Double Journal Entry #6

Seven Power Lens on 21st Century Literacy

Quote:

"The tools of visual, media, and information literacy must be taught in school because they will (or wont) be used at home"

Reaction:

I think this statement is not only true of using the tools of literacy but of any skill a student can learn. Student's will learn for themselves how they feel comfortable doing any task. This includes how they surf the web for information. Just like our teachers had to teach us to analyze symbolism and rhetoric in books, we as teachers of 21st century learners need to teach our students how to analyze critically the information they obtain on the Internet.
As a future Social Studies teacher, I know it is my job to create citizens and teach citizenship in my classroom. An informed citizen in one who can be critical of the information and visual images being shown to him or her. Being able to critically analyze information is a skill, like many others, that needs to be taught to be understood completely. It is our duty as teachers to make sure students are well informed at school and in the real world. Teaching information and visual literacy skills is something we should take seriously if we expect to create an informed and critical future generation.

Related Resource:

This photo is just a funny and cute way of saying that students begin using the Internet and scanning information on the Internet at an early age. To help these students gain the right idea from the images they are seeing they need to learn how to be critical thinkers. It is our job as teachers to help students learn these skills.

Citation:

 

"baby on the computer - Bing Images." Bing. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Sept. 2011. <http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=baby+on+the+computer&view

 

Abilock, D. (2003, Nov. - Dec.). A Seven-power Lens on 21st Century Literacy. Multimedia Schools, 1, 30-35.

Photo Analysis

Photo #1

• From my analysis of this picture I can infer that Obama is confident of how he will handle this situation since he looks so confident
• The support system surrounding Obama tells me that he has plenty of people to help him with the situation
• The overall atmosphere of this photo is one of confidence. Seeing this picture would help me to believe that the president has the situation under control.

Photo #2



• From the strain on the President's face I can infer that he is confused about the situation and doesn't know how to handle it.
• The fact that Obama is alone in his office lets me infer that he is handling the situation alone which leads me to doubt the the effectiveness of whatever decision he makes
• The President looks pake in this picture which tells me he is worried about the situation which makes me worried about the situation.

The first picture definatelty makes me feel more confident of the president and gives me more confidence in the president's abilities because he himself looks more confident in this picture.

Double Journal Entry #5

Quote:
"Teachers will find that they cannot guide and evaluate students' multimedia projects as effectively as they can the text-based projects that they are used to. To help, we need more art teachers working across the curriculum with content-area teachers. The most pressing need right now is to develop design skills, graphic literacy skills, and skills that knit together pictures and words into unified presentations."

Reaction:
While I agree that this is an important first step into the education of digital literacy to students, I believe the content teachers themselves should be learning how to use the digital tools available to their students as well. As teachers we need to remember that one of our duties to our students is to constantly learn with them. As technology and the world changes, we have to be able to adapt to those changes in the classroom. Content teachers shouldn't rely on others to teach students how to express themselves. Art is becoming an important part of learning and to facilitate that new media we as teachers need to master the tools ourselves first and then teach them to students. A baby needs to learn how to use a fork before they can successfully (and neatly) feed themselves just like a student needs to learn how to use the tools of digital media in order to successfully express themselves using technology. Art is like any other subject matter, you have to learn the fundamentals before you can become great at it.
Teachers owe it to their students to be students themselves when it comes to learning new tools and technologies for teaching. Just because you aren't comfortable using a digital media tool doesn't mean that you should deprive your students from using it. Teachers need to teach themselves before they can ever begin to use any educational tool in the classroom.

We must remember as teachers we should never stop learning.

Citations:

Ohler, Jason . "Art Becomes the Next R." Educational Leadership Magazine 58.2 (2000): 16-19. Google Docs. Web. 22 Sept. 2011.

LIFE. "senior on computer - Bing Images." Bing. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Sept. 2011. <http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=senior+on+computer&view=detail



Using Digital Stories in the Classroom

In class we had to use a quote about education to form the basis for a digital story. We used a minimum of 5 images to create a digital story around the quote we chose. We used Windows Photo Story 3 to accomplish this task. The quote I chose was "Tell me and I'll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I'll understand" -Chinese Proverb. I think this is a powerful quote for any aspiring teacher to understand. Students need to be involved in learning to really gain anything from it.

The digital story project falls under the ISTE NETS standard 1 which is "Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity" A digital story is just another form of media for a student to use to express their opinions and ideas in a creative way. It also goes with my quote that a digital story involves the student in their learning which helps them understand the material better.

A digital story project can definitely be used in my future classroom to facilitate learning. It can allow students to master content while allowing them to express their ideas. I am an aspiring social studies teacher and this could be a valuable digital tool in citizenship education. This project can help my students express their political or cultural ideas and opinions in a way that also provides a creative outlet for them. I think in my future the digital story will be an invaluable resource.

An activity I think I may be able to use in my teaching future would be one that deals with citizenship education, cultural diversity, and geography. I would assign a different country to each student and in their photo story they would be required to locate the country and display images of maps and geographical terrain of the country. They would also use what they learn from the culture to create a fictional story about themselves traveling tot he country and the cultural differences they may encounter. The students would then present their photo stories to the class so everyone would have an opportunity to learn about the different cultures in our world. I think this activity will not only stimulate my student's creativity but also assist them in learning about different cultures and countries.

Overall I believe digital storytelling is a very useful too to not only stimulate creativity for students but also to involve them in the learning process so they may better understand the content.

Help Me Learn

Double Journal Entry #4

Quote:
"The important question for educators to ask is, "What does digital storytelling offer education?" The answer is "a great deal" if we do two things: focus on the story first and the digital medium later; and use digital storytelling to enhance students' skills in critical thinking, expository writing, and media literacy."

Reaction:
Digital storytelling, along with any other technological tool for the classroom is subject to how you use it. Just teaching the skill of technology is useless to students unless you also teach them how to use it to its full potential. Also, using technology is great for the classroom, but sometimes its easy to forget that technology is meant to facilitate the learning of the subject material, not replace it. Students still need to know the content they have always needed to know, in this case literacy. Just because a student can use every tool and graphic out there to make their presentation "cool" doesn't mean they have grasped the concept of the assignment. Digital storytelling is a tool, just like any other tool you would use in the classroom. Compare digital tools to school supplies. A piece of paper and a pencil will help you write down letters to better learn the alphabet, but just knowing how to use a paper and pencil will not help you with the task of writing letters. The content that is being taught through digital media is what is important in education.

I believe technology is a great tool we as teachers can use to facilitate our subject matter. But we need to remember, students need to understand the content of what they are doing before they can apply it to any form of media, digital or not.

Related Source:

I think this cartoon is a funny example of how some students let their technology and digital media focus get in the way of the content they are supposed to be learning about!



Citation:

Ohler, J. (2005, December). The World of Digital Storytelling. Educational Leadership, PDF, 44-47

Glasbergen, R. (n.d.). Education Technology | Randy Glasbergen - Today's Cartoon. TODAYS CARTOON by Randy Glasbergen. Retrieved September 13, 2011, from http://www.glasbergen.com/?s=education+technology

Comix Creation!

Double Journal Entry #3

Quote: 
" She predicts that the number of “textisms” will stop growing as people continue to develop more proficiency in using handheld devices and as the devices continue to grow more sophisticated than simple telephone touch pads."


Response: 
I believe that the only reason people started using shorthand in text messages in the first place is because it used to be so tedious to text using only the numbered keys on a cell phone. When you have to push a button twice or even three times to create a letter you begin to come up with shorter ways to convey the same message. 
Now that even the simplest phones have full keyboards, if you are a "texter", it has become much easier to write complete sentences. I myself used to abbreviate everything I said in a text message when I had an older phone. Now that I have a full keyboard on my phone I rarely use abbreviations. I even write out the words "you" and "are" now. It has become easier to use proper spelling in text messages so I agree with the quote, that soon "textisms" will fade out as phones become more sophisticated. 


On a different note, I was disturbed by the quote from the British Based Spelling Society that said  “Our present aim is to raise awareness of the problems caused by the irregularity of English spelling. We DO NOT support solutions.” My thought is, if your not going to look for a solution to a problem, why raise awareness of it in the first place??? For example, the point of raising awareness of cancer is to facilitate better learning of how to find solutions and hopefully a cure to the problem of cancer. Sorry this quote just bugged me. 


Related Source:

Compare these two models of cell phones, which one would you rather text on?

Sources:

Shea, A. (2010, January 22). The Keypad Solution. The Times Magazine, New York Edition, MM122. Retrieved September 11, 2011, from http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/24/magazine/24FOB-onlanguage-t.html

Full Keyboard input Cell Phones Quad Band JAVA FM Dual SIM JinxingX2,Full Keyboard input Cell Phones, mobile dual sim phones, quad band cellular phones,dual sim quad band cell phones, buy mobile phones wholesale . (n.d.). Mobile Phone, T Mobile, Wholesale Cell Phone, Cheap Cell Phones, China Mobile Phones, T Mobile Cell Phones, Cell Phones for Sale-- www.mobilephone-us.com . Retrieved September 11, 2011, from http://www.mobilephone-us.com/full-keyboard-input-cell-phones-quad-band-java-fm-dual-sim-jinxingx2-p-587.html

Moran, A. (2010, July 22). California teen barters old cell phone for 2000 Porsche Boxter. Top - Digital Journal. Retrieved September 11, 2011, from http://digitaljournal.com/article/

Learning Style and Picassohead!

From the learning style test I learned that I am a kinesthetic learner! I already knew that I'm a learner who prefers hands on teaching so this didn't really surprise me at all! I think this test was very acurate in describing my learning style. Knowing that I learn by doing I should adapt my learning and studying skills by using examples and activities to help me learn. I also know know that I will be a better teacher if I use plenty of examples and hands on activities when trying to engage my students. I also know that there are different learning styles so I should definitely incorporate those into my teaching style to better facilitate all my students.

How does using Wordle and Polleverywhere address Standard 1 of NETS-T?

Polleverywhere is an online audience response system which allows people to answer poll questions using their computers or mobile device. In this course we used Polleverywhere to create questions to enable us to get to know our classmates. We each created a poll on Polleverywhere and were asked to respond to our classmate's polls. 


Woordle is a text analysis tool which allows the user to input a series of words and phrases that then can be transformed into a unique, and eye catching image of those words. In this course we used our responses from our classmate's answers in our Polleverywhere questions and inserted them into a wordle which allowed us to view the responses in a creative way. 


I think it would be interesting to use Polleverywhere in my secondary social studies classroom. I would like to use the question "What does it mean to be a Citizen?" at the beginning of a unit on citizenship. Then the students could use their phones or computers to brainstorm answers. The fact that the poll answers are anonymous makes this activity even better because it allows the students to answer without feeling that they might get teased for their answer. In a secondary classroom I think anonymity can be very important. 


Wordle and Polleverywhere definitely meet the ISTE's first standard. These tools allow students to be thoughtful and anylitical while encouraging creativity. They also allow students to reflect on their responses in a creative way. These tools also enable students to work collaboratively while using digital media. 


In my future classroom I believe these tools will be very useful. There are so many ways I can use Polleverywhere from anything to brainstorming activities to getting to know each other activities. Plus, what secondary student would love for their teacher to say "Okay everyone, get out your cell phones!" Wordle would allow me to help students reflect on their responses in a creative way. I believe both these tools are ones we all can use effectively in our classrooms as future teachers. 

*LOL*

I believe this picture represents the confusion which acompanies the new technological language. The fact that I personally can understand this text message just shows how intergrated into the new casual language of technology we are all becoming.

Source:

 

vicky, vicked. "SMS Language: How To Write SMS In English - Shorthand SMS : Sms Collection." Mobile, Software, Wallpapers, Articles, SMS, Tutorials, Tips and Tricks. N.p., 3 Sept. 2009. Web. 1 Sept. 2011. <http://forum.xcitefun.net/sms-language-how-to-write-sms-in-english-shorthand-sms-t37338.html>.

Double Journal Entry #2

Quote:
"Before we despair that language is going to hell in a handcart, we should remember two lessons. First, normativeness in language goes through cycles, much like taste in music and politics. All is not lost. And second, regardless of the swings that language goes through, there is room for individual schools or teachers to set their own standards. Most schools have abandoned teaching handwriting, but a few have held their ground, to the good fortune of their students. Just so, if you choose to insist on written precision, students generally will follow your lead."

Response:
I agree with this statement. I believe that all languages change and develop over time. We as Americans, for example, don't speak or write in the same way we did 200 years ago. This is why most people have difficulty reading and understanding old documents like the Declaration of Independence. Words that were used then just simply aren't used now. However, it is important that students understand older versions of language so they can look at that old document and understand it's meaning. Otherwise history could be lost through the ages.

I liked how the author of this article used the example of Old English being obsolete today. A typical student in America today, if given a document or story written in Old English, would probably be horrified that they would even have to try to decipher the strange language on the page. Language is constantly changing and people should be aware of the changes and adapt to them.

If students are expected to use proper grammar and avoid abbreviations while in the classroom, they generally will. Most students understand that there is a difference between scholastic language and casual language. People throughout history have used different dialects and words while talking to close friends than when they are talking professionally. In cultural study language is actually broken up into sub-categories including Intimate language, Casual Language, and Professional Language. Its is accepted that a person will talk to their spouse in a more casual manner than their supervisor.

All in all I don't believe the new language revolution is something to be afraid of. As educators we should be able to understand the new technological language, but still instill the value of using proper English to our students. Our job is to produce well rounded citizens and language development is just a part of that job.We should revel in the fact that we are living in a time of such monumental change and enjoy the ride!

Reference:

Baron, Naomi. "Are Digital Media Changing Language?." ASCD 66.6 (2009): 42-46. Educational Leadership. Web. 1 Sept. 2011.

What I Have Learned From My Peers!

I have learned that my peers have a wide range of reasons as to why they decided to join the teaching field. One person actually wanted to start a day care because they liked children so much and this is what I wanted to do as well! Maybe we could start one together! I really liked one person's response of they wanted to be a "change agent". I think this is what teaching is all about. Bringing change and new direction in order to facilitate learning.

Woordle

My Poll Everywhere Question!

Click here to view my poll!