New Literacy- Chelsey

1. Conceptual understanding:

The way I view literacy has definitely changed since the beginning of the semester.  In the beginning, I was under the impression that literacy was just the understanding of how to read and write.  However, now I know that literacy can mean understanding all types of things from different cultures to the way emotions work and how we express ourselves effectively.  By completing this project I was able to learn about all different types of literacies while I was trying to decide which direction I wanted to take as well as various new technologies that will definitely be helpful when I have a classroom of my own.  I had no idea that so many technologies were out there and available for free and that they were so easy to use, it makes discovering new things a lot less scary.

2. Effective Liteacy Instruction:

I now know how important it is to teach students the various types of literacies and not just focus on reading and writing.  Not only did completing this project help me learn about cultural literacy but by reviewing another persons project I was able to understand how crucial it is to teach students about emotional literacy and how to express their emotions in a safe and positive way.  All classrooms with be diverse and as a teacher I feel like I am now equipped with the right information so that I will be able to teach my students about all different kinds of literacies in new and exciting ways.  I know how important it is not to focus on one type of literacy because they all hold an important place in our students learning and will help them continue to learn and grow after they leave our classroom.

While I think it may be hard for kindergarden students to use a technology such as creating a website, I do not think it is impossible.  With the right instructions and help students can work with an older student or adult to create their own website and use it to express their ideas and the information that they have learned.  However, I think creating a website (or scrapblog) would be a GREAT tool for teachers to use with older students who can spend time outside of the class working on it and will not need as much help and specific instruction as younger students would.

3. Lesson plan:

Target area and rationale:  For this lesson I would l like my students to take away how to use a new technology: scrapblog, while they learn how to teach their classmates about a specific culture that may differ from others in the class.  The target grade level for this lesson is 4th grade.

Objectives: Common Core
1.  Add audio recordings and visual displays to presentations when appropriate to enhance the development of main ideas or themes.

2. Report on a topic or text, tell a story, or recount an experience in an organized manner, using appropriate facts and relevant, descriptive details to support main ideas or themes; speak clearly at an understandable pace.

Materials needed: Teacher example of own cultural scrapblog focusing on the Irish culture (for St. Patricks day), access to school computer classroom or laptops for at least 1 hour a day for a 5 day week, classroom computer with hook up to SmartBoard for presentations

Outline of key events:

* Teacher will show his/her own scrapblog to the class and then have a short discussion about how the project will entail, showing the basics on how to use scrapblog and how to look up information about the culture they want to explore.

* Students will then have an opportunity to explore their culture and gain familiarity with that culture using the internet or library as resources.

*Students will then use the next few days to create their scrapblog in class or in a computer room using the information that found about their culture.

* Time will be spent during class on the last day of the week for students to show off their scrapblog using the SmartBoard.

Closing Summary: From this project I hope students will not only learn about a new culture and be able to teach their classmates about what they have learned but also how to use a new technology that they will be able to use in the future to help get their point across in a fun and engaging way.

Ongoing assessment: Teacher will be able to assess the students presentations while they are presenting to the class but as an ongoing assessment, the teacher will be able to assign projects using this new technology in the future that the students will be able to do in their own time without much class influence.