A Podcast on Rhyming

This is a podcast that teaches rhyming as a tool for enhancing decoding skills.

My Reflections on ICT for Reading

I was looking forward to doing the ICT course because we are in the age of technology and it is important that teachers keep up with the "techno savvy" students. However, I remain with bitter sweet memories. I never imagined that the course would have been so intense and compact. Every week we were being taught a different form of technology which needed to be understood and practised. At times I felt so overwhelmed by all that UWI expected of me, the learner. Nevertheless, "giving up" is not a part of my vocabulary, and as Whitney Houston sang: " I was not built to break". We have come to the end of the course and the learning experience has been tremendous. Undoubtedly, I have acquired knowledge and skills to enhance teaching and learning because of the hardwork, dedication and competence of my tutors. Finally I wish to thank God and all those who have assisted me with this course. Many thanks and God bless!

Mmmm Delicious!

This form of social networking is an excellent resource tool for educators since access is gained to a wealth of information that contributes to effective teaching. According to Lee LeFever, there are over fifteen (15) billion web pages so Delicious, a social bookmarking website, makes it quite easy to remember important sites. Moreover, the websites can be assigned tags so that they can be easily found. Details can also be recorded to help in identifying the bookmarked websites. Furthermore, what makes Delicious so appetizing is the fact that it is public! In other words, educators like us can have access to a larger pool of information. Bon appétit!

The Beauty of Google Docs

Google Docs is an amazing resource tool for educators and students. It has the following advantages:

• Creation of documents, spreadsheets and presentations online without installing these programs on one's computer.
• One document is being updated therefore dispensing with numerous email attachments.
• Sharing and collaboration is made easier with one document.
• Control over who accesses the documents.
• Keeping track of each alteration of the document is made easy

This facility is ideal for group projects where for example students can work on creating a magazine or a school newsletter and can edit the documents under the supervision of the teacher. Thus the students will enhance their wrting skills and participate in collaborative learning. This is one way that the promised laptops to Form One students can be used productively.

Using Blogs to Teach Standard English

I was impressed by the use of blogs to help learn foreign languages, especially Spanish and French. The article "Adventures in the Blogosphere: from blog readers to blog writers” focussed on a year long project involving using blogs to help students learn German and French. Of course, the same project can be done with learners of Spanish in this nation. Students were able to practise communication in the language thus strengthening their writing, reading and grammar skills. They were also able to learn about another culture and ignite a friendship online. Additionally, they realized that although their nationalities were different, they still had some things in common. The project mentioned in the article can also be used in Trinidad and Tobago to help our nation's children learn Standard English since for most speakers of this country, Standard English is their second language, Creole being the first. Indeed, our children need to strengthen themselves in Standard English and blogging provides an opportunity for them to do so. They would have more practice reading and writing Standard English and thus become more familiar with grammatical structures in the language.

Graphic Organizers

The use of graphic organizers is an excellent way of presenting information. It is a great asset to the struggling reader who is overwhelmed by too much text but is more comfortable with a diagram which gives him or her a better understanding of what is being taught. It is also a great way of summarizing a lesson topic or any information that needs to be condensed. In addition, it caters for the visual learner who will benefit more from those pictorial representations. More so, Webspiration makes the creation of graphic organizers awesome because in addition to being user friendly, it provides a variety of template concept maps, which make the creation of the graphic organizers so simple.

TPACK: Keeping Us on Track

Hofer & Harris in the article "Instructional Planning Activity Types as Vehicles for Curriculum-based TPACK Development" has helped to put in perspective the integration of technology in education. Undoubtedly, it is important to keep abreast with technology and use it to enhance learning. However, as the authors have highlighted, the focus should be on the curriculum content and learning abilities of the students instead of the technology. I believe that this article is very timely and important because at no time must the educator become carried away with technology at the expense of the students' learning. The learning activity types are a great resource to educators as they seek to integrate technology with education.

Technology to Support Writing

According to Bunton & Barbetta writing is a very complex process whereby students are faced with the mechanics of writing, as well as, organization of ideas and content material. Fortunately, for educators there are technologies to support writing especially in the cases of struggling readers and writers. The technologies available are as follows:

• Digitized-text: adaptation of text digitally, for example, writing a letter using MS word
• Text-to-Speech (TTS): written text changed to spoken audio
• Word prediction: a software predicts words to be typed based on frequency of use and content (similar to predictive text on cell phones)
  
• Electronic reference: built in encyclopedia, thesaurus and dictionary
• Cognitive organizational: tools for the prewriting process
• Speech recognition: spoken words are translated to text or spoken words are used to control the computer and software
• Alternate writing: the use of alternate keyboards (e.g. keyboards with large letters) and portable word processors.

Digital Storytelling

The combination of storytelling with technology is innovative and awesome, and a great resource to educators for effective teaching and learning to take place. I was happy to learn the following from the article: "The Educational Uses of Digital Storytelling" by Robin that characterize digital storytelling:

• Stories are only a few minutes long
• Author's point of view must be stated
  
• A Dramatic Question is to be answered at the end of the story
  
• Presentation of serious matters that touch us personally and powerfully
• Music or sound to support the storyline
• Sufficient information to tell the story (no overload of the viewer)
  
• Pace of the story (quickly or slowly)
• Creation by educators or students

Furthermore, as educators digital storytelling helps to promote narrative and informative writing. The use of digital storytelling is recommended as an attention grabber at the beginning of a lesson. Most importantly, the students via digital storytelling learn "Twenty-first Century Literacy":

• Digital Literacy
• Global Literacy
• Technology Literacy
• Visual Literacy
• Information Literacy

However, there is the need for students, according to Ohler in "The World of Digital Storytelling" to focus on making their stories powerful instead of focussing on the technology. This important idea is also expressed in the article: "Instructional Planning Activity Types as Vehicles for Curriculum-Based TPACK Development" by Hofer and Harris.

Photo story 3, Microsoft Word & PowerPoint

I was totally blown away by the use of Photo story 3 to do digital storytelling. I am grateful to have been given the opportunity to learn about this marvellous type of technology that can enhance learning. I love the use of print, effects, music and voice recording involved in digital storytelling. Moreover, digital storytelling is a powerful and practical tool that can be used in our nation's school, after all, Microsoft Photo story3 is available for free. In addition, according to Robin, simple technologies like Microsoft Word and PowerPoint can also be used for digital storytelling. This is truly an ingenious and interesting approach to Creative Writing. When doing my digital storytelling I was giggling like a teenager so I can well imagine how the students will be captivated by this technology.

The Implications of the Research Project for the Masters Degree and Job Opportunities

According to Martin Davies, one must always be cognitive of the fact that the finished research project will greatly impact on the quality of degree one obtains. In addition, mention will be made of the research project in reference to the researcher academically, as well as in the pursuit of further employment. Therefore it will be wise to take the advice of the supervisor instead of ignoring him or her to do whatever one chooses. In addition, it is important to give of one’s best which entails concentrating fully on the research project during the allotted time. The research project is also an opportunity for one to demonstrate other skills that one possesses like organizing projects, conducting interviews, collection and analysis of data, the use of software like SPSS and NVivo, and the presentation of results, in the form of a report, to be interpreted analytically.

Furthermore, it is indispensable to recognize time limitations and be realistic about the research project. Whatever one envisages must be feasible especially as it pertains to one’s sample and transcribing of data. Finally, Davies advises against being overambitious but rather suggests having reasonable objectives and a fixed focus. It is not advisable to undertake a lot in a limited space of time. He also goes on to say that researchers should be flexible, inquisitive and open-minded.

Development of an Effective Reading Programme

While reading, "Leading a Successful Reading Program" by Guth & Pettengill, I came across some ideas that can be utilized to ensure that the Reading Programme at our schools is successful. The ideas surround involving key stakeholders in building a “Literacy Community”. Firstly, at the commencement of the school academic year one can briefly talk about the role of a Reading Specialist during the staff meeting. One can also identify resources that may be available to assist staff and students. In addition, for Open Day one can have a display that promotes literacy. That display can include pictures of staff preparing their classroom or reading a book. Those pictures will serve as a form of motivation to students as we, the teachers lead by example.

One can also conduct an informal survey to obtain information about experiences of the staff, reading programmes that have or have not been successful, and resources that they would like to see available at the school. Furthermore, as a Reading Specialist one can create a resource area to assist teachers. However, after providing the resources it is important to do follow-up checks on the teachers to see how the resources are working. As regards parents, the Reading Specialist can interact with them during P.T.A meetings, discussing the Reading Programme and encouraging them to read with their children. There can also be sessions scheduled to educate parents about strategies to improve and strengthen literacy skills.

I love languages and that includes the English language. However, it saddens me that there are those who cannot appreciate the language because of their inability to read. As a teacher it was baffling to me that children were unable to read and write. I wanted to make sense of those problems. I wanted answers. Therefore, I applied to do the Masters in Education in Reading because I prefer to find solutions to problems instead of just focusing on the problems. This program has offered me a wealth of information and I am learning a lot from the various courses. I am thankful that this program has also helped me to develop my computer literacy skills. On completing this degree I hope to help in the eradication of illiteracy in Trinidad and Tobago, and even the world.