1. My new literacy
is emotional literacy; the ability to recognize, understand and appropriately
express our emotions. Being emotionally literate is the basis for perceiving
and communicating emotions, something everyone benefits from. We can think of
it as learning the grammar and vocabulary of our emotional lives.
Emotional literacy
acts as a preventive tool. In life many problems occur because people don’t
know how to express or internalize their own and others emotions. If we teach
our students about emotions and how to deal with them, we could start our kids
on the track to emotional literacy. The sooner we engrave this idea in our
students, the sooner they can become emotionally literate, engage in positive
relationships, avoid societal problems, and have a higher quality of life.
In a poll by USA
today, when parents were asked what they wanted to change about their
children’s school, 75% of all parents asked for emotional literacy. They asked
for their kids to be taught not to hate, not to judge, asked for emotional
diagnosis of their kids before it was “too late” and asked for more school
counselors. (http://momitforward.com/teaching-children-emotional-literacy)
My students in my
placement could use more emotional literacy instruction. I’ve noticed some kids
don’t know how to fix their own problems and end up crying because they get
overwhelmed. I think if I were to approach the situation as it is escalating,
that I could help the students talk through the issue and have them solve it
themselves. This seems very basic, but I think it’d work for my students to
have an adult help them.
www.themotherco.com is a website
dedicated to helping students learn to be emotionally literate. They help kids
through songs, animated segments, art activities and using real kids on their
show so kids can make the connection between their lives and those of the kids.
I don’t really see these things in my classroom.
2. The educational world is becoming more and more technology
savvy. I plan to create a weebly, which it just an individualized, unique
website. The way I’m going to create this website makes it useful for teaching
because it’s available for teachers, parents, students and faculty. Everyone
will be able to have access to educate themselves and stay on the same page. Mine
will be about emotional literacy, but I could see this being an organizational
tool for teachers to communicate the day’s lessons/homework with parents.
The great thing about this tool is that it’s very customizable. The
creator can use URLs, plain type text, pictures, videos, animations, etc. Each
site is easily organized by header tabs and drop down menus, which is a
positive aspect of the tool if tech-non-savvys use the website.
In
terms of communication, there are ways to embed documents, watch YouTube videos,
complete online polls and surveys, contact forms and there’s even a way to
incorporate social media into the site.
A
limitation of this tool is that there isn’t a way for immediate interaction,
like there is on Google docks where everyone can be an editor. I suppose the
teacher could give everyone access to it, but that’s not the point of this
tool.
The
challenging part of using weebly to present this literacy is that it’s a
website, how does one present a website? I can click on videos and read things,
but it’s not going to be that hands on unless the students are all on their
laptops participating in polls, surveys, etc.
My
teacher uses a smart board in her classroom, which is a great way to expose
kids to technology. She could use a weebly on the site to play videos on the
big screen, have kids come up and answer poll questions, etc. Kids love using
technology, it could act as a motivator if they could come and interact with
the weebly and smart board. My students use lots of websites so they would be
able to navigate rather easily through weebly.
Making
a weebly is different than traditional texts or creating a poster because it’s much
more interactive. Writing on paper, typing and printing pages, making posters,
etc. aren’t as interactive as a website. Once they are made, they are stuck the
way they are, whereas websites can be continually undated, changed, rearranged,
etc. It allows for communication when
people aren’t around each other, such as parents at home and teachers at
school. I think communication wise, it’s very effective.
The new literacy that I am exploring is Visual Literacy. According to John Debes, "Visual Literacy refers to a group of vision-competencies a human being can develop by seeing and at the same time having and integrating other sensory experiences." Basically it brings a focus on literacy that causes the student to relay on their sense of sight as the main tool to gain meaning. However, they do rely on other senses to gain visual as well. For example, they may use sounds to cause you to focus on the visual.
ReplyDeleteThe technology my group is using is called Kerpoof at www.kerpoof.com. This allows any user to create their own stories using digital images in a storybook. There are many genres to choose from, and you can use all sorts of characters and backgrounds for the chosen setting.
I think this would be great because one it motivates students because they have so much choice, and it also can tend to each individual or in groups. There is so much room for picture creation and little room for text. So, you could not use any text to create a story, or very little. So the main focus is the visual to create meaning. It is an interesting turn in creating a story that requires no text. You would really have to think about how pictures create meaning, not just as an aid to the text.
In order to incorporate two-way communication, you can even have one person create a story and then they can write another series to that story or a response. The only limitation that i can think of is that it doesn't play around a whole lot with the other senses. You might be able to bring sounds on your own though.
What I find challenging is how to guide expectations for this particular digital because it is so open with so many choices.
When incorporating this in the classroom, I would probably start with a picture book with no text that we look at together, and we all write our own responses. Then show how visual only books can affect our understanding, and THEN use this visual.
The new literacy I researched was emotional Literacy. I learned a lot about how the impacts someone’s success in life. Emotional literacy and emotional intelligence are used interchangeably. I actually prefer the term emotional intelligence because it places us on a spectrum on which we can advance or decline. Another thing that I learned was that it not only includes you recognizing your own emotions and being able to master and handle them in a way that is appropriate and will help you respond positively rather than react negatively, but it is also more emotionally intelligent to be able to recognize the emotions of others and to be able to empathize appropriately. This is a hard one for me to grasp because attempting to recognize other people emotions can be a risky thing, especially if you’re wrong. Also the best way to respond seems quite relative. I would like to further investigate the origins of this science.
ReplyDeleteThis is not a type of literacy that has to do with written work like many of the definitions included. However many of the definitions also included that there was a component of literacy that corresponds with the ability to function is society, to achieve one’s goals, and to acknowledge one’s potential. This very closely aligns with the nature of emotional literacy because that’s what an emotionally literate person is able to do. They function better in society when they can recognize others emotions and their own and be able to respond appropriately.
Listening, speaking, and viewing are very important in emotional literacy. Listening because you have to be able to hear what someone else is saying in order to empathize with them. Speaking because it is important to be able to verbalize your emotions to let others know how you’re feeling. You must do this in a positive way. Viewing is also an important aspect of traditional literacy that pays into emotional literacy because watching people’s faces and reactions is essential to empathy and recognizing the emotions of others.
I am learning that I think literacy is best defined broadly as possessing skills that help you best function is society.
What new skills and strategies are you learning as you become more familiar with this literacy?
I am learning the importance of recognizing my emotions so that I know why I am responding as I am and to also seek the best option in that and not just be carried away by my emotions. This is a difficult skill to master. Also I am realizing how important it is to watch people that I am communicating with because then I can better see their reactions and emotions.
I think it is surprising that there is such a definitive science when it comes to emotional intelligence since the best ways to response emotionally or the more emotionally intelligent person seems to vary in contexts and also seems very subjective, but as I am researching I notice that the areas they decide to make definite are actually mostly objective, though some arguments can be made.
The technology I am using is edmodo.com. This is an online platform that helps students and teacher and parent track progress and have clear assignments and due dates that are always accessible and it also establishing a clear line of communication which can be accessed at any time. This is also a safe and secure was to have a class page.
ReplyDeleteThis technology is useful for teaching because it had been designed in a way that provides many means of communicating with your students and many ways of incorporating media to aid motivation with your students and their assignments.
This is a great medium to use to talk about my selected new literacy, emotional intelligence, because each student will have a user name and then they will be placed in a group which the teacher is the overseer of and they will all take a quiz and then post their results for the whole class to see and then they will be able to all contribute to a poll which will ask them about their experience with the emotional literacy test and if it was helpful or they learned anything new through it. Students who don’t want to post publicly their results can also email the teacher privately, but since the quiz is online it is useful to have an online platform to display the information. Also Edmodo has a feature where students can write a “status” just like they do in Facebook which is something that students are used to doing but they will connect this status with emotional literacy so not only are they writing how they feel they are considering how to respond appropriately.
What’s new is the video, assignments, and assignment drop boxes that many students in elementary will not be familiar with in an online fashion. Teaching them to navigate these features will take explicitly instruction during class time. It would probably also be useful to have parents come in for a tutorial and make a Jing (like we’ll use for our project) that parents who are unable to attend can refer to. What’s not new for my students is the Facebook like features of status updates and profiles. This is likely take less instruction to get across to the students and will be features that they enjoy.