New Literacies Project

I chose to create a scrapblog about my experience teaching through the arts. This is something that I am very passionate about and also, I had pictures from my experience so I thought a scrapblog would be a good technology to apply to this topic.

When I began using this new technology it definitely was an experience with a “new” technology. I very seldom come in contact with technologies that are entirely new to me, so this was interesting to feel the frustration that can be linked with learning to use and understand a new program. I think this was good because it allowed me to understand how these need to be clearly taught to students; they need to be guided through the process so they can have a positive experience using the technology.

When using the scrapblog program, the creator needs to be able to read the words and the symbols on all of the buttons. If they are like me and used the “help” section a lot then this involved reading longer paragraphs and the comprehension of this text determined if you will be able to learn to use the program. There is not any speaking or listening involved in using this technology. Viewing is an important skill because you must be able to view, analyze and figure out what you want to create next.

I am learning how to plan ahead. At first I jumped right into the creation of my scrapblog and I am now finding myself going back and “fixing” and reorganizing everything. If I would have taken time to think about my ideas first then I wouldn’t have to do all of this editing.

If I were introducing this technology to my students I might compare this to a PowerPoint or a paper scrapbook. This would allow me to activate their prior knowledge and we could even compare and contrast the two to see which technologies might be better for different types of projects. I know that this program was quite confusing and frustrating to me at times because it simply wasn’t working and doing what I wanted it to do. I might address this with my students and have us work together in learning how to navigate the program.

I think that this technology tool does not match up to what I may have considered literacy to be prior to using it. However, now that I have I think it can be a powerful tool. Although the scrapblog pages don’t call for many words portraying your ideas and feelings on a certain topic using little words, pictures, colors and designs is a skill in itself. I really enjoyed using this new technology and once I master the program and feel confident with it I think it is a tool that my students can use to make a project with.