Digital Texts and Tools: Potential Uses, Assessments, and
Methodologies for the Literacy Educator and Researcher
(A) Importance of the topic
The Common Core State Standards note that in order for students to be college and career ready online research and media skills need to be embedded across all subjects. Simultaneously Smarter Balance and PARCC are developing assessments that require students to read multiple multimodal sources and utilize tablets and laptops to complete assessments.
As students and teachers are in the midst of this huge paradigm shift (Harnad, 1991; Lankshear & Knobel, 2003; Leu, 2000) data has emerged suggesting a disconnect between the literacy practices students use in school, and those that they employ out of school and in online spaces (Leander, 2003; Lenhart, Rainie & Lewis, 2001; Levin & Arafeh, 2002; Williams, 2005).
Even though a drastic chasm exists between students’ literary lives and the literacy practices of schools, we must acknowledge that interest in authentic and effective classroom applications of technology are growing (Dalton & Proctor, 2006).
In order for literacy educators and researchers to use technology to transform instruction, and prepare for shifts required by the CCSS, they will need assistance in creating environments that take advantage of networked, multi-linear, and social tools (Landow, 1992). Leu, Kinzer, Coiro, and Cammack (2004) suggest that complex learning in the 21st century is increasingly a social activity where learners support each other’s construction of knowledge. They further argue strategic knowledge about how and when to use various technologies is vitally important.
This study group will bring together those interested in researching, investigating, and practically implementing 21st Century literacy skills through the application of Web 2.0 tools in the literacy classroom.
(B) Issues to be considered
This study group will be arranged to highlight one type of Web 2.0 tool each day with a focus on application, assessment, and research methodologies.
Application: Frequently, practitioners and researchers are not aware of contemporary research on 21st Century tools (Alvermann, 2008; Burke, 2000; Bruce, 2004; Callow, 2008; Grisham & Wolsey, 2012; Hull, 2003; Jolls, 2008; Merchant, 2008). These new spaces and tools that foster 21st Century literacies emerge and change so rapidly that educators have difficulty discriminating among the most pedagogically sound technology choices. Complicating faculty adoption decisions are the range of social media abilities manifested by different students, some of whom have technology skills and knowledge that far exceed their instructors. This study group will focus on the application of a “Digital Text or Tool.” We will demonstrate how each tool can be used in the classroom and provide online tutorials for participants. Each “Digital Text or Tool” will be an emergent technology that is cost-effective and fosters real time collaboration.
Assessment: Attendees at the 2010 study group on Web 2.0 tools expressed concern with how to assess students’ work when using collaborative technologies. The study group will focus on strategies teacher educators can use to assess student proficiency with the “Digital Text or Tool” presented each day.
Methodology: Another challenge facing researchers is the ability to adapt traditional research methodologies to online spaces for learning (Coiro, Knobel, Lankshear & Leu, 2008). Due to the rapid pace of change involving technology, quantitative and qualitative research
methodologies that study the authentic use of technology in literacy practices must also evolve. Presenters will share suggested methodologies and discuss potential research designs for each of the tools.
(C) Evidence of members’ interest in this area
In May 2009, the IRA updated The New Literacies and 21st Century Technologies position statement, making significant changes that reflected the membership’s priorities. This statement affirms IRA’s belief that literacy educators have a responsibility to integrate 21st Century literacy skills and tools into the curriculum (IRA, 2009). Alvermann (2001) also notes the importance of creating technology rich learning environments for adolescent learners in an LRA/NRC policy brief.
Most importantly, the rationale and design for this study group highlighting the specific application, assessment, and methodological options of the “digital texts and tools” was developed at the Literacy Research Association Study Group on Web 2.0 tools (Author, 2010), and conducted last year for the first time. Participants expressed a desire to continue to learn about: new tools, strategies for assessing tool use, and possible research designs to examine the use of these tools.
(D) Rationale grounded in current professional literature, including references
A gap is widening between the way youth engage in digital media in their personal lives and the way literacy is taught and framed in classrooms through official standards and assessments (O’Brien & Scharber, 2008). In classroom contexts, most definitions of 21st Century literacies describe specific taxonomies of skills related to specific topics. While these definitions facilitate easy standardization and measurement, they often fail to capture the frenetic pace of technological innovation and the multiple literacies aligned with the new skills. As
technology grows older, the social practices associated with them are still taught, despite their obsolescence (Ba, Tally, & Tsikalas, 2002).
As just one study suggests, 21st Century literacies are critical to all aspects of thinking, even in activities that we have come to think of as traditional, such as the study of literature. Connie Mietlicki’s (2009) illustrative research demonstrates that adolescents who use social media are able to respond to literature with higher order critical thinking. “Future teachers,” she writes, “should prepare to teach technologically capable learners and to write engaging lessons to promote higher-order thinking skills.” (p. 1)
Finally, every professional education organization champions effective integration of 21st Century literacies. Making Every Moment Count: Maximizing Quality Instruction Time—a collaborative report produced by IRA and eight other professional organizations—states that “utilizing technology to enhance learning opportunities” (2007, p. 8) is critical to quality classroom instruction.
(E) An agenda, structure, and organization for the sessions
Each day will be organized with a 20/20/20 format. Twenty minutes will be spent on introducing the tool and highlighting its application, twenty minutes on assessing tool use, and twenty minutes on possible research designs. This will be followed up by open-access, brown bag, help sessions in the Cyber Cafe prior to morning meetings to allow for hands-on experience with each text and tool.
Day 1 – Online Collaborative Inquiry. We will explore asynchronous and synchronous methods of delivering online education as a false dichotomy. Specifically we will use a lens of Universal Instructional Design to examine strategies to make online education more equitable. Then we will focus on mobile alternatives to instruction and delivery assessment using Google Hangouts, Screencasting, and other free digital texts and tools. The focus will be on building a community of learners by having students bring in experiences from their local lives to share globally.
Day 2 – Digital Reading Comprehension. Reading from digital information sources is an increasingly complex issue for students from elementary school to higher education. Initially the focus for educators was on scaffolding readers while ensuring their safety. As students increasingly use online information for personal, health, and academic research, the focus for literacy researchers and educators needs to be on ways to empower students as they research online. This session will provide participants with strategies to use digital tools to annotate , curate, and archive online information (e.g., Notability, iAnnotate, SubText, Side-by-side, Adobe Reader, and Scratchwork). Presenters will also share strategies that can be used to prepare students to more skillfully search online information sources and make judgments about the texts they encounter there.
Day 3 - Online Content Construction. Switching the paradigm from efficiency to content--tablets and the cloud in the classroom. Schools across the globe are entering the post PC era with tablet computing. In this session we will share reports from the field on the fundamental differences between using the tablet to be more efficient, and using the tablet to enrich content. Presenters will discuss workflow strategies, professional development challenges, and examples of student work. Specifically researchers will demonstrate the use of Cloud-based tools for classroom content enrichment. The session will close with a discussion of research methods that can move beyond learning gains.
Day 4 - Digital Horizons. This final session will focus on possible “next steps” in the authentic and effective use of digital texts and tools in literacy research and instruction. The impetus for this session is taken from the yearly Horizon Report focusing on emerging technologies for teaching, learning, research, and creative inquiry. Participants will share uses of mobile technology in research and instruction of literacy-based activities. This session will close with a discussion of future digital texts and tools currently being used by literacy researchers and educators.
(F) Activities undertaken prior to the 2012 meeting to ensure adequate attendance and a successful study group experience.
Prior to the 2012 meeting, the presenters will post information about the sessions on the LRA listserv. Additionally all materials and videos of sessions will be available on the study group website (https://sites.google.com/site/textsandtools/), on the LRA website, and on the LRA YouTube Channel. Participants will be asked to bring laptops, netbooks, smartphones or iPads to meetings of the study group.
References
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