Creating a classroom culture that is empowering. Empowerment includes the use of language creatively while implementing technologies in ways that strengthen students’ voices, investing in their differences and promoting their sensitivity to feelings and to sharing of knowledge and their inspiring personal experiences.
Alshreif, Nouf
jwlv@iup.edu
11th October, 2016
Technology Project Title: Multilingual Writers in the Writing Center.
Project Focus: I will explore the literature that relate to tutoring strategies to accommodate the needs of multilingual writers.
Learning Goals: I am interested to research this topic because I am really interested in the literacy practices of the writing center. In addition, this project will help me to enhance my tutoring skills as I am tutoring in the Writing Center. I am also hoping that this website will be used by current and future writing center tutors as a way visual source that helps to inspire their tutoring practices.
Technology Project Type: This website will lead to the creation of a website. This website will include videos that I will create.
Technology Project Components: I will provide a literature review, which will lead to a current gap. Then, I will look at three current theoretical propositions on how to accommodate the needs of multilingual writers. These theoretical proposition and empirical studies were authored by Alshreif & Alharthi (2016), Alshreif (2016), and Hauer (2016).
Technology Project Background Information: I am hoping that this website can be used by the Writing Center’s tutors in IUP as well as other universities as a visual resource that can be used to support their future tutoring practices. I am planning to include a section in which I will describe how specific tutoring course can be used to train tutors as how to operationalize specific theoretical perspectives while tutoring. I am hoping to provide specific lesson plans for these touting courses.
Technology Project Timeline: My project consists of three phases. I think I need a total of four weeks to finish the project.
When I was in elementary school, I hated the computer class because the teacher was focused on making us fast. I hated that I COULD NOT finish any of her tasks on time. I am not saying that I was SLOW, but she is kind of marginalizing students who were not able to deliver quickly. I would describe myself as a thoughtful learner. I am COMPLICATED. I cannot absorb instructions and implement it quickly. I need time to understand why I am doing what I am asked to be doing. In some ways, technology wants you to follow it the way it is, otherwise you have to be an inventor to develop it the way that suits your expectations. We only had the BLEEP to communicate. Cell phones were invented, but physicians are still using BLEEPS because they do not want to be distracted. In this sense, you can just ignore technology.
Literacy:
Illiteracy:
Characteristics:
Example:
My initial intention was to go literacy as well as technology free. I recognized that it is impossible to go literacy free because I will drive and read the road signs inevitably. This is only the first reason. I realized that going literacy free is impossible for a mother of two kids who need to teach new skills, numbers, vocabularies, alphabets, sounds, new behaviors, body movements almost five minutes. Regardless of the difficulties I faced, my one-day technology free was a success because it allows me to understand the roots of being a mother who unconsciously mediates between her children and the world and to appreciate the presence of my family support.
The first thought that I had on Saturday morning is related to a dialogue that I had with my father fifteen years ago. At this point of the day, I know it is eight o’clock because my daughter started crying. Unexpectedly, I recalled a conversation that I had with my father regarding the internet. It was strange to remember such a conversation. Obviously, my brain was digging on my memories to investigate how the internet was introduced within the context of Saudi Arabia and the territory of our family home. My father stated, “there will be something called the internet that answers all of your questions.” Consequently, I thought that the internet can think for us. Unfortunately, the execution of the literal meaning of “the internet can answer all of your questions” was unhelpful. As an assignment, a professor asked us to research how the concept of racism is constructed in an English novel that we were required to read. I literally typed this question and was expecting that the search engine can provide an accurate answer. I realized that there is no substitution of my brain as a resource to critically think and analyze. This early, one-to-one experience with the internet deepened my understanding of myself as an intellectual figure.
As my two kids are enrolled in dancing classes that start at 11 a.m., I was nervous because of the timing issue. I decided to trust my biological clock. I wanted to take photos of my little girl, Jody, going to her tap dance class, but I whispered to myself, “it is only twenty-four hours.” I kept the day rolling, heading toward Starbucks to have my morning cup of coffee. At this time, I realized that my daughter is not feeling well. In fact, she was coughing severely and ended up vomiting. At this moment, I needed my cell phone to talk to her doctor. I had feelings of being isolated and lonely. The source of the mixed emotions I had correlates to my feeling that I was taking care of the kids while my husband was on her motorcycle driving to Pittsburgh. With no technology, a friend, or a husband, it was hard to handle the situation. At this point of the day, I did not want to ruin my technology free day. Regardless of the fact that I was not able to locate myself in time, I decided to get over the situation. We proceeded with our day, making it to class five minutes late.
I stopped worrying about the clock after getting to the dancing school. It is only the beginning of the day, but I was already getting emotional. My Saturday morning rituals were ruined because I am technology free. I was not able to call my family back home. I can’t watch my favorite Saturday show. I can’t use my laptop. The only option available is to practice food literacy. I am not really missing my phone. I am missing my family, the most important figures in my life. I realized that they are far away and that technology is a way to connect to my love ones.
On the other hand, I felt how my kids were happy that I was not distracted, working on a paper or reading a book. Because I was not able to go literacy free, I started to think if I am interfering between my kids and their first-hand experiences of the world. I am afraid that I have been always over protective. Somehow, the technology free assignment led me to think of my literacy experiences with my kids. In addition, it made me think of how difficult to define literacy. Literacy can be in the way through which I ask my daughter to clean up the floor. It can be asking my daughter to sit on her car seat and teaching her that it is dangerous not to do so.
I did not collapse, my twenty-four-hour technology free was a success. I think this experience was easier for me because I am a busy mother of two. I can dedicate all of my time to my kids, enjoying my time as a mediator. I learned that I need to explore with my kids why I am asking them to do certain things. I have to be more careful in regards to me imposing certain ideologies. I learned that I need to talk to my husband in regards to his contributions, helping to raise these kids. My technology free day helped me to examine my relationships with my kids, my husband, and my family back home.
I am eager to know the answer to the question raised in the movie. People have no control over their destiny. That is a lesson learned, but why?
Welcome to your brand new blog at Indiana University of Pennsylvania Sites.
To get started, simply log in, edit or delete this post and check out all the other options available to you.
For assistance, visit our comprehensive support site, check out our Edublogs User Guide guide or stop by The Edublogs Forums to chat with other edubloggers.
You can also subscribe to our brilliant free publication, The Edublogger, which is jammed with helpful tips, ideas and more.
Make a blog entry focusing on the following:
Our relationship to technology changed the ways through which we perceive literacy. Literacy in the new media age is becoming associated to multimodality. In this sense, the conceptualization of literacy is no longer associated to reading and writing, but to being able to take ownership of one’s learning, and further to make meanings while interacting meaningfully to construct knowledge, while recognizing the relationships among the different modes of learning.
Recent Comments