"Technology to Enhance Literacy".... as I think about the course title I am excited to see and use first hand the variety of ways to embed technology with literacy. Literacy, the ability to read and write. There are countless ways to teach reading and writing, however it is not fitting for all students. I am excited to see and explore options. As it is not fitting for all students, it is also not easy (or fitting) for many of our parents. As I continue through my teaching career, I am finding many of my parents are struggling readers. I hope to build a comfort with some new tools throughout this course that not only reach my students, but also parents.
Throughout a previous course, we were encouraged to use Twitter. I have to admit, I have not been on Twitter much since. But I do have plans to go back, once I start preparing for the year ahead in greater detail. However, I created a hashtag for my parents this past year for them to follow me on Twitter. I am uncertain if they actually used or saw any of my posts from #MeurerNews on Twitter. I did always have the information available on my weekly newsletter. With that said, in the same course, we used Blogs to post our weekly discussions. I did enjoy seeing the variety of Blogs and being able to interact via Blogging. I hope that this upcoming year I am comfortable enough with Blogging- that I can share a Blog with parents. The level of interacting may be more inviting and welcoming.
I also took a leap, that I know you all are aware of, but I took on using Twiducate in my second grade ELA classroom. It was a HUGE hit. The students were writing and never realized! I learned there are some major keyboarding and typing skills that need to be addressed before I could start assessing their writing. They were not capitalizing words that should be, but then the next day would ask how to make a capital letter. So going forward I have learned I need to conduct mini-lessons about these things I take for granted. All in all, I would use the program again. It is free and easy enough for second graders to navigate!
My expectations are wide open. I just want to walk away from this course with new ideas to bring back to my students, new comforts to introduce to co-workers and parents. I am currently uneasy about Wiki's, so I am hoping (as I see we have one assigned) that I build a level of confidence with Wiki's!
I am walking away from week one really enjoying the link provided: Learning About Blogging FOR Your Students.
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