I've been experiencing the Monday blues tonight, so I decided to write a blog post in hopes of feeling back on the right track...so I am putting my brain to the test and am thinking about how important it is to brainstorm, especially when it comes to creating a digital story. Brainstorming can be a difficult skill, especially when you have a world of ideas and opinions. Therefore coming up with an idea to create a digital story can be very, very, difficult. When creating a digital story, despite the fact that brainstorming will likely be difficult, it is one of the most important (if not THE most important) step in creating the story. As teachers it is important to remember that some students need more stability and instruction than others, and that is why it is important to remember that many students will need to be given writing prompts and ideas. A creative writing prompt is one like this one: If you're interested, I have a few links for different random story generators. One you can get to by clicking the image above. Another way to give students prompts is by Googling "story themes", "story genres", or "story topics"...this will allow students who need that bit of support to have it, and will allow those who don't need the stability to get their creative juices flowing.
Getting students brainstorming helps them becoming organized with their millions of thoughts, or all of the potential thoughts they will eventually have. As educators we need to coach students to get here and to use their brains in many, positive ways, and brainstorming is one of these things! Finally, by helping students understanding and develop the skill of brainstorming, students will have an advantage to creating their digital stories...they will be one-step in the right direction! ...Now that I have preoccupied by brain with this blog post, I feel a little more positive and organized already. Happy Monday everyone!
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As a new teacher, I believe it is important to incorporate media in the classroom for many reasons. Below are 2 reasons why I believe this: The 1st reason: because students are likely surrounded by media in their every day lives outside of the classroom...at home, in the mall, at the grocery store, driving down the roads (billboards), when listening to the radio, etc. The 2nd reason: because as educators we should take advantage of media in the classroom and educate students on how to use it in a beneficial way, and educate them on the many positive things that media has to offer! As an educator, I want to change students' feelings about school, I want students to enjoy my lessons and want to come to school! By incorporating media and technology into my lessons, I can engage my students and make them enjoy the lessons I am teaching. In order to do this though, I believe it is important to teach my students to become media literate first. This meaning that they need to understand media and how to use it. In order to do this, I can use the media triangle to help teach students and help them become more media literate. Below is an image of a media triangle that I created in my media and digital literacy class in university. It includes many aspects of media, including the 3 arms that media literacy revolves around: media text, audience, and production. Want to know how to use the media triangle in your classroom? The hyperlink above (media triangle) brings you to someone else's blog where they have actually created media triangle posters dedicated to each division (primary, junior, intermediate). Post these posters around your classroom, or better yet, create one with your students! When you have this posted in the classroom, students are able to revisit it and ask themselves the questions on the poster to help them understand texts that they are reading online in the classroom. As educators we should be providing our students with the best knowledge and education, and we should be helping them become literate in both the offline and online world. By allowing students access to questions that they can ask, students will become better learners as they know that they are in a safe place and can ask questions, and they are provided with the questions to ask to further their learning in a certain topic of interest to them!
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