Module 10

I enjoyed the last chapter of the book, because while reading this I never even thought of the possibility of Literacy 3.0! I loved learning about literacy 2.0 and all its advantages that I have never noticed before, even as someone who grew up always having the internet; so, when they touched on literacy 3.0 and what it could hold, it was very exciting for me! Already, I have so many ideas for my future classroom and students, so I am sure in the next few years I will be learning even more. I also enjoyed the communities that are set up just for teachers to share different websites, ideas, and activities with other teachers; I think that it is a great way to keep in touch with others and to get new ideas from other teachers!

                I think that I still have a long way to go before I can say that I am an expert with the internet, but this class and this book really showed me what the internet can do! When I started this class, I would only use google as a search engine and didn’t know about all the great sites that I could have been using to further my education. I feel as though I have learned a lot about what the internet has to offer and how I can improve my learning experience and the learning experiences of my future students, so I am sad that this class is over, but I know that it is not the end of my online literacy explorations! I am definitely going to try to keep blogging, because I feel like it can help my writing skills and help my ideas get even better! Maybe people will even read it! The only problem is, now that this class is over, I don’t know what to blog about! But I definitely really enjoyed this class and I am excited to explore more possibilities on my own! 

Module 9

This chapter was interesting, because student assessment is a very important aspect of teaching. Without it, teachers would never know what progress their students are making and what the teacher need to help them on. Throughout this whole book, the author has given us many different examples of classroom activities to help aid the child in learning new literacy, but the teacher won’t know if these methods have worked, until they have assessed the child.

I think that a huge problem in schools, especially high school, is that there are tests and then the teacher immediately moves on to the next subject, even if the students did poorly on the assessment. This being said, assessments must be used as a review for the teacher, to pinpoint trouble areas and figure out how to help the students move forward. I came upon this problem a lot when I was a student, especially in math, was that I wouldn’t be able to grasp the concepts and we would move on without me ever understanding it, so for the rest of the units, I would be confused, because the teacher did not take the time to clear up questions before moving on. This definitely isn’t the case with all teachers, I know some teachers who use assessments to reevaluate their teaching and ask themselves what they can do to help the students understand. This just goes to show how important assessments are for students and teachers.

The think that I found most interesting about this chapter was the concept of observation as a form of assessment. I guess that I never thought of this as an assessment, because as a student I have always been the one being assessed, so I never noticed any of my teachers observing me (or observing the class), to find out what I know and what I may be struggling with. After reading this chapter, I agree that it is a very important part of assessment, because you can tell a lot about a student by just watching them interact in group work, with other students, and in a classroom environment overall.