Keep the Books!
Digitize the thoughts with digital lit. circles
Agenda and Learning Goals
SLO: I will experience a digital literacy circle and play the role of student. I will evaluate its effectiveness and design a similar experience for my students.
- Demo of QR codes and Padlet
- Assign Roles
- Brief reading selection
- Scan and share
- Observe postings and generate at least one open-ended question for each.
- Discuss different versions of activity
- Break
- Create an account/sign into Padlet.com
- Brief overview of Padlet and how to share
- Create roles and student hand-outs with QR codes
Be the student
Today we will start out the training by experiencing a "quick" version of a digital literacy circle. As you play the role of student, determine which level of Bloom's the activity reaches. What TEK/S does it address? If it doesn't address as many as you would like how could you modify it to meet your needs?
Observe the Findings
Click on the link below to see the live Padlet in action.
A Review of the Research on Literacy Circles
Take a look at the articles below. They bring up some thought-provoking points; for example, “American fifth graders were spending 91% of their school day either listening to a teacher talk or working alone” Marchiando (2013). If used as intended literacy circles can decrease that percentage and help create a more student centered classroom.
Questions to Consider
How could you use this method to differentiate your instruction?
How would you introduce literature circles to your students?
How would you teach questioning strategies to your students before embarking into the world of literature circles or do you see that as necessary?
What challenges do you foresee and how would you overcome them?
How would you choose the selections or would your students choose?
If you are not a reading teacher, how could you modify this activity for your curricular needs?
Resources
Padlet provides the students with a digital board where they can share their thoughts. They can do so through text, video, audio or pictures. The board is shareable via a link or QR code. It can be moderated if the owner so wishes. The board can act as a launching point for discussion circles and can provide the students a way to stay focused an organized in their discussion.
Sharing your Padlet via QR
Padlet QR HOW TO
Liquid Text
This is a a great digital tool for text analysis. Create comments linked to excerpts from the text. Share them as a whole or a PDF of just the comments. If you're feeling tech savvy and like to save trees then this tool might be just for you.