Week 4 Blog

Whilst using the Wed 2 technologies during the session I realised the potential the resources actually had within the classroom in supporting children’s learning and engaging them in different ways. Using the Wordle and Tagxedo they could also be used as a hook into new topics being made up of the key words for a topic or the children can create their own to demonstrate what they had learnt during a topic (Rylands, 2014). Furthermore the storyboard resources could be used across the curriculum and not just for English, for example science children could create a storyboard of an experiment they had just carried out. On reflection if we wish children to become literate we also need to teach them to be digitally literate as well, Futurelab (2010) suggest that this means children need access to resources and practices which they are then taught to apply to digital tools and be taught to make and share meanings in different modes and formats to collaborate and communicate effectively.  As shown above a key aspect of all literacies is the need to communicate effectively, in today’s popular culture blogging, email and instant messaging are a key way of communicating, it is therefore logical to suggest that children need to be taught also how to use these forms and how to do so for different audiences to fit in with the current society (Carrington and Robinson, 2009). In addition if children are expected to communicate using digital literacies they also need to be able to read them and recognise the key features which they are made up of (UKLA, 2010) which will therefore support their use of them and be able to use them for different reasons, purposes and audiences as well as enable them to play an active role in society (Futurelab, 2010).

Bibliography

Carrington V. and Robinson M. (2009) Digital Literacies: Social Learning and Classroom Practices London: SAGE

Futurelab (2010) Digital literacy across the curriculum Bristol: Futurelab accessed from http://learn2.winchester.ac.uk/pluginfile.php/237952/mod_resource/content/1/digital_literacy.pdf

Rylands T. (2014) ICT to inspire accessed from http://www.timrylands.com/

UKLA (2010) Teaching Reading: What the evidence says Leicester: UKLA