Teaching New Literacy

Multimedia is vital in today's world for the classroom. Today's generation not only must have access Toy Theater's Spin Art  to it and the skills that go with it, but the adequate experience to prepare them for the future's skilled labor market. One thing I'd like to point out as imperative in the classroom is not a typical one: downtime and physical breaks. Students are desk-bound - and at earlier ages - far more than in our historical and educational past. I find breaks and physical movement absolutely required for a balanced and healthy (and happy) classroom if one expects their students to be able to learn and absorb the high requirements that simply keep rising. This will continue until the trend reverses, as current research predicts this cycle will end with less traditional (and no longer necessary) content, as well as increased focus on legitimate future skills for the 21st century. My all-time favorite "feel good" children's song, w...

While we have investigated many apps for literacy in the classroom thus far, some are standouts for me. Out of dozens of apps I wrote about several favorites, but some rose to the top of my list for use in my own classroom. Usability and presentation was a large factor for me. Software for students - especially younger ones, should be fun, engaging, and as frustration-free as possible. For early childhood, my top pick is Felt Board . It enables young students to use a time-tested and classic activity, but digitally - which also adds features not available with real felt pieces. For teachers or upper elementary and above, I love Piktochart . This is an infographic wizard that makes presentations both attractive and easy to make. Whether for teaching, student presentations and/or projects, it is a flexible and beautiful method of presenting information. A wonderful runner-up app (particularly good for visually representing relationships or flowcharts) is Popplet . It's an attr...

Popplet Website Typically, my first thought regarding graphic organizers is one in which a student uses it to organize his or her own thoughts or information. Creating and using digital graphic organizers for presentation purposes opened up a whole new world of possibilities for me. The software mentioned in this post may be used to convey information, systems, and processes (among other possibilities) - as well as the ability to create custom graphic organizers when none exists for a teacher's purposes. There are thousands available online, but the idea of a custom one is, in my opinion, a valuable targeted tool. In addition, this is a fabulous way for students to present and organize information in a way that they wish to, rather than a premade and classroom-wide handout. Custom graphic organizers are good for specific lessons, as well as for individual students (particularly special needs) or group work. My own creation of a custom (and easily printable) gra...

Aside from the obvious benefit for auditory learners, there are unlimited ways to use audio tools, software, and platforms to better engage students in their work. In addition, they are of permanent record once recorded, and classrooms can even create their own library of storybook tellings, interviews, subject mini-lectures, as well as archive projects either individually or collectively. I particularly like the text's suggestion of a "This Day in History" podcast - classrooms could even create their own digital time capsules, which would remain undamaged by time, unlike traditional buried boxes and collections (as fun as they are also). In addition, it also suggests using audio tools for Reader's Theater, an excellent idea, and one in which it could be replayed for others (including a classroom of a younger grade) with a sense of pride. And, finally, the text makes a wonderful and creative suggestion for using integrating audio narratives by embedding the recordi...

A Victorian Classroom by Thomas Webster, circa 1845. According to Dave Gray, author of three books and founder of Xplane  (a " visual thinking company ") - has called our society "visually illiterate." I would agree, as a recent powerpoint on visual literacy I recently viewed taught me quite more than I expected. I was unaware how little I knew about evaluating and understanding visual images and art - and I consider myself a generally well-educated person. Elements like depth (foreground, mid-ground background), angles, clothing (which can indicate time periods), objects, symbols, colors, settings, and more are all powerful clues that add meaning and understanding when they are known to be looked for. Images (like music) are powerful in that they can inspire, alter, and enrich our understanding of not only the image itself - but also any accompanying text, subject, or lesson it might be related to. In addition, other benefits for students are that some be...

eBooks are awesome. I should preface this by saying I was an early adopter of e-Readers. I went through several generations of Barnes & Noble's Nook, later switching to a Kindle HD Fire, and, ultimately, using the Kindle and Nook apps to access all my titles via other devices that do more; namely my iPhone and iPad. My love of eBooks was extended to my children as well as the classrooms I volunteered in. My children had e-readers, even though the majority of the titles (and all previous to owning an e-Reader) were physical paper books. I was not as fond of them for my children until they reached chapter-book above stages, however - primarily due to the distracting bells and whistles embedded in the eBooks. However, this is a subjective stance, since my children were all high-level readers and devoured traditional books since a young age. In the classroom, the screen size of my Nook and Kindle tablets was not as large as my current iPad, which was limiting - but I would...