Becoming au courant with ICT can be very time-consuming but as an educator, the time invested is worthwhile: Students and colleagues alike can enter a virtual world of exploring new concepts, new ways of doing but above all, new ways of learning. This is indeed an imperative in today's world of fast-paced technological advance. To not be a meaningful part of it is to be sidelined into the quagmire of obsolescence. A challenge, yes, but quite an interesting one at that.
Juliet
Identify ways in which blogs may assist in reading/writing development or enhance key reading/writing components.
ReplyDeleteBlogs are the on-line equivalent of hard-copy journals or diaries. As such, they allow for personal expression in writing as well as for reflection. What is more, blogs allow students to collaborate by sharing and responding to ideas--this has the potential to enhance their verbal literacy since they are reading and witing in response to their peers. The teacher can use blogs in the classroom to ehance learning specifically reading and writng:
Publishing of students' writng is easily facilitated--no specialised technical knowledge is required and this is the final stage of the writing process. This can aid the building of student's self-esteem and motivation to write. Moreover, the writng process can be engaged to develop a piece of writing and stylistically enhance and refine it with the aim to publish.
Blogs can be used to promote narrative writing as students share out of their own life experiences; this can be used as a launchpad for reading on-line published narratives and responding in writing by blogging with the class community.
Blogs are multi-disciplinary in that students can express their perceptions about a range of topics across content areas.
Students can critique each others' writing on-line--this in turn equips them to edit their own writing with a greater level of proficiency while improving their critical and strategic reading skills.
Blogs can be used to support projects through the tracking/recording of the process in which the student engages and identification of challenges encountered along the way. In this way, the teacher can provide the necessary scaffolding. This can also aid formative assessment.
Very importantly, blogs can promote students' awareness and development of metacognitive knowledge which is a critical aspect of reading comprehension.
Implementation includes the issue of integrating technology into the learning environment. The major considerations are:
1) The teacher must avoid being 'technocentric'--the focus ought to be on the learning outcomes/lesson objectives;
2) The learning experience must be designed;
Students' instructional and contextual realities ought to be taken into consideration.
3) All resources to support the learning activities must be identified;
4) Assessment is an essential component;
5) Students' prior knowledge must also be factored into the implementation plan.
You have stated the obvious so delicately, Juliet. I feel somewhat intimidated by my lack of techno knowledge especially when others are swimming ahead. I recognize its importance and usefulness, yet I resent its allconsuming characteristic. Too much time has to be devoted to this machine. I wish that technology did not require me to sit so long facing the screen of a computer. Well, here goes.
ReplyDeleteI really agree with you. It is really time-consuming. I am hoping as we get the hang of this ICT stuff, navigation through the pages will be easier. The situation is really congruet with learning new things. Not only do we have to stimulate the brain to accept somthing new, we have to force it to develop new synaspes to make quicker and smooth connections while avoiding cognitive confusion. It's found in brain plasticity research. It simply confirms what granny always says "it will get better with practice" or "practice makes perfect". And 'they' thought our grandparents didn't know that because they couldn't read!
ReplyDeleteAs Lyn said, the prospect of using ICT is intimidating. I confess that I was somewhat daunted when I first saw the course outline. However at this point I am excited because I am beginning to see clearly the possibilities that ICT can open up for our struggling adolescent readers, who in the twenty-first century are "digitally oriented".
ReplyDeleteI agree with Juliet that the time spent developing tech savvy is well worth it because our students are wired differently from how we were at their age. As teachers, we cannot remain as useless fossils in an era that requires a paradigm shift towards technologies which go beyond pen and paper, chalk and talk. I believe we can motivate our students to learn to read and write, as well as help them to develop social skills, by introducing them to collaborative tools such as blogs and wikis. We see that too many students are entering secondary school with alarmingly low levels of literacy. Are traditional methods failing them? Educators must find the time to develop themselves professionally in order to become more effective so they can satisfy the literacy needs of students. They must not be left behind and we must not be left behind.
Beverly Phillip-Le Gendre
I appreciate the comments and agree with your sentiments. Our challenge is huge but collaboratively we can impact our struggling readers for their benefit as well as the nation's. My own experience of using technolgy with students is that they responded readily. Class became an interesting sphere of totally engaging activity--all were eager to contribute. In addition, they hepled me to navigate through some 'digital glitches; they showed me how to solve a problem that we encountered while using the wiki I had created for the class. They felt good about that, I learned something new, and was relieved that the problem did not impede class progress. To traditionalise instruction in a digital age is to limit our students' literacy development.
ReplyDeleteWe want our struggling readers to:
ReplyDelete1)Make simple predictions about what will be found in a text (e.g. use prior knowledge, pictures, titles.
2)Use specific strategies to clear up confusing parts of a text (e.g. pause, re-read the text, draw upon prior knowledge, ask for help).
3)Represent concrete information (e.g. persons, places, things, events) using mental pictures.
4)Read level-appropriate text with sufficient accuracy and fluency to support comprehension.
5)Read texts both silently and aloud to develop pace and fluency.
6)Use word reference materials (e.g. dictionary to determine the meaning and pronunciation of unknown words).
I gained meaningful insight re: word processors in contrast to wikis in the M.Ed Reading course I am pursuing.
ReplyDeleteWhile both technologies can assist the learner with developing reading, writing, thinking, digital and visual literacy skills,coupled with building concentration in the process of compopsing, they differ in certain aspects:
1. Word Processors:
- No revision control when the document is shared.
- Incurs a cost factor (software)
- Allows focus on revision/stylistic enhancement.
-has a range of formatting featues.
2. Wikis:
- Limited formatting features.
- Has spell check but no grammar check.
- Has no word counter
- Is useful for project management type activities.
-Allows for document collaboration and real-time editing.
- Provides a detailed record of changes.
This is useful information for the teacher planning for instruction that will provide the necessary support to scaffold learning.
Addtionally, wikis from a sociocultural
ReplyDeleteperspective on learning (Vygotsky, 1998; Bonk & Kim, 1998), provides a communication medium through which students can work together to construct knowledge and share ideas. There can be benefits to student engagement when a wiki is employed as part of a blended learning approach.
One of the primary ways in which working with the wiki can mediate our interactions is by destabilizing the long-standing image that teaching is a one-way stream of communication in which the teacher disseminates knowledge or information to students, who, in turn, consume and respond to it. Ede & Lunsford (2000) emphasize the dialogic nature of writing, suggesting that rhetorical situations are constantly changing, and discuss the ongoing internal conversations that writers have with the contexts, content, and potential audiences for their work. Wikis emphasize that teaching and learning are also dialogic processes situated in constantly changing rhetorical contexts by externalizing some of these internal negotiations of meaning in more explicit and publicly apparent ways.
Juliet,
ReplyDeleteI can identify with Beverly Lyn and Vicky about how intimidating technology can seem to the uninitiated. At one point I felt like dropping out of this course because my knowledge of technology is so limited. I am usually the last one in the group to grasp what is really going on . Thank God I had a very patient teacher in the person of Cherisse that I am still here. I am glad that I stayed though because I can see the limitless possibilities of marrying the technology with the traditional methods. I
think that we will be able to motivate the struggling students by using the tools that they know so well. The interactive nature of these tools is also a plus for keeping students engaged and interested.
On another note is it that you only posted two blogs? or is it that I can only see two? If you have been posting blogs and they are not showing for some reason you have two days to sort this problem out. Good Luck. Happy Blogging.
Heather Palmer-Ovid
Thank you, Heather. I had been posting quite a number of comments assuming initially that they would qualify as orinal posts. I have rectified the issue.
ReplyDeleteI, like you, have grown to appreciate the tremendous learning potential of integrating technology into the reading instruction scenario. Though not a pro at it, I feel more empowered to engage learners in more meaningful, relevant ways.
Our work is cut out for us but it promises to be exciting as well. Juliet