3-Digital Literacy and Newsletter

I feel most prepared to teach the “Multimedia:” Literature ELA standard. I plan to use a lot of presentations in my future classroom along with audio and video components. Throughout grade school, students learn a ton of information. In my experience, the information that I collected and prepared a presentation on was the most memorable. To this day, I can remember just about every presentation I had to do in front of my classroom. I feel very prepared and excited to teach using this standard. I also feel prepared to show videos in my classroom. This is a simple tool that can engage an abundance of students who may not remember as well if they are only reading a book or listening to a lecture. In college, I get excited about watching videos in class that relate to the topic my professor is lecturing on. These videos help me remember and apply the information I am studying. “Use Technology” is another standard that I feel confident in. Being a digital native and growing up in a world full of technology I have a ton of experience with it. Connecting and collaborating with other students and teachers across the globe is something that I know will be used frequently in my future classroom. “Evaluate Speaker’s Point of View” is a standard that I wish I was more prepared to teach. English was always a difficult subject for me so I need a lot of help with this standard if I want to teach it to my students. However, I am confident that I will be able to do this because of the amazing resources available on the Internet. Interacting with teachers who are more confident and prepared with this standard will surely help me apply it in my classroom.

I plan to work with 3^rd grade students in the future. I would like to use social networking sites with my students to engage them in learning. This tool will allow my students to connect with multiple students across the world so that they can have an insight on what they are learning. Wiki is another tool I would like to incorporate in my 3^rd grade classroom. Before reading the textbook, I had no idea the opportunities that come with using Wiki. This tool will excite my students and help them focus on a specific subject area. For example, if I am teaching my students about The Holocaust, they could use Wiki to share multiple resources and facts that they have found on their own. I think that 3^rd graders will LOVE this feeling of contributing to a lesson and sharing it with the entire class. While incorporating this technology in my classroom, I will also teach my students about digital citizenship. The textbook gives a useful list of what 21^st century educators need to teach their students. This includes things such as communicating clearly with respect and good manners, letting me know if they suspect another student is behaving inappropriately, recognize intellectual property and understand the rules about when it can be used, and ask appropriate questions related to their subject when searching for information online.

The Newsletter Design assignment was more time consuming than I expected but I had a lot of fun creating it. It kind of gave me the feeling of being a teacher which was exciting! For improvements next time, I will set aside more time to work and hopefully arrange a time with Ms. Cates to go over a few questions I had. I am looking forward to creating more newsletters in my future career! Although I want to be a Speech Therapist, I still want to work at a school. Creating a newsletter to send home with the students I work with will provide an easy way to communicate information to their parents. I will include things such as what we worked on throughout the month, what techniques helped, what the parents can do to help their child, and many other insightful updates. I never thought about doing an electronic newsletter so this was a new idea for me. I think it is helpful, especially with the ability to include a link to my e-mail and other hyperlinks that can give parents an insight to what we are doing in the classroom. I loved this assignment and almost everything about it. I am looking forward to seeing everyone else’s newsletters in class today and to hopefully share some ideas.