Creating a Pop Culture & Multimedia Literacy Workstation for Gr. 2 and 3

[Julie Johnson]

I'm a Special Education Resource Teacher in Ontario Canada.

I was inspired this summer after reading this Ministry of Ed booklet “Me Read? No Way: A Practical Guide to Improving Boy’s Literacy”.

This booklet recommends using pop culture, multi-media, art & music
to engage reluctant readers (especially boys)—to which I thought, why
not put all of that on a website? Perhaps as an all in one,
paperless, easy to access literacy workstation for the regular
classroom?

So I created my ‘Pop Lit’ literacy workstation/website for my Gr. 2 and 3
teachers to try this coming school year.  Check out http://www.poplit.net/

It uses video clips from youtube (ideas came from sites like kidzui, zuitube, loltot, which reccomends videos for kids...and includes TV shows like Kid vs. Kat and Disney Cars).

While it targets low/disengaged students (the vast majority of whom are
boys), it is also meant for all students, male and female. It can be
used as a literacy workstation—or as a whole class lesson on the
Smartboard or via the laptop cart.

For more info check out my blog site where I discuss it in more detail: http://bit.ly/c8diiy
 
I thought you might find this interesting? I'm interested in any feedback!

Julie Johnson
Ontario, Canada
PS I'm also on Twitter at @JulieeJohnsonn