The End of A Semester and the Beginning of a New Dawn

So the Spring 2009 semester is coming to end with students frantically trying to complete all of their last minute assignments and get ready for finals. The class that I am taking, Literacy and Technology offered an insightful way of applying technology to the classroom, with many ways being accessible to all teachers and most of them at a wopping cost of "FREE" and who doesn't like free. This class demonstrated that theory does not have to rule the lecture.. hands on makes a huge difference. Even though I do not profess to be a strong technological person... I missed one class due to a computer malfunction and found myself not knowing what to do or who to turn to and it became rather frustrating, but Dr. S makes you feel at ease with the class and the technology presented. In addition, we had a great time learning together and learning from each other (classmates) whihc really gave the feeling of a collaborative working environment, something that all of us working teachers or future teachers hope to achieve with our own classes. I enjoyed this class very much and know that I will beable to much of the information that I learned and really apply it directly to the classroom.

Great Article

I came across this great article in the The Principal COnnection of the magazine Educational Leadership: March 2009

http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational_leadership.aspx

The article was passed along to me by the principal of my school since he knew I was taking a Literacy and Technology class. I found the article enlightening and very relevant to today's educational needs of students: Some highlights of the article:

A challenge that we need to teach students is to be literate in two types of languages: thse of the pre and post digital worlds. They suggest teaching both literacies at once (that's a no brainer) but also to approach this challenge in three ways:
1. to encourage students to enjoy good books
2. the use of expressive writing
3. and the ability to communicate correctly through written language.

Another interesting comment that they make, especially to teachers that have been teaching for a while, that they need to abandon the idea that information can only be found in books and relying to heavily on end of chapter tests. There are better ways to keeping a school "language rich" and it can change with the growing adaptation of technology within the school.

There is another article within the same edition of the magazine called The Media Collage: Being able to read and write in multiple forms of media and integrate into a meaningful whole is the new hallmark of literacy.

It is obvious that not every school has a large budget set aside for today's growing technology... it could cost a fortune for some schools and asking for a new laptop or smart board, maybe nearly impossible when most of the time students can not even get themselves on new textbooks. However, this article shows how (much of what we learned in our own class) are ways that a teacher can incorporate technology within the classroom and without it breaking the bank... the article suggests such websites/softwares; blogging, digital story tell, and other Web2.0 (media collages) literacy tools.
There are 8 tips that the articles highlights:
1. Shift from text centrism to media collage
2. Value Writing and Reading now more than ever
3. Adopt arts as the next "R"
4. Blend Traditional and Emergin Literacies
5. Harness report and story.
6. Practive private and participatory social literacy
7. Develop Literacy with Digital Tools and about Digital Tools
8. Pursue Fluency

Just remember teachers are guides... "focus on expression first and technology second... and everything will fall into place."