Week 12 Assignment # 1 Analysis of educational “affordances” on glogster

Glogster

       Writing is one of the most powerful modes of communication, allowing individuals to exchange ideas and transmit knowledge. While, reading is important because it supports content area learning and the development of critical literacy skills. However, many experts posits that reading and writing are changed in a multimodal environment as the reader engages with texts in ways that might be different than those intended by the writer. With multimodal tools like glogster, the reader decides which signs to attend to first, which links to follow, then synthesizes the meanings of modes and semiotic resources to construct a unified message. Glogster enables writers to compose multimodal messages merging video, images, text, hyperlinks, and audio. The writer is limited to the space provided on the poster, but can easily add and link pages to include more content. 

     To me, Glogster can be used in the classroom to increase interest in the course through the use of visual literacy skills, to make teaching entertaining and provides creative and artistic learning opportunities. Moreover, it can be used to addresses writing, speaking, and listening skills with the audio-visual items, to enable permanent learning and to create curiosity in students.

Click here for my Glogster:  https://edu.glogster.com/glog/writers-biography-5ddb332d0c52d/3apjutfr8wm

Week 11 Assignment #2 Voice Thread

Below is the link to my Voice Thread
https://psu.voicethread.com/share/13299885/

Week 11 Assignment # 1 Article Reflection

Using Voice Thread to Promote Learning Engagement and Success for All Students

      Some of the important ingredients for learning success in school includes the ability to engage and sustain attention, participate actively, maintain high levels of motivation, and complete assigned tasks. However, we see many students who are at risk or has a disability experience difficulty in these areas. According to authors Stein Brunvand and Sara Byrd article; Using Voice Thread to Promote Learning Engagement and Success for All Students we see them delves into practical ways web based learning tool can boost the learning skills and motivation of those students who are struggling with their academics.What I really liked was that students were able to use multimedia platform to explore subject areas(Language Arts, Math, Social Studies, and Science), express their ideas, and share all at their own pace and learning level. This is exciting because traditional education has left educators often making herculean efforts to engage students, motivate them, and differentiate instruction for those struggling with the general curriculum and instruction. But, in this 21st century with digital native students educators have to go beyond building student knowledge and skills,to tap into educational strategies that are aimed at increasing school engagement, stimulating motivation, and learner independence. To this extent the authors posits that; “Innovative technological tools, programs, and software can be used to promote student engagement, motivation, and ultimately enhance the quality of the learning experience for students with disabilities.” 

      Voice thread is a great tool because it is flexible, it can be used with students in general education, with students considered at risk, and with students with disabilities. Moreover, it can be used in whole class, in small groups, or independently in a classroom, computer lab, at home, or anywhere else an Internet-enabled computer can be found. It enables teachers to capitalize on student learning strengths and preferred learning modalities by encouraging active participation in the learning process. This allows students to take responsibility for their own learning and allows passive learners to become more actively involved through interaction with the instructional content as well as their peers. Teachers can provide instructional “input” through many means which include auditory means (e.g., teacher recorded messages or peer recorded messages) and visual means (e.g., reading text on the screen and looking at pictures/graphics, photographs, images, and video clips). On the other hand, students output could include verbal expression (i.e., students record their responses/interactions) or written expression (i.e., students type their responses). Teachers can differentiate the learning experience for students by structuring the use of these input/ output modalities to best meet the needs of the learner.

      In conclusion, there are many web platforms that strategically provide instruction and new ways for students to demonstrate their understanding of concepts. However, teachers and educators need to go through all these tools to find the one that best suits the needs of their students and use it to help them succeed in everyday classroom activities.

Week 10 Assignment #1 Issues with New Literacies and the Curriculum

Below is the link to my video on New Literacies
https://screencast-o-matic.com/watch/cqXlepU2Tx

Week 9 Digital Story

Below is the link to my digital story
https://screencast-o-matic.com/watch/cqX1fKUfsU

Week 9 Assignment # 1 Article Reflection

Assignment #1: Read the article, The impact of Using Blogs on College Students' Reading Comprehension and Learning Motivation, and write a reflection.

     Reading motivation is a large part of the driving force that help students to concentrate on their positive or negative opinions about reading. Learners who read for pleasure usually employ approaches to help themselves comprehend much better. The problem here is that young adults in the digital age are devoting more time to accessing digital-media information than information from traditional printed texts. Therefore, the authors’ posits that this change has been one of the factors that correlated with young adults’ negative reading achievement. They further went on to explain that this habitual multitasking behavior that is brought upon them from digital media information has contributed to short attention span, reduced engagement in sophisticated reading tasks, lower reading scores and the lower comprehension abilities.

     To address these problems of eroding reading and writing skills in young adults and college student higher education institutions use reading diagnostic assessments (placement tests) to determine whether or not first-year college students have the required reading skills for successful standard entry level college courses. Furthermore, they are creating developmental reading classes where students learn various strategies and techniques to achieve academic success through extensive reading and writing assignments. As great as this may seem, the problem still existed because little has been done to examine whether or not developmental readers prefer interacting with digital texts, whether or not the readers demonstrate superior comprehension skills through the use of dynamic new media technologies, whether or not reading in a multimedia environment requires many different types of literacy skills, and whether or not college reading professors are ready to adopt digital text in their courses.

      With all these questions in mind a variety of theoretical stances have been studied, but the author postulate the use of the 3D model, which suggests that educators should focus on three dimensions of literacy technology learning: operational, cultural, and critical dimensions. They believe that the operational dimension concerns the competence of using a language system and operating computer and network technology to read and write; while the cultural dimension involves the use of technologies to make meanings in authentic social contexts; and the critical dimension focuses on optimizing or assessing technology to support and exercise critical thinking. Moreover, they believe that using blogs, wikis, digital video, concept maps, and Google Earth, were all great ways to delve into this theory and exercise new literacies in supporting college reading instruction. The reason they preferred blogs was because it has greater flexibility, and offer a richer learning environment than traditional course-management systems. Moreover, it enhances social interaction, provide a channel to build a sense of community, strengthen communication skills, and helps with writing for a real audience.

      According to authors HUI-YIN HSU AND SHIANGKWEI WANG the solution to this issue is that developmental reading professors should recognize the existing challenges posed by and faced by the underachieving college freshman, they should explore pedagogies that encourage students to improve their reading performance through technology, they should give students the opportunity to practice new-literacies skills,and should devise various strategies for using multimedia resources that maintain student interest after the novelty of a given technology wears off.

    In conclusion, because motivation is one of the key factors to assist learners’ reading comprehension. Educators needs to find and use whatever strategies or pedagogies will help them connect college learning with students’ technology-saturated lives. In this way, our higher education systems will better prepare college students to succeed in the twenty first century work forces. Teachers should go beyond their traditional roles by providing opportunities for their learners to become motivated and substantially improve their reading comprehension proficiency.