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."