Evidence Based Posting #2 May 7, 2007

Teaching with the Internet K-12 New Literacies for New Times
by Donald J. Leu, Deborah Diadum Leu, and Julie Coiro
Fourth Edition

I just finished reading the assignment for this week which is chapters
10-12. I agreed with everything the authors said. But I think my
perspective was a bit different than theirs and I wish they had made a few
points which I didn’t see. As I was reading my mind kept going back to
the teachers with whom I ate lunch on Friday. “I feel so stressed, I
feel nauseous. No wonder I can’t eat.”
“I know what you mean,” said another. “My husband keeps asking me why I'm
so hungry when I come home. He doesn’t understand when I tell him why I
can’t eat at lunch time.” I thought of Jonathan, second grader, who I
spoke with before school on Friday. He told me he’s so tired of other
children picking on him. His mother told him he’s to hit back if someone
hits him. He thinks the best way to stop the other students from picking
on him is to beat them up. So far that strategy has worked with one
student. I hated to see him go to class with that attitude so I told the
office. Ten minutes later he was back in class. Not long after that he
was in detention.
As I read of Monica Ashburn conversing with the students at the three
computers in her classroom, I couldn’t help but wonder what the rest of
the class was doing and how she had the time to casually talk with these
students and think about the benefits of each of these Internet
activities.
I looked back to chapter 3 to see the Internet computer schedule posted
in another teacher’s classroom. (page 104) From 8:30 to 2:30, the only
activities that interfere with the Internet schedule are Internet
Workshop, Library, Lunch, PE, music, and Class Meeting. Does the
computer never break down or lose its connection. Are there no times for
transitions in this class? I understand that students miss parts of
classes when they are at the computer and I can see how that might work
sometimes. Somehow I think the solution is a bit too simplistic and too
fragile for most classrooms I’ve seen.
Like, I think, many other schools in Chicago, my school also participate
in a program where Dell teaches a group of students how to take apart a
computer and put it back together. When they successfully complete the
program, they get to take the computer home. I know there are other
programs around where students have opportunities to earn a computer to
take home. Even though the chapter is focused on computer equity within
the classroom, I still wish they had mentioned trying to deal with equity
within the classroom when some students have computers at home and others
don't.
I wish the authors had acknowledged the intense pressures so many
teachers are under these days and had shown some awareness of
wanting to add yet one more thing to the expectations that are
already on the teachers.
I’m curious how strongly others in the class were able to identify with
the classroom discussed in this chapter. Care to share? I’d like to know.