Course 3 resonated with me because it confirmed all of my beliefs about the power visuals have of extending and deepening learning in the classroom. I found course 3 to be the most useful to me in terms of applying what I have learned here in COETAIL in my classroom with my students. It was valuable to have time to explore ways of presenting information visually during class and then actually creating presentations that I can use with students. I also appreciated learning about the Flip Cam and what we can do with the software from Mark. Even though I've always known that the flip cams were available for us to use, it wasn't until I actually had time to play around with them during class that I understood how easy it would be to integrate them into class activities and projects. Having time to tinker with technology helped me to get my creative juices flowing and my lightbulb of ideas to shine.
One of the results of this course is that I find myself not only thinking of ways I can make language learning more visual, but which visuals will have the deepest and most long lasting impact on student learning. It's also helped me to have conversations with my students about why and how images help them in their own learning and how they can use this awareness to use visual depictions to communicate effectively to an audience. For example, one of my students who was writing a story about a maid who was trying to figure out who ate all of the pizza in the kitchen drew this:
We later discussed how this picture would help the audience understand the story. What if it were a different picture, perhaps just a picture of a pizza box or just the maid? The main point that the maid was trying to figure out the mystery of who actually ate the pizza could have been lost. But, because she drew the maid scratching her head with a perplexed expression and an empty pizza box the reader has a better idea of what the message is communicating even without the use of language to reinforce it. In the future I'll continue to have conversations with students about how they can effectively use images to convey meaning. Fortunately, this course has given me a better sense of what visual literacy is and how to start talking about visual literacy with kids.
I was happy that digital storytelling was one of the focal points of this course. I am very interested in incorporating digital storytelling into my classroom on a more regular basis. This course gave me the opportunity to reflect more about how to use images effectively to tell a story. My final project is centered around digital storytelling and specifically encourages students to use images to help "tell" their story and make it appealing to a wider audience.
I'll post student examples of digital stories soon!
No comments:
Post a Comment