Reading Ian O’Byrne’s article on Online Content Construction gave me some ideas about how I can better incorporate technology into my instruction in my English class this year. I’ve already decided to do more instruction on online reading comprehension, in particular helping kids to better evaluate information online. Content construction goes hand in hand with comprehension. Kids need work on synthesizing multimodal sources. In particular, I want to give kids more opportunites to communicate information via a variety of platforms. I am going to use Google+ communities for a class blog for kids to respond to various prompts, mostly about the literature we read. We also do a lot of background information research which is a perfect area for kids to prepare multimedia presentations on the content they have learned.
O’Brien’s article on at risk students supported the findings in the article by Castek et al about the successes that struggling readers can have when using multimodal sources. I think this is very true. As O’Brien pointed out, at risk students can be “artistic, creative, innovative and daring.” In many ways, students who are considered struggling or at risk are much more willing to take chances than high achieving students who just want to get the right answer. I am hoping that by incorporating more multimedia sources into my instruction and by and offering students the opportunity to present the content knowledge in a variety of ways, at risk students will be more successful. I also would like to see the high performing students step out of their comfort zone and be more risk taking and innovative.
As I stated earlier, I appreciate your look at the intersection between comprehension and construction...and that might be an extension of synthesis. Good work.
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