Visual Literacy

I am reflecting on “Engaging the Eye Generation: Visual Literacy Strategies for the K-5 Classroom,” Chapter3

Wow! What a great book! I absolutely love the way this book spells out the process of using digital storytelling in the classroom. It starts with a basis of sound traditional literacy strategies and uses them as a stepping stone to the digital experience. It explains the process using sequencing of stories, story patterns, copy right information, storyboards, implementation, a rubric, and even peer evaluation. There is a great amount of practical information to help teachers ease into digital storytelling as well, with a step-by-step process that I feel can be used as a prototype in the classroom.

I can see this type of learning as such a great way to involve many of the senses in the process of literacy and to use multiple literacies through technology. It fosters collaboration and allows creativity to run its course. I feel that creativity is of utmost importance to our children and their education. Creativity fosters true longevity in learning. Information sticks when it is manipulated through the creative process. I can see my students creating music projects that tell about the lives of great composers digitally. I can see them sharing the process of composition through digital storytelling. They could research and then write a story about their favorite singer or their favorite type of music, and share it literally with the world through this medium.

Blogs, Wikis, and Processing, Oh My!

I am reflecting on Chapter 3 of “Redefining Literacy”  by David Warlick

There is a special connection that can happen to build relationships through digital writing connections. The use of blogs, wikis, or collaborative word processing can allow the student to do most of the talking, while the teacher helps them through careful questioning and honest feedback. This parallels the principle of good conferring form the Writer’s Workshop. Writers who receive regular responses from their teachers and their peers tend to grow and gain confidence in their writing skills. New responses from the teacher can be written on the document or spoken through audio files. Teachers can respond to students who need help more readily through digital interaction, and the responses are not confined to class time. Digital files are also easier to keep up with, and saving each draft gives the students an insight into their own writing processes.

There are advantages to these three types of writing tools. Collaborative word processors are great for showing the revision process and foster deep revision of texts and documents. Blogs are archived so that you see the author’s most recent work and responses.  You can also look back over time to see improvements. Wikis have a revision history to show who wrote what or revised sections of the document.  You can see the creation of texts over time and see the collaboration that took place when creating the document.

The main reason to use these tools is to keep students engaged in the writing process. Using 21^st century tools helps them to be engaged while learning new literacies.

Teaching for the Future

I am reflecting on Chapter 1 of “Redefining Literacy 2.0.” by David F. Warlick.

I have always loved science fiction. The amazing thing about it is that many of those gadgets I read about as a child are now in use as everyday articles even though this seemed impossible when I read about them. It is interesting to note that we try to make educated guesses about what our future may hold as educators, but the bottom line is – We are supposed to prepare our students for a future that we can not predict or fully comprehend. How can we teach our students to cope with technology that hasn’t been invented yet? How can we predict the ramifications of that technology on society so that we can prepare them for the changes?

The idea that each of us could have our own social network from which we work, interact, and instantly share massive quantities of data is an intriguing one. In order for this to work, different services on the internet like Face book and Twitter or Google would have to seamlessly interact across the boundaries that now separate them. In essence, they would have to merge into one entity. This would make it possible for us to communicate, work, and play as a true global community with no restrictions to the information that we could accrue or share. I wonder in this type of environment if physical schools or classrooms would even exist?

Given this uncertain future, we must teach our students how to become self-starters. We must teach them to instigate learning on their own. We must ignite the spark of curiosity that will carry them through into uncharted territories of learning. We must teach them how to evaluate their personal processes of learning. Most importantly, we must teach them how to think for themselves in order for them to be successful in this new, exciting, and ever changing world.

Internet! Me?

To fulfill one of my assignments, I had to follow an educator who used the internet to promote education. I did so diligently and noticed that as time progressed, my perspective started to change. I discovered that the internet was a busy and viable place to hang out if you are a teacher. In fact, there is a plethora of useable information that you can digest to make you a better teacher. There are areas where you can discuss your ideas and concerns. There are videos galore on every subject imaginable. Some videos are even from prestigious conferences just waiting there on the internet for you to devour. There are communities of learners who are interested in improving education and there is a constant dialogue about how to do so. There is also much, much more.

I can’t believe that I wasted so much time wining about being too busy to spend time on the internet. I could save time and educate myself to become a much more productive teacher if I only used the treasure trove that is present right there in my own house and my own classroom. We want our students to be 21^st century learners. We need to model what a 21^st century learner looks like.

I recently did a lesson on Africa for my students in music class. I started the lesson by presenting Africa on Google Earth. Then we found our way home by traveling across the ocean, finding our continent, finding our state, our county, our city and then ending with a view of our school. We even pointed out the corner of our school where the music room was located. I could not believe how excited the children were to see those maps and to understand where they were in relationship to Africa. I incorporated many other web sites that showed African garb and instruments so that my students could get an idea of the cultural flavor of the area we were studying. We listened to a story about an African school and of course, we sang songs from Africa. One of the most exciting parts of the lesson was seeing a real African singing star in an Afro-Pop song that I found on the National Geographic site. This video showed all of the instruments that we had studied, and the singers and dancers in the video were wearing the clothes that we had talked about. We ended the lesson with a reflection. The children wrote about their trip, and I was amazed at the amount of recall of information that they provided. This proves to me personally that I need to step up to the plate and let technology take its place in my music classroom to benefit my students. Conversely, I need to allow myself to become the student and continue to learn from the wealth of information that is out there in cyberspace. If you are an educator, I hope you will too!

Field Trip

I entered a building. The space had crisp jewel colors, a fuchsia ceiling, and a feeling of serenity. Our surprise field trip led us to an art exhibit. What would I see? Would it be a replay of Expressionism? Would there be Pop Art or Graphic Art?

I meandered around the room looking for some art that “spoke” to me. Some of it was colorful, some macabre, some beautiful, but all of it was interesting. Finally, I focused on a piece of art. It was All I Need is the Air I Breathe by Jennifer Groves. It appealed to me because it was colorful and realistic in its depiction of an open umbrella, tennis balls, and a pair of sneakers. When I looked at it I saw freedom. It looked like a casual vignette of objects owned by someone who had the freedom to do what they wanted to do instead of constantly working and only fulfilling the mundane responsibilities of life. It made me dream about what it would be like to be that person. It represented the freedom to enjoy life and have fun. I wanted to step into the picture and take hold of that umbrella, put on the tennis shoes and enjoy…

When I came back to reality another piece of art caught my eye on the opposite wall. It was a picture of a tree with very large roots called The Wishing Tree. The tree was fluid. It had a rhythm of motion that was beautifully portrayed through a still figure. I looked at the artist and was surprised to find that this picture was also painted by Jennifer Groves. Here is what I wrote at the time:

This reminds me of a human life that is firmly grounded,

Whose appendages are grasping the creative Mother Earth,

And whose  body is swaying to the rhythm of life.

It is simply beautiful!

We have been learning about multiple literacies in our graduate class. The idea is that people in our generation have to be able to “read” many things in order to be literate. In addition to reading, writing and conventions, they must “read” computer screens, graphics, facial expressions and much more. I loved “reading” this art. It spoke to me.

I am a Digital Immigrant

I have recently read “Digital Natives Digital Immigrants” by Marc Prensky

I have just finished reading an article that expounds on the difference between the new generation called digital natives and those of us who have not had computers all of our lives, who are called digital immigrants.

It has been very interesting to reflect on my journey from being practically technologically illiterate to where I find myself today. Many years ago I got frustrated by computers. This was at a time when you had to be able to write your own codes and jump through a million hoops to just write a letter on the computer. I wondered why anyone would want to do all of that when it was so much easier to just write it down. So I’ve been a little behind in my computer skills for many years.

I went to work for a school system in another state and they started giving us classes on one computer system. I went to those classes for a year and then the school system decided to change to another computer system. I had to learn everything all over again! I was really frustrated. Therefore, I turned my mind and attention off of learning anything else about computers, and just used the word processing when I absolutely had to. I also sent an occasional email.

As time passed I did not realize the great leaps that technology had made and how easy it had become to do almost anything on the computer. Thankfully, I have improved my computer skills and am finally enjoying technology. As a teacher, I see the great difference that technology can make in the classroom, and I also see that our students have skills that we as digital immigrants can only hope to accrue.

This article confirms some of the things that I have noticed myself about digital natives. They do not understand why technology is difficult for us and they do not understand why many of us lack their innate ability to know what to do in any given situation when it comes to technology.

I believe that they have built-in scaffolding that connects their technological information just like synapses connect information in the brain. They don’t have to think about it. It just is. This scaffolding is in place because it was part of their early learning processes. Technology is like learning to walk or talk to them. They don’t remember the experience, but it is integrated into their mental, emotional, and physical make-up. It is very difficult for digital immigrants to ever catch up.

As teachers who are digital immigrants, I think that it is important for us to stop expecting out students to think and act like we do. They are not like us.  We must accept that they interact with technology on a quantum level. We must get comfortable with learning along with our students, and even allowing them to take the lead when they know something we do not. We must become facilitators of learning regardless of our comfort factor. When we do this, we promote true literacy.

Infusing Technology

I am commenting on “Preparing Tomorrow’s English Language Arts Teachers Today: Principles and Practices for Infusing Technology” by Carol A. Pope and Jeffrey N. Golub

One aspect of 21^st century learning is that students are going to have to be prepared to fit into a global community by being able to exchange information and ideas with people from other countries and cultures. While we only can guess what will happen with technology in the next few years, we can prepare our students to use the technology that is currently available. We can also teach them to communicate successfully with a world community.

The examples that are discussed in this article are great examples of educators who are doing just that, they are infusing technology as an aspect of literacy and as a literacy tool. They are empowering their students to assess their own work and the work of others.

Technology is not only infused in the way we approach literacy, but also in the way vocabulary, language, music, pictures, fonts and graphics are used. Literacy is being redefined every day. Technology is changing the way we respond in writing according to the genre that we are writing for. Teachers need to stay on the cutting edge of this information as they teach these new aspects of literacy, but keep in mind that it is a constant learning process.

What is Literacy?

There is a big move in education to redefine literacy. When I went to school we had a simple definition for this term.  Literacy was the ability to read and write, and use language proficiently. If you could do these things you were a capable and literate person. You had the tools you needed to cope with your job and survive the conventions of society. You wrote nice letters to your friends and sent them in the mail, making sure to write beautifully with great grammar of course. Great handwriting was a must and you spent many hours practicing to make your letters just right.

Now students are surrounded by a plethora of media and technology which uses language, pictures, fonts, music and art to give an experience along with the message. They are expected to “read” all of these things at once and compile meaning. Now instead of learning perfect letters, students type what they want to say. Letter writing through the postal mail is a thing of the past. Students send their messages in a variety of ways down the internet highway, and the messages are delivered in a heartbeat. Students pull music and pictures from web sites and make multimedia presentations. They are quick to see, read and hear what is on the screen and they understand the subtle nuances that are hidden from older, less savvy consumers.

Is it any wonder that literacy has to be redefined? It is time for education to catch up. We can no longer hold on to out past definitions. Technology is redefining our world every day! We may not want to admit it, but literacy has already been redefined.

Infographics

Infographics are making quite a buzz in educational circles. They are a visual and graphic depiction of data, knowledge, and information. This tool works great for information that needs to be understood quickly. Infographics are used by professionals like mathematicians and scientists because vast amounts of data can be shared at a glance. This type of communication is also great for the educational classroom.

Just think of the possibilities. Teachers could use Infographics to introduce a new unit of study or to give an overview of the entire year’s worth of work in a particular subject. Students could make their own Infographics and present them to the class as a class project that incorporates class objectives and technology to foster 21^st century learning skills. In music classes students could use this visual depiction to give a time line to the life and compositions of a specific composer and add a historic representation of important historical events that happened at the same time. This same scenario would work in art classes as well. The possibilities are endless.

https://sites.google.com/a/kathyschrock.net/infographics/links

Resources to Teach Difficult Subjects

Hurricanes, physical disasters, and terrorism can be very traumatic for students to deal with. While teaching about these subjects, teachers must use discretion because of the negative impact and life-long fears that these subjects could possibly foster in their students. While learning about the subject can be an educationally sound experience for students, teachers must be careful not over emphasize and personalize the devastation. They must be sure to preview all materials to weed out overly graphic depictions of human suffering, especially for younger students.

There are several resources that are especially helpful when incorporating these subjects into the curriculum. One is a web site that has resources to help students read a weather map. Students learn the symbols that are involved in the process and then make their own weather map. This activity works well for students in grades one and two. In addition, this site has many other resources for all grade levels including an animated hurricane guide and a section on tracking hurricanes.

http://www.thinkfinity.org/hurricanes

 

Another site discusses hurricane preparedness and helps parents prepare their children for a storm. It gives tips on how to keep children occupied during the event, and helps parents to identify signs of stress that may come from a negative emotional state. There is also a link to the National Hurricane Center and a Sesame Street hurricane tool kit.

http://whatworks.wholechildeducation.org/blog/before-and-after-a-hurricane/

 

This great site depicts the healing journey of a high school that was located a few blocks from ground zero on 9/11. The faculty and students watched in horror as the twin towers fell. The students were walked out of the area to safety by the faculty. As they walked, they shared the pavement with stunned people who had escaped the towers and were covered with soot. These students saw a great deal of human suffering. Luckily, their teachers began to look for creative, meaningful ways to respond. They started looking for student –centered activities that would give voice to the emotions that the students were going through. This was a viable educational response to a tragic situation.

These teachers used theatre, technology and journalism to explore the students’ feelings, especially their feelings of helplessness. The students wrote about their emotions instead of just pushing them aside. Many students used the school newspaper to write pertinent works about the 9/11 attacks. Others gathered interviews and wrote monologues that were performed in the theatre. Student work became published as a magazine that was delivered through the New York Times. Later works were compiled and published as a book.

It is amazing how much creativity was sparked by one profound event. While the level of work is not appropriate for the elementary grades, this approach can be used as a template for dealing with tragedy through literacy and creativity. This site would be a great resource for any school that is going through a tragedy.

http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/01/teaching-911-responding-to-crisis-with-students/