Chapter 3 in Digital
Reading: What’s Essential in
Grades 3-8, dealt with the issue of how to make digital learning authentic
for students. Workshop should not be
designed around the technology; instead the technology should fit the need of
that day. There were so many great
ideas in this chapter that helped me to reflect on the technology I’m currently
using with my students, why I’m using it (does it fit the purpose), and what
else we could include. Some
take-aways from the chapter for me were:
· * The students need to feel comfortable using the technology.
One of our goals should be to expose the students to several different kinds of
technology and then let the students chose the technology that best fits their
needs. This could include the type
of text they choose to read, the type of response, etc. For teachers this means that we need to
feel comfortable giving up some control.
The easy way to teach is to assign the text and then assign the type of
response we want the student to do.
Unfortunately by not allowing student choice we too often receive
mediocre responses. Students don’t buy into the text or the response. The key is choice for the text, the
response, and the technology!
· * “Being readers ourselves is the best tool we
have to keep our classroom workshops authentic.” p.30 Teachers need to do what they ask their students to
do. For the past few years I have regularly
read books and kept a reader’s notebook along with my students. At first I felt very self-conscious
sharing my journal entries out loud with my classes. But the students listened and asked questions! And after a little while I began to
notice something, students were writing more and the quality of the entries
began to improve. This was just
the encouragement I needed to continue writing and sharing.
· * “…she didn’t have to teach every single skill
for every tool; what she did have to do was explain herself as she was teaching
so that students could not only see what she was doing with a specific tool but
also know why she was doing it.” p.31 This is something that was always a
roadblock for me when it came to adding new technology. I felt as if I needed to become an
expert first, before I introduced the tool to my students, otherwise I wouldn’t
want to try it. This too is a control
issue. I need to feel comfortable introducing
students to the tools, sharing with them how I use it, and talking through the
choices I make while I demonstrate using it. Then I need to let the students
try it out for themselves and make their own decisions. This will increase their ownership of
the tool. And in fact I can learn from them!
· * There are so many online tools that can enhance
the reading workshop. Many of them
we’ve already been using: KIdBlog,
Twitter, Skype, Edmodo. One goal I
have for this year is to make read-aloud more interactive for the
students. Tools such as Padlet and
Corkulous are definitely something I want to try for student responses and formative
assessments. Both of these tools
are also great for allowing students to see what their classmates think of the
text, which helps to further build our reading community.
Now on to chapter 4!
Hi Sue,
ReplyDeleteI appreciated your comments about taking a risk and sharing your work as a reader with students. They learn from us and are exposed to new possibilities in the process. We can also learn from them, as long as we are open to new ways of reading and responding as well. In this group alone, we have seen blogs, running Google Docs of comments, pictures of annotations on a digital reader and more. I am learning so much through these interactions, just as our students do!
Stephanie
I love padlet. I'd like to try using it as exit slips/responses.
ReplyDeleteCorkulous is something I want to try soon.
Sue,
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for joining the conversation. You are right, talking about these chapters one at a time is smart. There's so much information packed into each one.
I appreciated your points about control. I think this is one of the hardest things. Technology necessitates that we give up control. This means the plans we have made aren't always the best way to go. It means we have to let students help each other puzzle things out as we are working with a small group or conferring with a student.
I have found this giving up control to have strengthened the community in my classroom. Students truly understand that they can learn from each other. I think they also learn that we all have strengths and things that are hard for us, but together we can do anything.
Thanks for sharing your thinking as we consider making the way students use technology just part of what we do each day,
Cathy
I, too, felt that I needed to become expert at a digital tool before I let my kids in on it - of course, they were already on to this tool and were experts already! It's good to know that we are all in this digital adventure together - teachers and students.
ReplyDeleteI, too, felt that I needed to become expert at a digital tool before I let my kids in on it - of course, they were already on to this tool and were experts already! It's good to know that we are all in this digital adventure together - teachers and students.
ReplyDelete