Refelection Blog Post

 

This class is up there on my favorites for the ME.D program.   

I feel like I have a better understanding of new media and digital literacies. One of my strengths is that I am opening to new learning along with relearning things that I am familiar with.  It has opened my mind to what is considered literacy and there is much to include within this topic.  One of our first articles that we read was R You Really Reading. This brought up a good debate on what some consider literacy. Even the Ted Talk on gaming just made me think and reflect about all that goes into the practice and culture of gaming. Prior to this class I would never have considered that in the realm of literacy practice. Those chapters in our textbook were the most difficult for me to connect to because I have no background in that participatory culture.  But clearly there is much thought and collaboration that goes into gaming. And as we learned in the Ted talk lots of people are spending time participating in gaming and gaming culture. I think one of my other strengths during the class was in the discussions and using the readings to support my thinking and then learning from everyone’s posts and blogs. For the most part I loved writing the Community Engagement proposal.  I have never done anything like that and once I started with my idea, I got invested in it as if it were real.   

An area that I would like to improve on would be reading more of the discussion posts. I tend to reply to the ones that are posted when I post.  So, if I post early and there are a few then I try to reply to those and get ahead a bit in the module.  Our last assignment was the most difficult for me as a learner. As an educator I have become passionate about being culturally responsive in my work as a teacher and wanted to make a connection culturally responsive teaching and digital storytelling. So, reading more discussion posts will be a goal for me for my Summer Term that is coming up. I need to tighten up my APA citing.  It can get me in trouble sometimes.  Also if we are being honest, there are times when I just want to be done and I don’t have the capacity to think about a topic anymore. When I read the feedback for our last paper and reread my conclusion, it wasn’t stellar.

I signed up for a free digital storytelling webinar for this summer to learn more about how to do that and what it looks like so that I can implement it in my classroom or help other teachers with this literacy practice. Something else I am taking away is the idea of gaming. I know a little about Minecraft but have never played it.  That might be a goal for me.  I know nothing about it, but the kids at my school will be a good resource to use. 

Here is the link.  There are other free ones as well.

https://www.storycenter.org/workshop

Best of luck to everyone.  Hope to be in class again in the summer. 

Game simulations -Blooket

 

The open source game that I played and investigated was Blooket.  My decision to use this game was because of my experience teaching 4^th grade last year.  My students loved playing it and would simply go to the site and pick a game to host and then share the code to play with other students in the class. As a teacher I did not use it to its fullest capacity. Furthermore, last week one of the 7^th grade teachers at my school this year was using it for her RTI time with students.  In my opinion this demonstrates the versatility of the site.

Blooket can be used in various ways.  Teachers can create a Blooket based on a skill or topic that he or she want students to engage with. Or teachers can search a topic that is already part of the Blooket sets. Simply choose one that fits that topic for your students, or you can search a topic in the search bar.

Image 1: (https://dashboard.blooket.com/create)

Image 2: (https://dashboard.blooket.com/create)

Students can log in to the Blooket sight and search for games to play. They can either Host a game or play Solo. Students can also search by topics they are interested in such as movies, sports, candy. In this case students can still play the game and interact with others when hosting.  If we remember that literacies are social and about making meaning, then if students are engaging in a topic of choice is it possible they are engaging in Green’s model of literacy?

Image 3: (https://dashboard.blooket.com/set/64219ead68047ee65342f8ff)

As many of the teachers are doing some test prep activities, I wanted to explore the Blooket sight and see if it was more engaging for students. If you choose to play Solo than these are some of the Game Modes that are available to pick. If you decide to Host a game there seem to be more options, and the Host gets to choose the Game Mode.

Image 4:

Solo (https://play.blooket.com/solo?id=64219ead68047ee65342f8ff)

Image 5:

Host (https://play.blooket.com/host?id=64219ead68047ee65342f8ff)

From the Solo mode I picked to play Monster Brawl (getting into my best 3^rd grade mindset).  My next choice was to pick my Blook, which is my character. These are a selection of different animals in the shape of little squares. I can see this as super engaging for students to do!  Once this is completed my next decision was to decide on my level of my map which was easy or medium. As a participant I am glad that the designers distinguish between easy and medium. Then I had to choose a difficulty.  Again, game designers provide information to help make player choices.

Image 6: (https://monsterbrawl.blooket.com/play/brawl/settings)

Image 7: (https://monsterbrawl.blooket.com/play/brawl/settings)

After answering 1 correct question I can choose options from shooting bubble or throwing eggs at the monsters.  Therefore, there is an incentive to get answers correct. There seemed to be no time limit for answering the questions, so I could focus on solving questions and not be concerned with that aspect. When a wrong answer is chosen then, I was not able to engage with the game mode. This could be frustrating for students who struggle.

 I was given the option of a tutorial prior to playing, which I decided to skip, since I figured most 3^rd graders would do that.  I was able to engage in game, but was not sure how to use all of the upgrades I had earned. I think 3^rd grade students would play and figure it out through what Hung (2013) refers to as “learning-by-doing aspect of games” (p. 332) I just tried to move my character away from the “monsters” and get them with my bubbles and bees.  In the end I was defeated, and the game ended for me.  I did not answer all the questions. I decided to play the game again.  For me as a learner, I like to understand more about what I am doing. Hung (2013, p. 332 ) explains that the learning by doing parts of a game can be frustrating for players because they need to understand more of the game features and how to use them more efficiently. In my next round I utilized the available tutorials and did much better. 

Overall, I think this is a great way for students to learn and engage in fun ways that are different than traditional paper and pencil tasks. I will be sharing this with my teachers next week when we return to school.

References:

Blooket. https://www.blooket.com/. Retrieved April 9, 2023.

Green. (1996). The three dimensions of literacy and technology. https://mylearning.suny.edu/d2l/le/content/482614/viewContent/13123419/View

Hung,A.(2013). Situated play: Instruction and learning in fighter games. Lankshear and M. Knobel  A new literacies reader. (p.321-352). Peter Lang Publishing Inc.

 

Interview

 

I interviewed my daughter.  She is 12 years old and is in 6th grade.  The middle school she attends is the only middle school for all the elementary schools in her district, 4 in total. So, she has been able to expand her social network, even though she still hangs out with mainly the same people.  She got a phone the summer prior to starting middle school. Some of her friends had phones and she would use mine to chat with them. At times that became inconvenient for me. It was then that we decided to look into getting her a phone.  She was given her dad's old phone. But there were definitely rules attached to it.  She is not allowed at this point to have any social media on her phone.  So, my questions that I wanted to ask about social media were tailored to what I already knew about her lack of using it. 

The reasons behind this were two fold. First, she was trying to interact with her friends in a digital way, but it was difficult to do so when she would need to borrow my phone. Second, she would be taking the bus home from school and would arrive home before us.  Therefore, we wanted a way for her to let us know she was home. In Gross' (2012) interview with Turkle, Turkle mentions that this is the parents thinking behind getting phones for their children. 

Doing this interview was interesting.  Since I was doing it with my daughter there were not many things that surprised me by what she said. It was interesting when she said that she did not want to have social media.  When I asked her about what she knew about social media I thought she might have known a bit more about it or that some of her friends might be using it.

The comments about me being on my phone too much was powerful, and it made me think of the interview with Turkle.  In the interview Turkle talks about how parents are texting and missing things that are happening with their children. That parents are on their phones texting, checking email or even on social media.  My daughter’s response that she gives is similar to the interview the Turkle mentions about the boy and his father watching the football games on Sunday. (Gross, 2012)

Below are the questions and answers to the interview:

 

1. What do you use your phone for the most?

 Probably texting or calling my friends and family. Also setting an alarm for school or something.

2. How do you use technology at school?

We use chrome books. We use google classroom which is an app on the Chromebook and teachers can post assignments and kids can do them and turn them in. Its helpful cuz things don’t get lost as much.  You don’t have to worry about things getting ripped or recycled, or spill something on it.  You can find it (work) in one spot.

3. How does technology help you with learning and schoolwork?

Well, it’s helpful because you don’t loose your papers.  If your sick and you don’t have the papers with you, then you can log into google classroom and get the assignment even though you are not at school. You don’t feel like you’re behind.

4. What programs or apps do you use at school?

Google Classroom

Minecraft Edu.

Google Docs,

Google Slides

 World book  that’s where you can find information if you are trying to research something.

Email is really helpful because when you can’t tell a teacher or someone thar your working with something face to face you can email them and its helpful b/c you can get the message and its not too late.  If you forget your homework at school you can email your teachers and let them know or they can give you advice.

5.Which one of these is the most helpful to you as a student? Why?

Probably google classroom b/c you can get stuff done when you’re not at school. Like I said before you don’t have to worry about your work getting lost, ripped, or you don’t have to worry about having a printer.  You click the turn in button that is posted, your teachers can see your work and leave comments saying if it is right or wrong.

6. What do you know about social media?

I don’t really know that much about it b/c I don’t have it and I don’t really want it. What I have on my phone and my chrome book is enough.  I know that a lot of grown ups have it like Facebook.

7. Do any of your friends use social media?  What social media apps do they have?

Um, not that I know of.

8. Do you want to be able to use social media? Why or why not?

No. Just b/c I am fine with what I have, and I feel like you are safer w/o it b/c you don’t have to worry about your account being broken into, like what happened to you (points at me). It stressed me out b/c there were pictures of me, the dogs, and dad.

9. Do you think your parents are on their phones too much?

Yes. I feel like my mom especially when I am trying to talk to her.  She is always on her phone. And then it makes me feel like she is not paying attention and it frustrates me.  And later when, like I go to bring up that same subject she doesn’t remember or know what I am talking about cuz she was on her phone. My dad basically watches skiing or golfing videos which I find boring.

10. How do you feel when your parents are on their phones?

Sometimes frustrated b/c I feel like they are not listening to me, and it makes me mad when I say they are not listening b/c they say they are even though they aren’t.  Sometimes I feel ignored, and I am trying to say something that is important to me, and they are doing their own thing.

11. When is a time that people should not be on technology/phones? Why do you think this?

When they are outside b/c you are supposed to be getting exercise. Maybe when you are at a family or friends b/c its rude to be on your electronics unless you are watching a movie all together.

When you are at the dinner table or a restaurant b/c you are supposed to be spending time together and it feels like your ignoring them which is how I would feel if someone was on their phone.

 

References:

Gross, T (2012, October, 17).Fresh Air. In constant digital contact, we feel ‘alone together’. [Radio Broadcast]. NPR. https://www.npr.org/2012/10/18/163098594/in-constant-digital-contact-we-feel-alone-together.

An Annotated Bibliography of Digital Storytelling 3.12

 

A topic that I am planning to research is the use of digital storytelling within the educational environment.  Nixon (2013) explains that digital story telling “blends image, sound, print, and other communication media in a dynamic real-time environment.” (Center for Digital Storytelling, 2011;Lambert, 2010;Lunby, 2009) (p. 123) Because of the nature of this literacy practice it provides students the opportunity to not have to rely only on print literacy to tell his or her story. Rather students can use other semiotic resources that create meaning in the story being told. Nixon (2013) writes “digital storytelling has the potential to provide youth with opportunities for new sense-making of who they are using digital stories that incorporate images, text, and sound. (p. 124) I find this to be an innovative way in which to engage students into telling their stories as well as other stories. Digital storytelling is like the more traditional ways we are used to telling stories. They have a topic and contain a point of view, but as mentioned already, utilize more multimodalities then paper and publishing technologies. Digital stories are not lengthy, ranging in time form 2-10 minutes.

The topic of digital storytelling is of interest to me because it is not something that I was familiar with as an educator, so I would like to find out more information about it so that I can use it with the teachers at my school or my own classroom. It provides an alternative way for students to share stories. The stories can range from true, historical, non-fiction or even made up. In addition, it can be used with a wide range of ages, and it offers students options to include multimodal elements.

Dreon, O., Kerper, R. and Landis, J. Middle School Journal. Digital storytelling: A tool for teaching and learning in the YouTube generation. (2011). Vol. 42. No. 5. pp. 4-10. Association for Middle Level Education. https://www.jstor.org/stable/23047749.

In this article the authors focus on preservice teachers, who are themselves 21^st century learners or “natives” who are now teaching 21^st century learners within their own classrooms. Dreon et. al (2011) make a point that just because teachers are familiar with using technology, does not necessarily mean it can be used effectively within the classroom. The article focuses on one preservice teacher who uses digital storytelling via YouTube to provide instructional support for his middle school math students.  It is mentioned in the article a few times that if we can draw on students’ interest, they are more likely to engage in learning the content being taught. Digital storytelling can be a medium in which to draw on students’ interest. The authors explain (2011) “Although Tyler’s videos focus on teaching important math concepts, the stories are what ultimately engage his students.”( p. 5) The preservice teachers took a class that focused on digital storytelling and participated in using this medium within their class.  Digital storytelling resembles what students are used to seeing when they are using technology to search and get information. The connection to YouTube demonstrates how digital storytelling is a part of youth culture allowing people to upload short videos and search for information. While this medium can be useful, teachers need to be mindful of student’s ability to access such content.

Hur, J. and Suh, S. (2012). Computers in Schools. Volume 29, p. 320-328. Making learning active with interactive whiteboards, podcasts, and digital storytelling in ELL classrooms.

According to the article by Hur and Suh (2012) the ELL population within schools is increasing. Compared to non-ELL students, ELL students perform lower on achievement assessments. One reason for this according to the article, is the lack of English vocabulary. (Hur and Suh, 2012, p. 321) The article explains a case study done with 3^rd and 4^th grade ELL classrooms and the use of interactive whiteboards, digital storytelling, and the use of podcasts to improve learning with ELL students. According to the article interactive whiteboards including Smartboard and Promethean Boards provide ways in which images, videos and supporting text can be easily shared with students. In addition, students can interact with the images and the board itself.  Digital storytelling provides students practice with oral language as they narrate stories and use other multimedia to make meaning of content being learned. The other media used was podcasts which allow students to hear fluently spoken native language or adjust the speed at which stories are listened as well as the portability of podcasts on phones or tablets.

Eleven students participated in the study during a summer program. The teacher in the study was already consistently using technology in her practice. The results of the study produced positive outcomes for ELL learners and as a result the authors suggest the integration of technology within the classroom.(Hur and Suh, 2012) Students’ vocabulary increased according to pre and post test data. Students liked the interactive whiteboard because they were able to play games as a class which most said helped them learn content. The teacher in the study felt that the interactive whiteboard was useful in showing students images needed to help further explain vocabulary that was new or to help students explain ideas. (p.330)  Also noted by the teacher was the efficiency of using the whiteboard to quickly search for images, thus not losing instructional time with students. (p. 331) According to the students in the study, digital storytelling was helpful to them.  The stories lasted between 2 to 5 minutes and incorporated images and text. Students used Power Point and then an app called Photostory to create presentations. This experience resulted in an improvement in speaking proficiency based on the WIDA levels of students. Parents of students also liked the digital storytelling experience because they were able to watch it numerous times and even share it with other family members. The last technology investigated was the use of podcasts.  Not many students found this useful, but parents liked it because it was the teacher’s voice, and they were able to know what was happening within the classroom. (p. 334)

Lisenbee, P. and Ford, C. (2018, online 2017). Early Childhood Education J Volume 46 pp. 129-139. Engaging students in traditional and digital storytelling to make connections between pedagogy and children’s experiences.

This article focuses on the use of both traditional and digital storytelling within the early elementary classroom. The author’s clarify traditional story telling as the children using actions, using props such as puppets, or matching words from a story to describe an experience from their lives. (2018, p. 129) Digital storytelling incorporates technology such as cell phones, interactive white boards, computers, or tablets. (p.129) Students use the concept of traditional storytelling, but use more multimedia such as images, sound, or video and can be uploaded and saved digitally. Each of these methods is aligned to Common Core Standards. Lisenbee and Ford explain that the use of both traditional and digital storytelling provides students with 21^st century learning skills. The authors write about how each form of storytelling was used in the classroom, both methods provide students with storytelling as social process of interacting with literacy and using a variety of higher order thinking skills, such as critical thinking, problem-solving, and collaboration. In the example of traditional story telling the teacher reads the Very Hungry Caterpillar, by Eric Carle. Students retell the story by acting out what happens at each part of the story as it happens. In the author’s recount of digital storytelling, pairs of students are chosen to retell the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears using the SMART board. Students can access clip art and images via The Smart Notebook software (p. 135). While students were able to engage in this task, they struggled with clicking on the correct story to use for the retelling of the story. 

Both traditional and digital storytelling engage students in literacy learning and the social practice that is part of literacy.

This link was taken from Table 3: Resources for teachers; print books, digital books, storytelling websites in the article by Lisenbee and Ford. (p.137)

https://www.storytelling.org/web-resources/

 

Lotherington, H. and Chow, S. (2006). The Reading Teacher Volume 60, Issue 3. Rewriting “Goldilocks” in the urban multicultural elementary school. International Literacy Association.

Working with a school in the Toronto, Canada area with a high number of students who are learning English Lotherington and Chow (2006) write about how they worked with a kindergarten class to retell the classic story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears using digital technology to provide students a way to tell the story from their own culturally perspective and to teach narrative development in early grades. Lotherington explains that as her role as a guest reader in this class, students often chose the Goldilocks story as one for her to read to them. She writes (2006) “ I wanted to work with the teachers and the children to co-create a process of inviting the incipient reader into the narrative-that is, to engage readers as writers with the agency to rework a well-known story.” (p. 244) Lotherington conducted an action research study that was qualitative in nature. It involved the teachers at Joyce Public Schools.

She shares the story of one teacher Sandra Chow who co-wrote this article and is a 2^nd grade teacher. The teacher exposed her class to more classic versions of this fairytale and had the children work on retelling to determine students understanding of the narrative story elements.   Then students were exposed to other versions of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Then it became the students turn to change some of the story elements (ie: characters, setting, or the ending) to create their own version. The teacher provided students with instructions to rewrite his or her version. To do this students used technology and other modalities to create their stories such as Wigglworks, a puppet show, and visual arts, digital photography, and Hyperstudio. (p. 246) In students’ versions of the story the authors (2006) explain that students used versions of themselves with black skin and braids, or even characters like mermaids, sharks, space explorer and more.

According to Lotherington and Chow the project was successful. Teachers were able to incorporate multiliteracies in innovative ways in which students were able to practice comprehension skills and demonstrate agency in telling his or her own version of this story.

Student work images of their retellings:                                                              

(p. 248)                   

   

(p. 249)

(p. 249)

McLellan, H. (2006)Journal of Computing in Higher Education, Vol 19(1), 65-79. Digital storytelling in higher education.

This article explores the emergence of digital storytelling. McLellan (2006) writes that digital storytelling serves “as a valuable tool in subject areas-history, language arts, social studies , teacher training, etc.” (p 68) McLellan (2006) explains the many benefits of digital storytelling such as visual literacy, collaboration, and mastery of technology. Digital storytelling encompasses one’s individual way to tell a story using various media resources. According to the article most digital storytelling is utilized in educational settings or community or civic environments. The power in digital storytelling is how it can be created, saved for future use, and even shared with others. The article explains five different applications used in digital storytelling; personal stories, digital archives, memorial stories, avocational stories, and medicine and health. Personal stories are just as they seem. Telling stories of ourselves and families. The author equates personal stories to photographs of a family photo album but making it digital and telling the stories behind the pictures. One way in which people share stories is through blogs. In this way people are sharing personal stories with others both near and far. Another application for digital storytelling is digital story archives.  These are explained as websites in which people share personal stories, blogs are included in this application as well. Topics include birth, death, food, and romance to name a few examples. (McLellan, 2006, p. 74) Memorial stories are yet another application for digital story telling. These consist of ways in which to remember the stories of groups of people. Some examples from the article are those being effected by September 11^th, those involved in Vietnam, or groups who need to tell their own narratives, such as The Japanese American Legacy Project or American Slaves narratives. (p. 75) The last two application described for digital storytelling are avocational stories and those in medicine and health. Avocational stories tell about those with significant life issues while medicine and health tell the stories of those afflicted with health issues where others can find information or simply connect with others going through similar experiences. The author even mentions the idea of Youtube and MySpace as tools to create digital stories.

References

University of Houston Education. (2023).https://digitalstorytelling.coe.uh.edu/page.cfm?id=27&cid=27&sublinkid=29

Digital Storytelling 1.2: Tools for Digital Storytelling. (2021)https://video.search.yahoo.com/search/video?fr=mcafee&ei=UTF-8&p=center+for+digital+storytelling&type

 

Journal Post 3 Remixing

 

I found the chapter on Remixing to be interesting and relatable to me as a teacher in my experiences with the evolving use of technology and multimodalities. The author of chapter two, Erstad  (2013) relates this concept of remixing back to music and  DJs and the technology available to them to use an existing song and create something new. Erstad (2013) writes “since the mid-1970s we have seen many examples of artists take existing music pieces and or recordings and make something new from them.” (p. 43-44)

An important point made in the chapter about digital literacies by Erstad is that these literacies will be determined by the tasks that both the teachers and students work on. (p. 44) The definition of remixing the author provides to the reader is “ ‘selecting cutting, pasting, and combining semiotic resources into new digital and multi-model texts, which is achieved by downloading and uploading files from different sources (internet, iPod, DV-camera, digital camera, or sound recording devices)” (Erstad, 2013, p 44-45) I worked at school prior to the pandemic that implemented 1:1 technology for our students.  I had a class of 2^nd graders with chrome books, and I wanted to come up with a way to utilize them within my classroom setting.  As I learned along with my students, we created a Google Classroom where students could utilize teacher created video lessons, and other modalities to support numeracy which Gillen and Barton (2010) explain as “the ability to manipulate and interpret numbers” (p 16) Student’s took pictures of work and inserted them onto their slides, googled images that demonstrated real life mathematical concepts, and recorded themselves explaining his or her thinking and inserted them into their slide deck. The pandemic forced many districts to make the jump to provide students with 1:1 devices in order to maintain learning during that time. Now, I think many teachers have access to devices but still do not quite use them in innovative ways. This is due partly, because technology is evolving quickly, and many teachers either are not comfortable with using it or claim there is no time. My thought is what can you do as a teacher to make one small change to feel more comfortable with technology or to change how you are presenting your lessons?  Erstad writes “at school, children report that they use digital media to a much lesser degree than at home or with friends, and that when they use media at school it is often to make traditional literacies of writing letters and numeracy more effective, while their use outside of schools is more made up of many different activities, especially gaming, downloading music, and communication and creation.” (2013, p. 47)

If we consider Green’s model the concept of remixing is both cultural and critical. Remixing enables people, both students and adults, to develop new ways of receiving and sharing ideas and information as well as seeing ideas from multiple perspectives and modalities. Considering Erstad’s definition of remixing, “ ‘selecting cutting, pasting, and combining semiotic resources into new digital and multi-model texts, which is achieved by downloading and uploading files from different sources (internet, iPod, DV-camera, digital camera, or sound recording devices)” (Erstad, 2013, p 44-45)students must utilize critical thinking skills to determine what images, text, or videos make sense to use. The author writes of three cases in which digital media is used within the school setting. The first case describes students create a web page about an Antarctica expedition, the other was a digital newspaper created by school communities in opposite parts of town getting to know each other, and the final case was about students working on a short film. In each of these cases students are working with classmates and those in other areas to create and share information in new ways.  Erstad (2013) writes, “that remixing as a cultural activity…opens fundamental questions about “reading” and “writing” and about what schools are for.” (p. 53)

In conclusion, Erstad acknowledges the constraints on many schools regarding the practice of remixing, such as teacher competencies, the school day, and assessments.(2013, p. 54) With that being said, and my experiences as a teacher, we must have a growth mindset in how we approach our teaching practices. We can utilize the funds of knowledge our students come to school with regarding technology and, as Erstad explains work with our students to engage in remixing activities.

References

Gillen, J. and Barton, D. (2010). Digital literacies: A research briefing by the Technology Enhanced Learning phase of the Teaching and Learning Research Program.

Lankshear, C. and Knobel M. (2013). A new literacies reader. Peter Lang Publishing Inc.

 

Journal Post 2 1.29.23

 

Literacy is ever changing and evolving.  I think what counts as literacy is a personal decision that is made by the reader and how he or she is using it to make meaning withing their lives. Literacy can be determined in many ways.  If we think in general terms that literacy is one’s ability to read and write, we cannot discount the options that are available currently to do so.  Literacy was once dominated by publishing and printing technologies.  (Durrant and Green, 2000, n. pag.) According to Durrant and Green (2000) “there are more and different technologies available.” (n. pag.) Hence, they explain to us “account needs to be taken of a profound media shift in literacy, schooling, and society-a broad-based shift from print to digital electronics as the organizing context for literate-textual practice and for learning and teaching.” (Durrant and Green, 2000, n. pag.)

Literacy changes in response to new media by adapting.  Durran and Green (2000, n. pag.) write,“print takes a new place within a reconceptualized understanding of literacy, schooling, and technology practice, one which is likely to be beneficial in moving us and our children in the new millennium.”  Students can now interact with platforms such as Epic.com or MyOn. These allow students to select various stories, both fiction and nonfiction, to read. Epic provides certain books that have read aloud options. MyOn allows a “read to” option for students for all books which affords all levels of readers to engage with various text levels. In addition, it provides options for students to read at home if they have a limited number of paper books, thus making literacy equitable. Other platforms such as Lexia and IReady provided differentiated lessons and activities for students to engage in. Math platforms such as IReady and Zern provide students with the opportunity to practice math skills.  ZSpace which is available in my district for 7^th and 8^th graders, allows them to experience more realistic applications in Science, such as looking at cells, dissecting animals and much more. My daughter in both 5^th grade and 6^th used Minecraft to build a colonial village and Mesopotamia Village for Social Studies.  Furthermore, many of these platforms provide immediate data for teachers that can be used to create small groups and to make other instructional decisions. Teachers and students can work collaboratively via Google Classroom, Jamboard, OneDrive, Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet and Google Drive. During one of my classes in the M.Ed program I worked collaboratively with two other classmates to create a Unit that spanned elementary, middle, and high school aged students. 

These new forms of communication need to be valued as ways and strategies to engage students as well as prepare them to be productive citizens in a quickly changing world. According to Rich (2008, n. pag.) “some literacy experts say that online reading skills with help children fare better when they begin looking for digital-age jobs.”  We do not need to treat digital literacies and traditional literacies as separate entities from one another. When we view them as working in conjunction with one another, it places value on the contribution to each.  Gillen and Barton (2010) claim that “digital literacies are not independent of other literacies, there is a relationship between traditional literacy.”

References

Durrant, C. and Green, B. (2000) Literacy and the new technologies in school education: Meeting the l(IT)eracy challenge? The Free Library. (2014). Retrieved Jan 18, 2023 from https://www.thefreelibrary.com

Gillen, J. and Barton, D. (2010). Digital literacies: A research briefing by the Technology Enhanced Learning phase of the Teaching and Learning Research Program.

Rich, M. (2008). Literacy debate: Online, r u really reading? Retrieved January 22,2023.

 

 

 

 

 

According to Gillen and Barton (2010) digital literacies is defined as “the constantly changing practices through which people make traceable meaning using digital technologies” (p. 9)

If I think about my literacy experiences during my undergraduate compared to now working on the M.Ed. program, they are slightly different. Most nights I can sit in the comfort of my own home and read, go to the ‘library’ and collaborate with classmates through our online platform, texting or email. I can be almost anywhere and gather information that I need or want to read about. This is because of how technology has changed.  Gillen and Barton explain as per Leu et al, 2004 that the ways in which we obtain knowledge and communicate are changing.  These changes provide us with ways to engage in “new kinds of social activities, civic life, learning and work” (p. 9)  In addition to this Wilber (2010) writes that “new literacies, in contrast with traditional literacies, are more participatory.” (p 2) What comes to mind here is the use of shared documents in either Google Drive or OneDrive. Many can access and edit, share, and add information.  Within the classroom or in our professional work,  we have programs like Nearpod and Jamboard where we can share ideas in real time with people in different locations.

In my role as a teacher, I have seen this change as well. When I started my career as an educator students relied mainly on books within the classroom library. They would read them during independent reading, students would check out books from the school library, and we would read books in reading group. Now we have digital programs that allow students to read books, such as Epic.com and MyOn (a program used within my school district). Students can read or listen to books, or even watch videos on certain topics. We have applications on the computer, such as Lexia that can assist students with phonics skills. IReady is another platform in which students read and respond to text questions and vocabulary. In these programs there are many multimodal features.  Students have audio in which to listen and must often attend to. They have many visuals to help support learning that they must also make meaning of.  

When I think of literacy what comes to mind is the process of reading and writing. Digital literacies afford us the convenience of communicating with others, finding information, or  paying our bills from almost anywhere. In my opinion the quote means we must be more cognizant of how we use these technologies that are now available to use within our practice as teachers. Are these new text formats that we share with our students reliable? Can students utilize this new media to meet objectives and standards that we are teaching? We want to make sure that with these new technologies that we are teaching our students will provide them with the skills and tools they will need to as the quote ends “further their own purposes in their learning lives” (Gillen and Barton, 2010, p. 9)

 

References

Durran, C. and Green, B. (2000) Literacy and the new technologies in school education: Meeting the l(IT)eracy challenge?The Free Library. (2014). Retrieved Jan 18, 2023 from https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Literacy+and+the+new+technologies+in+school+education%3a+Meeting+the...-a063132991

Gillen, J. and Barton, D. (2010). Digital literacies: A research briefing by the Technology Enhanced Learning phase of the Teaching and Learning Research Programme.

Wilbur, G. (2010). Digital Culture and Education. Special themed issue: Beyond ‘new’ literacies. Retrieved January 17, 2023.