Reflection

Reflection:

The most striking revelation about teaching new literacy skills to students is the gap that exists for students between professional and personal settings. Students, being digital natives, are immersed by technology and constantly surrounded by it in their daily lives. Engagement comes through a variety of different medias but tends to be most popular in social networking such as Facebook, Twitter, and text messaging. While the exposure and experience in these medias does help their skills, students struggle to differentiate between personal and professional settings and use impersonal language, acronyms, or poor punctuation when completing various assignments. Students possess the know-how to use the technology provided, but need the support and instruction in how to use it properly when involved with professional activities.

While many of us continue to use search engines or technologies we are comfortable with because of their familiarity, it is still important to broaden our horizons and look at features provided from others. Using AltaVista to search .org websites is a great way to find credible sources and is not a feature provided by the more popular Google website. Additionally, there are a variety of great educational websites available for educators to help implement technology into our courses.

One goal I would like to pursue in the forthcoming school year is to implement a project involving students from another school district. This type of project not only helps my classroom meet a NETS standard, but also gives students an experience in online communication with students from a different district in pursuit of a common goal. While I am hesitant about creating this type of project as it is completely new to me, I am also excited about the engagement the students will have and their involvement with other students. In order to accomplish the goal, I will need to contact other educators who teach the same courses as me. I feel that using a cooperating teacher near to my location will prove to be beneficial in case we need to speak in person or go over different aspects of the project that could prove difficult online. From there, determining time allocation and communication times for students would be the next major concern as well as how students will divide the work to complete the project. Finally, a reflective survey for the students would be an effective way to receive feedback as to the pros and cons of the project and to enhance it in the future.