Literacy Now

Cowinners of the 2015 ILA Technology and Literacy Award, Libby Curran and Carolyn Fortuna, are exemplary digital role models. Their work informs how to create, innovate, and use technologies for students to become successful, lifelong readers.

Libby Curran, a first-grade teacher at Richards School in Newport, New Hampshire, was recognized for her project,The Reading Train: Learn to Read Books, Songs, & Games, an award-winning app, for use on Android devices and iPads. She created the app to offer motivating books to engage and support emergent readers, special needs students, and English learners. Drawing from 20 years of teaching experience, she designed the app with over 200 nonfiction and fiction books children listen to, read, and record. Books include simple language, pictures to support concept words, and topics of interest to children. The books also address Common Core State Standards and align to Guided Reading Levels A, B, and C.

The Reading Train gives emergent readers opportunities to practice independent reading with the support of interactive audio, visual scaffolding, a picture/audio dictionary, and a tap/hold option to hear spoken words. It includes quiz games, songbook rewards, and books that build background knowledge, decoding, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension skills. With unlimited user accounts, teachers can listen to children’s recordings, track number of books read, and monitor quiz scores. Libby designed the app specifically so children learn about the world while learning to read.

The Reading Train is a must-have app for teachers, tutors, families, and community-based agencies.

Carolyn Fortuna, an English teacher at Franklin High School in Franklin, Massachusetts, was recognized for her project, “Reading Meets a 1:1 Digital Environment” in Senior High School English. Her work changes how students engage with texts like Deconstructing Disney. It uses digital tools to help students interpret how media messages influence perceptions and to create a voice to compose, produce, and read the 21st-century worlds. 

Using digital media literacy, a mix of topics, primary source documents, Google websites, Chromebooks, Prezis, Quizlets, YouTube videos, film trailers, and more, Carolyn cross-links assignments to build students’ background knowledge and visual deconstruction of media messages. Reading activities include reading intertextually, researching across cultures, analyzing critically, and composing digitally, using multiple modes of print, audio, digital, visual, and video. Questioning prompts to deconstruct media messages include How might different people understand this message differently than me? or Why is this message being sent?

Deconstruction of media messages starts with Google Chromebooks, populated with heuristics, to scaffold students’ encoding of textural messages. Units focus on advertisement analysis, digital workshop argumentation, survey of nonfiction essays with collaborative teaching, study of curated museums of texts through e-learning modules, and production of genre-based compositions with embedded images, podcasts, narrations, YouTube videos, poems, fiction and nonfiction. All experiences move learning from “recall to critical analysis, digital composition, transformation, and publication.”

Through inquire opportunities, students learn to read 21st-century worlds focused on how to interpret texts differently. “Intellectual conversations that critically examine the production, distribution, and meaning of messages” strengthen lifelong learning, critical literacy skills, and 21st-century reading.

Also founder of IDigIt Media, Carolyn supports educators to incorporate critical analysis and digital composition in courses and workshops. Her work certainly “creates spaces where people from divergent viewpoints can work together to better understand the power and place of digital and media learning and literacy in today’s society.”

The ILA Technology and Literacy Award, honors educators in grades K–12 who are making an outstanding and innovative contribution to the use of technology in reading education. All entrants must be educators who work directly with students ages 5–18 for all or part of the working day. Application deadline is January 15.

Tammy Ryan is an associate professor of reading education at Jacksonville University, Jacksonville, FL.

This article is part of a series from the Technology in Literacy Education Special Interest Group (TILE-SIG).

On the Advanced Placement (AP) English literature test, one question allows the test taker to choose a novel or play of literary merit and respond to the prompt, using the selected text as the support material. When helping my students, I told them they should never use texts such as Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings. Why not? Because such books use magic to solve human problems, and magic is not available to mere mortals.

For teachers who are unfamiliar, learning science sometimes seems like magic beyond the resources of mere mortal teachers. Just as the characters in the classics have to deal with real-life problems, mere mortal teachers struggle to deal with human problems that real students have such as poverty, lack of technology, and zero Wi-Fi access. Learning scientists seem to be outside of the struggle and are like wizards practicing magic with brand potions like advanced computing technologies and spells using academic jargon in enchanted faraway places with uninterrupted Wi-Fi connection known as colleges and universities.

I remember learning about the educational theories of B.F. Skinner, John Dewey, and even Lev Vygotsky as a first-year teacher candidate. I remember discussing with my future colleagues, who often thought it was a waste of time for all of us to read the theories. Now, after having taught high school English for more than a decade in a school district where the majority of students receive Title I federal funding, I believe a little bit of a true and practical magical ingredient known as “learning science” might just be what teachers truly need to understand the pedagogy behind our practices. When I say magic, I don’t mean the hocus-pocus variety that will fix all problems for teachers—I mean the magic that all of us can bring to the classroom to make learning impactful and powerful, by understanding what makes our practical strategies effective.

For example, Harry Potter learned to use the power of magic and became a hero through his unwavering grit, a concept which Angela Lee Duckworth, Christopher Peterson, Michael D. Matthews, and Dennis R. Kelly described in “Grit: Perseverance and Passion for Long-Term Goals.” In addition to his deep friendship with Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, Harry received help from more knowledgeable others including his professors as he worked to overcome obstacles, and his countless hours of magic training was created by his professors’ understanding of zone of proximal development, not unlike what Vygotsky wrote in Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes.

In my own classroom, I began requiring my students to write daily reflections after learning about the importance of metacognition and its impact on academic writing skills development that Arthur N. Applebee wrote about with Judith A. Langer and on his own, as did John H. Flavell.

Of course, Harry encountered false or pseudo magic, as teachers are sometimes led astray. Take learning styles, for example. Many educators have been told learners have different learning styles, and our job is to differentiate our instruction to target these learning styles when teaching. Despite numerous and strenuous repudiation by respected learning scientists (as seen in this video created by Smithsonian Science Education Center and in this article by Olivia Goldhill for Quartz), teachers are still being told that we must adapt our lessons on the basis of false information.

Where is Professor Snape when we need him to set everyone straight?

I am sure that in a learning science course for teachers, he would tell teachers to learn about the Universal Design for Learning framework and ditch learning styles forever!

If you are a teacher, you might wish for that one book of spells that would teach us to become true wizards of teaching. The truth is that we simply don’t have it. As a matter of fact, we have too many resources that promise a quick solution to all educational ills.  And many such books do not provide the necessary information based on strong learning sciences principles. So how will we know the truth? Remember Harry? Despite being born a wizard, Harry needed to attend a school to hone his magical abilities. Teachers need similar support from reputable learning scientists. There are also a few books that teachers should read. One such book is How People Learn (downloadable for free here) that provides basic learning science information to anyone interested in learning, which should be the focus of good teaching.

Learning is a complex endeavor. All of us in learning and education need to be mindful of real human issues that teachers face, so that all teachers have the right type of support. By working together, we can create magic more powerful than Harry could ever achieve!

Kip Glazer is a native of Seoul, South Korea, and immigrated to the United States in 1993 as a college student. She holds California Single Subject Teaching Credentials in Social Studies, English, Health, Foundational Mathematics, and School Administration. In 2014, she was named the Kern County Teacher of the Year. She earned her doctorate of education in learning technologies at Pepperdine University in October 2015. She has presented and keynoted at many state and national conferences on game-based learning and educational technologies. She has also consulted for Center for Innovative Research in Cyberlearning and the Kennedy Center ArtsEdge Program.

Integrating technology into instruction can be an overwhelming task for classroom teachers. How do new digital technologies fit with what I am currently doing? How do I add one more thing to an already overcrowded day? How do I make the best choices? What does technology have to do with literacy anyway? These are just some of the many questions facing classroom teachers today that can lead to resistance in adapting technology for literacy and learning.

The teachers at Benchmark School had these concerns. We knew technology was important for preparing our students to be successful literacy learners, but we had more questions than answers. Benchmark School is a small, independent school for students in grades 1–8 who have challenges with how they process language or have experienced a mismatch in how they learn related to how they have been instructed. A few years ago, the school took on the challenge of equipping its teachers and students to leverage the power of technology and develop a framework for technology integration.

There are many resources that provide direction for technology integration. The Benchmark community examined a number of these:

1. International Society for Technology in Education Student Standards
2. Manitoba Literacy with ICT Continuum
3. NCTE Framework for 21st Century Curriculum and Assessment
4. Mozilla Web Literacy Map
5. Common Sense Media K-12 Digital Citizenship Curriculum

As we explored each of these resources, we reflected on how they matched the instructional philosophy of the school. We also consulted with leading literacy researchers with interest in technology, including Julie Coiro and Jill Castek, for feedback and direction.

Out of our reflections and discussions developed the Benchmark School Framework for Technology Integration. The framework covers five key areas:

1. Online Research and Reading Comprehension
2. Communication & Collaboration
3. Problem Solving & Creative Innovation
4. Digital Citizenship
5. Strategic and Efficient Use of Technology

For each of these key areas, we developed a rationale and list of student standards.

After completing work on the framework, we felt that it was important to develop a version of the framework that was student-friendly and could be used by teachers in instruction and to cue students to implement what they have been learning. The five key areas from the framework were posed as questions:

1. What are my strategies for reading and researching online?
2. What strategies can I use to work well with others online?
3. How do I use technology to creatively think about and solve problems?
4. What strategies can I use to be safe and respect the privacy of others and myself?
5. What strategies do I have to be an effective, efficient, and strategic user of technology?

Each of the key questions was broken down into more focused questions to help students (and teachers) understand various aspects of the key questions. Finally, a poster was developed to display in classrooms so that the questions would be visible to all and to serve as a constant reminder for the strategic and efficient uses of technology.

Once the framework and poster were complete, we determined a process for implementation of the framework. We began by asking teachers to focus on one question, “What strategies can I use to be safe and respect the privacy of others and myself?” The next year, we expanded to another question to build on the previous year’s work. Once teachers are familiar with the five key areas and have developed classroom lessons, we hope they will focus on all five throughout the school year.

First and foremost, we learned that technology integration is not an “add on.” Technology helps us to achieve our goal of developing more strategic and effective learners. Second, it was helpful to have a conversation about the role of technology for our students. The most important aspect was taking the ideas of others and adapting them to the particular needs of our school and its students. Each school, to effectively leverage the power of technology for literacy and learning, would benefit from a similar discussion. As a literacy community, we all will benefit if we seek ways to share the frameworks we develop and build on each other’s work to meet the needs of our particular communities. As the framework states, collaboration is a key strategy for our digital world.

Eric MacDonald teaches in the middle school at Benchmark School in Media, PA.

This article is part of a series from the Technology in Literacy Education Special Interest Group (TILE-SIG).

Sometimes called “affordances,” the digital world offers advantages to students. Teachers’ repertoires today likely include Twitter, Glog, Kahoot!, Prezi, TED Talks, LiveBinder, podcasts, Animoto, screencasting, and blogging. These and other platforms infuse ways for students to become better readers of their worlds through nuanced textual interactions, inquiry, analytical thinking, and composing, with a number of skill sets developed in a number of ways.

Textual interactions

Online tools transform students into text detectives who have fun while hunting for clues. Start with quickly paced e-learning modules pointing to key evidence; primary sources offer a wealth of possibilities. A Civil War–era journal entry, sheet music from the Roaring ‘20s, a dairy-free World War II cake recipe, or Civil Rights protest photo can spur conversations and engagement, and each can be accessed digitally. Alternatively, daily digital newspapers and blogs allow students to explore modern local and global perspectives. E-readers and audiobooks bring professional narration to combined reading and listening experiences. Digital book chats, online student book reviews, or one book/one school programs can foster a school community through common literary experiences.

Student inquiry

E-learning centers immerse students in appropriately challenging investigations. Online design tasks might include image-based visualizations that spur language acquisition. Vocabulary games, multilevel or multitiered questioning, close reading wikis, or online discussion boards introduce new concepts. Moreover, social justice simulations can unveil lives that have been affected by race, class, language, gender, or religious difference. Further, a curation tool like Storify can help students to develop critical perspectives and to become more curious about others who don’t fit their own community’s definition of “normal.”

Analytical thinking

Do science and English collaborations seem a bit avant-garde? Scientific texts can fulfill various English and literature standards through readings available at National Geographic, NORAD, NASA, Sierra Club, and Nature Conservancy websites. Follow up with a computer lab gallery walk, cartoon slideshow, TED Talk about study skills, sports podcast to spur argumentation, or celebrity media evaluation. Add in online guided questions, dictionaries, and translation tools to help struggling readers. Visual texts are important in our symbol-based society, so digital classic works of art, stylized comics, minimalistic advertisements, and short films can be “read” as balanced, integrated elements.

Composing

Infuse background and context into writing-to-learn activities then let students blog! Because blogging is a reflection of identity, student bloggers gain insights into the human side of composing; they discern the complex interplay of words and ideas for an audience, making sense through print, sound, images, and videos. Digital photography can also bring personalization and purpose to the writing process. And don’t forget how fan fiction creates an outlet for imaginative mediation of the demands of audience and genre.

Ultimately, the richness of the digital world resonates with students, for, as W. Somerset Maugham said, “The only important thing in a book is the meaning that it has for you.”

Carolyn Fortuna, PhD, is the recipient of the International Literacy Association’s 2015 Award for Technology and Reading. She teaches high school English in Franklin, MA, and is an adjunct faculty member at Rhode Island College.

This article is part of a series from the Technology in Literacy Education Special Interest Group (TILE-SIG).

There are many games students love to play, and in his book What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy James Paul Gee reviews 36 learning principles found in games. Gee argues that good games captivate gamers’ attention and teach them how to play in an efficient way. In addition, he suggests the positive aspects of games in learning environments can empower students by engaging them as agents and making them feel like what they do matters.

To promote deep learning, Gee proposes that games should incorporate problem-based learning approaches emphasizing customization as an integral practice. To customize education means to consider there is not just one way to solve a problem. Accordingly, in school, learners should have the freedom to choose strategies they think will work in a particular situation. Customization also respects that students bring different skills and learning styles to each situation, as Howard Gardner proposes in his studies of multiple intelligence. Thus, students should be seen as agents who control their learning environment and learn by having both their bodies and minds fully engaged in the learning process.

A second principle of video games Gee proposes is that games require students to not only acquire information, but also learn how to use information to solve a problem. Moreover, Gee argues, students value and most efficiently learn information they use to solve a problem (on demand). Connecting meaning and learning how to apply knowledge in different situations can promote deep understanding and learning that endures. Associating meaning with actions, for instance, or information to specific practices, typically leads to deep understanding.

Third, games can make students feel challenged because they need to exert a great deal of effort to solve problems. Following that principle, challenging problems (not impossible ones!) help students become involved in generating strategies to accomplish the tasks. We also learn from games that accomplishing challenging tasks involves repeated practice. Notably, new tasks need to follow to help students generate different strategies to solve different kinds of problems.

In order for problem-solving approaches to be as successful as those in a gaming environment, Gee says, they should be sequenced from easier and less complex to harder and more complex. For example, instead of introducing students to an incredibly complex situation all at once, consider how to sequence parts of the problem in a leveled fashion, slowly adding elements to raise the complexity of the task.

Because of their rich and efficient way to teach and to gain students’ attention, Gee argues that games could—and should—be used in schools to help students learn new content as well as learn how to learn. Students should think critically while participating in games. Teachers can use games as a springboard for many activities such as teaching about facts and concepts and to improve students’ skills of writing, reading, and thinking.

Tom and Jerry in Rig a Bridge, for example, is a thought-provoking game that helps students consider and apply key principles of physics, including balance, reaction, traction, and sustainability, among others. Jerry, the mouse, is starving, but Tom, the cat, is anxiously waiting for him in the kitchen. Players need to build bridges using materials like matchsticks, rubber bands, and paper clips to help Jerry reach the cheese without being caught by Tom. In addition to game playing, the teacher can challenge students to build a manual or tutorial designed to help other players accomplish some levels of the game, or to describe in writing mistakes made while playing the game, why the bridge fell, and what they should have done instead to better support it.

Many other games like this one are available for free online. Playing them while discussing mistakes, problems, and solutions as well as exploring the game to raise problems and apply the knowledge to other similar contexts (What if instead of matchsticks, rubber bands, and paper clips, players used other materials?) and real-life circumstances can be interesting activities for students to enjoy and learn a lot from.

James Paul Gee presents and explains some of the main principles of gaming here. As a bonus, Gee outlines why video games make for better assessments than the high-stakes testing in this podcast.