NewtownNov20

=Exploring the Potentials of New Literacies=

November 20, 2006 Study Group Discussion With Julie Coiro, University of Connecticut
Suggested Reading: Read Chapters 1-4 (Contextualizing New Literacies and the section on Social Change and Community Service) in //Innovative Approaches to Literacy Education: Using the Internet to Support New Literacies// (Karchmer, Mallette, Kara-Soteriou, & Leu, 2005).

Some guiding questions just to get us started…

1. What does new literacies mean to you? What principles seem to guide new literacies instruction for each of the teachers in these chapters?

2. What do you notice about how each teacher moved through the process of learning how to weave the Internet into their literacy curriculum?

3. What literacy objectives were achieved in the process of their instruction and what role did the Internet play in their teaching?

4. What ideas do these teachers prompt you to think about and want to explore? Are there realistic “first steps” that might be worth exploring with your students?

Optional “Extra” Reading: Chapter 1 - New Literacies for New Times (especially pages 15-33) in //Teaching with the Internet K-12: New Literacies for New Times// (Leu, Leu, & Coiro, 2004)

In the afternoon, you will have the opportunity to explore a website with links related to the ideas discussed in these chapters.

A. **Social Change and Community Service Projects** (participate in or join in as a reflective audience of projects already created) > > > > > > >
 * From the Karchmer et al book:
 * **[|Earth Day Groceries Project]**
 * **[|Books on Tape for Kids]**
 * **[|Cathy Chamberlain Literacy and Technology]** -- Also check out Cathy's sites at [|New York Learns] and [|Study Zone]
 * **Heifer Project's [|Read to Feed]**
 * TRY IT OUT: [|Explore] the countries involved or interact with [|learning games]
 * **[|Epals]** **-** is a worldwide community of classrooms engaged in cross-cultural exchanges, project sharing, and language learning. The interface is free and safe, allowing only registered teachers and their students to participate.
 * TRY IT OUT: Think of a topic in your curriculum that would be extended in new ways by having your students talk and learn from children in a different country. Then try [|searching for potential classrooms] to partner up with. Share the names of two classrooms that you be interested in contacting and describe one idea for an activity or writing prompt to develop for your students.
 * **[|Global Virtual Classroom]** - provides an online [|clubhouse] and an international [|contest] that aims to develop cross-cultural communication, collaboration, and new literacy skills, three skilled essential in the 21st century classroom
 * TRY IT OUT: Explore the elementary school contest winners [|Different People, Different Countries, Same Dreams]. View the site map and share ideas about the different curriculum areas that these types of writing activities could connect with in your school.
 * **[|Bob Sprankle’s Room 208]** - using podcasting as a potential for creating school-community news updates created by students
 * TRY IT OUT: Link to the podcast archives created by Mr. Sprankle's 3rd and 4th grade students. Scroll down and listen to the May 20, 2006 entry about the Flood of 2006. Talk with your colleagues about the pros and cons of creating podcasts such as these compared to a school-based "morning news program" that appears over the loudspeaker. Brainstorm with your colleagues a list of possible "newsworthy" items that your students could investigate and report on throughout the year.
 * LEARN MORE: In case you are interested in how to create a podcast, XXX
 * **[|International Schools Cyberfair]**
 * Example: Each person can explore one of the [|2006 winners] - then regroup and share what you learned.
 * **[|IEARN Projects]**
 * TRY IT OUT: Explore projects such as [|Global Art: A Sense of Caring] or the [|Child Soldier Project] to see the range of ways these projects give voices to young children around the world. There are also more structured [|Learning Circles] projects to get involved with over the course of an entire semester. Talk with your colleagues about projects you may be interested in joining that would provide an interdisplinary link to a number of different content areas.
 * **[|KIDPROJ]**
 * TRY IT OUT: Explore the project archive or view examples you can join now such as [|Hooked On Books] or the extended [|Who-Am-I?] Unit. Talk with another teacher about how such a project might fit into your current weekly schedule.
 * Starting small...Not really a social action project, but a **[|literature circles extension project]** that has space for two more teachers to join! Click on "Information" to learn more about the project guidelines and "Student Showcase" to see classes that have already signed up. Explore Susan Silverman's Collection of classroom projects at [|www.kids-learn.org] (each project has its own "Student Showcase") to see the results of previos projects. This is a very EASY way to begin with Internet projects and Susan Silverman is another Miss Rumphius Award Winner featured in Chapter 7 of Innovative Approaches to Literacy Education.
 * B. Reading and Viewing More About New Literacy Strategies**
 * Julie's October 2005 Education Leadership Article Making Sense of Online Text
 * [|New Literacies of the Internet Online Videos] from The Annenberg Video Channel
 * Donald Leu's New Literacy Video Series

> > > >>>> > > > >
 * C. Debriefing notes from today's afternoon session**
 * **General Comments**
 * Thanks for such a wonderful day.
 * Great instructional morning
 * A gift
 * **Guidelines for next steps**
 * Make small turn goals
 * Little steps and celebrate
 * Calm down and refocus -- all the possiblities
 * Feel good about hardware available
 * Think about how will this look to us - what is the understanding of the world by the kids
 * The nature of Internet is that it changes
 * Don't reinvent the wheel
 * Reciprocal teaching will allow us to share and teach colleagues
 * **Ideas for where to start**
 * Use wikispace to assess what students learn in class
 * Explore places to look - Select controlled environments to begin instruction
 * Develop a common vocabulary
 * Chunk out in reasonable units
 * Word Wall for key search words to find information on the Internet
 * QAR
 * **Time commitment**
 * What summer work could be done?
 * April PD 07 - Critical literacy
 * If we are asking our students to think critically, there are many lessons that go behind this
 * Provide specific sites for students to use to begin critical literacy
 * **Pages 23-24:** As teachers here are our priorities from figure 1-5 we thought we needed to know these things and then think about how to teach them to the kids
 * **We would like you to come for a full day on January 11th 2007**. You will need to figure out how much and what we can do.
 * 1) Navigate information networks to locate relevant information all bullets
 * 2) Asking the right question bullet #1
 * 3) Critically evaluate... we don't know what we need to know
 * 4) Communicate the answer to others... we email,and with your help are using the wikispace
 * **Reflections from Julie** (11/20/06) - It was wonderful to meet all of you today and to begin your journey with you. Your team is in an exceptional place and I am sure you will make great progress this year! I read through your "debriefing notes" above and tried to organize them beneath common headings. Feel free to move things around (just click "edit this page" :-) if you feel I have interpreted something incorrectly. I think you have constructed a very realistic plan for January 11 and I will pull some things together (lesson ideas, links, etc) that we can cover when I come that day. We'll complete some searching lessons and learn about the multiple aspects of critical evaluation and how to introduce these ideas with young children. Below, I created some links to a few of the sites we explored today if you would like to continue exploring:
 * [|Read, Write, Think] lessons from the International Reading Association - clicking on Lessons will let you view all lessons, clicking on "Student Materials" will lead you to all the "mini-programs", and clicking on "search" in the upper right of the screen will let you search by topic, grade level, etc.
 * RTEACHER listserv
 * **To join,** you can visit [|this link] and sign up with your name and email address. REMEMBER to select "digest" mode if you only want to receive the messages once a day in your email box.
 * **To post a message**, send an email message to RTEACHER@bookmark.reading.org Add a subject link that represents the topic of your message. Send just as you would a regular email message.
 * **To just read the archives**, visit http://bookmark.reading.org/archives/rteacher.html and click on the month you'd like to read through and then select the threads (folders) of messages.