EDLA615 Language Arts and Technology

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Click below to view my keystone assignment: Keystone Lesson Plan Implementation Report New Literacies Reflection Teacher Interview 

Glogster is a great interactive ‘New Literacies’ tool ELA teachers should take advantage of in their classroom. It offers many fabulous features, such as text, images, video and audio allowing users to present information in a fun, clear and simple way. Exploring the Glogster website and creating my own glog helped me learn how it can enhance classroom learning and bring ideas to a new level. Both, teachers and students can use glogs to organize information, demonstrate concepts and summarize ideas. Students can work collaboratively to write book reviews, create story timelines, outline the key elements of a text and much more. Very importantly, Glogster allows users to share their work with others to get feedback and support. In addition, teachers have complete control of the learning platform making it a safe learning tool for even the youngest students. I believe Glogster is a great learning tool! It provides students with many opportunities to use their creativity and sharpen t...

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VoiceThread is a great technological tool educators should use in their classroom to enhance their instruction. It offers many cool features, which promote student engagement and motivation. All learners, especially ELLs and students with disabilities can benefit from learning through this interactive medium. VoiceThread allows users to upload any combination of images, documents and video clips giving users the freedom of creating nearly anything they wish to. Students will enjoy the flexibility of this tool while producing their unique project and commenting on their peer’s work. This tool truly allows for collaboration and involves passive learners through the ongoing interaction. The shared learning process enables educators to pick up on student’s learning strengths and preferred learning styles. Moreover, students are given the opportunity to revisit topics as needed or gain access to learning activities they may have missed. As quoted from the article – The possibilities for...

Click here  to view my PowerPoint presentation on developing informed approaches to using new literacies in the classroom.

Click here  to watch my digital story on germs and ways to stop the spread of germs.

Today, with so much information being available digitally, students tend to spend less time accessing traditional printed texts. This shift in reading is strongly connected to young adults’ negative reading achievement. In the article,  The Impact of Using Blogs on College Students' Reading Comprehension and  Learning Motivation ,  Hsu and Wang aim to investigate whether digital texts can improve college students reading skills and learning attitudes and what role instructors play in the integration of new media in reading courses. To learn the effect of ICT’s on students’ achievement they chose to explore the use of blogs in a college developmental reading course. The study conducted revealed that although blogs offer a rich learning environment, which allows students to collaborate effectively, showcase their work, write for a real audience and much more, there was no significant increase in students’ reading performance and learning motivation noted between the b...

Second life is a great online environment that can be used to enhance ELA instruction. Its 3D multi-user virtual environment engages students in the learning content and motivates students to explore concepts more deeply. There are endless ways educators can use SL to provide their students with meaningful learning opportunities. Students can visit and explore various landmarks, museums and places they learn about. They can then reflect on their experience and collaborate with other learners to share their thoughts. When reading about complex ideas educators can help students understand what they are learning about using the SL platform. Students can also get to communicate with others around the world to learn new ideas and broaden their knowledge. Another great way to use this tool is having students act out a text they are reading. The teacher can select an appropriate setting with various objects. Students then join that meeting – using their avatar as characters. Students c...

Theories and Practices of Multimodal Education In this article Hassett and Curwood explore and analyze the use of multimodal texts with literacy learning in the classroom. It is understood that today children’s literature and text in general has expanded to include multiple modes of representation beyond the written word. Text features, interactive narration and images are a source of creativity and deeper knowledge construction. The alphabetic print is no longer the primary carrier of meaning and representation. Each element of a picture book signifies something and can have many possible meanings. Educators must assume new roles such as: resource manager, co-constructer of knowledge and design consultant in order to facilitate children’s navigation of multimodal texts.   Students should learn to decode and comprehend alphabetic print in conjunction with other forms of representation. With the right support and proper engagement in multimodal and socio-cognitive experiences ...

Edmodo is a secure educational learning network educators can use in their classroom to enhance their ELA instruction and help develop student’s literacies skills. It enables educators to share content, distribute quizzes, assignments and manage communication with students, colleagues, and parents. Students get to present their work, access homework and safely connect and work with their pairs and teacher from anywhere and at any time. Edmodo offers an abundance of features that will capture students’ attention and will facilitate learning in the classroom. Using Edmodo, educators can upload assignments in an orderly manner and ensure that students don’t anymore lose worksheets, forget when assignments were due and what the requirements were. By simply clicking on the assignment tab teachers can upload assignments, add a description and set a due date for each assignment posted. Assessments are also made easy using Edmodo. The poll feature can be used as a pre-learning ass...

The rapid advancements of information and communication technologies make it essential for educators to reevaluate their instructional practices and to think of new ways to integrate technology in their classroom. Many teachers use technology as a digital version of learning resources and fail to integrate technology in a way that facilitates inquiry learning and develops student’s new literacies skills. Education programs should provide professional development opportunities to enhance teacher’s ICTs integration skills. Teachers, of their own volition, should also make sure to learn and be equipped with new literacies skills in order to effectively educate their students in today’s digital era. Students today use technology in their daily lives and are more motivated and engaged in the learning when technology is integrated in the lesson. Educators should take advantage of the opportunity and should incorporate technology in their classroom to support student’s cognitive skill...

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In today’s 21 st century gaming is a great instructional approach used to engage learners. Through gaming students acquire the many essential skills that will help them succeed in the future. Over the past few years technology has evolved greatly and is continuing to change and influence the world we live in. Our students must be taught to identify, question, locate, evaluate and synthesize information. Being literate is more than being able to read, write and communicate appropriately. Information and communication technologies are what enable our students to obtain these important skills. Gaming is one such new media that should be integrated into the teaching and learning. Using gaming in the classroom will not only motivate and provoke student’s interest but more importantly will train students to think deeply and more abstractly. Students will grow up as design thinkers; where they constantly analyze and think of solutions to problems. They will automatically take charge to...

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Phonics Lesson Plan Grade level: Kindergarten Lesson Title: ABC Mysteriez Common cores standards and learning outcomes: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RF.K.1.D   Recognize and name all upper- and lowercase letters of the alphabet. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.K.1.A Print many upper- and lowercase letters. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.K.1 Participate in collaborative conversations with diverse partners about  kindergarten topics and texts  with peers and adults in small and larger groups. Instructional activities (How does this game help develop language acquisition and development, both oral and written?) Watch the phonics zoo video - https://www.getepic.com/app/read/46018 . Have students sing along as your review all alphabets with their sound. Tell students that today they will be perfecting their alphabet knowledge. They will practice recognizing, naming and writing all upper and lowercase letters.     At the carpet area, quickly review all ABC’s wi...

Game: ABC Mysteriez Gaming Elements: Gaming is one of the new media that is used to enhance literacy in the classroom. ABC Mysteriez is an engaging literacy game in which students practice recognizing and naming all upper and lowercase letters . Students perfect foundational reading skills as they search for hidden alphabets. Text: In order to understand the rules and goal of this game, players must read the instructions and menu before beginning to play. Students can also customize their board by playing around with the various options - such as sound and music volume and design, before they begin to play. Visual-graphic elements: While playing ABC Mysteriez students explore numerous beautiful pictures and develop an eye for detail as they look for disguised characters. Students exercise their visual imagery techniques and spatial skills. Audio elements: Students can customize the sound and music volume of their game. Goal of the game: Find alphabets hidden among o...

Which ideas from the PPT reflect what the ELA teachers you interviewed are currently doing to integrate technology with their literacy instruction? The ELA teacher I interviewed provides her students with many opportunities to retrieve, process and exchange information. She uses various programs to engage her students in meaningful learning activities. Her students learn to read, write and communicate appropriately while also exchanging information using the internet. How can you help change their instructional practices to include the use of technology and the Internet in their literacy and content-area curriculum? The teacher I interviewed does a great job teaching her students using various programs, however her students are not given the freedom to explore and research on their own. I would suggest that she guides her students in learning how to locate information using the internet and then evaluate the internet sources they used. She should also focus on more collabora...

In today’s 21 st century literacy instruction - referring to reading, writing and communication, has gotten a whole new meaning. The Internet and other forms of information and communication technologies (ICTs) are greatly impacting and changing the literacy curriculum.  There are innovative text formats, updated reader expectations and new web activities that significantly surpass the traditional literacy experiences.  It is therefore crucial for educators to develop a rich understanding of these changes. They must learn to integrate new technologies, in order to appropriately prepare students for their literacy future. Incorporating new literacies in the classroom requires work and preparation. It is prudent for educators to frequently attend professional development workshops to learn about new instructional strategies and resources that effectively use technology in the classroom. Simply using software programs will not cause greater learning achievements. Techno...

To learn how technology can be used to help young learners with literacy development I interviewed Mrs. G. Spiegel, a well-informed educator who teaches 6 and 7-year-old Chinese children how to read, write and speak in the English language. She works for VIPKid which is a company that provides English lessons to kids in China using an online classroom. I was amazed to learn how in today’s digital world there are so many technological tools available for classroom use. Mrs. Spiegel explained that each of her lesson includes a PowerPoint as a tool to help her students master the new concepts. The PowerPoint is used very much like a SMART board in the classroom. It includes interactive activities, visuals and prompts that help students comprehend the lesson. She made it clear that this in not what the students learn from. She is there to guide them, speaks with them and uses props such as puppets and magnets to motivate her students. The PowerPoint/SMART board is just an amazing too...