Module 1 by Ryan Alaimo

Weekly Focus Questions: How can we as educators incorporate digital instruction to enhance instruction and student understanding?

ralaimo01 — 2025-04-04 20:58:19 UTC

Quote that I find Important

ralaimo01 — 2025-04-04 21:04:38 UTC

"In essence, our stance on inclusivity is rooted in equity‐based pedagogies that require us to provide enriching curricula for all students (Biklen, 2000; Naraian, 2014; Palincsar, Cutter, & Magnusson, 2004; Shelton & Fu, 2004), which includes access to inquiry‐based teaching and the use of technology and rejects the idea that students who receive specialized services should be subjected to remedial coursework or digital tools that position them as passive recipients of information." (Exploring Digital Literacy Practices in an Inclusive Classroom).

Connection: Asset Based Learning

ralaimo01 — 2025-04-04 21:12:37 UTC

"Instead, we promote constructing learning experiences based on the fluctuating needs of students that attend to the social, political, and economic realities of being labeled as special education, bilingual, at‐risk, struggling, or below grade level."

This quote reminded me of asset based rather than deficit based, as well as focusing on students funds of knowledge to promote inclusivity

Connection Quote: Dyslexia

ralaimo01 — 2025-04-04 22:39:37 UTC

"Being able to work across modalities while interacting with her peers helped Lee strengthen her literacy knowledge."

Multi-modality used as a way to support students with dyslexia or students that are English Language Learners.

Comics as Literary Modalities

ralaimo01 — 2025-04-04 22:47:16 UTC

"For example, Lee used Flipboard, an app for curating news stories, and Bitstrips, a website for creating original comics, to explain her topic of interest in a graphic format (see Figure 2). Whenever Lee’s group came across articles that could provide more information, they were able to apply this knowledge to their comic strip in hopes of helping others to better understand autism."

In this section of the article it talks about how students can use comics to tell a story, spread awareness, or convey ideas. Many students that I work with read graphic novels from the school library, however these are not just action stories in comic format. I have seen children's books as comics, historical non-fiction as comics, and even some literary classics in graphic novel format. I believe that this is growing as a 'new literacy' to combine both images and words to provide plot and character development. Not only can students learn about tone from the way the frames are set up, but students with differing English proficiencies have graphic support to accompany the words.

Community Strengthening

ralaimo01 — 2025-04-04 23:14:38 UTC

"The students in Lee’s group recorded their thoughts using color‐coded electronic sticky notes and then created a space on their electronic board for their ideas on the upcoming social change project, which was linked to their literature circle book. In addition, the students posted possible overarching themes of their literature circle text.

Each week, Lee’s group would alter their predictions, add more wonderings, or condense their thoughts on the social change project. Given the collaborative nature of group work in the class, if students wanted to incorporate a specific element, they had to convince their group members to include it. This artful deliberation of sharing their thoughts and supporting it with evidence helped to strengthen Lee’s textual understanding, her thought process, and her ability to persuade her peers."

This section of the article gave me some ideas on how to strengthen community within the classroom. I think collaborative assessments or projects can help students in many different ways. While this helps students learn social-emotional skills, they also can help fill in the gaps of knowledge for each other during collaborations. I also think that collaborative work between students allows for autonomy and confidence in their thoughts and opinions.

Connection: Garageband

ralaimo01 — 2025-04-04 23:17:44 UTC

In middle school we had a technology class where we got to make music on garageband. I still remember some of the skills we learned, despite using an older version of the software. With growing work in technology, there is a lot of benefit in teaching students about editing software such as iMovie, Garageband, Audacity, and other systems that help students learn how to navigate interfaces on the computer.

Academic Goals Linked to Real-world Platforms

ralaimo01 — 2025-04-04 23:28:40 UTC

I felt inspired by this section since I felt it provided some proactive ways to get students interested in social change through the internet. While I usually stand on the side of the internet as a wild domain that is not to be taken lightly, I felt that those negative thoughts could be caveated. The internet contains lots of terrible harmful content for children to consume, but it is also the reason why we can connect with each other all over the world. Often times I see this as a detriment to our mental health, since tragedy is all we seem to take in, but why can't we try and spin some of the negatives into positives? Using the connectivity of the internet to allow students to put their work out into the real world in order to gain confidence in problem solving in the real world.

Process Response

ralaimo01 — 2025-04-04 23:37:10 UTC