I chose this lesson plan because I feel that digital literacy is something that every single student needs to learn. I was particularly interested in investigating how this lesson plan uses technology to discuss the issue of digital literacy. In addition, this lesson plan was high quality because it had the standards and technologies in its design.
One of this lesson plan’s problems is that it encouraged students to be critical thinkers when it came to digital texts, but it put individuals in the consumer position when it came to technology in the classroom. The lesson plan uses the SmartBoard to present texts to model to the students; thus, the technology does not allow students to become producers of information. The lesson strategies call for students to present their ideas, but they do not use diverse technologies to reach their goal like the standards want.
I added in blogging and podcasting because it allows students to continue their discussions through another medium. One of the standards indicates that there should be a range of means to have collaborative discussions, and I think that the blogging website allows this to take place. Another standard indicates that students must write for a variety of purposes and audiences, but the classroom practices do not allow this to happen since other students are the only audience. Blogging allows students to have a wider audience. One of the major problems is that technology is not the venue for the collaboration.
The Smartboard and computer are pivotal for this lesson because this lesson’s crux is promoting digital literacy. Without technology, it is impossible to explore the issue of digital literacy. The main problem is not the technology itself, but the fact that the technologies do not completely align with standards and strategies in meaningful ways.
Link to Spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Amgpgj9Fx1m7dFA3UnBNNll6UjBRdG92RkZHeXdITnc#gid=0
Hi Nick,
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree with your decision to add in blogging and podcasting to this lesson plan. It takes the strategy of students presenting their ideas to a concrete level in both sharing their ideas and using technology. Blogging covers several aspects of what it sounds like this lesson plan was trying to achieve, so I think you really came up with a great solution to solidify those goals!
Nick, this is one of the strongest analyses of a lesson plan I have read in the class. I appreciate the intentionality of your choices. What would make your spreadsheet even clearer is breaking down the rows into more discrete sections, according to the specific pedagogy employed. For example, it looks like the section containing "brainstorming," involves much more than just that, according to the Standards column and the Technology column. For future assignments, try to break down the information and be more liberal with the use of spreadsheet cells, so that if I read a row from right to left, it would make sense in terms of alignment (Technology + Strategy= Achievement of Curriculum Standard). Otherwise, this is a strong effort and posting for this assignment.
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