Gloriann Curley's RDNG 654 Blog of Awesomeness

Isn't it Ironic?... I greatly enjoyed the connections I made between this module on digital literacy and ways that I can directly use what I've learned in the classroom.  Two of our assignments this week I centered on a unit that I already have that teaches the three types of Literary Irony.   I made the comic above with the ComicDraw app on IPAD.  This app is meant for professional comic artists, and has a sketch, draw and text mode.  You can see the sketching layer under the draw layer if you look closely.  You can turn that off when your comic is finished (I left it on for you to see.)  I would not recommend this app unless you have experience with something like Photoshop or a digital drawing tool that uses layers.   I also would not expect students to use this tool outside of an art class or a class with dedicated time to learn the program. This app would not be suitable for elementary students.  However, teachers (who have a bit mo...

Getting to Know You After getting acquainted with some of my classmate's blogs this week, it looks like I may be one (if not the only) high school teacher in this class (give me a shout out if you're on "Team Secondary!")  So, I've broken up this blog into two parts: exploring ebooks for my toddler son, Henry, and sharing what has worked for me using ebooks for my juniors and seniors.  Exploring Toddler-Friendly Ebooks for my Son I am new to Ipad, but I fiddled around with the "Books" app on the home screen, and found a wealth of free titles!  My toddler son will be excited when I show him "The T-Rex who wanted to be a Long Neck,"  by Carol Stevens and Valerie Harmon.  This book has a music track and a narrator. There were also "distractions" as highlighted on Dr. Lewis-White's PowerPoint , such as a cracking egg and a swimming fish that a young person could touch and make move around the page.  The next book I sampled was called ...

    What is your current thinking about teaching "new literacies" as part of your ELA instruction? I'm a digital native, but my students are "native-er" I just hit my 10 year milestone as a secondary English teacher.  It is hard to make it this far without already incorporating "new literacies" into one's curriculum, because they are hardly new to our students.  I graduated in 2005, so I am firmly at the beginning of the "Digital Native" category, but I have a good deal of experience mentoring my digital immigrant colleagues and empathize with their plight as I have seen the digital lives of my students become more entrenched.  I find that I have a lot to offer my students when teaching them informational, media, and visual literacy, but they are much farther advanced than I am in computer and social-media related network literacy.  "Mrs. Curley, is this a group project!?"   One thing that I have noticed over the years is my stu...