Literacy!!

Literacy!!

First video

Technology

         No doubt technology is changing the way the student is thinking. The reactions are more immediate and the answers are come with more questionings. All this behavioral revolution requires updated adaptations by the teacher and of her teaching. She should be able to transfer technological resources into academic content. Or even better, she can use tools, which allow teaching to flourish in a more efficient way.    So I conclude that technology is unavoidable in today’s world, and classroom. 

      I found it very interesting article about learning from our mistakes. All this range of opportunities and tools that technology brings, must be introduced calmly, with reflections, with reading, sharing experiences with other teachers and to be clear, what is the purpose of the educational activity.

In my last class, Advanced Trends in Education, we learned a lot about trends that involves technology. So this made me reflect on technology as trend. I think technology cannot be considered as trend anymore, but WHAT we are doing with the technology is the trend.  

         According to Willinghan, it makes no sense to say that students are interested in mobile devices, because their true interest in the device will depend on what they will do with the phone. It seems so obvious, but I confess that I had never stopped to think about this aspect of technology. It is an interesting point of view. So, can we apply this theory to all other technological devices such as iPads, tablets, and notebooks?

iPad, smartphones, GPS, wikis, blogs, it's a lot. And today I got another "bunch “of technologies. I've never heard about the Geo Cashing(New Literacy?? I still didn't figure out what it means!). It is very interesting. I think it is going to help a lot the students with maps and, of course the GPS. 

I read a whole a whole article about exploring of the use of the iPad for literacy (why not Tablet instead iPad?? makes me feel reading an ad). The author related the positive results of experiment of use iPads in the fourth grade.  The results really impressed me. I discussed with group about if iPad should be incorporate into the curriculum. Some participants said no, some said depends of the school. I think should be incorporated and the school should planning ahead how to use the iPad. It doesn't mean that the use of the iPad it will be restrict to activities specified on the curriculum. But can be a great guide for teachers who are trying/using the iPads for the first times.

Jigsaw #3 - Language, Word, Thought

Listening to the radio story of the birth of a language developed by deaf children was very impactful. I was LISTENING to the radio, listening to the words, and decoding the message by using my vocabulary and knowledge.

I was listening. The rest of the meaning was being created onto of my prior knowledge, imagination, and thoughts! But then, what might the deaf think of? How are the thoughts in the mind of the deaf person that has no linguistic record? Do the images they give rise the words? I believe so.

 The feeling and deep meaningful understanding will be interpreted and identified greatly through images. Is it? How would we live in world without denominations. Living without auditory sound to build our language and understanding of the world in which we live.

After all, from the time we are children, we learn to name things, situations, and feelings, thus managing to communicate and build our thinking skills.

Vygotsky talked about the power of words to name things allows us to manipulable meaning mentally, which gives us a, 'generalized reflection of reality, which is also the essence of the meaning of words.'

The language transforms the experience, allowing us to deal with things at a distance and act on them without physically touching them or even seeing them. Furthermore, we can manipulate symbols (representations of reality), and develop creative and unusual versions of reality, and then modifying it .

It was my first experience with radio lab. In the beginning was a little confusing but I quite liked. I felt living in the age of radio. This stimulates our imagination and is a relaxed activity, like listening to a radio.

Vocabulary

According to Sternberg (1987), most of the words we know we were not taught nor seek  in the dictionary, but most of the vocabulary is learned from context. Reading is considered an ideal way to the acquisition of vocabulary words, because common words  of low or moderate frequency, appear more frequently in reading texts  than usual in conversation. The student has the opportunity to study the context, establish hypotheses and verify them, and infer meanings, safely. People who read more know more vocabulary.
I believe that reading results in a thorough knowledge of vocabulary; The choice of authentic texts will provide students with the possibility of finding words in a variety of contexts, which will assimilate their semantic and syntactic properties of a much deeper way. More importantly, consider that the encounter with these new words in context (considering that the rest of the text is understandable) allows students to make connections between new information and existing information, which certainly helps deploy this new knowledge into their long term memory.
The vocabulary in the freedom to communicate, to express ourselves and of some way reflects our literary life. With a vocabulary well built, we expose our ideas more clearly and therefore we are better understood.
Through the study of morphological words, I think that is  very valid and efficient way to build vocabulary. When analyzing the root word, and helping the student to understand the significance of this, numerous other words will emerge. So, this is a point where learning was constructed and I believe it will be hardly forgotten.