Tetreault,+Ashlee


 * 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?
 * New Literacies is using the changing face of information infused with technology to continue to teach the students in our schools. This needs to be done with a healthy knowledge of how the internet works and the power of social media. I think I finally have a definition of what New Literacies are, before coming to this institute I was still unclea and not sure how we defined New Literacies and why it is important. **

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?
 * Problem Based Inquiry was a huge part of the institute this week. At the beginning I was nervous that this was not something that I could use on a regular basis in my classroom because of time constraints. I now understand that this does not have to be a problem that takes weeks to solve but that I can create multiple small PBIs and then build those into a larger PBI. I had little training in Problem Based Learning before coming to this institute. I think this experience has also allowed me to use this same process and thinking to want to develop PD in this same way. I think that this same process will be powerful with educators and educator training. This process talks about relevant real life problems and students and teachers like to work in this element and they can solve these problems using new literacies along the way to collaborate and learn from each other. **

3. In what ways are the new literacies prompted by technology? How do they affect one another?
 * Technology allows people to communicate and collaborate on a global scale with relevant information. ** **Technology lends itself well to fostering a learning environment were all of this new type of learning can happen. New literacies drive the evolution of technology by demanding more and more restructuring of already existent technology to work better and be more effective. The technology makes it possible to learn and collaborate with people on a global scale.**

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).
 * New literacies force us to think about the delivery of academic content and how we are teaching this information to our students. We need to remember to “teach” them the information by facilitating their learning through real life relevant problems that the students solve by finding the information and learning. New literacies in science encourage studenencourage students to report scientific information for a global audience and have more access to scientific publications from across the globe. **

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 encourage the teacher to stop teaching straight content and to teach students how to find the answers to their questions. The teacher needs to be a facilitator and support the students curiosity and learning. Teaching practices need to be changed to focus more on teaching facilitation skills rather than presentation skills. **

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.
 * What I have taken away from this institute is that New Literacies promote and encourage global awareness and collaboration. Students need to have empathy and they can achieve this skill with PBI lessons, Bloom’s revised cognitive theory, global literacies, and responsibly building their online identity. Teachers need to be the facilitators of this learning and encourage students to bridge global connections starting at an early age. **

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?

**During the design studio I had to dig deep and make connections with my content to the other content areas of my colleagues. I actually enjoyed making those connections and working with my group in a collaborative environment to solve the problems with the PBI project and bridge the connections in the content. The Digging Deeper video forced me to come out of my comfort zone and work on a mini project with people I have never met before.**

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?

**To make sure that my online identity does not change from what I want it to be, I think I will make sure to put my name into a search engine and see what the top results are. I will also be sure to take more caution about what is put on the internet and in what context. I would like my professional online identity to continue to grow.**

9. If you had one more day in the Institute, what would you like to learn more about and why?
 * How to adopt the PBI framework in the context of PD and also how to plan small scale meaningful PBI lessons. I would like to have had more time with this because we planned a big project in order to have all of the elements of a meaningful PBI project. I am nervous that if it was scaled down and lasted for only a class period it would not be able to hit all of the necessary elements to make it a meaningful PBI lesson. **