TOTD

I enjoyed class a lot yesterday because I learned a lot about integrating new media activities and projects into my future classroom. I want to make use of new media as a way of getting students more engaged and interested in activities in the classroom, and to be able to hear everyone's voice, even the students who do not speak up during class. Voicethread is a great app to use in the classroom because students can record themselves, type a comment, or even video record themselves in response to a prompt on a powerpoint. Especially for leading an online English class, which I have been thinking about, Voicethread is a great medium with which to creatively hear all students' voices and a way that they can dialogue with each others. I plan to use Voicethread and other similar apps in the classroom. 

I also liked learning about Padlet, an open space on a website which allows students to easily post pictures and add text, creating a website project within minutes. I also thought the added framework of having to do things through a journalism aspect was genius, because I learned about what it is involved in creating a photo montage, from a historian's point of view, for an audience of activists. My group decided to target the issue of child immigration, especially in light of child immigrants coming alone from countries such as El Salvador and Guatemala. We first found pictures on Google to show how children historically children have been migrating to the U.S., starting with pictures of Irish and other racial immigrant children coming to Ellis Island in the 1800s. Through this activity I could learn about a current events issue in the news, and how to create a historical photo montage, keeping the audience and author in mind. It is a great activity to have students explore journalism and be creative.