Emily's New Literacy Reflection

When I first began this class, I knew deep down that literacy was more than just reading out of a book and writing with paper and pencil. However, I did not know how extensive the definition of literacy really is. When I thought about literacy class, I thought about reading books silently, in groups or teacher read aloud and having discussions about a given book, poem or article. I also thought about writing in response to prompts or writing a book report or even answering questions from books in all subjects. As the semester progressed, reading the articles, Gibbons and Tompkins started to open the creative literacy box in my brain.
This project, however, has been a real turning point for me. I am a visual learner so when I saw the list of different types of literacy a light bulb went on. Just seeing the words gave me a mental image of all the types of literacy’s and the possibilities they elicit. I realized that there was numerous ways literacy can be classified besides merely ‘literacy.’ These types include cultural, digital, emotional, environmental, print, social and visual. I immediately was drawn to digital literacy just because I enjoy technology and know that children are fascinated with technology as well. I went to the Technology Conference this past fall here at MSU and was introduced briefly to ePals. I knew I wanted to learn more about the website, but I had not sat down and taken the time to learn about it, until now. This project was a great excuse to dive right in and get my feet wet with ePals. This technology has really showed me that even under the umbrella of digital literacy, there are countless ways to use digital literacy in a classroom. Even with ePals you can use emails, blogs, papers, research projects, etc that is all done online in some form.
I would use this technology without hesitation in my classroom. I think it is especially great for middle elementary grades, middle school and high school. I am not saying I would not use it with lower elementary grades, but I think they will need a lot more support than higher-level grades. I think they can still benefit from the experience though by learning about other cultures through interaction with peers their own age in another part of the world via email. The teacher would probably need to spend at least one lesson getting the students acquainted with the website and how to navigate it. The students would each get their own email but share a class password. I think the most sufficient and efficient way to teach students is to use a computer lab where each student has a computer to work with or at least in partners. I would also do this because if a student has a computer in front of them that they can follow along the steps as the teacher does them it seems they will have a better understanding of what they are doing. If I were working with the older grades, I would most definitely contact a classroom from another country to correspond with. I would collaborate with that teacher and discuss how we can develop a cultural project for our students. I learned that ePals will automatically translate emails into English if we are conversing with a non English speaking classroom. Another possibility is to use ePals to learn another language. Students can practice writing in another language through emails. The ideas are endless!
I remember writing to pen pals in elementary school and it would take several weeks to hear a response from them. ePals introduced me to the virtual world of pen pals. I think it is fantastic because students can interact more frequently with their ePal because it takes a matter of seconds to send an email halfway across the world. This technology allows all types all learners to have access to literacy in some form. Some students would rather type on the keyboard than write on paper while some students prefer to write to an audience member compared to writing research or answering questions. ePals also teaches students how to compose and edit an email, which is a highly used form of communication. All students, in my opinion, should be knowledgeable and familiar with emailing. I personally was very impressed with ePals and literacy possibilities it possesses for all learners. It is a true demonstration of not only digital literacy but literacy in general.