Week 7 - Introduction to the range of new literacies

Assignment#1  Write a brief reflection on each article 

1) Theories and Practices of Multimodal Education:  The Instructional Dynamics of Picture Books and Primary Classrooms:

It's interesting to see the shift of reading from print-based education to multimodal education with more interaction of teachers and students on characters, plots and visuals of interactive children books.  There are several ways to put children's literature with multimodal characteristics, such as words express meaning through typesetting, interactive narration, images expand meaning and multiple perspectives.  It's good to allow children to speak up their thought during book's reading, so they can pick up all different elements of multimodal story.
2) Using the Addie Model to Design Second Life Activities for online Learners.
I didn't know what second life meant until I read this article.  It's interesting to know that second life actually means virtual environment such as online education on Blackboard, instant messenger, etc.  Although second life is convenience for users, I somehow still feel that I can learn more in the face-to-face classroom lecture than learning online as we can get instant feedback from other students and teachers.  I don't think I tried using second life with avatar before.  I believe avatars can help enhance the interaction and student engagement to second life activities, thus strengthen social presence.

Assignment#2   Create an avatar in Second Life, explore the environment, take a screenshot and share with class on blog. 

Discuss with ELA teachers and list ways to incorporate Second Life in ELA instruction, applying the concepts of multimodality to the teaching of ELA:

     Nonfiction books commonly contain not only text and photographs these days but also links to instructional videos.  Multimodal texts offer multimodality or multiple modes on reading for reader to move on through the text (ex: watch instructional video after reading corresponding section of the text, or watch all the videos first, or save watch videos after reading), which create a different experience than reading traditional text.   Digital storytelling also provide variety of multimedia such as graphics, audio, video and text.  Twitter can also made reading more interactive and class activities more responsive to students, thus create more students engagement.  

UDL Book Builder

UDL Book Builder Project:
Please see below the link on book project that I worked on with ESL teacher for a Grade 1 student:
Book Project

The key goal of this project is to allow students to practice writing through authentic exercise.  The ESL teacher suggested me to work on some simple, easy to write topic.  So, I suggested this student, Hayden, to write a little book about himself.  I first demonstrated what to do for cover page.  Then, guided him through the second page, and let him work on the rest himself with my supervisory. 

The little penguin narrator below each page is actually used as a tips I gave to Hayden on something he can write about on each page.  I encouraged Hayden to use drawings or pictures to represent his story on each page.  In order to let the student be more engaged on this activity, I showed him a sample of another student UDL book, and let him know that his book will also get published online for his family and classmates to see.  

Week 6 - introduction to range of new literalise III

Assignment 2-1:  thoughts about the articles
It's obvious that technology becomes more and more important in our daily life.  It is crucial that school integrated technology into teaching so that students can adapt to the digital world soon.  Before teaching students technology tool, it's no doubt that teacher needs to know how to use it themselves first.  Nevertheless, many teachers still keen on using traditional teachers as they get used to their way of teaching.  They are lacking the skill or knowledge to integrate technology into teaching and there is no motivation for them to spend more time to learn new things.   In my opinion, I suggest schools should set requirement for teachers to update their teaching skills especially in learning new technology integrated teaching.  Moreover, school should provide sufficient technology support so students can easily get access to practice new literacy skills to apply to their school work.


Assignment 2-2. Write a paragraph on how ELA teacher can use Edmodo to enhance their ELA instruction.
ELA teacher can use Edmodo as a social platform between teacher and students.  Teacher can share content on post notes function for students to enter their feedback.  This can help encourage students to practice their language skills, spelling and grammar through the conversations in this social platform.  Teacher can organise a reading group to encourage student to read and discuss about the stories or articles they read with their group peers.  Teacher can utilise Quiz builder or poll feature to assess students. Learning and understanding of a lesson.

Please see below a screenshot of my Edmodo group page:

Week 5 - Introduction to the range of new literacies (II): Gaming and literacy

Assignment#1 Examine and explain how other teachers are using games in the classrooms

     Games are fun activities that is an important element in teaching ELA.  Games can be used to warm up the class before lesson begin, during the lesson to give students a break when tackling a intensive subject, or at the end of class when you have few minutes left remaining.  Games can be used to help students review vocabulary, learn tenses, practice conversing, etc. It can also help develope students cognitive thinking such as problem solving skill, creativity, etc.   

Assignment #2 Write a brief statement on your philosophy of using games in the classrooms (from the teacher and the learner's point of view). 

     My personal teaching philosophy is based on social constructivist.  The teacher needs to be enthusiastic and fun about teaching English in order for students to feel comfortable and fun about learning English.  Creativity is one of the important aspect in writing and speaking.  I encourage students to take chances and use language creatively to express themselves.  I design my lesson plans mindful of whole language approach to language instruction by incorporating oral and written language skills into games and fun activities that encourage social interaction and keep students engaged and happy as they learn.  Students would enjoy and benefit tremendously from these activities and leave the classroom wanting more.  

Assignment#3 Use your creativity and imagination, write a game scenario/script for your game design and use narrated PPT or Jing Project (no more than 5 minutes) to present your game scenario/script.
     Please see below link on my game idea of "Super Phonics Kids" in which students will have fun while they learn synthetic phonics to improve their reading and spelling skills.
Super Phonics Kids Game Designed by Karrie  

Week 4 - Introduction to the range of new literacies I

 Assignment#1 - The Sims 

1. What gaming elements provide users the learning content and how? 

Text:  Players need to read the text in order to understand the rules on how to play the game.  

Visual-graphic elements: Players will create their citizens look and personalities based on options they see from visual graphic on the screen.  

 

Audio elements: Players will decide on the citizens' voice.  Moreover, this can enrich the interaction of the games and help signals players to deal with more information.   
 

2. What is the goal of the game?  Players to create their city with citizens with different personalities, buildings and furniture they created. Players will use their knowledge and judgement to solve problems so each character can enjoy their life.

3. What are rules of playing this game?  There are no specific rules.  Players have to use effective strategies based on each citizen's personality to create a harmony city that each created citizen can enjoy.

4. Does this game have any scenario design? If yes, is this a fabricated or embedded in curriculum-related content?   No.



Assignment#2 Create a simple ELA lesson plan addressing the following component

Grade level: Grade 1 

Common Core Standards :     

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.1.2 Ask and answer questions about key details in a text read aloud or information presented orally or through other media.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.1.3 Ask and answer questions about what a speaker says in order to gather additional information or clarify something that is not understood.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.1.4.a Use sentence-level context as a clue to the meaning of a word or phrase.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.1.5 With guidance and support from adults, demonstrate understanding of word relationships and nuances in word meanings.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.1.4 Read with sufficient accuracy and fluency to support

comprehension. 

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.1.4.a Read grade-level text with purpose and understanding.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.1.4.b Read grade-level text orally with accuracy, appropriate rate, and expression on successive readings. 

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.1.4.c Use context to confirm or self-correct word recognition and understanding, rereading as necessary.  

Learning Outcomes: Students will build vocabulary, critical thinking and comprehension skills through reading and listening the story.  

          

 

Instructional activities: 

1) Teacher introduce online game "WordGirl" to students.  Students will follow the adventure  of superhero, WordGirl, as she fights crime and enriches vocabulary usage.  

2) Teacher will demonstrate the game and practice the first page of the story by first listening to the narrator's storytelling, then read aloud the text again.  On difficult words that are underlines, we will try to decode the word and point to any clues to meaning of this word or phrase.  Then, we click on the word for narrator explanation of the word meaning.  After understanding the text of the page, we will try to solve the problem for WordGirl.  Have students to write down the new vocabulary and meaning on their notebook. 

3) Teacher will guide students on the next page by listening the story and encourage students to read the text together and ask questions to text their understanding and find clues on meaning of new vocabulary.  Remind students to write down the new words and meaning on their notebook.

4) Teacher will break the class into 4 groups and have them work on the rest of pages on their own.  Teacher will walk around to provide support if needed. 

Assessment: As homework, students will write sentences with new vocabulary words learned. Teacher encourage students to write something that happened to them using these new words.

Debriefing:  Teacher debrief by scaffolding reading and guide students on comprehension by finding clues to meaning of the difficult words in order to help WordGirl to be safe from villains' attack.

What cognitive skills do this game help to cultivate?  This game help improve their proficiency in cognitive skills such as critical thinking and problem solving skills by using logic to solve each level.  

What new literacies skills do this game help to cultivate? This game helps to cultivate literacy skills such as accessing and evaluating information to encode and decode meanings of the text via reading and listening. 

 

Assignment#3 

Please click on link below for tutorial for screen capture instructional video (I'm in a business trip at the moment, for some reason, my webcam is not functioning properly on my work laptop, so you won't see my face in my video.  I am attaching printscreen below for proof).

 Karrie's Tutorial on using Screencast-o-matic