Seeing is believing and to do is to learn. For me, creating an e-book was an exhilarating activity. I think that every teacher should be exposed to this hands-on experience, because it is the best way to fully grasp just how beneficial e-books can be to emergent and struggling readers. Teachers can construct e-books to target the specific needs of such learners, and students can co-produce these screen texts with their teachers or with other students, depending on the instructional objectives to be met. More advanced and independent readers can also benefit from creating e-books because it can heighten their perceptions of self-efficacy when their literacy skills are put to use in a digital medium.
Although it does not require much technical skill, it can be regarded as a highly creative endeavour.In tandem with the print and visual literacies that are developed and utilized in this exercise, readers at all levels get to engage in visual art where they select and use appropriate pictures. Then there is the aural component where music can be incorporated to create effects, and the "voicing" of text can introduce the element of drama. As such, creating an e-book allows students to express themselves in different ways and brings into play multiple intelligences. In addition to language and reading instructors, teachers of visual art, music and drama (and every content area teacher) should consider this as an innovative teaching tool and as a means of motivating students. Let's get our students to author e-books. Make learning creative fun.
I agree that creating an e book is a sure way of engaging student learning and even encouraging participation. The visual aspect of it easily draws interest and the possibility of incorporating art, pictures, their own voices as well as music makes it a tool with great potential especially for the generation of visual learners.
ReplyDeleteIt promotes other skills as well. Students still need to be mindful of story writing and learn the art of being concise. Being concise helps them focus on the main ideas they wish to incorporate in the e book. The aspect of narration allows them to understand the importance of fluency and can even be used to promote reading that is articulate and appropriately emotive.
This tool can be very useful to all teachers and its potential should be fully explored.
Hi Beverly, like you, I am excited about the prospect of using eBooks with my form four and five students in the upcoming acdemic year.This is so because all of my students are challenged using the old literacies. Their new Visual Arts Syllabus mandates that they produce a Reflective Journal which must track their progress over the two years in preparation for their CSEC examination.
ReplyDeleteE-books will allow them to write expository stories about their projects from conception to production. CXC demands that all stages of the process is documented as this helps the markers to interpret the finished piece of work at moderation and final marking.
What we have been doing in class was taking pictures of all the steps in the process. Now we can produce eBooks to tell the stories. What I am happy about is that as a teacher I can also produce eBooks which can be used as a teaching tool. In the past when I was asked what technology I was using in my classroom, I felt intimidated because all I used was television to look at videos or CD players to listen to music CDS. Now I can boast with my new technology. Moving on to Wikis!