Great News!

I have had some wonderful days with my students! I have finally bonded with some that I thought I would never bond with! It is spectacular! It's better than the feeling you get when you find out Santa has come...my heart starts fluttering, my eyes light up, my heart beats faster, and my mouth opens wide! My student read a book for me! As many times as I have tried to coerce him...he finally felt like he could trust me and read for me! I gave him so many treats and praise that I had nothing left to give...and kept giving! :) It is such a triumphant feeling to accomplish a feat that seemed impossible! This is what teaching is allllllll about!

Using Technology in the Writer's Workshop

I have voiced my concerns about safety and the Internet with my children but I am beginning to wrap my head around it...embrace it...a bit. I think I could really make this happen. Maybe not every week but to be sure I could get my kids up there once every two weeks just to publish their ideas. They don't have to be perfect but I think that would really motivate them to get the work done if they knew they were going to be submitting it so their classmates can see their work. The children are so interested in getting to use technology that I shouldn't withhold using it just because I can't dictate every second of what they are doing. I can't do that even if they are not using technology, why should I micromanage with technology. :)

Multimedia Project

My multimedia project was very fun to do and it was not very hard at all! It was nice to be "forced" into doing something of that nature! It wasn't even that hard! I wish I had known this all along. Next time I create one though, I will be sure that I am not in a hurry because I was stressed out when the sound wouldn't work. The children will really enjoy using this! I even talked with our AIG coordinator and she wants to use it with her children also! How flattering!

Ethics and Context

I thought this section was especially meaningful! Teachers have such a huge responsibility of keeping our children safe. Being safe means so many different things. Keeping them safe from inappropriate material on the Internet is one of those things that is very touchy. Children can access the Internet with permission from home but once they get up there and they enter one letter incorrectly or correctly and children can stumble across inappropriate pictures that could get us in a heap of trouble. Another aspect of safety is communicating with others over the Internet. We may want to create an email, edmoto, or wiki for students to communicate with each other but we are concerned about who else can access or get ahold of their information.
Another concern is treating information as property. Children must know about plagiarism at a younger age now than they used to. Another key to using information is determining if it is accurate information. Again, children are learning these ideas a lot sooner than we did growing up. I didn't know (or don't remember) anything about copyright until I was in middle school.

Using Photos to Compose

I learned a lot more about multimedia displays of information in Troy Hicks' (2009) The Digital Writing Workshop. The section that I was really interested in was entitled, "Composing Digital Pictures and Creating Photo-Essays with Online Photo Sharing." I found this really interesting and do-able! To begin with, digital cameras and flipvideos are available at my school. This would also be very helpful to my children who struggle with inspiration to write. I was thinking that if children could take a picture of something that moves them, represents a topic, or was just interesting to them. Once they have "motivation," they can compose a multimedia project or writing project to demonstrate their proficiency.

Using blogs and wikis

This is still kinda touchy for me. As I am reading this, I am contemplating how to get the technology resources to make this happen. Can I get an app on iPads to create a word document? I can have them bookmark our wiki and they can create writing there. Maybe I can make this work! :)

Toward a Theory

Well...if I were to put this article into a wordle the largest word would be "change." I noticed that the beginning of the article discussed defining literacy. I think this is extremely important because literacy is not what it was when I was in second grade. It will take a while for this to spread and be recognized throughout the education community. When I say that, I mean that there are the oppositional educators who just want to shut their door and teach the way they always have. Children ARE learning differently now. We must embrace their learning styles and culture and teach to their liking.