Reflection

The MGRP I got me to look deeper into our first assignment about literacy signs and apply my new definitions of literacy. This project was at first difficult to see the direction of my overall project in terms of genre pieces and how it would come out. Overall, I am very pleased with my finished product and look forward to our gallery walk later today.
Once again my psychology interests came out in the process of researching my topic for the MGRP. I fell in love with Eisner's philosophy of literacy! This quote sums it up, "As long as schools operate on an essentially linguistic modality that gives place of privilege to a kind of literacy, logical, or mathematical form of intelligence, school limit what youngsters can learn (Eisner quoted in Leland and Harste, 1994, 339)." Through my research I discovered how technology can change those limitations of what students can learn and the restraints the teachers feel in regards to traditional educational linear model. By using Millard's six aspects I was able to identity how a teacher might go about assessing tools to add to his/ her repertoire and alter their current educational linguistic linear model to a nonlinear model to adapt to the changes in this digital age.
I assessed audio books, personal computers, and composing products. These tools are just a few there are many more, I just had to set a limit or my paper would have been a good size book.
I was fortunate to read about interesting cases of how technology transformed a classroom by fusing new times, new teaching, and learning with new technologies. A couple examples are the digital storytelling, the multiple ways of knowing using Sylvester and the Magic Pebble, podcasts, webcasts, learning mats, and new composing programs to name a few. I am very excited to try out some of these tools in my future classroom after accessing my population of students using Millard's Six aspects. The six aspects will allow for me to gauge the tools I would be selecting and determine their access, arena, agency, affordance, appropiateness, and holding myself accountable for my child-centered learning approach.
I learned that inquiry based curricula is the ideal to strive for and use in majority of all content areas. Also that writing is everywhere, I use the genre piece of bar-codes, because it is a sign system that I found myself using multiple ways of knowing. This came about in deciding my genre pieces and I like the ideal of the bar-code. A bar-code is a sign system and label that might seem constant, but is constantly changing as the student and the application of the appropriate tool that offers the best affordance will vary content to content, day to day. The artist Scott Blake presented and interesting sign system that is present in our daily life that we currently navigate and I am inspired to continue looking for these sign systems and how I can transmediate them into new meaning for expanding my definition of literacy and express my full potential as teacher and a student.
As a student how uses a variety of technology to achieve my personal understanding of different contents and express my understanding of those contents, I plan to have technology in an arms reach at all times. Technology is a challenge, but I am willing to teach myself and take the time to use various modes knowing that one mode might offer more affordances for one student than another. Throughout the beginning of a year and getting familiar with my students I would hope to know what tools are appropriate for what students and be able to hold myself accountable in fusing new literacy in my teaching of my students to be their own agency and see their flexibility in navigating all sign systems to transmediate their understanding in the digital age.