New Literacies Noteblog

How has your conceptual understanding of literacy changed since beginning this class? How does your research on a new literacy and development of your own digital literacy (using your new technology) inform your thinking? What new knowledge, skills, strategies and dispositions are you now aware of, and how do these compare/contrast with more traditional literacies?

Since the beginning of the class my understand of literacy has changed a great deal. From previous learning’s I have learned that every student is different and every student has a different learning style but now I understand how literacy interacts with the idea. I now know how having a different learning style can affect their LA learning or experience. Take a student who is a visual learning compared to a student who is a kinesthetic learner. These student both have very different opinions on what is the best way to learn. Students come from all different cultures and experiences which can make for a classroom full of students who come from all different backgrounds. By allowing students to look at literacy in not just the traditional fashion will open up your classroom to become more diverse just like the students in your class. With technology ever changing and the students growing up in the 21st century it is important to let your students experience literacy in the 21st century. In the beginning of class I thought of LA as more of traditional literacies as in listening, speaking, reading, and writing. After completing this project I have learned that intergraded into the traditional literacies should be cultural, visual, social, emotional, and environmental literacy. It is time to close the books and open up some new forms of teaching. By looking at visual literacy with using a scrapblog I have learned how easy it is for students to be able to use this technology as well. I have learned in this class how important literacy is for students and how it is important to think of interesting and fun ways to get students motivated to read and learn. Know that I am comfortable with using a scrapblog I feel that it is important to think of lessons that allow students to create different pieces of writing and allow them to publish their writing on a scapblog. From class I have learned that it is important to have students writing to a certain audience, a scrapblog is a great way to achieve this.

What does it mean to provide “effective literacy instruction” to diverse learners? How does your research on a new literacy and development of your own digital literacy (using your new technology) inform your thinking?

As stated earlier, every student comes with different experiences and background. Thus, as a teacher it is my job to not just teach one cookie cutter way and that I need to adhere to different learning styles. By researching visual literacy I have learned that not every student is going to look at a image in the same way but when looking at an image we are going to have some kind of reaction. As a teacher, it is important to provide background and important methods and visual thinking strategies for diverse learners. This is because many of the images that we are used to might be very foreign to someone who is not native to this area. Literacy is a form of communication and the ultimate goal is to have students be able to comprehend and create messages. If it be through reading images or through environmental literacy.

If I were to do a similar investigation with K-8 students I would need to consider many things. I first would have to consider their background knowledge with using technology and with visual literacy. I would have to consider their ability to use the technology to research visual literacy. My students do not have the ability to have much freedom without getting off task. So if they were to research something on their own it would take many practice runs ahead of time. I would also have to think about the access and time constraints to use a technology in a lesson. There is 4 computers in the class but I don’t think all of them even work. Also if they were to go to the library or computer lab I would have to consider when other classes use these areas and how this would work into my planning To help on timing on technology issues I would consider tackling one subject at a time at first, having the students explore visual literacy first and then explore the new technology.


Mini Lesson Plan

• Target area and rationale: Visual Decoding – because images create many different meanings depending on the student. Also some times the meaning can get lost in translation.
• Objective(s): Students will identify the main events to create a graphic organizer of the story, Flotsam by David Wiesner.
• Materials and Supplies Needed: Flotsam by David Wiesner, 24 graphic organizers, pencils.
• Outline of Key Events:
1. Teacher will read Flotsam to students.
2. Throughout the story the teacher will point out certain pictures and ask questions about what the picture is saying.
3. Students will ask and answer questions based on what they are comprehending throughout the story.
4. Students will go back to their seats to fill out the graphic organizer which has the beginning, middle, and end key points that they have to fill out.
5. Students will share their beginning, middle, and end and see if any other student read the images the same way or how they differed.
• Closing Summary: Teacher will re iterate how important it is to make sense of what we see (visual literacy.)
• Ongoing Assessment: Teacher could use graphic organizers to help students comprehend other visual literacies.