Article #5 Summary & Response

This article is about challenged-based learning and provides information for anyone to be able to “take action and make a difference.” This author, as well as the Apple in Education website, describes each of the steps in challenged-based learning. Step 1 is “The Big Idea”. This is where you come up with a broad topic that has importance to students and their community. I like that the big idea can be broad and then just fine-tuned to what needs to be done. I also like that anyone can come up with something in the community that is important to them, like homelessness or campus parking. The examples of broad big ideas that the website gave were democracy, the environment, sustainability, or food. These big ideas certainly are broad. Step 2 is “Essential Questions”.  This is where you can get more specific with your idea by asking questions reflecting your area of interest or community need. Step 3 is “The Challenge.” In this step is where we can guide more towards a real-world solution. For example, instead of the solution for homelessness being give all homeless people a house, we can find a Laundromat who will wash clothes for free for job interviews. Step 4 is “Guiding Questions and Activities”. In this step, we can find some answers, collect data, and conduct interviews. For example, we can ask local companies what the number one reason is for not hiring a homeless person is. Step 5 is “Guiding Resources”. This step must be so simple because of the ease of access in finding resources. Through the internet, we can easily find all local homeless shelters or Laundromats in the area. Then we can easily find a ton of information on homelessness and even specifically in Bellingham. Step 6, the last step, is “Solutions, Implementation, and Reflections”. This is where we develop our solution and implement it in the real world.

Like I said in the beginning, these big ideas can easily become more specific and easy through this challenged-based learning process. The example on the Apple in Education website went from a big idea of food, to coming up with a solution of creating a school garden. The process makes it so easy, and the solution can benefit your school or community in a huge way. 

Article #4 Summary & Response

It is funny to read this article after the one we read a few weeks back about how students should be taught how to better read online and should more often read print to meet standards. I suppose if that was done, this extreme usage of iPads and tablets that these author suggests, can possibly be okay. Most of the time, I side with the negative aspects of articles, just like how I agreed that students need to be reading print and used to it before they arrive to college. I never fully explore the benefits of so much technology, except that I realized how much we are required to read online PDFs and articles anyway in college these days. I like that the teacher in the article focused on still teaching print-based literacy goals, but to also enhance students' learning opportunities with the iPads and provide them with an opportunity to also learn some of the new literacy skills associated with 21st-century technologies But that was not a benefit. That was just a fact. It was nice to read a few simple benefits of students using iPads in the classroom. One of the largest benefits being that iPads do support and enhance transliteracy instruction and learning.

It seems that educators are still unsure about how to exactly use iPads and tablets in the classroom because they are still so new. The authors themselves said, "Because iPads and similar tablets have been relatively unexplored as tools for literacy learning, we hope that this work can provide a foundation for teachers and leaders making decisions about whether mobile devices such as these can be useful tools in literacy classrooms."

I loved exploring the website about reading and writing apps. I myself have an iPad that I use all the time, and one reason I bought it was because I knew I would be using it forever and I could see myself using it in my classroom or one on one with students. Because of this, I am constantly looking for awesome apps that I could download for future use. I have a little folder on my iPad titled "teaching" for all the apps I have gotten that I hope to use one day.

Article #3 Summary & Response

This article is about ways to “navigate the issues, understand the risks, and learn the research behind how best to address the concerns about online activities for students.”

I was really drawn into this article just by the first sentence, because the concept of “digital natives” that they author wrote about is something I think of all the time and was also something I mentioned in most of my responses to classmate’s blogs last week. The fact that today’s students, and even us, have been living with all kinds of technology our entire lives makes us so incredibly different than any of the generations before us. Just think of the difference in the way we were raise and the technology accessibility and knowledge that we have compared to our parents, and then compared to our grandparents. Although this concept really makes me think, I know it is not the main focus of this article, so I’m going to try and extend my response beyond the first sentence of the article.

I had another big response to how the article began with how we should not teach internet safety from a fear-based perspective and then how I felt when I reached the sections on things like predators and sexting. This stuff undoubtedly scares me, and I’m sure it is because as I was being raised, my parents did instill fear in me about all the horrible things that can happen through the internet and I probably saw too much To Catch a Predator.

When I had my first ever secret MySpace account, which of course my parents knew nothing about, I didn't care who I talked to. Being a dumb middle schooler, I was way to outgoing and was certainly flattered if any stranger (“20” year old guy) wanted to strike up an online conversation with me, and I was glad to keep in touch. Well, without a doubt, my mom found out I had the account, hacked it, and lost her shit. Unquestionably I was grounded and heard every day about how dangerous it all is and how someone could find where I live and kill me. And yes, I was forced to watch To Catch a Predator.

I would never argue that the internet can be a dangerous and scary place. If I found my future middle school daughter talking to a 20 year old guy online, who is obviously a disgusting predator, I would absolutely lose my shit as well. But, hopefully that never happens to me or any of my future student’s parents, because I can now see the incredible importance of teaching online safety and what works best in doing so. Students should not fear the internet, because it is such an amazing tool and is part of their lives, but they really do need to be kept safe online and be very knowledgeable about it.

Article #2 Summary & Response

This article was about transliteracy, which is a term used to describe how communication has changed. This term represents how communication has grown and changed from “orality to art, to print, to movies, to musical messages, to multimedia presentations, and to combinations of all of the above.” (Although this is a direct quote from the article, I would easily argue that communication through musical messages came long before communication through movies.) The author goes on to describe how these changes in communication affect student’s ability to reach some specific common core standards, some of the benefits and concerns about reading across electronic platforms, and some advice and tactics to keep students focused on what they are reading.

While reading this article, I wasn’t quite sure at first what the intended audience was. By the end, I came to the assumed conclusion that this was written by and for librarians. Although I am not the intended audience, I found this article to be very informative and interesting. It also brought up some concerns and questions for me as well. My main interest in this article is the effects of transliteracy on Common Core Standards. Student’s work all the way through school in order to prepare themselves for college and the work force, and I was very worried when the article did bring up one of the Common Core English Language Arts standards. Students should be able to “read and comprehend complex literary and information text independently and proficiently.” What I got from this article is that students are not meeting this standard, or we are going to see it in the future. This made me think about college course text books. For me, just this week, I was expected to read 7 chapters in 4 different texts. Most of these chapters are something I am expected to fully independently and proficiently comprehend the text and there is always a possibility that it will be on a test or the final, even without discussing it in class. Therefore, it worries me and makes me think about how much of an effect transiliteracy can have on the efficiency and success of a college student.

Article #1 Summary & Response

          This article is mainly about how our brain overloads and freezes up if we have too much information that we are trying to process at one time.  When this happens, we tend to make worse decisions that we may soon regret later. More commonly, the brain actually makes better decisions through the unconscious process.

          I thought that this article was very interesting, especially because it is something I have never heard of before. This article was such a different take on everyday average life and interesting because it is something that we commonly wouldn't ever think about, because brain activity is such an unconscious thing. It was also fascinating to read about how much this overload of information does effect the brain and effects how well it works or not. It really makes me think about how much this may be happening to me, but I don't realize it! I worry about what decisions I may have made in my past, or recently, because I had TOO much information, instead of making a correct, smart, logical, and informed decision. I wonder if women have more of a difficulty with this kind of issue. We all know that most women love to talk to their friends and confide in others.  If they have a problem, they will most likely seek advice from others, most commonly, many others. Now if this is combined with texting all of these people, I can see how a woman's brain my short out or explode, based on this articles information.