Chapter 8: Technolgy Across the Curriculum

Chapter 8: Technology across the curriculum

“Students must be problem posers as well as problem solvers and problem posing beings with asking questions.” (Pg 119 in textbook)

This was one of the first sentences in our reading for this week, and it really got the wheels rolling and made me reflect on personal experiences from early on in my education. Our textbook says, that children are made out to believe knowing the right answer is highly more important than asking the questions that may deeper in meaning, relating things to one another, having purpose behind a question; a derived straightforward answer. When in fact asking questions should hold much more importance. Reflecting on my education early on I remember being terrified of the idea of raising my hand when I had a question. I was always worried of being judged for asking a “dumb question.” What would my peers think of me? What would my teacher think? Would he or she think I wasn’t paying attention and get angry at me? I remember my dad always telling me there was no such thing as stupid question, however, we live in a society where are judged by every movement, and every statement we make, so how does that make a child feel when it comes to asking a question?

I think the importance lies in the teacher’s hands. Each teacher in his or her classroom has to create a safe environment for students to feel like they can ask a question without being judged for it. Asking questions is what entices or enhances children curiosity, and throughout that curiosity they learn and gain knowledge. Also, one thing I found very interesting and hadn’t thought much about before was, when teachers express their interests in the classroom in front of their students, they motivate them. They motivate them to ask questions, to be curious, to want to learn more, and then to gain the knowledge throughout their experiences and experiences to come.

This concept or topic of asking questions has dominated my entire post for this chapter, and I think it says a lot. I believe this is a very important thing that teachers and future teachers need to take into consideration when running their own classrooms. Create an environment where children feel safe to ask questions, no matter how irrelevant they may be to the subject being taught. Express your interests in front of your class to motivate them, entice them to want to learn more, and by doing this, you are making a difference in a student’s life of learning.

Chapter 7: Writing Online.

Like I am sure many of my classmates have said on their blog, this chapter brought together all these ideas and concepts of using technology in a classroom setting, giving it purpose and meaning in a way in which I think it could be very successful. Technology was never used like this when we were kids, and I think that is why I was so skeptical about anything but a traditional way of learning.

My favorite quote from this chapter was, “Writing is a complex,multifaced, and purposeful act of communication.” (Pg 99) I think it exemplifies that writing has a multitude of purposes, and I think many people think of writing, as clean cut writing, with the purpose of learning, but it really is about communication. Communicating ones thoughts, ideas, opinions, background knowledge etc. Through your writing you are participating in your right of freedom of speech, you may teach someone something through your writing, and learn something through what you read. Writing is not just writing with pen and paper anymore, its writing online, using technology to write, express ones thoughts.

Everything now a days seems to be online, or technology based. I just previously went for my Foundations of Reading Mtel, and I truthfully don’t know why I was surprised to find the test was a computer based exam.  As our world evolves technology evolves, or should it be as our technology evolves our world evolves. I think the two are closely tied together. As we evolve, how we learn, how we communicate change and transform to satisfy the needs to successfully live, learn,  and strive evolve as well. We live in a world in which always will evolve, and we must become adaptable to this evolution. Before we know it, we will be living in a world with flying cars, and it is up to us to adapt our ways, (teaching instruction, the way we live, etc.) to evolve with our world to become successful.

Children's Book Review: "Best Friends: The True Story of Owen and Mzee" By: Roberta Edwards illustrated By: Carol Schwartz

Review on Book:

This is a true story about a hippo and a tortoise who become best friends. Owen(the hippo) is about one years old, when a storm hits where he is from(East Coast of Africa) when he looses his family.He luckily was rescued by people, who knew he would need a knew home, and brought him to a special zoo which takes care of animals who won't be able to survive in the wild. The zoo is called Haller Park.

Mzee is an 130 year old tortoise who lives at Haller Park. Mzee does not socialize with other at the park, until he meets Owen, and the two become inseparable best friends.

I think this a great children's that teaches children the lesson of friendship.

Chapter 6 Using E-Tools to scaffold comprehension of E-Literature

“ As the world told becomes the world shown, the texts of the 21^st century will require new skills, strategies, and new pedagogies to support students’ transactions with these multimodal, multimedia texts.”

            - Frank Serafini(2012, p. 27)

I thought it was important to incorporate this quote in my blog this week because it exemplifies the basic ideas, concepts, and purpose of this chapter. Throughout this chapter we read about the importance to know not only the effectiveness of the E-tool being used, but the comprehension levels being reached, and other skills learned and gained throughout using E-Tools in the class room setting compared to using traditional tools or texts.

“ As much as the digital environment supports comprehension, it also increases the importance of other factors such as self-regulation and multimodal abilities.” (Johnson, 81)

It is very important to remember though, when speaking of the success of an E-Tool being used, the instruction is also a factor in the E-Tool’s success in a class room. I think this is a factor many forget, the give the credit solely to the website or E-Tool instead of acknowledging the instruction, the model being given but the teacher. The activity and lesson’s success cannot solely be based off of the E-tool, but the teacher or professional modeling or using the E-tool in his or her classroom.

Comprehension Strategies in which are effective when reading online information include; awareness of purpose, skimming, scanning, and reading selectively, activating prior knowledge, evaluating text structure and quality, reviewing information, etc.

A strategy in which I learned more about in detail during my reading fell in Step 3: Model the Process when teaching an IRT lesson for younger students. The strategy is called the Think Out Loud strategy.

In our textbook in this chapter, Johnson, uses the IRT lesson review when talking closely about digital texts. The strategy is pretty straightforward. Model the purpose/uses of the digital text. But also include what you are thinking while doing so, your teaching the students what is expected for each activity, what to look for in a beneficial digital book, and what to stray away from because it may distract from their comprehension of the purpose of main idea of the digital book. By doing this children will learn and gain these skills and become more independent when participating in activities like these.

This chapter also discussed improving a student’s comprehension by improving their vocabulary and background knowledge. The use of online dictionaries, and online annotations can be very helpful.

Other E-Tools or websites we learned about were Google Lit Trips, Book Reviews and Book Talks, and Book Trailers.

My favorite of them all would have to be the Book Trailers. I think it is a fun and creative way in which gets children wanting to read. Its advertising the book, and showing them reading a book can be just as exciting as going to see a movie you the saw the trailer to.