Synthesis of Literacy Course

Honestly, I learned numerous techniques this semester that I look forward to using in my classroom to enrich my students' learning. The subject that we covered that I think will have the biggest impact on my teaching is digital literacy. I absolutely loved the day that we had to just play around with various websites. It introduced me to sources that I never knew were out there. I had no idea you could create your own comic or make your own animated movie. Before this class when I thought about using technology in the classroom I thought of using projectors, movies, and music. Now my view of digital literacy in the classroom has expanded greatly. I have learned that there are many resources out there. I have also learned that technology should only be used when it enriches your lesson and not as a nice little add-on. I plan to use technology in large variety of ways in my classroom for everything from book reports to writing assignments.

Another important thing I learned from this course are the variety of vocabulary and comprehension strategies that we learned. Throughout most of my education vocabulary involved reading the definitions from textbooks and dictionaries. I always knew that there were other types of vocabulary strategies but I never really knew what they were. As an English teacher, the strategies we learned in class will be immensely helpful in helping my students understand the technical terms of my subject. The same thing goes for the comprehension strategies that we discussed. Most my teachers have simply given me a book or story and told me to read. As a good reader, this wasn't much of a struggle for me. However, I could see that this was difficult for students who didn't enjoy reading or struggled with. Now that I have learned about specific comprehension strategies I plan to use them frequently in my own classroom. Every reading assignment will have a variety of before,during, and after strategies to build students comprehension and reach out to diverse learners.

Overall, I learned a lot from this class that will make me a better teacher than I would have been without it. I plan to use a large number of the strategies and subjects that we discussed this semester in my classroom.

Self Selected Project: Extended digital text

I designed a xtranormal.com movie for my project. The movie was a conversation based on the play "Raisin in the Sun". The scene is supposed to be a prediction of what happened just after one of the main characters Walter received a large sum of money from his mother. He goes to the bar to discuss plan with some friends that he is planning on going into business with. I learned several things from this process. I learned that Xtranormal has a lot of cool resources to make an animated movie. Students can choose stock characters to tell their story. They can add emotions to the characters, make them move, and make them move.  Before being introduced to this website in class, I really had no idea that a website like this existed. It was fairly easy to use and I think students would have lots of fun using it. There are several pitfalls to this website however. You have to have points to create a movie. You start off with three hundred points and then you have to buy more. There are some things that don't require points but in order to use a lot of resources you have to have points. Another pitfall to this website is the fact that at most only two character can be featured in the movie. This might make it hard for students to portray stories or plays that have more than two characters in them.  The final pitfall would be that fact that the voices are very generic. They sound like a computer voice. However, students do have the opportunity to record their own voices which is kind of cool.
       
         I see myself using this website in several different ways in my classroom. Students could use it to create a new and original story. This is a way to make students have fun with writing and would reach those students who are often reluctant to write. It could also be used in a similar way that I used it. I could ask students to make stories predicting what they think might happen next in a book or what might have happened in a situation that the author failed to cover in detail. One final way I would use this in my classroom is to help students give book reports. Students could choose their favorite seen from a book and create a movie to tell others about their book.

I think I will use many different kinds of digital texts in my classroom. I see myself using blogs for discussion purposes, I want to ask students to create movies using both Xtranormal and YouTube. I think the best way to support students in their endeavors to create digital text is to offer them choices and variety. I think with most of my digital assignments I will allow for a lot of creativity. While I will have certain requirements, the assignments will be open-ended as possible. I would probably evaluate students' projects mostly on effort and time spent. However, their will be some points for meeting the few requirements. I hope to make digital texts an integral part of my classroom.