Immediacy of New Literacies Integration

Today I was inspired by our literacy preservice teachers! Just yesterday Kelsey and Ashley, preservice teachers whom I coached in new literacies integration last semester, came in to the current Literacy Methods class to present with me. Our goal was to share a variety of apps, websites, and technology tools that these practicum students could integrate into their Literacy Research Unit.

Using an effective Prezi format, Kelsey Schuettler broke down her new literacies integration by subject area to show how she used various apps and websites on her iPad during Literacy Practicum. Timing was perfect as she demonstrated how she used Popplet Lite and Inspiration Maps in guided reading to record ideas and foster comprehension. This week the current practicum students are creating online graphic organizers and using them in their practicum classrooms so now they have even more classroom examples. Kelsey showed how she used iMovie to create teaching videos on topics such as similies. And for review, Jeopardylabs.com proved to be a successful teaching and learning tool.

After creating a digital story herself in the TEAC 259B technology course Kelsey had her students create ebooks using Little Story Creator to change the ending of a current story. Kelsey honestly told about some apps she tried to use with students that did not work exactly as she had hoped they would. One example occurred as students created a Padlet.com board as a whole class. With everyone posting at the same time students had a difficult time reading because the screen kept moving down. A highlight included in the thematic unit she created and taught was empowering students to publish and share animal research and poems on Google docs. Current students were very interested in how long the process took of checking out laptop carts and publishing. And at just the appropriate time Kelsey introduced students to GoNoodle.Com for a movement brain break!

Ashley Rocke created an Educreations screencast demonstrating how to set up a KidBlog classroom. These step by step directions clearly showed each step in the process using screenshots. She shared ideas of how she had students blog at KidBlog.com to publish their friendly letters in her Thematic Unit. The amazing statistic that every student was successful in blogging during one writing period motivated current preservice teachers to consider blogging as a way of documenting research in their units. Noting that they would have the ability to approve all posts before they are added to the blog lessened the concerns of these preservice teachers. They could teach important social media skills in addition to publishing writing through blogging.

Motivated by these presentations and filled with technology ideas, within 24 hours our current practicum students implemented these ideas in their teaching. One preservice teacher created a KidBlog for her classroom and today she taught students and her CT how to blog! They will be documenting their research learning and process in the coming weeks!

Another preservice teacher created a Prezi to teach vocabulary to Kindergartners today! She effectively created one slide per vocabulary word demonstrating word, picture, sentence. Then she taught children actions to learn the words with meanings.

Yet another practicum teacher created an Educreations screencast to teach the concept of Goods and Services in Unit Studies. She showed the video to teach the concepts, stopping it after questions to encourage student discussion.

And in another classroom a practicum teacher teamed with his cooperating teacher to teach 2nd graders how to create Haiku Deck presentations. After conducting research using print and digital sources, these children created a storyboard to organize their findings. Today they turned their paper planners into very professional presentations where they searched for images to convey learning.

Many ideas are now being considered for the Literacy Research Units from those ideas presented. I continue to be amazed at how quickly teachers can implement technology ideas when they participate in hands-on sessions where teaching ideas are included with use of the apps/websites. I am excited to watch even more new literacies skills taught to children as they demonstrate their learning using multimedia. I would love to know how you integrate new literacies in your classroom!