A Reflection.

This morning I went to school to perform the first stage of my Literacy Assessment for eded20490. I decided that I would use this experience in two ways. Firstly, to do what was required. That is, use classroom based strategies to find out where my 'test' subject sat on the writing, reading, spelling, and spoken continuum. Secondly to compare my test subjects reading performance between a hard copy book and a digital book. Both had comprehension tests after and were in the same leveled reading catergory. I also conducted a reading conference about both books.

I was amazed that the test subject performed better in the digital book reading and comprehension activity. I used the online site reading a-z, and used the comprehension worksheets and quizzes. I haven't crunched the numbers of the running record yet, but just a glance at them you can see the difference. So based on this anecdotal evidence, it would seem that just the use of a computer in class raises childrens engagement. Finding a program that encourages and supports student learning raises their performance level. I also noticed that my test subject would yawn and scratch and wriggle around reading the hard copy book. The child also found the comrehension activity unengaging (written quiz and cloze) and even told me that it was 'boring'. During the digital book, the child commented on the illustrations, aced the quiz and navigated through the book independent of my help.

Despite researching how efective elearning and the various tools work in the classroom, I have found it difficult to connect it into the 'real world'. Witnessing the process in school has had a greater affect upon my learning journey than reading about it. I suppose that is why this course heavily emphasizes placements in schools now rather than coursework. I think it is this lack of experience/foresight? that restricts me in analyzing these tools at a high distinctive level  and is something that I need to address.