Week Three Assignments

2.       Assignment#1 Write a brief summary of the above three articles (one paragraph) to demonstrate your understanding of the concept and the importance of new literacies

These three articles, published even before the iPad was introduced, clearly demonstrate the critical need for today’s students to develop proficiency in new literacies in order to learn, evaluate, communicate, collaborate and succeed with available and future technologies.   With the rapid introduction and adoption of new technological tools, students need to learn a dynamic and growing set of skills that includes finding relevant information through the internet and determining its validity, objectivity and purpose.  Proficiency in reading comprehension of text presented on paper as well as online will be critical especially given the virtually limitless amount of available information. Today’s children will need skills to communicate in various ways besides traditional pen and paper utilizing a wide range of tools including email, chat, video and quickly emerging technologies.  An increasing amount of learning will take place collaboratively as technology has allowed for easy and instant sharing of information, data, and opinions.  Students can easily work together in the classroom and at home to work on different aspects of a larger project or exchange viewpoints on a common subject.  As tools are introduced in schools to prepare students for college and careers, many are already utilized in industry.  By learning new literacies, today’s students will be better prepared to succeed in an increasingly-global and connected environment.

1.       Assignment#2 

Which ideas from the video reflect what the ELA teachers you interviewed are currently doing to integrate technology with their literacy instruction?

During ELA instruction, the general education teacher utilizes the classroom SMART Board to provide new vocabulary with multiple media to accommodate the different learning styles of her students.  The ELA program comes with such SMART Board resources so she does not have to develop them.  When she starts a new reading unit with new vocabulary and grammar concepts, she shows a video of the story that shows the text on-screen with associated imagery and a narrator reading the words.  The students are engaged as they watch and listen.  While the text is provided to the students later, they are gaining experience reading the words from a screen.  Further into the lesson, the SMART Board is used again so students can identify words and locate their meanings and also to work on sequencing of events as told in the story.

How can you help change their instructional practices to include the use of technology and the Internet in their literacy and content-area curriculum?

While the students are developing proficiency in reading comprehension and locating, evaluating and synthesizing information through non-traditional means, the teacher can increase the use of available technology in the classroom and at home.  The ELA program also comes with an online component where the teacher and the students can engage in additional content to deepen the understanding of the lesson.  This would give students more individual practice on finding, deciphering and applying information.  Additionally, I would encourage the students to collaborate on a larger project utilizing technology like a wikispace.  At this third grade level, perhaps it’s as simple as each student contributes a word, phrase or sentence to build a story that utilizes the vocabulary from the current unit.

What professional development and/or resources will they need in order to make these changes?

The teacher would need minimal formal professional development to utilize the ELA program’s online component and a sharing site like wikispaces.com.   However, each educator has a different timeframe to feel comfortable with a tool before presenting it in class.  With the existing computer and SMART Board in the classroom, no additional resources are required.

What ideas do you have for grouping students so they will have equal access to technology in the classroom? 

I would utilize flexible grouping to foster equal access to the classroom technology.  As a whole class, they are introduced to the unit on the SMART Board.  Class discussion and interactive learning on the SMART Board can take place as well with teacher-led instruction and facilitation.  The students can then be assigned for small group work where they can collaborate on designing a Powerpoint using the classroom computer with specific time limits.  Also, students can add to a classroom wikispace project individually.  Perhaps, each student gets two minutes each on the classroom computer to review the contributions of fellow students and add their own.

Assignment#3 Select one of the five tools you recommended and talk to the ELA teacher to see how it can be implemented in their ELA instruction. 

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The third grade general education teacher is already utilizing the new classroom SMART Board in her daily ELA instruction.  Using prepared materials from the textbook publisher, she uses the SMART Board to introduce new reading passages, vocabulary, and grammar concepts.  The engaging, sometimes interactive, videos allow the students to see and hear new words in the context of a story, visualize their meanings and correct spellings, and watch for proper use of grammar.  Following the introduction of the material, the teacher leads the class to identify each new vocabulary word and match it to the correct definition on the SMART Board.  Once the class completes this task together, individual students come up to repeat the process while the teacher assesses their understanding.  The district’s ELA program,  Journeys Common Core by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, is a comprehensive program that also includes an online component for teachers and students to use in the classroom and at home.  The teacher can lead the students on some of these prepared online activities utilizing the SMART Board before she assigns classwork or homework for those students who have access at home.

Additional valuable and engaging way to utilize the SMART Board is for formative assessment.  Modifying existing and available SMART Board lessons and templates, the teacher can customize a class game show with the current unit’s vocabulary and grammar concepts.  This could be a Jeopardy-like activity where students can “compete” in small groups by answering questions on the spelling, phonetics and definitions of new vocabulary words.  The questions can also assess a student’s reading comprehension of key ideas and details from the story.   The activity can be differentiated so the more advanced students, grouped together, are given the most challenging questions.  While this will not take the place of a summative assessment, this fun activity will help the teacher identify the proficiency and understanding of the students. 

At the third grade level, this interactive SMART Board game show will address several New York state Common Core standards in ELA including reading standards of phonics and word recognition, key ideas and details, and craft and structure.  Learning outcomes will include the students’ abilities to build and apply vocabulary, identify and sequence key ideas and details, and read grade level text.  The required technology includes the existing classroom SMART Board and computer.  The students will enjoy the interactivity and competition.  However, the teacher can accomplish this review and assessment in just one class period for each unit of the textbook and she can integrate this activity in the lesson plan for each such unit.  Not only can this be used as a formative assessment, the teacher can also evaluate the technology skills while the students navigate the SMART Board.