Teeters,+Amber+Michelle-+Closing+Reflection

1. Now that you’ve had this professional development experience, how are you defining “new literacies?” How do you think your definition has changed or evolved this week?


 * When I first came to the institute I did not really have a good definition of new literacies but now that I have completed the professional development I have a good understanding of new literacies. I now see new literacies as the ability to take in, process, and output information from the digital world including video, webpages, blogs, wikis, etc.

2. Describe some new literacies that you learned about this week? What did you know about these topics before the week began and how has your experience this week contributed to your understanding of these new literacies?


 * Some of the new literacies that I learned about this week were blogs, google forms, and wikis. While I was already familiar with these new literacy tools, being at the institute taught me how to better use these in the classroom and connect them to my content area.

3. In what ways are the new literacies prompted by technology? How do they affect one another?


 * New literacies and technology go hand in hand because the wide spread access of technology. To be proficient in the 21st century, students must be able to use the new literacies to take in the information around and teachers must be able to adapt their teaching styles to incorporate technology.

4. How do new literacies affect the way we think about academic content? Describe an examples of how some specific academic content is affected by changes in the ways we reading write and thinking (i.e. new literacies).


 * The new literacies affect the scientific content that I teach because now labs can easily be done virtually, most scientific research is now published online which make student research easier, and there is no longer a need for a lot of the tedious prep work because it has been converted to the digital world.

5. How do new literacies affect the way we think about our teaching practices? How do they affect the development of new teaching practices or approaches to teaching? New literacies affects the way I think about all aspects of teaching.


 * The new literacies affect our teaching practices by making us rethink the way we plan and develop our curriculum for students. By understanding the new literacies we must adapt our teaching to reflect skills that will be need by our 21st century learners in the future. Students will need to be able to comprehend information from multiple sources instead of just reading from a textbook or listening to a lecture and regurgitating information.

6. During the week, you learning about several conceptual / theoretical frameworks for understanding the new literacies including, project-based inquiry, TPACK, Bloom’s revised cognitive theory, online identity, and |global literacies (i.e. cultural competence, cultural awareness, cosmopolitanism). Describe your personal perspective on new literacies as it is informed by these conceptual and theoretical ideas.


 * My personal perspective on the new literacies as presented by these theories is that our students are no longer being asked to spit back fact to us and call that learning. The new literacies involves problem solving, questioning, and inquiry into learning.

7. How does the design process you learned about in your design studio work and the video digging deeper session support your understanding of the creative process?


 * By using the design process and making the videos I was able to connect how through the creative process there could be many right answers to the same questions and how each individual group attacked the issues that were presented.

8. You learned this week about how to manage, and in some cases create, your online identity. What action steps will you take (are you taking) to manage and further extend your online identity?


 * In creating my online identity I am building my professional identity by joining professional groups through wikis and twitter, protecting my facebook and other book marking accounts, and by keeping my personal life separated from my professional life.

9. If you had one more day in the Institute, what would you like to learn more about and why?


 * If I had one more day in the Institute, I would like to learn even more about wiki and blogs because I believe they are a really great tool that can be incorporated in with my content topics. I would love to learn new and different ways to use wiki and blogs in my classroom to benefit the learning of my students.