From Blackboards to SmartBoards

"Now class please sit down quietly and take our your iPad's to begin today's lesson."  Wait a minute, did this teacher just say iPads?  What ever happened to the good ol' fashioned hard cover book that had that distinct smell of busy eyes reading across the text.  The 21st century literacy learner has established newer definitions and we can provide gratitude, for these changes, to the ever growing world of technology.  According to the NCTE, National Council of Teachers of English, the 21st century learner need to "gain proficiency with tools of technology, design and share information for global communities to meet a variety of purposes, and create, critique, analyze, and evaluate multimedia text." We are no longer asking our students to be able to read and write on a piece of paper, we are asking them to think deeper and more critically using the tools and sources of technology to become more literate students of America.  With so many schools going from one-to-one in each classroom and completely dispersing the idea of a classic math textbook, it is important to stay "in the know" and understand what all of these changes will mean within your classroom.  This is why I have been set on a journey to use Pinterest, a website full of pinning and bouncing ideas off of other users, to research resources, ideas and tips on teaching literacy in the 21st century.

The idea of having more and more involvement with technology in your classroom can be intimidating for some teachers, especially those who have been in the field for many years.  For some of these teachers, not using technology is no longer an option while many schools are in the race for being the most updated or the most tech savvy.  But what does this all really mean? Just because there is a smart board in your room or that you have an iPad doesn't really mean that you are using these types of devices in the ways that can empower your students understanding of literacy.  There are so many possibilities to enhance the teaching in your classroom, which is why I have begun using my own technological resources in exploring ways to use media literacy throughout our classrooms.  These different methods and lessons of teaching are important for me to understand, as a future educator, because these are the ways of teaching that I am expected to be able to do with my students.  The internet allows us to connect with someone who lives in Thailand from a desk of a small school in Iowa.  The internet allows us to explore any single idea and turn that idea into an experiment or activity.  The internet allows us to go farther than we have ever been able to go before with our teaching, and especially with literacy, allows ours students to explore text in a whole new light.  This is why it is important for me to research and provide information and tools to provide the most effective and efficient ways of educating in the 21st century.

As a constant learner and still a student at the University of Iowa, we have learned that just a basic pen and paper can be enough, but if you want to strive to be the best, you can use the opportunities that technology has provided within your classroom.  I believe that literacy is the most important aspect of schooling today, which is why it is important to stay with the ever changing world around us.  Reading will always be reading, but the way that we read and what we read and how we can help students to read is forever changing, and this is why it is such an exciting time in the world of literacy!  More resources for researching or for helping a specific group of students work on their reading and writing is right at the palm of our hands, and we need to take advantage of that.  I truly believe that allowing our students to become literate with technology and other tools that are on the rise today, will put our generation of students ahead of the game and allow for more learning to be done throughout the classroom.

I am very excited to begin this research project on Pinterest and to be able to share my ideas and "pins" that I have found useful for your classrooms!