Reading and Technology

I recently took my second grade class to the computer lab to complete an assessment for their guided reading group books. I had my students use the Kidspiration software provided by my district to complete a story web for their books. I found that for second graders a great deal of modeling with the software needed to be done first, but once they got started they loved the activity. It just showed me the motivating effect that technology has on students even at such a young age. I can truly say that the students began the activity much sooner, included more details in their short summaries, and were extremely impressed when they could print out a color copy of their work which had pictures and words on it. I believe this activity was much more effective than if I asked the students to fill in a hand-written story web. I was wondering if anyone else uses any other specific software with their students, particularly younger elementary, to incorporate reading and technology?

Literacy Websites

I've been thinking about the many ways to incorporate technology into my second grade classroom and wondered if anyone had any particular software programs or websites they use with their elementary students to reinforce or enhance literacy?? I'd love to hear about them! Thanks.

New Literacies Discussion

The new literacies we discussed assist students and educators in many ways. These literacies, such as virtual reality, video literacy, digital literacy, and print literacy, allow students the opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge in many different ways using technology. Using these literacies in classrooms provides students with more engaging learning situations, which also give students more real-world experiences. With the use of virtual tours and interactive websites, students can build upon background knowledge and become engaged in a real-life scenario right in the seats of their own classroom. In addition to motivating students in all of the subject areas, using this wide variety of literacies meets the needs of all learning styles and modalities within a classroom. Students who have attention difficulty or reading difficulties have the chance to be actively involved in an online learning activity where the information can even be read to them. Teachers can effectively incorporate the teaching of literacy into the classroom through the use of interactive, educational websites, using Smartboards when available, and creating different learning centers using literacy and technology. With the integration of new literacies, students also have the opportunity to share information that they discover with other students. When using the new literacies, teachers should model, teach, have students work together, and engage in hands-on learning in order to ensure students are effectively creating presentations and sharing their learning. Looking at web quests, websites, and any online materials can provide teachers with information about new literacies and creating their own online materials that can be integrated into teaching. A great way for teachers to ensure students are safely exploring the web is to post a link to websites on their own personal website. Students will only need to navigate themselves to their teacher's website and then click from there. Also, if students are able to just copy down a URL address from the board this can be a safer way to explore than allowing them to do a Google Search. There are many different ways for the new literacies to be integrated into a classroom. As more and more technology becomes available in schools, it will most likely just become second nature to incorporate these literacies into our everyday lessons.