussed the poem and the features of how we read it to socially construct meaning for it. We also had to plan and deliver an informal presentation to the other groups in the classroom to show them how we read the poem and explain the meaning we found behind it.
The GLCE handout also includes expectations for listening and viewing. I believe I used the listening and viewing conventions when we had to listen to the other group’s presentations. During these informal presentations I listened for key factors and compared/contrasted them with the key factors of my group’s choral reading experience.
Almasi and McGee both noted that choral reading should improve student’s knowledge by helping them grasp meaning and share insights. Although I didn’t grasp a deeper meaning of the Dr. Seuss book itself, I believe I got a deeper meaning of the coral reading process through our class discussion. We also had the ability to share our personal insights about the benefits of choral reading after our group experience reading the book and then also with the rest of the class while comparing and contrasting our experiences. For working toward capacity goals, I enjoyed being able to experiment with oral language and expression. Our group found ourselves trying to read the poem differently to see how it sound and felt. I also believe I was able to internalize the rhythms, patterns and lyrical qualities of language during this exercise.
When reflecting on my participation and learning during the choral reading activity, I realized that as a teacher I will need to first scaffold my students so they know what I expect of them during class discussions. However, once my students understand interpretive discussions I will need to back off and let my students take control of the discussions. As I plan and teach my language arts lessons I will also need to pay attention to the Great Lakes Content Expectations to make sure I am teaching my students about what will be expected of them in the future for other grades and state-wide testing.

Choral Reading 1/30/08- Carrie Podrasky

The activity consisted of listening to other groups present their choral reading to the class. The audience members had to listen to specific items like tone, pitch, and rhyme as the group presented. The benchmark that relates to this activity is (first grade) L.CN.01.03 (listen to or views knowledgeably while demonstrating appropriate social skills of audience behaviors (e.g., eye contact, attentive, supportive) in small and large group settings; listen to the comments of a peer and respond on topic adding a connected idea). This benchmark relates very closely with this activity for obvious reasons. As an audience member during this activity, I was responsible for actively listening to all of the other groups. The McGee article related closely with this activity as well. McGee talks a lot about staying away from general fact based questions and relying more on probing conceptual questions. The questions that asked and centered on the choral reading exercise were probing why questions. The questions were not simple factual questions, they were questions like “why do you think you changed the pitch at this certain point?” These questions make you think and have to dissect your own behavior. This allowed for conceptual change. I felt supportive within our community during this activity. I thought everyone was really involved and participating in the activity. For my future lessons I want to pay attention to my students’ personalities as I plan. If I have a very passive class, I will make sure I take extra care while promoting discussion based lectures and lessons. If my class is very outgoing and does not need a lot of coaching from me I will let them take the lead and stay out of productive conversations. I also want to pay attention to their own likes/dislikes and interests. Many of the students make sure similar interests and I can use that to my advantage. As I reflect on my own learning it makes me realize the importance of exposing students to various ways to discussion and learning. Every day needs to be different for them. There are many different discussion formats and many ways children can feel involved. Since every student learns differently and feels comfortable doing many different things, changing up the routine can be very helpful for everyone in the classroom including the teacher.

My goals...

This is the start of a new year, and with that the start of a new semester. Many of my college peers would begin the second semester of their senior year of college knowing that it is the last semester of school, but I (for better or worse) have made a pledge to be in school for much of the rest of my life. So this is just another start of another year of school. Beginning new semesters is much like starting the New Year; people like to write out New Year’s resolutions and goals for the coming year and finishing school. I on the other hand rather dislike those practices. I have found that what I want to accomplish at the beginning of the year is rarely even close to my goals, needs and ambitions by the time the year is up. I like to start each year with a few simple goals in mind: be open to new practices, try my very best, stay focused on the task at hand. These are the three goals I use to help keep me centered and focused, and they are the goals I will keep in mind for this class as well.

Response Centered Talks by Bridget

Bridget Daugherty - During my time in the Okemos School district I have had many opportunities to see literacy talks take place, with reading and writing being one of the districts main focuses. The most common type of talks that I see in my first grade classroom are response centered talks. The first grade class is fortunate enough to have the opportunity to work in small reading groups (about seven students) with the help of MSU seniors (myself and Katie G.) and parent volunteers. In these small groups students make predictions about the story they are going to read. Next each student takes a turn reading. When they are done the group begins the discussion by talking about their favorite parts of the book. During this time it is clear that the students are making connections between what they read, what they see in the illustrations and sometimes they make inferences. Next we read the reader’s response question which is an inference question that follows the story. The students have to use their gap filling and problem solving skills to answer the question. I allow the students to openly talk about the question. This is often times difficult however because I feel like students are talking out of turn or getting off subject and I intervene more then I probably should. (I need to work on this!) The students typically come to a common response to the question however this is not always the case. When students do disagree however the conversation is often more in depth because they are more eager to get their response across to their classmates. After working with the students for almost four months doing this style of talking I was never actually ware that it was called “Response Centered Talking.”
Working in small groups away from the rest of the class is a great opportunity for both the students and the teacher. It allows the students the chance to have more input then what they may in a larger group setting. It also provides the teacher a chance to develop an understanding of how the students are critical thinking about the stories they are reading. The approach of having students think critical about the text is a great way to learn. The style of talk that focuses on understanding the plot, characters, theme and ect. is beneficial, however response centered talks allow the students to on what lies beyond the text itself. Response centered talks are truly the window on children thinking.

Response-centered talk

The more I observe and participate in my TE 402 placement, the more I find I look up to my CT, Mrs. Trice, and hope to one day teach as well as she does. I am often jotting down notes about ways Mrs. Trice keeps control of the classroom, interesting lessons she presents to the students, and also the ways the students and the teacher communicate. Response-centered talk occurs very often in this classroom. I have witnessed my teacher many times asking her students to make inferences about different things they have discussed in class. She also encourages the students to make text to text, text to self, and text to world connections, allowing the students to interrupt the middle of a lesson or reading to share these. Currently, the students are reading the book “Bud, not Buddy.” I was able to observe the students in a discussion about the themes of this book where the students worked in pairs to construct deeper understandings of the book rather than recalling direct information from the book. During this particular exercise, it was apparent that some students still require scaffolding. Beth raised her hand and began reading a passage directly from the book to her partner and Mrs. Trice. Mrs. Trice politely interrupted her and asked her to explain how she pictured this in her head. When Beth continued to struggle Mrs. Trice guided her further by asking questions such as, “what does the woman look like?” “What is she doing while she says that?” “How do you feel when you read this passage?” “How do you think Bud feels?”…etc. Mrs. Trice then asked Beth to think of other parts of the book that made her feel this way and hinted to the two girls to use those passages to think of a main theme of the book. There were also students however, who seemed comfortable with the discussion of themes and the response centered talk. I overheard Kenneth discussing the topic of mothers with his partner, Chris. Kyle suggested that “a mother’s love is always” could be the theme because although Bud’s mother passed away, he seems to always know that his mom loved him. Christ then added that Bud spends a lot of time in the book looking for his father, so he suggested that a father’s love is important too. The two boys made a couple connections to their own families, along with other books they had read in class, got very excited, and decided to agree that a family’s love in general was important and that could be a theme for “Bud, not Buddy.” I haven’t witnessed enough literacy in the classroom to be aware of specific types of students requiring specific types of scaffolding, but it is clear that there is a wide range of literacy learners in the classroom from this one activity and I am excited to observe and learn more.

Today's readings: 1/23/08

Carrie Podrasky: After reading today's articles, I thought a lot about the types of things I have seen in my classroom at Gier Park. After reflecting on my time spent in the classroom, I realized I have actually seen a lot of response-centered talks. There have been several instances where I have been in the classroom during group reading time. My CT will gather the students as a class and assemble on the literacy rug in the back of the classroom. He will then read a book from the theme of the unit that they have been currently studying. Usually prior to reading the book, he will have the students make predictions about the story from the pictures on the cover. After the story has been read, my CT will usually open up the floor for discussion. For example, this week's theme is "doing the right thing". So after reading today's story, he asked the class to give examples of doing the right thing in the story. This usually spirals the students off into discussions about other things. I like how he asks a broad question to begin with but this introductory question has somewhat of a right or wrong answer just to get the students started in the right direction. Scaffolding concepts prior to conducting a discussion is necessary. The students must have an idea of how the discussion is going to play out. They must also be familiar with the expectation of going further than just setting, character, theme and so on. The students must also know what to know what to look for in the story beyond the usual traits. If the students do not know what they are looking for it is unfair to ask them questions about concepts they might not have known to look for. As a teacher, you must draw their attention to the important aspects of the story at least for the first couple times this type of discussion is used. After reading this particular article by McGee and learning about the response-center discussion concept, I realize this idea is exactly how I want conduct discussion in my future classroom. Opening up the discussion to opinions and new ideas instead of simply facts quoted from the story is exactly how I want my class to run.

TE 402, Section 2, Goals for class

After reading the syllabus I realized that instead of a few large goals I have a large amount of small, specific goals for literacy this semester. There are many goals I have for this semester to improve my knowledge about myself as a teacher as well as many goals to improve my knowledge about my students as learners.
In regard to what I would like to learn about myself as a teacher, or ways I can improve my teaching practices I would like to learn a lot about research-based teaching principles. In previous classes we have learned about the topic of research-based principles but rarely about specific principles. I would also like to learn about how to integrate a wide range of technology into my classroom that I can use as well as technology that my students can use, to maximize my students’ learning. I know a little about developing learning communities but I would like to get a clearer sense of how I specifically plan to create my own learning community. I would like to learn more about specific assessment strategies, which ones are required, and also those that aren’t required but recommended. Lastly, I have heard multiple comments about how our first few years of teaching usually involve straight following the curriculum. I would like to learn more about following curriculum while including your own creativeness into your teaching.
There are also many aspects about my future students that I hope to learn about this semester. I would like to learn more about lesson planning as I feel that I haven’t had much lesson planning practice thus far. I also would like to learn more about behavior management, especially in the context of accommodating individual needs while keeping control of the entire class. As a future special education teacher I would also like to learn about working with students with identified disabilities as well as those with unidentified disabilities. Lastly, the syllabus discusses learning about teaching language arts to diverse learners, and I would like to learn more about accommodating diverse learners while fulfilling all of the curriculum requirements and maintaining a productive classroom.

My Goals for TE 402

Bridget Daugherty: TE 402, Section 2, Literacy Goals for Class
One of my goals for this class is to build on my prior ideas for teaching literacy. Literacy was a difficult subject for me when I was a child, therefore as a teacher I would like to strive to find multiple strategies, tasks and resources for teaching literacy to diverse learners. With these resources I believe I will be a better teacher of literacy to my students in the future.
With student teaching fast approaching a second goal of mine is to understand myself better as a colleague. Working and communicating with others, I feel, is going to be a major part of next year. Having the opportunity to reflect on my actions as a member of a group will be very beneficial.
My last goal for this class is to become more comfortable in front of my first grade students when teaching lessons. I believe this will come from developing better preparations skills and methods. Understanding my students better would also help me when preparing lessons.
Overall I would like to better understand ideas behind teaching literacy, become a better colleague and become more comfortable when teaching lessons. Literacy is not only a subject within itself, it is essential when leaning many other subjects. For this reason I am hoping that this course will help me reach my goals and become a better teacher overall.

Post for January 16th, 2008- TE402

Carrie Podrasky: Te402 Section 2- Literacy Goals for 402
My goals for this class are different than for most other classes. This course will hopefully continue to prepare me for life in the real world of teaching. My main goal is to understand different ways students learn. I want to be able to better learn methods of teaching literacy for all types of learners. I think being able to teach in a variety of ways is a very important skills for teachers to have when teaching younger children or ESL students. Another goal I have to is become familiar with a variety for genres for children's literature. Usually I tend to focus on the genre that I like best but as a teacher I need to expose students to all different types. I also really want to learn some strategies to help students who are struggling with literacy. Since I am most interested in teaching young children, I want to learn some helpful skills and techniques to coach students who are struggling.
Another goal I have for this course is to learn methods for lesson planning and instructing. I am eager to learn more about constructing Literacy lesson plans. I also anxious to learn more about classroom management involving literacy instruction. Literacy is such a big part of the school day in every grade that it would be helpful to learn more about planning for instruction.
A goal I have concerning this course and my field placement is learn more about my students and my CT. The students in the class continue to teach me a lot every day. Prior to this semester I have seen very little literacy instruction so with that changing this semester, I will be able to learn a lot more in my field placement.
Something I want to learn more about during this course is Michigan Standards for Literacy. I am not familiar with the standards for this subject area and since next year is quickly approaching, I feel it is important for me to learn more.
Overall, I hope to increase my knowledge through the concepts of literacy. I hope to see many examples of effective literacy teaching in the field and I hope to understand more what literacy means through the Michigan Education Standards. I hope that by preparing myself in these different ways, I will be prepared to actually teach in a real classroom.