Phi Delta Kappan has just published a themed issue on “Literacy Instruction in a Brave New World” (November, 2014, volume 96, No. 3). For a short time period, you may view and download all of the articles online, for free.
As literacy and technology expert Mike McKenna states in the opening to his article,
“Technology integration into language arts instruction has been slow and tentative, even as information technologies have evolved with frightening speed. Today’s teachers need to be aware of several extant and unchanging realities: Technology is now indispensable to literacy development; reading with technology requires new skills and strategies; technology can support struggling students; technology can transform writing; technology offers a means of motivating students; and waiting for research is a losing strategy.”
We have a lot to learn, a lot to accomplish, and we need to pick up the pace! I found this issue both practically valuable and thought provoking.
Please go to the Kappan website http://pdk.sagepub.com/ and search for the current November 2014 issue, or click on http://pdk.sagepub.com/content/current to go directly to the table of contents. I’ve listed the table of contents below (note that Jill has a piece on online inquiry and I have a piece on eText and eBooks). Enjoy!
Literacy Instruction in a Brave New World – Table of Contents
Michael C. McKenna, Literacy instruction in the brave new world of technology
Joan Richardson, Maryanne Wolf: Balance technology and deep reading to create biliterate children
Christopher Harris, Fact or fiction? Libraries can thrive in the Digital Age
Samina Hadi-Tabassum, Can computers make the grade in writing exams?
Melody Zoch, Brooke Langston-DeMott, and Melissa Adams-Budde, Creating digital authors
Bridget Dalton, E-text and e-books are changing literacy landscape
Diane Carver Sekeres, Julie Coiro, Jill Castek, and Lizabeth A. Guzniczak. Wondering + online inquiry = learning
Gail Lynn Goldberg, One thousand words, plus a few more, is just right
Kristin Conradi, Tapping technology’s potential to motivate readers
UDL Studio, a free digital tool (funded largely by the Carnegie foundation) has recently been released by CAST. UDL studio is underpinned by the principles of Universal Design for Learning . UDL Studio joins other successful digital tools created by CAST. See for example my blog post on LEA Meets Book Builder.UDL Studio enables anyone to create media-rich resources, to actively engage and motivate students, and to respond flexibly to the needs of each learner; thereby ensuring quality and equality in access to learning for all.
UDL Studio offers templates to scaffold you or your students as you create content using multimodal elements, such as text, image¸ video, audio, and animation. You can explore the project library to view previous projects created by UDL studio users.
For example, Katherine Cooper has created a project around Charles Dickens’ classic tale A Christmas Carol. In the screen shot you can see links to audio recording related to character study. Students can also record their prior knowledge of the story through multiple modalities, such as writing, recording, drawing, or uploading a file attachment.
Katherine Cooper
Meanwhile, Matthew Puma has created a resource to support his students while reading SOS Titanic by Eve Bunting. Students can explore historical information relating to the Titanic; inner feelings of the characters; and actions and events within the book. The screen shot below relates to a mind map of themes in the Titanic.
My wonderful, final year, elective student teachers have begun to explore the possibilities presented by UDL Studio to encourage immersion in, involvement with, and interpretation of literature (Dwyer & Larson, 2013). We have begun a project around The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas/Pajamas by John Boyne. Our aim is to deepen engagement with the text through close reading to explore the structure of the text; the perspectives of the characters; the use of vocabulary; and historical perspectives relating to the text.
We really like the tips and resources page which asks you to reflect carefully on how the use of the digital tool enhances children’s understanding of text; enriches the reading experience; and represents information in an engaging manner. The plethora of free digital tools include:
Reference
Dwyer, B. & Larson, L. (2013). The writer in the reader: Building communities of response in digital environments. In Kristine E. Pytash & Richard E. Ferdig (Eds.). Exploring Technology for Writing and Writing Instruction. US: IGI Global
Almost 35% of the world’s population are now online! The most recent World Internet Usage and Population Statistics (shown below) suggest high levels of access to the Internet in, for example, Europe (63.2%), North America (78.6%) and Australia (67.6%). Issues of physical access to technologies remain between the ‘haves and have nots’ (Warschauer, 2003). However, from the figures shown you can see phenomenal growth in access to technologies over the past decade or so in ‘developing’ countries, such as Africa.
The focus in the ‘digital divide’ debate has shifted in recent times from issues related to physical access to digital technologies to issues related to (a) the quality of access to digital technologies to enhance literacy and provide deep learning opportunities for our students; and (b) equality of opportunity in access regardless of socio-economic status (SES) or print-based reading capabilities.
The assumption that most of the ‘digital native’, Google, M2 generation have highly developed technological and information-seeking skills on the Internet lacks credibility within the research-based literature (e.g. Livinstone & Helpser, 2007; Williams & Rowland, 2007). To borrow from Ito and colleagues’ (2010) great title ‘Hanging Out, Messing Around and Geeking Out, Kids Living and Learning With New Media’, our students are great at ‘hanging out’ on social networking media sites, such as Facebook and Twitter; great at ‘messing around’ uploading and downloading videos from YouTube; and are great at spending considerable time online (Rideout, Foehr & Roberts, 2010). However, when it comes to ‘geeking out’ it is clear that the M2 Google generation are not a homogeneous population with a uniform digital upbringing, are not sophisticated users of technology, and have not realised the potential of the Internet as a site for deep learning and knowledge construction. If we erroneously assume that our student population have highly developed Internet and technology skills if gives us a free pass as educators and policy makers to disregard the need to explicitly explore and teach new literacies with our students or to fully integrate and embed digital technologies for literacy as essential components of the classroom curriculum.
Research evidence also suggests differences in equality of opportunity in access to technologies depending on SES (e.g. Volman, van Eck, Heemskerk, & Kuiper, 2007). While the Internet and other digital technologies have the potential to motivate and engage struggling readers from low SES communities, the converse is also true. The Internet could further compound the difficulties experienced by these students either through limited access to technologies (it’s too difficult for them) (Karchmer, 2001) or using digital technologies to develop decontextualized, constrained skills. While students from low SES school communities may be engaged in low level skill development using digital technologies, research suggests that their peers from more affluent schools are engaging with higher order, problem solving inquiry based skills and strategies. Those students who have limited home access to Internet technology, those who are struggling with print-based literacy “are precisely those who are being prepared the least” (Coiro, Knoebel, Lankshear, & Leu, 2008) for life in an information age.
So how can we provide improve learning outcomes for all students through the integration of the Internet and digital technologies with subject areas of the curriculum? I leave you today with a non-profit research and development organisation dedicated to building student engagement through the integration of digital technologies with subject matter content and skills. The CAST organisation bases its work on the principles of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) (Rose & Meyer, 2002). We have previously blogged on two free online tools developed by CAST; Book Builder and Science Writer. I would urge you to explore their website and view the brief video embedded below.
References
Coiro, J., Knobel, M., Lankshear, C., & Leu, D. J. (2008). Central issues in new literacies and new literacies research. In J. Coiro, M. Knobel, C. Lankshear, & D. J. Leu (Eds.), Handbook of research on new literacies (pp. 1-21). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Ito, M., Baumer, S., Bittanti, M., Boyd, D., Cody, R., Herr-Stephenson, B et al. Hanging out, messing around and geeking out: Kids living and learning with New Media. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press:
Karchmer, K. A. (2001). The journey ahead: Thirteen teachers report how the Internet influences literacy and literacy instruction in their K-12 classrooms. Reading Research Quarterly, 36, 442-467.
Livingstone, S., & Helsper, E. (2007). Gradations in digital inclusion: Children, young people and the digital divide. New Media and Society, 9(4), 671-696.
Rideout, V.J., Foehr, U.G., & Roberts, D.F. (2010). Generation M2: Media in the lives of 8- to 18-year olds, Menlo. Park, CA: Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.
Rose, D. & Meyer, A. (2002). Teaching Every Student in the Digital Age. ASCD. Available free online: http://www.cast.org/library/books/tes/index.html
Warschauer, M. (2003).Technology and social inclusion: Rethinking the digital divide. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press.
Williams, P., & Rowland, I. (2007). Information behaviour of the researcher of the future. The literature on young people and their information behaviour Work Package 11. A British library JISC study. Retrieved September, 2, 2008 from http://www.ucl.ac.uk/infostudies/research/ciber/downloads/GG%20Work%20Package%20II.pdf.
There is considerable evidence that young children (aged from 0 to 6) are immersed in a digital world from birth. For example, surveys conducted in the U.K. revealed that young children were active users of digital technologies engaging in a range of multimodal experiences (Marsh, 2005).
However, recent research has highlighted a dissonance between technology use in the home and at school and indeed a general under-utilisation of digital technologies in early years classrooms (Aubrey & Dahl, 2008).
Given that young children are engaging with digital technologies and digital practices in the home the possibilities afforded by these early digital experiences need to be more fully explored and accommodated within the classroom curriculum.
So how can we utilise digital technologies in ways that support children as readers, writers and thinkers? How can we use technologies to support the development of essential early literacy skills and increase motivation and engagement with literacy and learning?
I have been reflecting about this recently and here are some tentative musings and suggestions.
• Young children should engage with digital literacies in ways that encourage “playfulness, agency and creativity” (Burnett, 2010). Indeed, research has shown that children can draw on narratives and characters from their use of multimedia in their own play (Pahl, 2005).
• Digital technologies should not replace ‘busy’ workbook type activities in the classroom in drill-and-practice type scenarios. Freddy Hiebert noted, in her Frankly Freddy column, that “tricked out rote exercises will not support children’s love of language and literacy in the long run” (Hiebert, 2012).
• Digital technologies and multimodal texts offer the potential to support the development of early literacy skills. They present multiple means of representation, provide robust supports to meet the diverse needs of pupils in the classroom, and reduce the barriers to text (e.g. decoding difficulties) through embedded supports. BookBuilder from CAST (CAST.org ) is a particular favourite of mine and I have previously blogged about how BookBuilder can enhance the Language Experience Approach
• Digital technologies should complement or supplement teacher read aloud. For example, children can listen to or re-read favourite class room texts though storyline online, developed by the screen actors guild (http://www.storylineonline.net/) or through apps such as, a Story Before Bed-Personalized Children’s Picture books.
• Digital technologies should build on the creativity of children, provide opportunities for engagement and response and encourage children to become authors and producers of text. In addition digital technologies should encourage experimentation and expression with regard to the generation and construction of a story or message. Apps such as, Sock Puppets allow child to create a story, choose a background and record their voices. The sock puppets then automatically lip-synch to the child’s recorded voice. Other examples include Strip designer, for creating comics; Book Creator for Ipad and Story kit for creating stories to share with an audience outside the classroom walls.
• Digital technologies can supplement the development of fine motor skills for handwriting. Apps such as, Dexteria, which was developed for children with special needs, develops fine motor skills e.g pincer movements, finger strength and hand movements and letter formation. Watch the You tube video and you’ll see how appealing this app is. I would caution, however, that to my mind, nothing replaces concrete materials, like pegs and peg boards, sand trays, and making letters with plasticine for the development of fine motor skills for handwriting.
Burnett, C. (2010). Technology and literacy in early childhood educational settings: A review of research. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 10(3), 247-270.
Marsh, J., Brook, G., Hughes, J., Ritchie, L., Roberts, S. Wright, K.(2005). Digital beginnings: Young children’s use of popular culture, media and new technologies. Literacy Research Centre, Sheffield
Pahl, K. (2005). ‘Narrative spaces and multiple identities: Children’s textual explorations of console games in home settings’ In: J. Marsh (2005) (Ed.), Popular Culture, New Media and Digital Literacy in Early Childhood, pp. 126-143.London: Routledge.
I’ve been exploring the use of iPads to support literacy and science learning in middle school classrooms throughout the school year. One of the most powerful ways I’ve found to help students make deep and lasting connections to content learning is to design meaningful classroom projects that engage students in working collaboratively to convey ideas using digital tools that support multimodal expression. As student design and create, they purposefully use key vocabulary and integrate examples that illustrate their thinking. Student projects can be celebrated, showcased, and shared with an authentic audience made up of peers, teachers, and the wider community. They’re also a great way to formatively assess student learning.
Students work collaboratively on digital projects to support content learning.
The Power of Student Collaboration
By working collaboratively, students are challenged to think through the important processes of choosing a focus, reflecting on what they know and how to represent it, and designing an action plan. As peers enact their plans, they critique and rework their representations iteratively until they’re satisfied their work has achieved the intended goal.
Working with iPads has provided students easy-to-use apps that support drawing and annotating images, inserting photographs, and creating voiceover capabilities. These features make it possible for students to express their understanding in multiple ways through multiple means, an aspect central to Universal Design for Learning (UDL). This post focuses on two examples of digital collaborative projects and the apps that supported their creation.
ShowMe for the iPad
ShowMe (seehttp://itunes.apple.com/us/app/showme-interactive-whiteboard/id445066279?mt=8) is an FREE iPad app that allows users to use images, drawing tools, and voiceover to communicate ideas. Once a project is created, it can be shared on the ShowMe websitehttp://www.showme.com/ or embedded into any digital forum (blog, wiki, website, etc.) While this tool is often used by teachers in a receptive way, for example to deliver short lessons or tutorials to students, I was interested in getting ShowMeinto students’ hands so they could use its features creatively to express their understanding of concepts and ideas (thus enhancing and extending content they had learned).
Using ShowMe to Summarize Important Ideas from Reading
Linda Wilhelm’s 7th graders at Valley View Middle School in Pleasant Hill, CA were studying genetics in their Science class. ShowMewas used to support an enhanced jigsaw activity where students created were expected to weave key ideas from their textbook and web-based reading into a short project that expressed their understanding of the content and provided examples. There were several subtopics; and pairs were assigned one of four themes to convey: 1) Some genes are dominant while others are recessive, 2) Mendelian laws apply to human beings, 3) All cells arise from pre-existing cells through the process of cell-division, 4) Sex cells have one set of chromosomes, body cells have two.
Students were shown a sample ShowMeproject created by the teacher to give a sense of what was possible with ShowMe (which included importing images, drawing features, stop and start capabilities, and voiceover). Then, a project rubric was distributed and discussed with students to convey expectations for the project. Finally, students were provided time to plan and record their ShowMe projects.
Although storyboarding on paper was modeled and provided as an option, students preferred to draft their ideas directly into ShowMe. As they drafted, they created multiple takes that were played back and evaluated by students iteratively. Critiquing and revising with the ShowMe tool was immediate and satisfying for students and sparked careful re-reading and reflection on the texts provided. It also sparked discussion on important aspects of visual literacy as students carefully thought through what images would best help illustrate their main points. Throughout, collaboration was evident and a vital part of the digital content creation process.
ShowMe Student Examples
Click on the URLs provided and the ShowMe projects will open in a new window:
Using iMovie for the iPad to Construct, Explain, and Show Understanding
Leon Young’s 6th graders at Realm Charter School in Berkeley, CA were studying plate boundaries during a plate tectonics unit. They designed and built their own scientific models to show the characteristics of plate boundaries in different locations around the world. Students were then invited to create a short video using iMovie to showcase and explain their model to their classmates and school community.
Pairs of students worked together to think through how to convey science content through their video productions. As they discussed shot selection, they showed a keen awareness of audience and purpose and found meaningful ways to explain scientific terms and concepts for those unfamiliar with the content. As was the case with the ShowMe projects, students created multiple takes and revised iteratively as they reflected on word choice and overall flow of ideas. The result was a strong and solid representation of what they learned that showcased both creativity and collaboration.
iMovie Student Example
Using Digital Tools to Support Multimodal Expression
When asked about the making these digital products students said the work was “fun, active, and creative.” Not only did these projects support engagement with content, they also supported the development of vital 21st century literacies. Students were able to showcase their learning in ways that involved multimodal expression which requires higher level thinking skills such as synthesis, evaluation, and critique (and are also central to the Common Core State Standards).
If you’re looking for a step-by-step guide for the use of ShowMe, iMovie, or other iPad apps that support literacy and content learning, click on the Step-by-step Guide to iPad apps and HandoutForIRAPreCon. These presentation materials are from the IRA session that Jen Tilson and I delivered in Chicago, IL in May 2012. Other speakers’ session materials, including Bernadette Dwyer’s handouts, can be accessed from the IRA TILE-Sig website at http://tilesig.wikispaces.com/Conference2
Add a comment to this post and share ways you’ve had students to create content and reflect on learning through the use of digital tools. Sharing examples is a great way to get our collective juices flowing and sparks our creativity. In the process, we’ll learn about a range of new tools and techniques for teaching and learning with technology. Enjoy!
Before joining Vanderbilt University, I had the good fortune to serve as the Director of Literacy and Technology at CAST, a non-profit research and development organization dedicated to improving student learning and engagement through the integration of universal design for learning (Rose & Meyer, 2002), technology, and subject matter content and skills.
Today I want to feature Science Writer, a free online writing tool developed by Tracey Hall, Elizabeth Murray, and CAST colleagues. It’s a wonderful example of how to scaffold students’ writing in relation to the demands of a particular writing genre, in this case, the science lab report, or more generally, the science report. The tool is designed for use with middle school and high school students, but might also work for upper elementary students, depending on their skill.
How does Science Writer work? Science Writer steps students through the process of writing a report with introduction, methods, results, and conclusion sections. Students draft, revise, and edit their report, using just-in-time support from pedagogical agents who offer models and information about how to write each section. They may also access content and editing checklists to help them evaluate their writing and make revisions. And finally, students can use the embedded text-to-speech tool to listen to their writing to see if it “sounds right” and to listen to any of the directions and instructional material, as well as accessing vocabulary definitions. Each student has their own Science Writer account and teachers are able to view students’ work and provide feedback throughout the writing process.
Science Writer supports students through their writing process.
Is there research support for Science Writer?
In a study funded by the US Department of Education, Hall and Murray (2009) found that students using Science Writer improved writing and science comprehension skills. A field test study is underway and results should be available soon. You can find additional information about their research at http:///www.cast.org/research/projects/tws.html.
I recommend you check out Science Writer – if it’s not the right fit for your grade level or subject matter, please share it with your favorite middle school or high school science teacher!
This brief video for students explains how the Science Writer features can help them write a more successful science report.
The Language Experience Approach (LEA) (Hall, 1986; Stauffer, 1970) is to my mind an organic approach to the teaching of reading. Organic in three ways: firstly, LEA constructs a reading curriculum based around the lived and shared experiences of children; secondly it welcomes the cultural backgrounds of children; and thirdly LEA affirms the child’s own language diversity and language patterns within the developed reading materials. LEA helps to develop early literacy skills such as, phonological awareness, phonics, concepts of print, word identification strategies, vocabulary, oral language development, reading comprehension and reading fluency.
My students have used the LEA approach successfully with children on Teaching Practice placement in schools. Lately, we have begun to use online ebooks as a way to create, share and publish our LEA stories. This has helped to accommodate the LEA approach within the 21st century classroom.
We have developed ebooks with audio, video and image support. In addition, we have begun to use Book Builder, a free downloadable digital tool, developed by the CAST organisation (http://bookbuilder.cast.org/).
Book Builder offers a “scaffolded digital reading” environment (Dalton & Proctor, 2008) and is underpinned by principles of universal design for learning (UDL) (Rose & Meyer, 2002). In essence, this means that reading is accessible to all through the provision of a myriad of learning supports, multiple means of representation in audio and visual modes, and ways to build engagement and expression. Book builder is easy to use with a comprehensive how to Tips and Resources page.
Katie Murphy and her 1st grade students have been crafting the story of Karl the Teddy and his Adventures. So far in chapter one he has been to the St. Patrick’s Day parade where he took part in festivities (an experience that all of the children can relate to); and in chapter 2 Karl the Teddy has met Lucky Duck and together they are saving Easter from an evil bunny who has stolen all of the chocolate (luckily they succeed!). I visited the classroom today where Karl and Lucky Duck take pride of place on Karl’s adventure table. The children were clearly engaged in writing and illustrating the story and loved the avatar coaches who prompted them to add details to the story; to forge connections between their own lives and those of Karl, to make predictions or to read the story aloud. You will have to wait a while to read the story on the public domain on the CAST website, as the children informed me they are already planning more adventures for Karl in chapter 3!
Lucky Duck took the bad Easter Bunny to jail and splashed water all over him and he was a good Easter Bunny again.
In the meantime, take a look at one of my favourite books on the CAST web site: Play Ball with Me! A Joel and Angel Book written and illustrated by Ann Meyer. The book features Anne’s two dogs in a story of the trials of friendship and is beautifully illustrated by her own digital photographs of her two charming dogs, with audio links, and a helpful illustrated glossary of terms. It features a text-to-speech feature but develops more than just listening comprehension.
copyright Ann Meyer
copyright Ann Meyer
One of the strengths of Book Builder is the presence of avatar coaches. These coaches can be customized, by the teacher, to the learning needs of the child where each coach can help the child to develop response; expand vocabulary, build strategy usage (e.g. making predictions, forging connections, asking questions). (Elmo is the sweetest avatar coach of all!) The children can also craft their own responses to answer teacher provided questions. Therefore, in providing a customized reading environment it affirms the uniqueness of the child as a reader, writer and thinker.
Bridget Dalton
berdwyer
Blaine Smith
danagrisham
jillcastek
TDWolsey
Literacy Beat 