Transitioning from Knowledge to Synthesis -EDUC 6712 Reflection

I have learned a great deal of information throughout my current course, Supporting Information Literacy and Online Inquiry in the Classroom. The information that I learned on New Literacies was the most interesting and important to me. I find that it is imperative that we as teachers begin to design our instruction around today's world. We must recognize the skills that our students need to be successful. The world is ever-changing and teachers need to be as well.

I think it is crucial to teach students new literacy skills. We must rethink how we define literacy in education and instead respect its true definition. Literacy no longer applies to simply reading and writing and doing math. The most striking revelation that I had about the teaching of New Literacy Skills was how much it made sense, and how scary it is that I had yet to hear anything about this new theory in my own teaching, prior to this course. Why don't teachers know about New Literacies and why are they not receiving help to understand and teach them? I feel as though I have been given the opportunity to learn so much in this course that will help to influence my own teaching. I now have a deep understanding and appreciation of new literacies. I am already beginning to implement them in my classroom. My students are being given more authentic and meaningful learning experiences, especially when using computers!

After this course and all I have learned, I have two professional goals! The first goal that I have is to take the knowledge that I now possess and share it with my fellow staff members and colleagues. I find it so important that they too are educated in the teaching of new literacies and that they are given instructional training. I have already taken steps to plan a professional development training with my school in May! My other goal is to continue to learn and be better able to consistently implement effective teaching of information literacy skills. I hope to do so by continuing to explore different resources that focus on the teaching of new literacies.

I am very anxious to apply all that I have learned in my classroom. Although my students are only in kindergarten, I want to ensure that they are literate by all definitions and well prepared to be success ful in today's world. I plan to strive to educate my students on the skills necessary for them to acquire this success. We may only be starting with evaluating a website, but we are on our way to learning much more!