Week 11

After reading the article I was especially impressed by the graphs that showed the different ways that using Voice Thread in the classroom. The way that students can share and comment instantly on others' work is a great way for students to collaborate ideas. Furthermore, it is extremely beneficial to receive immediate feedback on work. The feature of zooming in objects is also another way for students to gain a new and different perspective on what they see.
The article pointed out that even though this technology may not have been intended for educational purposes, the possibilities for using Voice Thread in the classroom are endless. As with other forms of technology teachers need to be  mindful and dynamic when utilizing Voice Thread in the classroom to ensure that students gain as much as possible from the technology.
Below is the link to my voice thread...enjoy! https://voicethread.com/share/5188986/

Week 9-Keystone Draft

After speaking to ELA teachers who I work with it sounds like they see the use of technology as a way to motivate their students to write and share their writing. Mrs. Muller is the co-head of an afterschool program that is geared to teaching Israeli children English. Most of these children have one 45 minute session per week that is meant to equip with proper reading and writing ability. Often times these children need extra motivation to complete extensive assignments since the work in this program in on top of their regular school program. Therefore Mrs. Muller tries to integrate technology in as many ways as possible to motivate the children to practice their writing and reading skills. Mrs. Muller finds this to be a bit challenging since the parent body of these students does not support the use of the internet. After discussing this for a bit we brainstormed on some ideas of how to integrate technology into the classroom in a safe and user friendly way. We thought to improve the student's reading skills to record their voices of them reading a book so that they can share the recording with family and friends. In addition, to motivate the children to practice writing, students can write scripts for videos to record, for digital comics, electronic magazines, etc. Mrs. Muller emphasized that in addition to using technology as a motivational tool, students need to feel that they are reading and writing for a purpose. When these students are given an audience, the quality of their working increases tremendously.

Draft Lesson:
Objective: Students will learn the "ea" rule.

Procedure: The teacher will introduce the rule of "ea" through describing its sound and mentioning examples of words with ea-seat, meat, heat, beat, neat, wheat, etc. Students will then copy these words into their notebooks. Students will then be asked to create a story using as many of the words on the list as possible. Students will then record these stories on to a voice recorder to share with their families and classmates. Students are going to be told to be mindful of their audience's reactions since they will have to write up an article about it for the class' powerpoint presentation.

Week 9

After reading “The Impact of Using Blogs on College Students' Reading Comprehension and
Learning Motivation” by none other than our professor and her colleague, I was impressed by the amount of research that went into the use of blogs in college level classrooms. Effective teaching needs to be based on methods founded on sound research. Based on this article, there was extensive thought and testing that was put forth in order to evaluate the use of blogs for college students. Using concrete facts and statistics is the only way to influence educators to integrate blog use in their classrooms.

Another thing that struck me about the article was the fact that this study was done on students who were in remedial reading classes. The instructors believed that using a mode of reading that the students are familiar with will increase their motivation thereby improve their reading skills. Upon reading this I was reminded of when I taught reading to first graders. The school decided to implement a remedial reading method in the mainstream classroom hoping that the struggling students will be able to catch on alongside the stronger students. Initially when I heard this I thought that using a remedial method would hold back the stronger students putting them at a disadvantage. When I began teaching however, I came to realize that regardless of the method the stronger students were able to develop and thrive. I feel that the same mindset can be applied to the use of blogging. Even though this study was conducted for struggling college students who were trying to enhance their literacy skills, blogging can be beneficial for college students of all academic levels. The cohesiveness that is created between students is a very positive aspect to blogging that does not necessarily exist in a traditional classroom. Furthermore, utilizing tools that are used in the “real world” is also helpful for students to apply their knowledge with devices that will be instrumental to them in the future.  

Digitial Story-It Pays to Do the Right Thing

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J53dyN_vyeM

Above is a link to my digital story titled "It Pays to do the Right Thing". This story has a positive message for children to share the good things in their lives. I chose to repeat the same terminology throughout the story to help young readers improve their literary skills. Enjoy!

Weelk 8

"Adolescents’ Web-Based Literacies, Identity Construction, and Skill Development"-submitted by Brocha Rabinowitz

This article discussed a study conducted to research five students. These students were apart of a EYR program for adolescents who were not necessarily college bound. The researchers gave each of these students a laptop with internet access in order to be able to evaluate their activity on the web. Each student had a unique set of circumstances thus influencing their web activity. For instance, one student was very religious, another was an avid shopper, another was a rapper, another had a candy store and one was a big sports fan. Each of these students was involved in social networking (besides for the religious student). In regard to these students' improved literacy skills as a result of their internet activity was not very solid. It seemed that to complete homework assignments, these students used basic search engines that lacked sophistication. Although it can be noted that because these students were very active on the web, they felt the most comfortable to do schoolwork online as opposed to using traditional text books.

This article was very interesting because it looked into the lives of real adolescent students as opposed to discussing theories based on ideas. As seen in the study, students today are regular online users and therefore tend to want to want to complete assignments using the web. Therefore, it is a good idea for teachers to take advantage of this reality and maximize the learning benefits. There are of course things for teachers to be wary of. For instance, teachers need to ensure that the quality of research students are doing is at least equivalent to the information found in text. We can not limit our students to the simple articles of the web if we wish to produce the intelligent leaders of tomorrow.

"The iPad Effect: Leveraging Engagement, Collaboration and Perseverance" submitted by Niki Jo Rotolo

In this article the author discusses a study done to determine if ipads improve students' performances. The overall results were that the use of ipads increases students' engagement which is deeply connected to student performance. Therefore if ipads are utilized correctly, they can have an impact on improving students' literary skills.
I feel that student performance is deeply dependent on his engagement to class. I also feel that ipads are not the only way students can become engaged in a lesson. Especially when speaking about first graders, ipads are not the only way to attract and maintain their attention. Teachers can use other quality techniques that do not cost a lot of money to effectively teach their students.

"How Teens Do Research in the Digital World" submitted by Henry Chiu

In this article the author discusses how although students mainly do online research, there are many drawbacks. 94% of students use search engines such as google and only 17% use an online data bases which would offer more sophisticated material. Although it is very beneficial that students feel comfortable with conducting online research, not always are their research skills as sharp as they should be.
I have to say that I agree with this article whole heartedly. The reality is that students are technologically savvy and therefore are familiar with the perks of the internet. However just because students are regular online users does not mean that the information available is of the highest quality. It is no question that as educators we should adapt to our students and try our upmost to utilize teaching tools that best relate to them. However we also have to keep in mind that although this is the reality does not mean that it is the ideal. Teachers need to ensure that our students are gaining as much quality information with out the other distractions and setbacks as possible.