Week 8- Lit Circles

Technology-enhanced literature circles can be a great thing if technology is readily available to participants. The advances in technology are quite awesome. When reviewing this assignment, I could imagine having different participants fulfill their roles using various forms of technology. Different ideas I could see are:

• Discussion Coordinator- Typing up various questions to have participants respond to, record their introduction as coordinator and answers to the questions given
• Literary Expositor- Record themselves reading the text aloud, highlighting the favorite points and explaining where to turn to correspond
• Vocabulary Elaborator- Use different online resources to define vocabulary and receive different examples of the word
• Graphic Illustrator- Create drawings on Paint or Google Image search looking at different examples

Of course there are many more jobs that are a part of the literature circle. These few are very minimal. I could see individuals using iPads, tablets, and applications to successfully fulfill the requirements of a literature circle.

I cannot say that this was great for first grade but with more guided practice/gradual release, it could be successful. The technology available at my school would support this type of cooperative learning.

For my assignment, I used the scholars in my class. Using our iPad cart, I downloaded my Kindle app and let them read/listen to Mercy to the Rescue which is a chapter book that is great for beginning readers. I assigned 5 tasks to 5 scholars. I gave the assignment sheets to each of them. Individually, I called them up to explain their tasks. They originally made it seem so hard but we went through it together. They all knew how to use Google so that was quite awesome to see. My Coordinator was very awesome because she was able to keep everyone in line and checked in with them to make sure they were completing their work. Scholars had 20 minutes on Tuesday and Wednesday during their center time to work on their circle assignments.