"The distinctive contribution of the approach to literacy as social practice lies in the ways in which it involves careful and sensitive attention to what people do with texts, how they make sense of them and use them to further their own purposes in their own learning lives" (Gillen and Barton, 2010, p. 9).
As an educator, parent, and student, I have been able to experience the contributions of the technology in Literacy. While reading the articles Literacy and the New Technologies in School Education: Meeting the L(IT)eracy Challenge? (Durant and Green, 2000) and The Educated Blogger: Using Weblogs to Promote Literacy in the Classroom (Huffaker, 2005), I was able to reflect on the changes from my personal experience, since I was a K -12 student at the times of publications and on the quote above.
Traditional classrooms offered printed texts and classroom textbooks as tools of learning. These versions of literacy created limitations for educators, because they only had access to the physicals materials at hand. As a current educator, the amount of digital resources I have at my disposal help me cater to my wide range of readers. This also allows me to create lessons which offer different was for student to present their knowledge to me. Students have more resources at their fingertips to help them be more successful and taking their learning to the next level in all subjects (Huffaker, 2005).
During this past school year, digital literacy became my most valued companion, as my school initiated the school year on the virtual platform. The use of online digital libraries and multi-leveled lessons helped me be successful at delivering effective instruction to my students. During the pandemic shut down, the previous shift and exposure to digital means of communication and learning made the school year possible. In a world where everything was an uncertainty, virtual education was already a proven method of instruction. Teachers began creating lesson which involved social components in efforts to connect the students virtually. Platforms such as Padlet, Pear Deck, Nearpod, and Google Classroom helped teachers create an effective online community and learning environment for their students. As mentioned before in allowing students to interact and share knowledge in various ways, Padlet is a great resource. I presented Padlet to my students and they were able to share their knowledge with images, verbal responses, and connect similar ideas to that of their peers in a connecting web diagram. It helped us discuss literary works and share our perspectives in ways the students felt more comfortable. This can be seen in Green's approach to literacy graphical representation, where students can identify various literary practices and social modalities while constructing their own perspectives (DECS, 1996). In Digital Literacies, Tabetha Newman concluded, "that one way of better making sense of the use of emerging, digital, technologies is to create a development framework for schools" (Gillen and Barton, 2015, p. 25), this framework she talked about in 2009, made the transition to remote instruction possible for schools. Through the distribution of a Chromebook, schools were able to close out the 2019-2020 school year and begin the 2020-2021 year. This was a direct result of the students being exposed to using technologies in the classroom and having technology courses prior to shutdown. Technology and multi digital learning platforms allows educators to collect an extensive amount of data to better address the needs of students on an individual level, while remote. It also allows educators to assign text that are catered to the student and additional learning resources such as videos and audio clips, to help students succeed virtually.
In our current world, people are naturally attracted by the idea of being social on digital platforms (Huffaker, 2005). In efforts to stay current and keep up with the times, the daily use of social media has us reading more than ever before. Using this as an educational tool that meets the interests of the students and produces organic engagement is key to a productive learning environment. I remember a time, when I had to go to the library on a special trip to research a topic of interest. Now, I can simply search on my phone or laptop. I can receive my information in various ways as well. I can view a video and receive the information orally and visually through images or demonstrations, I can read about it in a digital article or digital copy of a book. I can then proceed to discuss on a forum or express my opinions about it on a blog (Huffaker, 2005). Humans have evolved into digital creatures, from digital news reports, magazines and even the newspaper. Web usage has increased significantly from 1999, and we continue to greatly depend on it today (Durant and Green, 2000). One overall argument for technology is the time saving and limitless opportunities to extend your learning circle. Educators can create a blog platform to challenge their students to think beyond the given, express their ideas and question each other on an educational level (Huffaker, 2005). Digital literacy has reshaped classrooms by helping to make education fun, engaging and interesting to the present day student.
References
Durrant, C and Green, B (2000). Literacy and the New Technologies in School Education: Meeting the L(IT)eracy Challenge? Australian Journal of Language and Literacy.
Gillan, J and Barton, D (2015). Digital literacies: A research briefing by the Technology Enhance Learning phase of the Teaching and Learning Research Programme. London: London Knowledge Lab Institute of Education.
Huffaker, D. (2005). The Educated Blogger: Using Weblogs to Promote Literacy in the Classroom. Advancement of Computing in Education 13(2).
I too used Padlet during the lockdown period. I was student teaching in a 1st grade classroom this past fall and we went full remote for about a month over Christmas break. New digital platforms for teaching and home life became necessary to our mental health and survival during the pandemic. I love how it offered our students a change to connect even though we were all remote. And it definitely has made teaching and learning more interactive a fun. I couldn't even imagine teaching like our teachers did back in the day. I too remember having to take a trip to the library to research a topic. Having the internet at our fingertips sure does make that a little easier!
ReplyDeleteCarolyn, I really appreciate the point you made about how "technology and multi digital learning platforms allows educators to collect an extensive amount of data to better address the needs of students on an individual level." When I worked as a high school ELA teacher, I was responsible for teaching 100+ students across 6 sections of courses, and I found that using digital tools such as Google Forms, NewsELA, CommonLit, etc. were extremely helpful in collecting data from students' assignments. This allowed me to spend more time in the classroom actually getting to know and connecting with the human beings in front of me through class discussions and small group or 1:1 conferences. I was better able to meet individual needs because of the efficiency of digital assessment tools. Gillen and Barton (2010) discuss the use of technology in assessments, and I feel that these digital assessments should be used whenever possible.
ReplyDeleteHello Carolyn, this post was both informative and insightful. I agree with what you mentioned regarding the number of digital tools at our disposal. For my class, I was able to create and upload classwork activities that would mimic "in-person" activities. I used a variety of digital platforms such as Jamboard, Microsoft Teams, and Class OneNote. Using these platforms helped me during synchronous sessions and I realized an increase in participation. Students that usually do not participate in-person would participate via this approach and it will make the class more engaging. When it came to literacy, digital tools made it easier for writing assignments. Enforcing the Substitution, Augmentation, Modification, and Redefinition (SAMR) model, it transformed the way we are able to replace traditional ways of teaching and as we all know this pandemic “forced” us to find better and creative ways to teaching. One of my favorite digital tools is Class OneNote which allows students to write and collaborate on the same document regardless of their physical location.
ReplyDeleteHello Carolyn, I enjoyed reading this post. I like how you mentioned how much reading students actually do daily. Even though we often don’t consider “social media” usage as capable of building relevant skills, it is important to understand that it’s really up to adults to show the students the relevancy in all their media usage. It’s very similar to us tying in their cultural backgrounds to lessons. I also agree with you about digital resources creating a lot of avenues for teachers to differentiate and make learning more relevant. Thank you for this insightful blog post.
ReplyDeleteCarolyn,
ReplyDeleteYou raise such a good point about the benefits of the internet not only for our students, but for us as educators. As an art teacher, I can't imagine trying to teach my students without internet access. My mother was also an art teacher, and I always say to her "I don't know how you did this back then!" From an art standpoint, the internet allows me to show the students virtually anyone's work without needing a printed poster or reference. It also allows me to keep the art I show them as modern as possible; when Banksy shredded his own paintings at auction a few years ago, it was so fun to have the kids excited about something that was current in the art world as we watched the video clips over and over again.