When thinking about my upcoming Multimedia Montage Project, I have joined two additional groups on the thinkfinity.org website that I think will enhance my project. The two groups that I have joined include: Technology Integration K-5 and Reaching English Language Learners.
I have decided to join the technology integration group because I believe my participation in this group will help me answer the essential question from week 1, "What are 21st century skills and why are they important?" I hope that that my membership in this group will prove to be fruitful; in that I will gain a practical insight into how (specifically) technology is being integrated into elementary classrooms. I chose to focus on elementary because I think that my project will focus on the audience of elementary students (since I student taught K-5 ESL- I have some experience teaching and appealing to this audience.) When I think about the implementation of 21st century skills in an elementary classroom, the idea from the "Curriculum and Instruction: A 21st Century Skills Implementation Guide," and how it addressed the manners in which schools can meet the needs of these learners in a time when "pen and paper" methods of teaching are becoming obsolete. "To meet the needs of twenty first century learners schools need to adapt a twenty first century skills curriculum and employ methods of instruction that integrate innovative research proven teaching strategies, modern learning technologies, and real world resources and contexts" (Partnership for 21st century skills). I am hoping that my membership in this group will enable me to learn how to teach to students who have grown up with today's digital tools and access to multimedia and smartphones.
I also have decided to join the group, "Reaching English Language Learners," because I hope that this group will be able to provide me valuable insight into how to teach my specific my specific content subject matter of ESL.I am hoping my participation in this group will help me create my "toolbox," full of teaching resources and strategies that I will be able to use during my future teaching career.
From reading your previous post on thinkfinity, I think you have selected two great communities to join. I especially think "Reaching English Language Learners" will be beneficial to you because you have mentioned that this is a focus of yours in the classroom.
ReplyDeleteI think that by joining this community you will be able to create and enhance your "toolbox" for many years to come. There are always up and coming technologies so if you plan on being an ELL teacher in the future, then I think this is the right move for you! I am interested to see what comes out of your project because I feel your project will help MANY teachers, not just yourself. Classrooms are becoming more and more diversified over time, so learning how to manage ELL children will become very helpful for the rest of us! :)
I am going to be an ESL teacher which is why I joined the "Reaching English Language Learners" group but I definitely think it could be helpful to teachers of various disciplines. It is extremely important that ELLs are supported by all teachers in their school and they are able to receive support and services that will help them achieve and succeed in school. I observed at a middle school where the other content area teachers did not receive any type of training with regards to ELLs and how to teach them; they were practically ignored. The teachers would just provide the ESL teacher with the students' work and it would be the that teacher's job to teach the student the information from the other classes. It was also very disheartening to see these students (the ELLs) go to their other classrooms and be practically ignored. If you are interested about learning about ways to teach ELL students, there was a wonderful program that I learned about in my ESL classes to help content area teachers become more comfortable with the ELLs in their classroom. You can visit http://www.cal.org/siop/ to learn about the SIOP model of sheltered instruction which is a strategy for content area instructors.
DeleteHi Louise,
ReplyDeleteI think both of the groups you've joined will prove useful to you as you explore topics for your MMP. As Kristen wrote above, joining both of these communities will definitely assist you on the path to integrate the use of technology into your (future) ELL classroom. There are a lot of Web 2.0 technologies out there now that tote themselves as beneficial specifically for ELLs... iPad apps especially. While I'm not familiar with which ones are "best" for ELLs exclusively, I'm quite sure belonging to both of these groups will help you explore these possibilities.
I look forward to reading about how belonging to these community groups will assist your MMP development over the course of the semester! If you're still not quite sure what direction your MMP is taking, please take extra time to reflect on the possibilities now -- the proposal deadline will be here before you know it!
Nicely done!
Prof H
Thank you Professor Holan! I definitely will be thinking about the direction of my MMP. I hope that these groups will help me with my project and I will be able to gain some insight about how to better incorporate the usage of web 2.0 tools in my classroom. It was very interesting how you brought up the idea of using iPad applications with ELLs. I actually used this practice a lot in my student teaching internship. My students absolutely loved using the ipads and they helped me target my instruction to meet the needs of my diverse group of students. I am definitely hoping that I will learn more ways to incorporate other apps that I have not used previously as well as other types of technology that I will be able to use in my instruction.
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