Since most of the reading and posting takes place at home, I use our class time for discussion leaders to facilitate group dialogue about the reading, to discuss any questions or confront any difficulties with the text, and to engage in collaborative textual analysis activities.
This would save a lot of time and a great strategy of class management, especially for higher grade English classes.
When working on a wiki, students are writing for an audience beyond their teacher and reading criti-cally with an eye for revision. The virtual commu-nity plays an important role in quality control as members will self-monitor for accuracy and quality of the information posted to the wiki
This can be a great activity on source credibility and research. As students contribute to a source themselves, they would be intrigued to think about their credentials as authors -- devil's advocate -- and learn how to find reliable sources.
Blaschke’s (2014) study, she found that students struggled to separate the media that sup-ported the learning from the learning itself; students may need help understanding how amedium can support and facilitate learning.
Teachers should make sure that students understand that social media is only supplementary to their learning in an academic setting, not the entirety of it. As much as they are encouraged to use social media in class discussions, assignments, events, etc., formal structure should be provided that usage of social media only an extension to their academics.
Therefore, many argue that social mediamay have strong implications for both formal and informal learning and that using socialmedia as multimodal tools to bring multiple modes together for meaning-making may allowstudents to express ideas differently and reflect upon them while doing so.
I agree. Social media does allow students to obtain formal and informal learning about themselves, others, and the world through multimodal texts. It also allows students space to express themselves with different forms of texts as well.
Not only were characters resemblingObama and Romney ill-suited for a lesson on state government, some students also used these same characters to describepowers of the state legislative branch, which illustrates an even greater lack of content understanding. In this case, thepower of using GoAnimate was lost because the product lacked authenticity and did not reach a level of understandingbeyond what is typically found on traditional worksheets
This case shows an example of limitation in using technology in class, at least for certain subjects. Some subjects such as history and English have limited areas where technology can be used appropriately and effectively.
“gather relevant information from multiple print and digital sources, assess the credibility and accuracy of each source, and integrate the informa-tion while avoiding plagiarism”
This can pose a challenge to students because the Internet contains so much - almost too much - information, and students can easily become "lost at sea."
Although students may or may not write traditional, text-only sentences when devel-oping PowerPoint presentations for interpretation or explanation, these presentations can be used to ex-amine and convey complex ideas and information.
How exactly can this be done? I'm not challenging this idea, but it would have been more helpful if provided some examples. Also, PowerPoint presentation requires a strong speaking skill -- to be able to organize and convey the message by speaking.
This part of the article reminds me of an article by James Paul Gee called "Good Video Games and Good Learning." Gee says that learning should be more like video games: more fun, more engaging and more stimulating. In relation to technology, learning can be even taken further to be in/through games not just like games. I played an old game called Oregon Trail in my Eng Ed Seminar class, and I had fun, and surprisingly was reminded a lot of what I learned in high school history class. Such usage of technology/game can be stimulating and intriguing.
This is very true. I am from the generation of 'digital natives,' and I definitely learn differently from when, say my parents or some of my relatively young teacher friends. To extend this even further, students I will be teaching will learn differently from how I learn/learn-ed. As they will generally become more of visual learners than auditory, it is important that teachers how to use technology appropriately and efficiently.
I agree that context is an important factor in utilizing technology in class. I am currently observing at the high school I attended. When I was a student, we had crappy PCs that froze every other second and YouTube was blocked. Now, they have brand new iMacs and have access to YouTube, so they can view relevant videos in class. It proves that as long as technology is used appropriately in appropriate context, it holds much educational value.
I think this is especially true for English. There are only so much technology that can be used in English due to the nature of the subject. Also, the content teachers choose to teach may not involve any technology at all. Some other content may depend completely on technology. Teachers may be able to bring in multidimensional content with technology, as the article says. So, it's important teachers know what technology will be used and how.