New Literacies Noteblog

1. Conceptual Understanding

My understanding of literacy has changed drastically from the first day of class. I believe that on the first day of class I said that literacy was any text. But, since day 1 I have learned that literacy encompasses more than just texts. From researching and learning about my chosen literacy, emotional literacy I learned that educators and other adults can help children to become emotionally literate by simply talking about their own emotions, having students draw pictures of their face to depict how they are feeling, and play games or sing songs about emotions or feelings. Just though learning about emotional literacy I learned several ways in which children can become literate without even having to use a text. Also, by creating a prezi about emotional literacy I learned that images, text and motion can combine to educate others about literacy. In addition, through viewing several of my peers projects I learned that literacy isn’t just using texts, but technologies such as mixbooks, videos, Google maps, prezis, websites and wikis can be used to teach others about literacy, or help others to become literate. The new literacies project as a whole, learning about a new literacy, creating my project and viewing my peers projects, helped me to broaden my understanding of what literacy is. I now feel like I have many ideas on how to teach literacy to my future students.

2. Effective Literacy Instruction

I think that effective literacy instructions means being able to reach all students. I think that effective literacy instruction to diverse learners involves using a variety of methods of teaching and allowing the students a variety of ways to show their understanding. Through researching emotional literacy I can think of one student in my placement classroom, and several students that I work with through my job who would benefit from emotional literacy instruction. I think that some of the methods that I learned on how to help children to become emotionally literate, such as, adults talking about their own feelings to children, having students draw pictures of their face with the emotion they are feelings, and sing songs or play games about emotions or feelings could be done with the students that I know that could benefit from emotional literacy instruction. However, I feel that the technology I used, prezi and the technologies that my peers used to create their projects could not be used to help the students I know learn about a new literacy because technology is not easily accessible in my placement classroom. I think that if I was placed in a school or worked in a school that had a higher budget and where technology was easily accessible I could possibly have students view and create projects involving technologies such as prezi, websites, wikis, mixbooks, Google maps, etc. I think that it would take a lot of time to scaffold students to be able to use these technologies on their own, but I do think that it would be beneficial. To help students to be able to create a project using prezi I wouldn’t even begin the process until the students had almost mastered using Microsoft PowerPoint because a prezi is somewhat similar to a PowerPoint presentation. After my students had knowledge of how Microsoft PowerPoint worked I would first show them a finished prezi, then let them explore the technology on their own for a select amount of time, then ask them to create a few simple projects using prezi, then finally give them a topic and certain information to include and allow them to create a project on their own. Because I feel like my students could benefit from emotional literacy, an example of an integrated approach that I could use with my placement students may involve having my students create a collage about emotions to learn about emotional literacy by clipping images out of old magazines, as having my students create prezis wouldn’t be an option in my placement.

3. Lesson Plan

It is really hard for me to think of an integrated lesson where my students would need to learn a new technology to teach their peers about a new literacy because technology is not easily accessible in my placement school and the students don’t need technology to learn about a new literacy or teach a new literacy to their peers, they can learn or teach by creating a graphic organizer, collage, a picture, a poster board, etc. An example of a lesson that I could do to have my third grade students learn a new literacy and a new technology would be to have them make a prezi about the characters emotions or feelings in a book they are currently reading. This assignment would allow my students to learn a new technology, prezi and learn a new literacy, emotional literacy as the students will be discussing emotions and this process helps them to become emotionally literate.

Target area/rationale: I don’t think that my students need to use a technology to teach their peers about emotional literacy, however prezi is beneficial to use to teach others about emotional literacy because this technology allows users to use text and images in their project, ideas can be arranged however the creator wishes, and viewers can understand the creators lines of thinking through a prezi.

Objective: Students will demonstrate their understanding of emotional literacy through the creation of a prezi where the completed project includes 5 important points about emotional literacy.

Materials/Supplies: Book that students are currently reading, computer lab with enough computers for every student, laptop to be able to display each prezi to the class, projector, necessary power cords

Outline of Key Events:

• Once book is completed have students fill in charts about the different emotions and feelings of four characters within the book
• Give students time to explore emotional literacy
• Show students a completed prezi
• Let students explore prezi.com
• Give students assignment – they must create a prezi that discusses the emotions of their four selected characters from their book and displays 5 important points about emotional literacy
• Allow students time to complete project
• Have students share their prezi’s
• Have students write what they learned about emotional literacy from their peers presentations

Closing summary: I will close the lesson by restating the definition of emotional literacy, and reminding my students of the benefits of being emotional literate. I will also encourage the students to look for the emotions of the characters in the books they are reading and talk about their own emotions in the future.

Ongoing Assessment: I will look for my students to become more emotionally literate over time. I will specifically look for my students to discuss their own emotions and others emotions more often.