Blog Post 5- Module 3- Leveraging tools, texts and talks

Throughout all of these articles, there has been a lot of information to take in and use in the classroom. Not only do they tell you ways in which you can incorporate learning online and in the classroom, but they also encourage you to do research online and use that in the classroom. One thing I took away from the readings was that there are right and wrong ways in which your incorporate it into the classroom. As for designing and supporting activities beyond the screen, I wasn’t always the most comfortable with this task. Due to being a ‘newer’ teacher I still find myself learning the curriculum and taking data when needed. Data is something that my school is very big on right now. If a student isn’t meeting the standards, my school wants to data or ‘proof’ that they aren’t meeting the standards. In my classroom, each student has a data binder in which they categorize their work. Math goes with math and so on and so forth. Anything that we do that is linked to a standard, we will place in that binder. As a grade level, we also have a running Google Sheets that tracks the students' intervention time. During our intervention time, students are tracking their progress through a shared google sheet for each student. Every Friday, we take a 3-5 question ‘quiz’ that determines if they have met their goal (which is a standard). During our conference, we discuss what the next step is (depending if they met their goal or not). I did not do this last year but I do think this is one way of using technology in the classroom. Their parents can view this ONLY and track how their student is doing in class.




This is supported when Bowden states, “Another struggle involved feedback. Although many of the commercial apps were designed to provide feedback to the student, and in some cases to the teacher, participants said the feedback lacked relevance to the immediate learning happening in the classroom. Teachers wanted something that would provide more relevant feedback so they could immediately adjust their instructional practices” (2017). Although this is talking about a different type of feedback, I think it goes to show that feedback is one of the most important, yet difficult parts when communicating with parents. Not all parents are as educated as you or may not have the same background for school that others have had. When giving feedback you have to be clear and concise and readable for parents. When designing practices to go beyond the screen, I think we have to keep in mind how much students already know about online learning. I know my students are very educated when it comes to accessing things online because of COVID learning. With that being said, those ideas and learning are very limited, and with the changing world, they need to be aware of so much more.




As for an example of what I have used that is both analytical and digital would be our Renaissance Biography Project. This project was for our spring showcase in our school. The students were asked to create a Google Slides presentation or Canva poster based on your chosen person from the Renaissance. The students were given access to the fifth grade research based tool box from our library. This gave them access to many reliable websites where they could get their information from. This information was used in their online Canva or Google Slides project. This research tool gave them childhood, adulthood, accomplishments and occupation information on their chosen person. As for the traditional/analytical portion of the project, they were asked to complete a bottle pop character or they themselves had to do a wax museum character of their chosen person. They had hands-on experience while creating these artifacts. Blending both the analytical and digital portion allowed them to become well versed in finding information from the web that was correct and reliable for them to use on their projects. The bottle pop character asked them to go back into our small readers in class and look at pictures of their person. They then could decide what their person would wear based on those pictures. The challenges with this project was the amount of time and effort that the teacher or educator has to put into all aspects. For example, the research page, we had to find reliable sources and bookmark them for students. Each website took about 10 minutes to make sure it had the correct information as well as enough information for the students. As for challenges for the students, it asked them to do a lot of work outside of school. It also required them to have parent help due to the bottle pop character or the wax museum character.




Another challenge would be with your students who are ELL or ENL learners. I have said it before, but I had seven students last year who were ENL. If I had done this project, I would have had to incorporate some sort of translation tools on the websites or linked a translation tool on the library FYI research page. Hsu discusses the ability to use audioblogging to help ENL learners. Audioblogging is an opportunity for students to have the text read to them or can even include pictures or videos. Giving the students the ability to video or use audio to not only understand content but to talk about it as well, will only help the students' language and confidence boost (Hsu, 2017). Fortunately, all students have access to Chromebook use in and out of school as well as have time in the morning to do this, so no access to wifi or Chromebook use at home would not be an issue. I think audioblogging would be something that I would use in the future (next year I will have approximately four students who are ENL), I think this will help them enhance their vocabulary and confidence on reading and comprehension tasks.













Bowden, M. (2017). CUSTOMIZED TECH. Literacy Today, 35(3), 26-27. https://sunyempire.idm.oclc.org/login?qurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.proquest.com%2Ftrade-journals%2Fcustomized-tech%2Fdocview%2F1966005922%2Fse-2%3Faccountid%3D8067




Semingson, P. (2017). DIGITAL LITERACIES FOR YOUNG READERS AND WRITERS. Literacy Today, 35(3), 30-31. https://sunyempire.idm.oclc.org/login?qurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.proquest.com%2Ftrade-journals%2Fdigital-literacies-young-readers-writers%2Fdocview%2F1966005551%2Fse-2%3Faccountid%3D8067




Hsu, H., & Wang, S. (2017). RETHINKING LANGUAGE LEARNING. Literacy Today, 35(3), 28-29. https://sunyempire.idm.oclc.org/login?qurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.proquest.com%2Ftrade-journals%2Frethinking-language-learning%2Fdocview%2F1966005990%2Fse-2%3Faccountid%3D8067