Chapter 5: Sites and Selection Criteria for Ebooks

This weeks module is chapter 5 which discusses about the different types of digital books. For example, it mentions e-Books and websites where it offers students to enhance their reading skills. When students are being exposed to e-Books it can be beneficial because children can be engaged with the text in a fun and informative way.

In the chapter, there are two main specific categories that the book talks about. The first one is the online read-aloud and the second one is the interactive story books. In the book, the book shows an example of a online read-aloud website called Storyline Online. Once you go on the website, there are many different types of books for children. What is very interesting when using this website is that famous actors/actresses are reading to you and when looking at the video the illustrations of the book come to life in a way. I did an internship at a school 2 semesters ago and the teacher had used this website when the children were going "book shopping." Every Mondays, the children would come back from recess and the teacher would put a story on the projector and they would watch the video while getting read to while getting their new books. When I read this piece of the chapter, I knew about this website and it surprised me that I would see it again. The other piece that the book talks about is the interactive storybooks which allows the students to add graphics, sounds, videos, and other forms of animation to a reading instead of just holding the page and reading a standard printed text. I feel like both reading the story through a website and reading it in standard print has both pros and cons. For having the animation, children will have a better gist of the story since it is coming to life on the website then trying to imagine it in your head what is going on in the story.

When reading these chapters, I imagine myself using these techniques in my classroom. As I mentioned before with the Storyline Online, I planned to use this in my classroom and to use the standard print technique. I want students to understand both ways because I don't want students to loose interest in reading printed books.

Chapter 4: Vocabulary and Fluency

In this book, Chapter 4 is called, "Vocabulary and Fluency." This chapter focused a lot of the vocabulary knowledge and how it is highly effective of reading comprehension. While reading this chapter, it also focused on the idea that students are learning best when receiving language through both expressive and receptive models. What this basically means is that students are engaging and interpreting information through reading on their own, listening to read aloud, and the biggest one of all using visual aids.

While reading this chapter, it presents a variety of great activities that involve the students to be given a visual aid while working with their vocabulary lesson. I must confess that I am a visual learner and I have also been a visual learner since I notice that I couldn't pay attention if I didn't see it done by my teacher pointing to the board or showing us pictures etc,. In class, we would get handed index cards and we would write the word on one side and the definition on the other and then we would draw a little picture to represent the word so that we could remember. As teachers, we should include visual aids to help our students learn in a different way. The book talks about a Virtual Field Trip (VFT) which are accessible to anyone that has internet. They provide the students with a unique way of learning through a virtual online tour taking you to different features on their websites. This is such a fun way for students to get engaged with using technology and learning new information.

A very useful website that the book introduces us is the Wonderopolis. "The Wonderopolis site presents a question along with supporting image. Explain that students should make their best guess based on their prior knowledge and the image. Also explain that once students click on the image, more information is provided to assist in answering the question" (Pg, 52). Once I read about this website, I decided to explore it myself and I found it to be very resourceful. It presents different kinds of information. This is a fun website and it makes their information clear so that students can related and comprehend to the information that is presented.  I would recommend this website to any teacher and of course I would use it in my own classroom one day.

Chapter 3: Creating Classroom Community and Connecting with Families

In this book Chapter 3 is called, "Creating Classroom Community and Connecting with Families." When reading this chapter, it was very informative because it talked about how children are using tools in order to connect with themselves in the classroom and with their families. This chapter really captured how students in the classroom should be able to connect with themselves as a whole and learn that there are many different cultures within the classroom.  My favorite quote that the books states is, "All students who enter the classroom come as members of families, neighborhoods, religious groups, sports team clubs, and organizations, each of which is a community of practice, or a place 'where humans beings develop competence through their interactions with each other' (Crafton, 2006, p.1)" This chapter really captured how students can use different techniques to have every child engaging with their classmates. The book then states, "Classrooms are also communities of practice where each student possesses unique knowledge and perspective that pushes the thinking of other students" Pg.30.

When reading this chapter, I thought that the lesson plan with using Voicethread and doing the storytelling was such a fun activity for getting the students engaged. This is where students can bring in photos of themselves, family members, friends, or pets and the students share their life story with everyone. I went on Voicethread to check it out myself and let me say that just playing around and looking at other Voicethread, I could see myself using this website for my future classroom. While looking through the Voicethread website, it just changes my perspective on technology because it really has expanded throughout the years.This website will bring student together and getting them more involved with each other and creating a community in the classroom. I honestly wish I used this website when I was back in school. I remember using a poster board and having to cut and paste pictures on the poster board about my family and write captions for each picture and having to present it in class. In the lesson plan, it stated the different ways to present this lesson plan because you will have your students who are talkative and love to participate and then you have the students who are shy. This project will really get each child involved just because there is technology involved in it and students are obsessed with using a computer. This chapter is super useful when looking back at lessons that you can use within your classroom in the future. 

Chapter 2: A Framework for Literacy 2.0 Thinking

The title for Chapter 2 is called, "A Framework for Literacy 2.0 Thinking” and it is such an informative and useful resource that focuses on the teacher’s use of technology and how it became so important in the classroom. Well reading this chapter you well then notice that there is a focus on the Common Core Standards and the useful of technology that is intertwined.

This chapter starts off with stating, “Two frameworks will be discussed in this chapter, Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK), developed by Koehler and Mishra (2008) for thinking about the integration of technology into the curriculum and NCTE’s 21^st Century Literacies Framework for thinking about planning and supporting, and assessing student learning” (pg.15) As I continued to read this chapter, I found that it is important that the technology that schools are providing for the students can develop many important traits of literacy for children in ways that the traditional print can not provide to the student. As a student in college, I remember always using a computer in elementary, middle, and high school. Technology and using computers have also been around us. Now that I am in college, I have learned so many different ways of using technology and learning different websites. This online class is my second online class I have ever taken at BSU and I have learned so many ways to upload and post on discussion broads on Blackboard which is something that I didn’t use back when I was in middle school or high school. All of my professors had some type of training while using Blackboard because if they didn’t we as college students would not be exposed to it. Blackboard is such a useful site in which professors can post assignments and handouts, quizzes, links to other online sources, and etc. This website is golden for students who are taking online classes.

While I was continuing to read this chapter, it came to my attention that it talked about how teachers would inform their students about using the Internet. This is important because as teachers we wouldn’t want our students searching anything that isn’t relatable to what we are talking about in class. I agree with that the teacher should do a model of how to use the Internet and model for them what the expectations are when using the computer. I have done this with my classroom in a summer program that I work for on campus. As an art teacher assistant, we had the students do their projects on the Macs in the classroom. The teacher asked the students whether they knew how to use the Mac and also if they had ever used the website called Edmodo which is like a Facebook but for students. If she noticed that some students didn’t know how to use a Mac for this website, she would go over how to use it and when to use it with the students. During their homework time, I would have to model to them what they were expected to do and asked them questions on what they should be doing step by step. This chapter was an interesting chapter to read and it gave a lot of information about technology within the classroom.