One trend I noticed across the group was that all of us have expanded our view of what literacy is. In my new literacy post I said “While learning about all of these new literacy’s, I have gained a much broader understanding of literacy. Literacy has so many components and it is unfair to confine it to the traditional definition of “reading and writing”. I think that it is so important for students to be exposed to these new forms of literacy.” Maggie posted “I found all of the links extremely interesting and they sent me to things I’ve never seen before and showed me different perspectives.” and Emily wrote “Regarding emotional literacy, one thing that I didn’t consider before working on this project was the special consideration that girls are given over boys when dealing with emotion.”. I noticed that throughout our blog, the same ideas resonated; we all felt that we had learned valuable things about new literacies and we could not wait to apply this knowledge to our own classrooms some day.
One disagreement that we had was over the appropriate age to be using technology in the classroom. In my new literacy post, I wrote “Students will go through the book and scan the illustrations that are expressing the character’s emotions. Students will compile the images in a PowerPoint presentation.” However, Maggie thought that this type of project might be a little ambitious for my students considering their age level. She commented “Even though I'm sure our younger students spend lots of time on their computers and are familiar with various technologies - I think that their knowledge is still limited…I feel that showing our younger students the different technologies and literacies through those is beneficial, but it would take a lot of work to get through something technological without the help and constant guidance of someone older.” We both agree that it is very important for young students to be exposed to new technologies, but we have different ideas about when this new technology should be implemented in the classroom.
All of the group members agreed that race is an important aspect of any classroom and that consequently it is not something that should be ignored. I posted “I know that I should not ignore race, but at the same time I struggle with how to address it. Due to my limited background, I sometimes have a hard time finding connections with students of different backgrounds…I think that even though I struggle with how to connect with my students of different races, as long as I show them that I value them and their experiences and that I appreciate them as human beings, then I will be able to connect with them.” On the same post, Maggie said “Even in a classroom, in a small, white town with have differences among students. All people have different experiences and are from different backgrounds; therefore, teachers should never assume certain things about their students based on things like race.” Emily commented “it is extremely important for teachers to not only see color, but to embrace it. By “not seeing” race, teachers basically claim that all children are the same when the fact of the matter is, students are different and therefore have different needs. These needs need to be addressed and accommodated for if the student is going to learn and grow in a supportive learning environment”. I think that this was a topic that really resonated with each of us. All of the group members agreed that race is something not to be ignored in the classroom.
I personally feel that my group members have really contributed to my learning this semester. They often brought up different ideas and perspectives that I had not considered. In one of my posts I said that I sometimes struggled while working with diverse students because I had practically no exposure to any sort of diversity while I was growing up. However, Maggie reminded me that just because I grew up in an almost all white school, this does not mean that I don’t have any experience working with diverse individuals. She commented “Even in a classroom, in a small, white town with have differences among students. All people have different experiences and are from different backgrounds”. This comment really helped me to see that I don't have to come from a racially diverse backgroud to know about diversity. We spent most of our blog posts affirming what each other had written. I think that we really could have stretched each other’s thinking if we would have challenged/disagreed with more of each other’s ideas. I think we were probably a little afraid of offending each other, so we shied away from challenging each other or disagreeing with each other. However, I think we could have shared a lot more ideas and heard many more opinions if we hadn’t been so afraid to hurt someone else’s feelings.
I think that I should be given 9.5 points out of 10 for the noteblog. Even though I didn’t challenge ideas as much as I could have, I still think I contributed positively to the group. I always read what my group members and gave insightful comments about their posts. I also feel that I did my best to write really good initial posts so that the rest of the group would have a lot to go off of and so that no one would struggle to come up with any comments. Ideally, I should have challenge more ideas than I did, but overall I feel like I did a pretty good job on the noteblog.
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