Technology

Description

The artifact is directly from a section in C&T 824: Problems in Second Language Instruction, which was part of a larger document, the Bridge Project. In this section I describe software that I found to be useful in our language sessions for our ᏣᎳᎩ ᎦᏬᏂᎯᏍᏗ ᎠᏂᏫᏒᏍᎩ, the Cherokee language Master Apprentice Program (CLMAP). We require journaling where students describe their day. Students can reflect on the lesson and share about their learning process. We decided to use the app SeeSaw to allow our learners to journal together, to work on their daily projects collectively. The tool allowed them to collaborate or to work independently. The artifact is an excerpt from the Bridge Project where I describe how CLAMP uses this too.

Multiple literacy, as an approach to language learning, has shown that learners have life experiences with acquiring literacy skills outside of the classroom and those experiences are influenced and framed in academic settings (Peregoy & Boyle, 2017). In C&T 824 I learned multiple literacies and how the use of technology can help second language learners in the process of second language acquisition. For example, technologies can help organize their thoughts, collaborate on shared projects, and use review language content. Technologies also help the teacher with formative assessments to track students’ understanding of the language lessons, and their affective state. To illustrate, with Seesaw the teacher can see the students’ affective states and see if they are struggling.

Rationale

In the artifact, I suggest how digital platforms can be valuable in engaging learners in reading, writing, listening, and speaking in their language classroom. In the C&T 824, I was asked to explore a number of technology tools and consider how I must use them in my context. I learned SeeSaw from a colleague in the course. I played with the tool before sending it along to employees at CLAMP. Together we decided that we would try out the tool in the classroom by asking students to use it to journal.

Students start in English and over time they begin to respond in Cherokee. I didn’t expect that to happen. Although we don’t teach them in Cherokee, they begin to use Cherokee in their work. When I hypothesized that would happen, I was surprised to see that happen in the journal. We started the project so that students would have a touchstone in English. We reasoned that students would need the comfort of their own language and we wanted the journal to be that space. However, over time students begin to use Cherokee in this space.

The initial software platform that we chose to experiment with was called Explain Anything. It’s an interactive whiteboard. Initially, I was most excited about it, but I found that it didn’t work as well as I thought. Although it would be appropriate for a more formal classroom session, it offered more than what was necessary for the journaling purposes we needed at CLAMP. One of the reasons that we chose Seesaw was because it allowed for hyperlinks for audio recordings. So they could use their journal as documentation. In determining the technology tool that was most appropriate for our context, my team and I needed to consider the purpose of the assignments, the experience and knowledge of our teachers, and the ease of use for our students. We found that Seesaw was able to address all of these needs. In my C&T 824 course, I become more aware of how to evaluate these technology tools. I was also able to hear from colleagues and hear their opinions about these tools.

Although my artifact focuses on Seesaw, I have been able to use technology in a variety of ways to engage my learners and extend their use of language use. First, I use social media, such as Facebook and Messenger to communicate quickly and effectively to our students, prospective students, and community members. I communicate about classes and we have doubled the size of our program. We also share resources and events. In Messenger groups we talk about absences, COVID-related concerns, and other class-related information. The use of social media allows our younger students to stay engaged; they prefer this type of communication over other types of communication. It allows us to respond to our students in ways that are comfortable for them.

Second, I ask students to use technology in their capstone projects. Students get to choose their portfolios and they can present their work through video, Powerpoints. Students do a 5-10 minute presentation that showcases their language proficiency in Cherokee that is shared during their graduation ceremony. The presentation will also be used as a teaching tool for future Cherokee language lessons.

Students are required to leave the sheltered environment of the language program to interact with others in the Cherokee community. They meet with people in the community and engage with that speaker to help create their language content in the presentation. Sometimes they will interview an elder, and they will have the interview transcripted with highlighted key phrases or words. Sometimes they put together a video that simulates a children’s show with vignettes. Students have done puppet shows, animations, and interviews. And sometimes, they do even boring things, like teaching the first 100 verbs, but they use technology to have audio samples. One student interviewed his father to share what he thought would be necessary for teaching Cherokee language. They have a lot of leeway in what they can do, but they need to use technology as the presentation will be showcased during graduation. Sometimes we even share it on social media as well. Together all of these presentations become part of our curriculum.

Multiple literacies is exemplified by my son ᎠᎦᎵᏏᎦ (Agalisiga’s) English literacy experiences. As he was growing up, we focused on speaking ᏣᎳᎩ (Cherokee) at home and I even read to him from our limited selection of texts in ᏣᎳᎩ. Despite that, he began to learn how to read English words and phrases on his own, from signage around him, to the dialogue in his Xbox 360 games. He was already bi-lingual and literate in ᏣᎳᎩ, so it made sense for his life experiences to lead him towards English literacy in a digital and globalized environment. While he still continued to learn our heritage language, we began to incorporate English bedtime stories when I read to him at night. By the time he started his English education in eighth grade, he already was a proficient ᏣᎳᎩ reader, though he was a novice in English writing. His literacy in our heritage language allowed him to apply his core ᏣᎳᎩ academic skills to the novel English classroom environment seamlessly.

The focus on an autonomous literacy for educational purposes, overlooks and neglects a wide opportunity to incorporate multiple literacies in an Educational context. As we become exposed to an increasingly digital and global society, integrating multiple literacies has become a needed focus to educate the upcoming learners in our schools. I hope to explore how my students could create their own shared portfolio in the future. Literacy is not always neutral and autonomous. Specifically, Larson (2006, p. 3), points out there is a perspective about literacy that places it on a continuum from autonomous, seemingly neutral forms of literacy on one end of the scale and ideological literacy, integrated and embedded in the daily lives of individuals. This is something I have been aware of but have not applied critical to such a paradigm. As an indigenous person I have come to realize that even the language of literature, be it English, Mandarin, or Cherokee (ᏣᎳᎩ), has inherent implications of power relationships imbedded in the context of presentation. This is even without analyzing content.

References

Larson, J. (2006). Multiple literacies, curriculum, and instruction in early childhood and elementary school. Theory into Practice, 45(4),

319-327.

Peregoy, S. F., & Boyle, O. G. (2017). Reading, writing, and learning in ESL: A resource book for teaching K-12 English learners.

Boston, MA: Pearson.

Using a smart board to edit and correct ᏣᎳᎩ (Cherokee) notes about verb conjugation based on the verb objects' shape and size.