Art Exhibit

My overall impression of the exhibition was that is was nice, but I was expecting a bit more from it.  I originally envisioned it to be bigger and have more examples of art in it.  The artwork that I chose was All that I need...is the air that I breathe.  It's an oil on canvas by Jennifer Groves (2006).  Her artwork showed an umbrella and shoes.  I chose this piece of art because it looked fun to me.  It made me think of a rainy day and just kicking off my shoes to relax.  I felt that this piece of art was one I could relate to the most.  It made me feel comfortable and at ease.  Overall, the trip to Green Hall was a nice trip and very relaxing.  It was nice to have a chance to go to another building and see things I normally wouldn't see and/or think about.

Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants

Technology is all over the world. You can find technology almost everywhere you look. Children today are being exposed to technology at a very rapid rate. In my school, I feel that our school is not quite up to date with technology.  We are slowly getting there though.  When I got my SmartBoard two years ago, I was a bit weary at first. But, after playing with it and using it, I absolutely love it! I couldn't imagine what I'd do without it. I liked the slogan "Just Do It" that was used in this article.  It's the truth--teachers have to just do it and try out new things.  We have to overcome our insecurities and make sure that we are preparing our students for the future of technology.

Preparing Tomorrow's Language Arts Teachers Today

Language Arts teachers, regardless of what grade level they teach, need to be comfortable using technology in their classroom. Technology is a very important teaching tool.  Students become actively engaged when technology is being used.  My students love hearing/seeing books on the Tumble Books website.  I love using it as well because it gives them a chance to hear someone else read a book.  It also lets them make the verbal connection with the text that they are seeing on the screen.
Students need to be exposed to technology as much as possible because the world is becoming more technologically advanced at a rapid pace.  We, as teachers, need to expose them to the world of technology and let them see all of the magical wonders that it has to offer.

Cowan & Albers

Cowan and Albers article, "Semiotic representations: Building complex literacy practices through the arts"

I found the illustrations included in this article to be very interesting.  It was neat to see the various displays of artwork that were included. Cowan and Albers state, "Students must have experiences in which they construct and translate meaning across sign systems through what we call semiotic representations" (p. 124).  When students are participating in semiotic experiences, they are typically more engaged in the learning process.  They are making conscious decisions and becoming strong communicators by engaging in these experiences.  Semiotic experiences further give students a chance to develop strong literacy practices. By engaging in various learning experiences, students are gaining many important skills.  Students can often make connections with artwork, as stated by some of the students in this article. (For example, Sarah on page 132 said that art helps her imagine in her head.) Ultimately, the use of the arts and semiotic experiences have a positive outcome for students.

The Arts, New Literacies, and Multimodality

In today's society, things are constantly changing.  The world is much different today than it was when I was a child. Many young children in today's society have cell phones, iPods, MP3 players, and various other electronic devices.  We now live in a "high-tech world" (p. 17).  Teachers need to make sure that they stay up to date with all of the emerging technologies in order to fully promote the success of their students. By combining the use of the arts (visual, musical, and performance arts), multimodality (many modes involved in meaning making), and new literacies studies (literacy within a digital world), teachers can help "redefine literacy and what constitutes being literate" (p. 18). The definition of literacy is constantly changing because our world is constantly changing.  Teachers need to provide various ways for their students to practice being literate in today's society. By using the arts in classrooms, students are given the chance to express themselves in a fun and educational way.

Infographics

The video on infographics from Kathy Schrock was interesting.  It showed various ways that infographics can be used to assess students' understanding.  Instead of having students always write an essay or answer questions, they can use infographics instead to display their level of understanding.  Since I teach Language Arts and Math this year, I will share a few ideas where infographics could be used in those subject areas.  I feel that an infographic on cause and effect would be a good idea.  Students could use various images to display the cause of something and what happened as the effect of it.  They could add text and even virtual effects to the infographic.  An infographic could also be made for inferencing and context clues since those are complex topics for some students.  For Math, I think an infographic on liquid measurement would be very helpful.  Students have an extremely difficult time with cups, liters, etc.  I feel that an infographic would hopefully take that complex idea and help students understand it more effectively.

Task 1-Hurricanes

I found this site, http://whatworks.wholechildeducation.org/blog/before-and-after-a-hurricane/, very useful.  Even though I do not teach Science this year,  I'd like to remember this site for future reference to use when teaching about weather.  I really liked the Sesame Street hurricane tool kit (http://www.sesamestreet.org/parents/topicsandactivities/toolkits/hurricane) and its efforts to help young children feel safe and cope with their emotions.  Students, as well, will enjoy seeing things that are familiar to them.  The Sesame Street characters will attract their attention, even if they think the characters are for babies, it will still get them interested.  I also liked the kids activity survival kit (http://www.fema.gov/kids/k_srvkit.htm).  I thought getting together a kit of "fun items" and storing it in a safe place is a wonderful idea in case evacuation has to be done.  The thinkfinity site, http://www.thinkfinity.org/hurricanes, offered good information about hurricanes but wasn't very kid-friendly.  It's a good site for teachers to get information from but I wouldn't show it to my 3rd graders because it's very wordy. (Even the links that I clicked on were too much print and not enough pictures, etc.) The whatworks site (referenced above) is more age appropriate for my students because it provides many kid-friendly links, such as the Sesame Street and activity survival kit links.

I also wanted to mention a sentence from http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/29/teaching-911-why-how/.  This particular statement was very relevant to me: "We must engage our young people in the construction of history." We must indeed teach our students about history, no matter how difficult it is to talk about.  Students need to know the importance of historical events, such as hurricane destructions and 9/11.  As some links suggested off of our class page, it is important for teachers to talk about these items. It's up to the teacher in how much depth they provide because it's not a state objective, but it is important for students to know important dates in history.  In return, we hope they will become more compassionate for others and want to become better citizens.