Unit Purpose and Goal
The ultimate goal of this unit is for preservice teachers to better understand meaning making through multimodality and how design and creation with digital tools provides opportunities and challenges in order to support their future students in similar ways. Their experience and findings are meant to help shape expectations, values, and possibilities for curricular design in the classroom. Through readings, discussions, and workshops we worked to reconceptualize learning and assessment even in the age of standards and standardized testing.
What Teachers Created
For this project, each teacher selected one YA/Children’s Book to read and respond to by constructing a number of different reader response projects--each project focusing on a different technology tool and modality of meaning-making. The situation and audience for each part remained the same, as teachers created sample (or mentor) projects to help guide their (future) students in designing and producing their own work. Therefore, this project both introduces teachers to using these tools and allows them to create models they can actually use in their classroom. This is important to remember in thinking about grade level, as children's books may still be appropriate as mentor texts/models for older students.
Each part of the unit focuses on a different mode and media of representation. However, teachers determined the purpose for each part individually--the specific aim the writer is attempting to accomplish in their piece. There are endless possibilities to choose from in constructing a reader-response purpose for each project. Keeping in mind audience, as well as the limitations or opportunities of the given mode/media can help students to design a purpose that is engaging and meaningful for teachers and prospective students to explore!
The Digital Salon
Digital compositions are posted to book pages organized by grade bands. Pages vary based on author's choices, but most include a combination of digital text(s), project statements aligned to Common Core Standards, and sometimes, insights into craft. Guidance for building a book page is available on the 'Sample Page.'
The ultimate goal of this unit is for preservice teachers to better understand meaning making through multimodality and how design and creation with digital tools provides opportunities and challenges in order to support their future students in similar ways. Their experience and findings are meant to help shape expectations, values, and possibilities for curricular design in the classroom. Through readings, discussions, and workshops we worked to reconceptualize learning and assessment even in the age of standards and standardized testing.
What Teachers Created
For this project, each teacher selected one YA/Children’s Book to read and respond to by constructing a number of different reader response projects--each project focusing on a different technology tool and modality of meaning-making. The situation and audience for each part remained the same, as teachers created sample (or mentor) projects to help guide their (future) students in designing and producing their own work. Therefore, this project both introduces teachers to using these tools and allows them to create models they can actually use in their classroom. This is important to remember in thinking about grade level, as children's books may still be appropriate as mentor texts/models for older students.
Each part of the unit focuses on a different mode and media of representation. However, teachers determined the purpose for each part individually--the specific aim the writer is attempting to accomplish in their piece. There are endless possibilities to choose from in constructing a reader-response purpose for each project. Keeping in mind audience, as well as the limitations or opportunities of the given mode/media can help students to design a purpose that is engaging and meaningful for teachers and prospective students to explore!
The Digital Salon
Digital compositions are posted to book pages organized by grade bands. Pages vary based on author's choices, but most include a combination of digital text(s), project statements aligned to Common Core Standards, and sometimes, insights into craft. Guidance for building a book page is available on the 'Sample Page.'