Digital literacy. What does it mean? What does it look like? How does it apply to me as a future teacher? These are all important questions.

To start, Digital Literacy is the ability to use information and communication technologies to find, evaluate, create, and communicate information using digital technologies like iPads, smartphones, computers, tablets, etc. ^[1] It is not uncommon to see toddlers playing games on tablets, teens texting their friends on a smartphone while streaming music, or kindergartners logging onto class computers and using the internet to for ABCmouse and IXL. As a matter of fact, restaurants are catching onto this recent fad of using technology in different ways. Buffalo Wild Wings utilize tablets for gaming with adults and children as well as having the capability to order food and drinks.

As a prospective high school teacher, it is important that I learn why technology in the classroom is important and to enable my students to use that technology constructively for learning. While many teachers discourage the use of technology in their class, it would behoove me to embrace that students love their technology and enable them to use it in a meaningful way; even if I do not like it myself. Students do online research and it is important that I help them discern credible sources and nonsense, how to properly cite their work, and to give credit to the person they got their information from.^[2] Students use technology to communicate over various social media outlets and it is important they understand how to use these networks responsibly by not sharing too much information and helping them understand the cause and effect of cyber bullying. It will be my job as an educator to make my students responsible users of the their technology and give them a platform to learn and build on.

References:
1. US Digital Literacy. (n.d.). Retrieved February 17, 2016, from http://digitalliteracy.us/
2. What Digital Literacy Looks Like in a Classroom. (n.d.). Retrieved February 17, 2016, from http://www.edweek.org/tm/articles/2014/10/29/ctq_crowley_digitalliteracy.htmlhttps://librarymediaclasses.wikispaces.com/Digital+Literacy+Class+Website

PBL and IBL: Advantages and Uses in the classroom

Project based learning (PBL) is "a dynamic classroom approach in which students actively explore real-world problems and challenges and acquire a deeper knowledge." This means students are taking real life situations and analyzing them to understand more. Students are active in their learning instead of passive like modern day classrooms. They're not waiting for the teacher to tell them what to know, they're finding what they need by asking their own questions and gaining their own understanding. By constructing and completing projects, students facilitate their own learning by doing their own research. This also allows students the use of technology for research and project development.

In my own (future) classroom, I could use PBL to have students research Shakespeare's time period and have them construct how the theatre he was part owner in looked like both inside and out. They would learn about the costumes, props, and social hierarchy of the time and history since there was a lot of unrest during the period.

Inquiry based learning (IBL) is something we've all been doing since the time of our birth. It's the natural way we make sense of the world around us. "The process of inquiring begins with gathering information and data through applying the human senses -- seeing, hearing, touching, tasting, and smelling." The current education system has gotten away from the natural process and gone towards lecturing. The teacher gives the students the information they are expected know. IBL, on the other hand, is based on a need to know or a want to know, students learn more because they are engaged. More importantly, they are using critical problem solving skills.

While students are the leaders in IBL, teachers direct where the thinking needs to go while involving them in the thinking process. In my own classroom, my students could study Henry David Thoreau. I could take my students to Walden Pond and help walk them through the kind of life Thoreau lived while writing Walden. It would give them an opportunity to ask questions. They may not find all the answers there but it ignites a spark to find out more, to ask more questions.




Resources:
http://www.thirteen.org/edonline/concept2class/inquiry/index.html
http://bie.org/about/what_pbl

A Little About My Life

     I am a United States Marine. I am a mother to two beautiful children and the wife of a Marine. We enjoy hiking and Mt. Rainier is by far my favorite location. We bike or walk on local trails such as the Piranha Pit at MCAS Cherry Point and The Bicycle Post trails in Greenville, North Carolina. I am an active participant in Crossfit and can regularly be found at the gym with my children and spouse.
     While I am in school to finish an English Education degree, my passion lies in health and fitness. I didn't know that, however, when I started my journey into adulthood. When I graduated in 1999 from Eastlake High School, I knew I wanted to teach. All through school (middle school through college) I volunteered reading in my siblings classrooms, helped with after school elementary programs, and was a hurdle coach for two years at a high school. Teaching was a must. What form that took, I didn't know. I went to college following high school and struggled with that very thing, finding my niche. I took English, as this was my major (I really enjoy the creative aspect) but wasn't sure about education or coaching. I changed my degree multiple times before deciding it was time to take a beat on school and join the Marines. I met my husband in the service and served my time. We had two children when I got out and I worked towards an associates degree and figuring out what I wanted to do.

     It wasn't until I found Crossfit in 2011 that I realized where my passion lay. While I am attending ECU for English Education, I fully intend to get endorsements in nutrition and physical education once I graduate and become a licensed teacher. I want to teach young adults getting ready to enter into society what healthy looks like (because it's not what society says it is) and teach them about eating, cooking, and exercise. I don't like the turn obesity has taken. I want to make a change and I think a good place to start is with high school students getting ready to leave home for college. As an adult established in society it is hard to change habits long set. It's hard to learn to cook differently. It's hard to start exercising (and doing it properly) when a person has never done it. Because of this, I want to work with young adults before they are on their own. They can teach their parents what they learned and maybe make their family healthier. By doing this, society will have confident people instead of those struggling with their identities and bodies. Fitness has given me a confidence I did not know I could have and eating healthy has left me with energy and feeling good, inside and out. I want my future students to find that same confidence.