Week 5: Visual Literacy

This week I have explored AUP policies, email, and visual literacy.  The AUP policies were not as scary as I thought they would be.  E-mail is a great way for teachers to keep in touch with students and parents, if they have internet access at home.  At low-income schools, it is hard for teachers to require students use e-mail or blogs or chat sessions.  Visual literacy is something I never really heard of before.  In a Language Arts classroom, or any reading class, visual literacy can be used as a supplemental resource.  When talking about plays, setting, and set design, students can discuss what they think it would look like on-screen.  Maybe students could even act out a scene from a book they have read.  They can choose their own camera angles and what they want to show to the class.  This will help them see how views can be manipulating.  Then the class could discuss different tools the media uses to manipulate the consumer.  Visual literacy is all about getting students to think critically about what they have watched.  It gets them to think about how they are feeling because of something they have just watched. 
The first tech exploration I did was look at Prezi.  “Prezi is a virtual whiteboard that transforms presentations from monologues into conversations: enabling people to see, understand, and remember ideas.”  It can be used from an Ipad or Iphone, and it is very user friendly.  It can be used in any classroom to present a new concept to the class.  Yes, you can use PowerPoint for this, but Prezi is a little more 'flashy'.  This site seemed to be free, and students can make presentations at home and it will be saved to the internet.  Spicynodes is a fancy website for concept mapping.  Since I am not a particular fan of concept mapping, I dont know that I would recommend this site to any one.   I tried to stay unbiased and explore this site, but I got annoyed when trying to look at the sample maps.  They kept shifting, and it made it hard to keep track of what you already clicked on.  I also had a difficult time finding the pricing for this program.  I wasn't too impressed with this site, to say the least. 
Edmodo is the next website I looked at.  This is similar to a social media, so students may be interested in using it.  It is a great way for students to view their grades easily, turn in assignments, take quizzes, or contact their teachers.  If all of the students in the class had internet access at home, the teacher could have them use edmodo to turn in certain assignments.  I would recommend this site to other educators because it's a great way to incorporate technology in to the classroom.  Mathdictionary was an awesome resource! I would totally recommend this site to other teachers!  This can be used individually or in a whole class setting.  Instead of students writing math definitions off a board (boring!), they could explore them on this site.  Then they could use the site to look at different examples of the definition in use.  This site could be so helpful to many students.  It did seem like it was geared toward younger ages, so elementary school would probably benefit most from this site. 
Glogster is the next tech exploration I did.  This site is cool, but I feel like it's the same a lot of other sites out there.  This site allows students, or teachers to create web posters with text, audio, or videos.  A teacher with 30 students can set up a virtual classroom for $39 a year.  This site could be used for a number of projects.  Students can create their own poster page, and students can discuss it.  I am sort of indifferent about this resource.  I would only recommend it to other educators if I thought they would get their money's worth.  Jing is a way for teachers to capture anything on their screen.  The video only lasts five minutes.  The videos on the site were used for teachers to flip their classroom.  I think this site is free, but I don't see myself as ever using it.  I also don't think I would recommend it to other educators. 
Schooltube, youtube education and teachertube are great websites! I would recommend them to other teachers because they are free and beneficial!  As we have learned about visual literacy this week, using videos in a lesson can help as a supplemental material for students.  On these sites you can search the videos.  I would suggest watching the video first because sometimes things are not what they seem.  Sometimes on these sites there are videos made by classes.