Although I consider myself a digital native, I was a little nervous to learn that we had to teach a new topic through a new technology. I use technology every day of my life, so why was I nervous to learn about something new and interesting? I'm usually all for trying new things, but when it comes to technology I sort of lack confidence unless it's something I'm familiar with..
Thanks to CEP416 (the technology class we're required to take) I have been introduced to many new forms of technology and my nervousness about using new forms finally disappeared. This semester I learned about wikis, blogs, photo editors, digital storyboards, websites, etc. My absolute favorite technology to work with was the websites, so I decided to use this for my new literacies project. I have a little bit of background knowledge about using websites, but I wanted to increase this knowledge so I can someday use it in my classroom.
Once I chose my technology I had to choose the type of literacy that I wanted to teach. I decided to choose visual literacy because I think it's important for students to be able to recognize and understand the complex messages that are given through visual images. Students will be surrounded by visual images the rest of their life, much of these consisting of photographs, graphs, charts, art and paintings, advertisements, maps, etc. By teaching about this topic, students will be able to see, understand, appreciate, and depict a message through an image.
After gathering all my research I put all this information together on a webpage. Weebly.com makes creating websites quick and easy. Easy enough that I believe fourth and fifth graders would be able to make their own. This site doesnt try to confuse you or make things difficult, but instead all the editing tools stay in the center of the page (and by being visually literate you understand what the symbols mean). What I really liked about Weebly was how they didnt have thousands of different options. I would have gotten confused if I had too many choices of things to do to my website, so thats another reason I think children would enjoy it. Weebly made it easy for me to add my information while also allowing me to design my page however I want.
I didnt realize that I was going to learn so much about this topic until I actually finished all my research. The research I found provided me with a great abundance of resources that I will be able to use in my future classrooms. On my website I provided a bunch of websites that define visual literacy, provide readings, websites, information, and even lesson plans and activities to try with your students. Some of the websites gave me ideas about books to use in the classroom for teachers and students. David Drew is an author who uses visual text in most of his books to convey and support the information given.
Overall I am glad I made a website about visual literacy because this information will be useful when I have my own classroom. Not only did I learn a lot about the topic but now I actually know how to fully build a website. In the future I can look back at this website and add information over time. I have already began my classroom library, so now I have more books to purchase that will help me develop stronger knowledge of visual literacy that I can pass on to my future students.
No comments:
Post a Comment