I examined the ELA Standards and technology for grade six students. The standards for sixth grade students focus on students gaining a larger and deeper vocabulary by employing online dictionaries and thesaurus, as well as word analysis tools. Additionally, students are taught reading techniques like context clues, that is deriving the meaning of an unfamiliar word by its position and function in the sentence. Furthermore, the ELA standards for grade six students introduce tools that will be helpful for multimedia projects such as applications like Microsoft Word and Excel, and research tools like Wikis and search engines also. Although I would feel prepared to implement these standards based on my own understanding of technology, I believe the real difficulty would be in communicating and walking students through parts that are already so familiar to me. For example, it could become troublesome to introduce a sixth grader to Microsoft Excel.
The sixth grade section of CPALMS Educator Toolkit includes over 100 resources for its English Language Arts subject. The resources I became most interested in were related to vocabulary acquisition. For instance, the "Words take Root" student tutorial intends to expand the students vocabulary by introducing Greek and Latin roots and twelve contemporary words that are derived from those specific roots. I found this one particularly interesting because I believe using Ancient Greek and Latin as a means of teaching modern English will successfully get students engaged. Also, students will be able to use their understanding of roots as context clues to acquire even more vocabulary in the future. I would try to implement this resource into a lesson, wherein the students learn 3-4 roots and their meaning, then try to discover the meaning of the derivative words themselves. I think this would challenge the students to use what they just learned and be rewarding if they can uncover the meaning of the words with only the root as a clue. Furthermore, I think this would be best implemented with the teacher leading the discussion so that the students will eventually arrive at the correct pronunciation and definition.
Ancient Greece Bronze Age Ceramic Skyphos & Figurines
Image is licensed under: CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication
Internet searching and search engines are a fundamental part of navigating the internet for students, educators, and casual users. Search engines are especially crucial as they are the main tool by which online information and resources can be found and acquired. I argue that knowing how to effectively use a search engine becomes more important as a student continues their education. For instance, during high school students will be expected to use search engines to find scholarly sources for research papers. Likewise, college students are expected the same thing, however their research subjects will become more specific and niche. This is why the internet searching skill I will use the most moving forward is advanced google search. Advanced google search allows the searcher to add more qualifiers to refine their search and remove irrelevant search results. This module also introduced "image search" but another Internet search tool I use frequently is "reverse image search". Reverse image search allows the searcher to find the original online sources of any image, and is therefore incredibly useful when trying to research the context and details of an image. - A
Hi A's Class Journal!
ReplyDeleteI like that you focused on vocabulary acquisition and the tools provided for this topic. A strong vocabulary improves all areas of communication, which in turn helps students to grow as functioning members of society. I also appreciated how you gave an example of how you would implement this resource into your own lesson, for these are exactly what the tools and resources are meant for. Great Job on this post!