Digital Texts in and Out of School

Chapter 4

" Wikipedia at its best, is a grand social experiment."- Victoria Carrington

Sometimes the most can be said with the least amount of words. This quote really spoke to me, wikipedia cannot be viewed as factual, but knowledgeable. I like the fact that anyone can delete or add input to this site, it's collaboration. I feel that this quote sums up the experience we as educators as trying to bring to our students now, social collaborative learning has a lot to offer.

Chapter 5

"Critical reading will help pupils to explore the meanings and nuances of online texts and will also make them safer and more responsible participants in our networked society." - Julie Davies and Guy Merchant

Online safety in the classroom would be my main concern if I were to incorporate blogging into my teaching practices, especially for younger students. I can see the great benefits of blogging in classrooms, it allows for shared digital literacy, and many types of multimodal experiences. I would just be careful about using it and closely monitor my students. 

Chapter 6 

"When asked about the chat function they repeatedly described it as 'cool' or suggested that they 'like it a lot' with some students arguing that it helps improve typing speed."- Guy Merchant

I loved the idea of the digital town that this chapter discussed for online learning purposes. Children love to play games and interact with technology. With the right safety measures and online experiences, I feel that ample digital literacy learning could take place. It's just thinking outside the box. 

Reading chapters 4-6 only reinforces the thought of using technology in my teaching practices. My only concern before was knowing how to incorporate it, but after reading these chapters and taking this class I have many more examples on how to do this. Like I mentioned before after learning how to use technology in teaching, I am concerned with safety and would take precautionary measures in my teaching practices.  I also think I would have to find the right supportive administration to allow me to use some of the technologies mentioned in my lessons, such as the online video game world to promote literacy. I would simply need to give examples and finding supporting standards to emphasize the learning possibilities. I feel by providing the kind of experiences the book mentions this will prepare our students for the workforce and what an employer may expect them to be able to do. 

Illuminated Text Week 2

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