Week+08+Reflection

Week 8

__Reading__: What If? Technology in the 21st Century -"Effective learning environments that engage students in modes of exploration and knowledge-building that are relevant to their experiences are a significant part of the solution" (page 5) to the question of what students do in schools in the 21st century. -Students are already using these technologies in their daily lives. -The Future Classroom is already here. -Even in 2000, 96% of students were using a computer. -Students who do not have technology filled classroom feel the need to "power down" and may find the content of the lesson to be less relevant. -**Blended learning design** - courses that have both online and in-class components. -Literacy is becoming more important and technology can improve literacy through a variety of mediums. -Teachers should be using a more constructivist approach to help learners take responsibility for their learning and build their own knowledge. -Many teachers still teaching have not incorporated technology into the classroom because it was not available when they were in Teacher's College. It is probably reasonable to expect these teachers never will incorporate technology if they have not done so yet. -Thames Valley DSB uses **electronic report cards**! That is so cool! I've never heard of that before! -Often there is one teacher in the school that is really enthusiastic about technology and he or she is the one that encourages its use in the classroom. -Students seem to prefer learning in a classroom as opposed to online because of the face-to-face interaction with the teacher and their peers. -Some teachers need more support than others with the integration of technology in the classroom. -The Ministry of Education is looking unto learning today what tomorrow will look like and "currently have the tools, such as 45 minute webinars, to put teacher Professional Development on line" (page 15). -If we don't change (inclusion of more technology in the classroom), students may become disinterested and feel disconnected and disengaged. -If students are beginning to use technology in Kindergarten, why is the focus so strongly put on secondary schools? The information learned in secondary school may be more complex, but both levels and students in between could benefit equally. -One of the factors preventing the technological classroom is funding and lack of resources. -Many parents wants schools to offer these options.

__What is Media Literacy?__ -Using a critical approach to understand all forms of media -Ask questions about what is going on. What are the values being represented? Where does it come from? What might be the implications of the source of the information? -Who is the message for? Who is it from? Why is it important to think about these factors? -It is more important that we teach students to be critical and think about the media they encounter than have the find the right answers.

__The 3 Stages of Media Literacy__ 1. Managing one's media "diet" 2. Learning specific skills of critical viewing 3. Go behind the frame to explore deeper issues

-These stages are important to teaching students how to manage media, think critically about what they see and hear, and arrive at their own conclusions.

__Media Study, Media Education or Media Literacy?__ -Media Education = broad term to explain what is studied in a media-oriented classroom (any subject area). -Media Study = specific courses or units based on media. -Media Literacy = what we hope to develop in students concerning how to analyze, experience, and interpret media.

__Literacy, Then and Now__ -It is important to teach how to decode media as well as understand how to create media -"print literacy, numeral literacy and technological literacy "

-Passive versus Active relationship to media

-Our job to communicate media litteracy - not just for English teachers -Text / Production / Audience (form the media literacy triangle) --> we mostly teach text and audience, but production (process, techniques, tools, copyrights) but also be taught -The writing process versus the digital writing process. Same process, but different tools. You don't have to do anything different, but you are moving the process forward. -Pre-Writing: brainstorm, storyboard (template), script... -Writing (Construction): drag and drop images, text bubbles... -Post-Writing: Revise (images, frames, gutters), Feedback, edit, add background, publish -If you can get them to produce the content digitally, there is more of a grab (they are interested!) -Horizon Report (2009) - technology should be a part of the school lives of students -Get to know the curriculum, what can be manipulated? Which expectations are being targeted with your lesson. You must also know what to assess. -Assessment for learning - most important! Helps towards creating autonomous learners -How you use the technology is more important than the technology that you have
 * DISCUSSION ON MEDIA**

__ComicLife__ -Comics are becoming more respected in literature -Comics have certain conventions, just like other literature forms 1. Establishing shot (for setting) 2. Format - colour, font 3. Bubbles 4. Panels - tilt, shadow 5.Gutters - inferring, time 6. Z pattern - direction

-You must teach the conventions for comics before the students are able to produce their own comic -What is left out is just as important as what is included -Help the students express their meaning

-choose .jpeg for image quality and size when exporting a ComicLife file



__Bitstrips__ http://bitstrips.com/ - Website where you can create comics or cartoon character versions of yourself. You might end up making multiple characters in order to create a comic. -You can also read other peoples comics on Bitstrips -You create a profile, add friends to know who is online... -I find that the choices available are rather limited, you cannot choose eye color, and there is limited selection for clothes. Ideally, my avatar would have blue eyes and a pretty dress. Choices for making the comic are also limited.

-Students are able to develop a series more easily with Bitstrips than ComicLife. The characters are recurring so they must learn to develop a plot with character development. -Having a profile can help teachers communicate with students regarding their comics. -Because there are less options, there is less of a focus on creativity. Students will not feel as though their work is not at the same level as their classmates' because only what is available on the website can be used (images are already provided). -There appears to be more of a focus on the story/plot and the text than ComicLife. In ComicLife many frames may not include any text, but in Bitstrips there is almost always text.



__Comparing ComicLife to Bitstrips__ -Both make concepts fun -Both are good for students who are not strong with language -ComicLife - difficult to get the images that you wanted. You have to have the images already prepared. -Bitstrips - Less prep for students because images are already there. Students can get the right emotion. -Students with aspergers would learn about emotions and how to read others when using Bitstrips -Both are excellent tools

-You can create higher order thinking with digital tools -Creating --> Evaluating --> Analysing --> Applying --> Understanding --> Remembering (HOTS--> LOTS) -Texting occurs at the bottom of the taxonomy - thus students are not using technology for higher order thinking. You must convince students that you know about technology but that we need to work together to all become skilled. -Reaching kids with HOTS - higher order thinking skills (blogging, videocasting, wiki-ing, animating...)
 * Bloom's Digital Taxonomy**

__Co-writer__ -Is used with applications that accept text. Students start typing and the computer guesses the word. -Important to ensure that the computer understands the students' backgrounds as it might affect the word options available. -Co-Writer can either focus on the sentence or paragraph level (depending on their abilities) -Exact spelling versus Flexible Spelling - some students spell based on the sounds. -Text size can vary (some special needs students may need larger font) -Color of screen is also changeable - modern students do not work best with black text on white background, so this would accommodate them. Also, some need a darker background (Visually impared students) -The program will learn the words used frequently by a user - which would increase the speed. -You might not always get the words that you want. You may have to repeat the process

__Write Outloud__ -Students are able to improve their writing skills by listening to what they have already written. This helps them review and edit their text. Sometimes students may not be able to see their mistakes but will notice them when the text is read. Some students also have trouble reading, so this program can help them improve the quality of their text. -Works at different levels. Students may need to focus at word level or at sentence level. Word level would allow them to focus on spelling (ensure that the word they wrote is the one they wanted), while sentence level provides more syntactic support. -Students often know what they want the sentence to sound like but have difficulty translating this into text. Having the computer read the sentence back will help them verify what they hear with what the expect to hear. -The dictionary feature would be very helpful for students who are not sure which word they want. Often two words sound very similar, or might me homonyms, and this confuses English language learners and students with special needs in particular. -This program might encourage students to write because the process becomes less challenging. -Teachers could use it to provide verbal instructions to students who are taking the test in another room or at another time and who need to hear the instructions to understand the expectations.

These software programs remind me of the **Dragon Naturally Speaking** program my parents bought my brother many years ago to help him write. He would speak into a microphone and the computer would translate the words into text. I found that program to be very inefficient because it often guessed the wrong words. Even once my brother had trained the program to understand his voice, it made many mistakes. We found that it was most useful for asking to computer to complete tasks (For example, "open internet explore" often worked better than having the computer translate into text). I imagine that speech recognition software had improved significantly since the version we bought, but I think that all students should learn how to type because it is must more efficient.

__TRYING CO-WRITER__ -You will see students in schools that could benefit from this software but will not be identified to need them.

-This is me co:writer. It does not work well in Microsoft word. Sometimes it will work, but only some of the time and it works only for words that go well together.
-I noticed that it had more problems translating my text from the program into the wiki. Often the words would no longer be in the same order. It also did not work at all in Word. -Students who do not like typing would benefit from this (if they were able to use it properly) because it might encourage them to write longer texts. Students who have physical disabilities or learning disabilities such as tics might benefit from it because writing with a pencil could be challenging. -I do not know if I would encourage my students to use this program because it did rearrange the order of my words but on the other hand it did predict my next word relatively well.

__TRYING WRITE-OUTLOUD__

-i am using Write: Outloud now. I like that it reads my text to me.
-The problem I noticed with this program is that when I misspelled a word, I would not know because it might sound the same. Homonyms have the same problem however it does have an option for students to verify if they have chosen the right word. The definitions are particularly clear and therefore very helpful. -This program would work well for students who have problems spelling, dyslexics, and perhaps the visually impaired because it reads aloud the text. Often students have difficulty seeing their mistakes and need to hear them.