Chapter 10

The tenth chapter the book, “Reading, Writing, and Literacy 2.0: Teaching with Online Texts, Tools, and Resources, K-8,” discusses literacy 3.0 and continuing professional development. Internet projects are becoming more common in the literacy age. One kind of an internet project could be a classroom Blog. As a blogger this past semester, this type of project interested me because I typically do not explore blogs and this was my first time experimenting with my own blog. The book mentioned an award winning Blog called Mrs. Yollis' Classroom Blog. It was interesting to read and explore this blog to compare the differences between my blog and a much more complex blog website. Anchor charts were a main topic of discussion throughout the book, so the Anchor Chart Central link was the first one I checked out. There were about 10 or so examples of anchor charts for different subjects, which serve as a great example and ideas for other teachers to use in their own classrooms. I am not used to imputing hyperlinks, so the Learn HTML Code! Link was very useful for me, which can help when I am making a class website or blog. The Blogging Resource for Teachers tab included videos of students, questions about blogs, and projects, activities, and sample blog posts. The 365 Blog page was an interesting project. Students involved in this project are asked to take a picture, give photo credentials to the photographer taking the photos, and post the picture to contribute to the photos posted daily by other students. Students are asked to leave comments on pictures as well as end with a question about their own picture to stimulate conversation and discussion in the group. I can understand why this blog is an award winning Best Class Blog. It is a great reference and guide for teachers beginning a classroom blog, and offers many resources contributing to learning and literacy. I highly recommend this blog and for more information you can go to http://www.yollisclassblog.blogspot.com.au!

Chapter 9

           The ninth chapter of the book, “Reading, Writing, and Literacy 2.0: Teaching with Online Texts, Tools, and Resources, K-8,” discusses assessment in a Literacy 2.0 environment.  One site mentioned was TodaysMeet. This site was interesting and provides a virtual classroom where students can type comments and questions in real-time while the teacher provides instruction. This site was interesting to explore, but was difficult to see in depth because I was not a part of a specific virtual room, so my view was limited. A teacher who would want to teach a virtual class would really benefit from this site, as well as students who cannot make it to a real classroom. It is a new type of online class that I had not known about before. I do not foresee myself using this site a lot in my career, but it is a useful site and resource to be aware of.

            I checked out the site EverNote.  I could only view and explore with a free trial, but based on the description in the book about the uses of this site for displaying all the assessment data for students. This site allows for analysis across multiple sources and types of data, and is helpful for sharing data with other teachers, school faculty such as reading specialists, and parents. Navigating through the site is easy and clearly labled and includes a tutorial as well as instructions about how to use the website.

            SurveyMonkey is a great site to gather overall thoughts and opinions or to conduct surveys among a class. This app is very user friendly and easy to use. I have used SurveyMonkey before reading this chapter and have found it to be very useful and effective based on the questions and topics regarding the survey for what I wanted. It is customizable and surveys can be read aloud to young children and responses recorded in different ways.

Chapter 8

The eighth chapter of the book, “Reading, Writing, and Literacy 2.0: Teaching with Online Texts, Tools, and Resources, K-8,” discusses technology across the curriculum. This chapter mentioned many ways to integrate technology for teachers to use in the classroom, as well as resources for students to use to help their learning and improve literacy. Two resources were discussed in the book relating to technology and reliability of the sources. Two useful sites are www.schrockguide.net/critical-evaluation.html and www.easybib.com. Kathy Schrock’s website offers many useful links and information, though I think her site would benefit more teachers incorporating technology into the literacy curriculum, as opposed to students, especially the younger grades. I explored this site and looked at a few of the links that first interested me. The iPads4teaching link was extremely useful, especially because iPads are becoming more and more common among young children and used within the classroom. I clicked on the link called iPads in the Classroom, and the website brought me to a page with resources for beginning teachers and educators. My only issue with the site is that every time a link is clicked, a new tab opens up. If I looked at ten different links, then I would have ten tabs open, which can get confusing and overwhelming. Overall I will definitely keep this site in mind for when I am a teacher myself.

EasyBib is a site that I was already familiar with. This site is much more geared to students. As a high school student and even in college, I have used this site as an aid for many citations on assignments. After learning about reliability, and different formats of papers, this site deals specifically with MLA, this site helps form citations in the correct formatting. There are usually ads on his website, so you have to be careful not to click them, but they are not overwhelming. I would not use this site with young children; however, this site would greatly benefit middle school even up through college students when citing.

Chapter 7

           The seventh chapter of the book, “Reading, Writing, and Literacy 2.0: Teaching with Online Texts, Tools, and Resources, K-8,” discusses writing online. There are many outlets and resources to access digital literacy tools and materials. It is important for teachers to provide models that support learning to write online. One of the digital mentor texts and media mentioned in the chapter include digital anchor texts, which are helpful for student learning. Digital anchor texts can be created in a digital environment and used as a guideline for students.

            Pinterest provides many pins and boards including anchor charts, reading comprehension strategies, and mentor texts, which can be very beneficial for students and teachers to use in the classroom. As a future teacher, Pinterest can provide visuals to help when creating an anchor charts, and also helpful for providing examples of lesson plan layouts and prompts. I love using Pinterest because it provides step-by-step instructions and ideas for any kind of lesson I might want to do. I can organize boards and pins that I like to look back on later, and will deinfitely utilize the resources and ideas this site offers for future lessons with my class.

            I also really like the idea of the SpiderScribe website. I am glad that I was able to explore this site further as part of the explorations for my online course. It provides a visual way for students to share their knowledge and follow concepts. A lot of the websites mentioned in the chapter I had never heard of before and I can’t wait to explore more sites to use in my own classroom. While a lot of the websites and digital media sites support student learning, not all of them will work well for your classroom. As a teacher you will have to decide which sites and digital media sources will be most beneficial and easy to use for your class.

Children's Book Review

I chose the book The Kissing Hand by Audrey Penn as one of my favorite children's books. My Mom used to read this story to my brothers and I, and I remembered the story when I went to college. I think it is a great children's story and children can easily relate to the meaning. The pictures are great and children can connect with this book, especially those who are just beginning school and feeling scared. This is a story I will read when I have a class of my own.

To check out more books by Audrey Penn, visit: http://www.audreypenn.com/ 

Chapter 6

     The sixth chapter of the book, “Reading, Writing, and Literacy 2.0: Teaching with Online Texts, Tools, and Resources, K-8,” discusses using e-tools to scaffold comprehension of e-literature. When reading this chapter, I was intrigued by the WebNotes description. In my own learning I have always found sticky notes a useful, organized strategy for learning. I had never heard of this before and I think this would be very useful when using online literacies and e-books within the classroom. When looking to explore this website, I realized that the site is no longer available. However, there are many websites available that provide similar services and tools to accomplish the goals for learning like with WebNotes, which is now Kami. 

     There are many different resources that can be incorporated and explored within a classroom to enhance and build literacy development. There are traditional print and digital materials that can be used when teaching and assessing the literacy development of children. The digital text environments support self-regulation and monitoring of comprehension. Digital environment can extend monitoring and self-regulation strategies, and two important scaffolds for supporting monitoring and self-regulation are online annotations and vocabulary and background knowledge. The digital environment can offer vocabulary support, such as an online dictionary, for exploring word and concept knowledge. Creating podcasts of students reading their book talks, which the chapter discusses, I agree is a great way to engage students to help share their reading, thoughts, and opinions with others and encouraging other students to read books the class enjoys. This strategy can also help practice and improve fluency. 

     Technology resources are a more modern way of teaching, and very different to use than traditional print materials. However, I realized as I was reading, that even though there are major differences handling and using traditional print materials versus the digital environments, the ways of teaching and evaluating comprehension strategies are the same, just simply adjusted to meet the needs of the students and environment being used.