Embedding Instagram and Vine

There are so many social media sites it is hard to keep up with sometimes. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat to name a few. All of these formats of social media are capable of being used productively within the classroom with facilitation and appropriate behaviors from students.

Instagram

I have yet to use Instagram in the classroom, but this week I looked into a few things to try out this school year. All can demonstrate students accomplishments to promoting reading materials for students to look into reading.

One way I plan on using Instagram is to promote a book that I am reading. While Instagram provides an image to look at, it can give a glimpse of a history of books that I have read as well as what I am currently reading. 

My next book to read. Book #2 of the Shiver series by Maggie Stiefvater. LSSL 5391.

A photo posted by @amouton34 on Aug 3, 2016 at 7:38am PDT

Each semester our students take field trips to feeder high schools to see what they have to offer. Each trip the high school put on a brief show of the electives and programs. But I have noticed upon arriving back at school that many of the students forgot what some of the programs were offered or what something looked like, I would have to find out and describe it over and over to students. By having Instagram, I could chronicle the field trips our students take.  Athletics, fine arts, and other electives and clubs could also use this app to chronicle their events, trips, and volunteer opportunities.

Each fall we complete a unit on Edgar Allan Poe. We research the different theories of his death and produce their own conclusion using text evidence. Students progress of the research, progress of their project, and final project can be viewed on Instagram.

Cub Scout activity. Learning about the City of Pasadena, TX. LSSL 5391.

A photo posted by @amouton34 on Aug 3, 2016 at 7:42am PDT

Cub Scout activity. Notes on how our city has changed over the years. Scouts looked at year books from the 50's and compared differences then to now. LSSL 5391.

A photo posted by @amouton34 on Aug 3, 2016 at 7:43am PDT

One way I could utilize it is to post images for students to view, all appropriate images. Students can choose an image from Instagram and write a piece about it. It could provide inspiration and create a short story or a narrative.

Each six weeks we select one student in the 8^th grade and they are honored at a luncho with other students from within the district. Their photo could be uploaded to Instagram for others to see, kind of like student of the week, but for each six weeks for each grade. When students finish their prompt, students can display their writing in the hallway or in a trophy case with the image centered amongst the writings.

Vine

Vine is another social media that students can communicate with and teachers can incorporate into the classroom activities. Short video clips can be recorded to provide students with examples of inferencing, demonstrate synonyms (like the video below), or capture responses of assessments or competitions.

As a reading teacher, students can recreate a scene of a novel we are reading or memorize concepts, or build vocabulary for ESL/LEP students by saying the word so they can hear the pronunciation or provide visual definitions.With the continuous looping of the videos, students can be reminded of the definition while looking at eth short video. The letters "P, I, E" could circulate with the definition of this acronym for "Persuade, Inform, and Entertain" when looking at nonfiction text and practicing between identifying the different types of text.

Other words for RUN: Race, dart, zoom, sprint, rush, dash https://t.co/0tZU3MuD3S

— Amanda Mouton (@amouton34) August 3, 2016

One way my students could use Vine in their Edgar Allan Poe project is to record their theory that they think is the reasoning behind hid death. It could be a simple statement using a stem sentence, such as, "The theory I believed that Edgar Allan Poe died of is ..." 

When I first started Vine, I became frustrated, but finally got the gist of it and was able to produce a video and Tweet it. This is definitely something I will use within my classroom.

Between the two of these, I liked both forms of social media. I thikn Instagram is idea for a quick response of images with little text to provide. I liked how Vine allowed for a looping six second video that students are allowed to view over and over and I can share it within several social media formats. 

Students have such an advantage these days in the classroom. They are able to connect with others so easily in so many forms. The types of communications and to who has grown vastly in the past few years. I just wonder where we will be in the next 10 to 20 years with technology in the classroom?

Digital Technology for the School Librarian: Final Reflection

Wow, this semester has been very intense. Part of me feels like I took too big of a bite trying to finish up my last 9 hours of course work for my graduate degree, prepping for my Practicum, Cub Scouts, family activities, and the beginning of remodeling our home.  That being said, it has been a very interesting summer that has flown by. Although I have felt overwhelmed at times (like right now), I am glad I pushed myself this summer. From creating classroom social media pages, writing grants, reading materials about and within the other cultures, and creating digital projects to utilize in the classroom, I have learned quite a bit and cannot wait to utilize it int eh classroom and library.

With so many options available, it seems that it can be overwhelming in finding what would fit best for your classroom, library, and the study body. This course helped weed through some of the options. Some of my favorite activities this summer were the YouTube, Animoto, QR Codes, Snapchat, Screencast, comics and cartoons, and Goodreads online book community. My students already have access to this blog to follow for reading recommendations, but I think Goodreads will be beneficial to them as well.

I like that I can utilize many of the items we discussed and created in this class with my students. I want to have my students create QR Codes for their favorite books each six weeks, use either Snapchat or Instagram to take pictures of current readings and snap pictures or videos of things they come in contact with that relates to things we have discussed in class or something they learned outside of the classroom and to share their accomplishments or anything special to them. I want to use Instagram or Snapchat to capture and to share so the students can follow what I am currently reading, but also refer to the blog and Goodreads for recommendations.

The podcast and screencast will be great for me to utilize this fall semester as I will be missing days completing my Practicum or any other reason, such as my children or myself being sick. I will be able to leave verbal instructions for my students and supply them with videos for navigating our learning management system, Schoology, or any other digital or social media activities. I can only leave so much with limited space of a chalkboard for instructions.

I cannot wait to try the online cartoons and comics for our Edgar Allan Poe unit. Each fall, around Halloween, we look at the 5 most popular death theories and the students practice reading articles, choosing a theory, supporting their theory with text evidence, and presenting to the class their theory. Honestly, I am becoming bored with power points. This will provide them an opportunity to be creative using digital tools and practice for future projects.

I only really worry about using social media in the classroom and the students using it inappropriately. With our daily schedule changing from 6 to 7 classes and every core teacher receiving an intervention class, I think I will utilize the social media with my intervention class and facilitate the small group testing it out. Having the software to monitor their activity will help keep the students on tasks and eliminate any activities that are not appropriate and off task.

Some assignments I did have some issues with, but with time, research, trials and error, I was able to work through them. I have come into issues with some software for Windows only when having a Mac. As an Apple house, we come into this a lot. Luckily, my husband has a Windows laptop for me to use. It was just an inconvenience to bounce between the two formats. It was time consuming going back and forth, saving to the USB or making sure his laptop was available to use when he was not on it for work (he monitors a major oil company’s security system world wide).

I struggled with a few things. At times I had a hard time focusing, I felt I was always running out of time and worried I would not keep up, miss an assignment, or not complete something accordingly. I struggled with the scavenger hunt and trying to get it done, responding to classmate’s blog posts, as well as the 150 pages of article readings. I was so busy with my regular assignments and managing the family, it kept getting pushed aside. It really bothered me. Many, many times I was up all night, I mean like 3-5 in the morning, trying to get things done.

Although this was the most stressful semester, I am glad I did it and was able to complete it. I have really enjoyed my time with SHSU and the LSSL program. I knew if I had not applied and began grad school when I did, I knew I never would. I am so glad I did this. I cannot wait to graduation and meeting my professors and classmate’s.

Wonderstruck

Selznick, B. (2011). Wonderstruck: A novel in words and pictures. New York: Scholastic. Waking to a nightmare and seeing how his life has turned upside down, Brian leaves sets out to find his father. Parallel to his personal journey is Rose’s, as she sets off to find her way. Set years apart, each begin their journey to find what they hope to come across, a non-existing father and a dream of meeting an actress with such mystery.

Selznick provides another of his enormous books filled with a combination of text and illustrations to convey a story that young readers will captivate themselves in. The story is detailed in the following two children as they search for the one thing they long for, finding the absent parent in hopes of a rekindling, to the fantasy of meeting the obsession. Although the size of the book can put off young readers, the text is easy to read and grasps. One impact on the story will have readers wondering and wanting to read to find out how being deaf interferes with daily interactions.

The illustrations, filled with numerous shades of whites to deep grays and blacks, Selznick conveys his story of Rose. His illustrations provide simplistic lines and formations of the story, that older elementary students are able to identify the characters and the surroundings, understand what is happening within the story itself. Even though text is not in the illustrations, they are done well that children can analyze the images to understand what is happening.

Reviews

Amazon Best Books of the Month, September 2011: In a return to the eye-popping style of his Caldecott-award winner,The Invention of Hugo Cabret, Brian Selznick’s latest masterpiece, Wonderstruck, is a vision of imagination and storytelling . In the first of two alternating stories, Ben is struck deaf moments after discovering a clue to his father’s identity, but undaunted, he follows the clue’s trail to the American Museum of Natural History, in New York City. Flash to Rose’s story, told simultaneously through pictures, who has also followed the trail of a loved one to the museum--only 50 years before Ben. Selnick’s beautifully detailed illustrations draw the reader inside the museum’s myriad curiosities and wonders, following Ben and Rose in their search for connection. Ultimately, their lives collide in a surprising and inspired twist that is breathtaking and life-affirming. --Seira Wilson

KIRKUS REVIEW

Brian Selznick didn't have to do it.

He didn't have to return to the groundbreaking pictures-and-text format that stunned the children's-book world in 2007 and won him an unlikely—though entirely deserved—Caldecott medal for The Invention of Hugo Cabret. Weighing in at about two pounds, the 500-plus page tome combined textual and visual storytelling in a way no one had quite seen before. In a world where the new becomes old in the blink of an eye, Selznick could have honorably rested on his laurels and returned to the standard 32-to-48–page picture-book format he has already mastered. He didn't have to try to top himself.

But he has. If Hugo Cabret was a risky experiment that succeeded beyond Selznick and publisher Scholastic’s wildest dreams (well, maybe not Scholastic’s—they dream big), his follow-up, Wonderstruck, is a far riskier enterprise. In replicating the storytelling format of Hugo, Selznick begs comparisons that could easily find Wonderstruck wanting or just seem stale. Like its predecessor, this self-described "novel in words and pictures" opens with a cinematic, multi-page, wordless black-and-white sequence: Two wolves lope through a wooded landscape, the illustrator's "camera" zooming in to the eye of one till readers are lost in its pupil. The scene changes abruptly, to Gunflint Lake, Minn., in 1977. Prose describes how Ben Wilson, age 12, wakes from a nightmare about wolves. He's three months an orphan, living with his aunt and cousins after his mother's death in an automobile accident; he never knew his father. Then the scene cuts again, to Hoboken in 1927. A sequence of Selznick's now-trademark densely crosshatched black-and-white drawings introduces readers to a girl, clearly lonely, who lives in an attic room that looks out at New York City and that is filled with movie-star memorabilia and models—scads of them—of the skyscrapers of New York. Readers know that the two stories will converge, but Selznick keeps them guessing, cutting back and forth with expert precision. Both children leave their unhappy homes and head to New York City, Ben hoping to find his father and the girl also in search of family. The girl, readers learn, is deaf; her silent world is brilliantly evoked in wordless sequences, while Ben’s story unfolds in prose. Both stories are equally immersive and impeccably paced. The two threads come together at the American Museum of Natural History, Selznick's words and pictures communicating total exhilaration (and conscious homage to The Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler). Hugo brought the bygone excitement of silent movies to children; Wonderstruck shows them the thrilling possibilities of museums in a way Night at the Museum doesn't even bother to.

Visually stunning, completely compelling, Wonderstruck demonstrates a mastery and maturity that proves that, yes, lightning can strike twice. (Historical fiction. 9 & up)

I had a hard time getting into this books, unlike Selznick’s other novel, The Invention of Hugo Cabret. I enjoy the back in forth of text and illustrations in Selznick’s novels, but it can seem overwhelming in its size to a young reader. That being said, I was able to read it within one sitting.

I would recommend this to my struggling readers who like to read, but still need the illustrations to view when needing a break. This novel allows them to continue the story through the illustrations and take that break many of them need. I could use this for practicing in making predictions and inferences, comparing the two stories of Ben and Rose, as well as find the theme of each story and as a whole.

Does My Head Look Big In This?

Abdel-Fattah, R. (2007). Does my head look big in this? New York: Orchard Books. Living in Melbourne as a Australian Palestine, Amal has made a major life decision in wearing a hijab full time. While attending a private high school, Amal comes across hatred due to her religion and must face and deal with her obstacles appropriately, such as friendships, dedication to her faith, respecting the elders, and breaking down barriers.  

Young adult readers will “walk the path” with Amal as she begins a right of passage of wearing her hajib, the mark of becoming a woman within Islam. The language within the text is easy to read and follow along with. Momentarily throughout the text, Arabic is presented to the reader, but Amal translates for the readers the meaning and how it impacts the story. Amal is able to express her concerns as well as stand up for herself throughout the book and is very reassuring of who she is.

Adbel-Farrath does an excellent job describing the clothing that Amal, as well as other women, wears, anything that covers her body. From teh silkiness of Amal’s hair, to describing the process of wrapping her head in the hijab. Religion is present in the story as Amal and her family stop to pray during the day. Readers will notice a shift between Amal and her extended family as some are more modern and Americanized in not following the traditional family values, such as praying and fasting.

Abdel-Farrath presents to the readers what many immigrants and persons similar go through in dealing with rejection. She provides this example through Amal going to school and wearing her hhijab that was out of uniform. It is demonstrated the right and the wrong way to handle situations and what actions should be taken when not treated fairly in an appropriate manner.

Reviews

School Library Journal

Grade 7 Up—Australian 11th-grader Amal is smart, funny, outspoken, a good student, and a loyal friend. She is also a devout Muslim who decides to wear the hijab, or head covering, full-time. The story tells of her emotional and spiritual journey as she copes with a mad crush on a boy, befriends an elderly Greek neighbor, and tries to help a friend who aspires to be a lawyer but whose well-intentioned mother is trying to force her to leave school and get married. Amal is also battling the misconceptions of non-Muslims about her religion and culture. While the novel deals with a number of serious issues, it is extremely funny and entertaining, and never preachy or forced. The details of Amal's family and social life are spot-on, and the book is wonderful at showing the diversity within Muslim communities and in explaining why so many women choose to wear the hijab. Amal is an appealing and believable character. She trades verbal jibes with another girl, she is impetuous and even arrogant at times, and she makes some serious errors of judgment. And by the end of the story, she and readers come to realize that "Putting on the hijab isn't the end of the journey. It's just the beginning of it."—Kathleen E. Gruver, Burlington County Library, Westampton, NJ

Booklist

*Starred Review* Like the author of this breakthrough debut novel, Amal is an Australian-born, Muslim Palestinian "whacked with some seriously confusing identity hyphens." At 16, she loves shopping, watches Sex and the City, and IMs her friends about her crush on a classmate. She also wants to wear the hijab, to be strong enough to show a badge of her deeply held faith, even if she confronts insults from some at her snotty prep school, and she is refused a part-time job in the food court (she is "not hygienic"). Her open-minded observant physician parents support her and so do her friends, Muslim, Jewish, Christian, secular. Her favorite teacher finds her a private space to pray. The first-person present-tense narrative is hilarious about the diversity, and sometimes heartbreaking. For her uncle who wants to assimilate, "foreign" is the f-word, and his overdone Aussie slang and flag-waving is a total embarrassment. On the other hand, her friend Leila nearly breaks down when her ignorant Turkish mom wants only to marry her daughter off ("Why study?") and does not know that it is Leila's Islamic duty "to seek knowledge, to gain an education." Without heavy preaching, the issues of faith and culture are part of the story, from fasting at Ramadan to refusing sex before marriage. More than the usual story of the immigrant teen's conflict with her traditional parents, the funny, touching contemporary narrative will grab teens everywhere. Rochman, Hazel

I enjoyed reading this book. When I began reading it in early June, I felt like I was Amal’s internal conscious. I laughed with her, at her, and her friends. She was very descriptive in her events and telling her readers her story. A few times throughout the book, I felt as though I was back in high school, the cruelty of it and what it does to an individual in growing up to the person they set themselves to be.

Students from various backgrounds would enjoy this book as they could relate to other individuals. No matter race, ethnicity, gender, and religion, the reader will see that peers also go through such difficulty and must make the right decision and maneuver though such obstacles.