Literacy Now

“Honestly, I don’t see the point of games in the classroom. I mean, it seems to overly focus on the idea of fun, and I don’t think fun is what we should focus on. Fun is seriously overrated,” I said on the first day of my games for education class. Little did I know that I would go on to write my dissertation on role-playing games, write not one but two book chapters on how to assist teachers in bringing games into their classroom, and even consult on a project for the Kennedy Center ArtsEdge on its game-­based learning project.*

Games have become one of the hottest topics in education of late. Just look at Microsoft’s recent acquisition of Minecraft and the launch of MinecraftEdu! Popular education blog site Edutopia has game­-based learning as one of its major categories with numerous views and shares. The prominence of games for education became apparent when games scholar Constance Steinkuehler began serving as the Senior Policy Analyst for the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) in 2011. There are more than 4 million views on Jane McGonigal’s TED talk advocating how games can save the world. However, many educators are still not quite sure how playing games can help their students. I suggest you keep the following in mind before you pick up that game for your classroom.

A game is a tool, not the tool

As much as I think games can be extremely useful, I caution against advocating for games as the panacea for all educational ills. According to the OSTP, roughly 170 million Americans play video games. However, if you look more deeply into the numbers, you will see 49% of those who play games are between ages 18–49, well beyond school age. Average age of gamers is 34 years old.

True, game­-based learning allows students to learn many valuable skills such as negotiating complex systems while developing various literacy skills. Great games are now being compared to great literature. However, just as an amazing Shakespearean play alone can’t make students become better readers, great games alone cannot teach our students. I suggest incorporating great games into your classroom ecosystem to maximize the learning potential.

The right game for the right learning task—expansively

Because a game is a tool, it must be chosen for specific learning tasks. As an English teacher, I was lucky to be able to improve media literacy or literacy in general with any game I chose. What game doesn’t have reading and writing? Let’s take Disaster Detector, a science game developed for sixth through eighth graders by Smithsonian Science Education Center in collaboration with Filament Games.

I would use that game to have my students research disasters such as Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath and the type of governmental organizations responsible for different disasters. Then I would have students go through the tutorial section to take notes on the types of instruments such organizations and their scientists use. I would also have students critique the presentation. Did they think that the voice actor had the right look and tone of the target audience? Did they like the sound effects? If so, what about them was appealing? Then I would have students contact the creator of Disaster Detector—who happens to be one of my friends—to ask the process of developing such a game. Students then create a plan for a potential natural disaster that their hometown faces. They will write to the mayor or the governor, urging him or her to take their ideas into consideration. Finally, students research the type of education necessary to become a meteorologist or environmental scientist who we rely on to help us weather the disasters.

Opportunity cost and specific learning objectives built around the play

As much as I love game­-based learning, gameplay without a skilled instructor who can guide student learning is giving up something in the curriculum for the sake of time. One of the most amazing aspects of games is that it encourages voluntary participation of the players because they are “fun” to play.

As a classroom teacher, I often talk to my students about the idea of fun at school. I emphasized that learning new information can be more fun than simply killing a whole bunch of zombies while playing a popular strategy game like Plants vs. Zombies. If you were to play this game with your students, I suggest you discuss the specific strategies involved in winning the game with them. Encourage students to think of ways a great strategist would think about defeating an enemy. Have them research great battles in history and the strategies the winning side employed to achieve its objectives.

Consider allowing students to play in group and have them discuss how they could collaborate to win the game. At times, my students would complain that I ruined their mindless fun. I would explain to students that the State of California and their parents hired me to provide the structure for learning and expected me to teach them something. I feel that it’s our responsibility to expose the accidental learning to the students as “the more knowledgeable other,” a term coined by famous learning theorist Lev Vygotsky. 

Game creation beyond game playing

Although I think that games offer amazing educational benefits, I am convinced that creating games yields much better outcomes. While designing games, students learn to create, organize, and execute their plans. They have to think about aesthetics, rules, and appeal to audience. If students are designing digital games, they can learn digital and media literacy skills. Because of the increased popularity of game-­based learning, teachers now have many tools to choose from. One of my favorite tools is Twine, a text-­based choose-­your-­own-­adventure game creator. This simple platform allowed many of my students to create complex and multi-layered games.

Some students created an adventure game based on a creature’s birth. Others created a game of high school choices to guide their friends through high school years. Because they can publish and test each other’s games, students are invested in creating interesting and playable games. I typically had students create a planning document with a storyboard and rationale for the game first. Once students created their games, I had them create a video presentation using a tool like SnagIt. Such an activity forced the students to defend their choices while practicing their virtual presentation skills. I knew this was a great instructional practice when I recently ran into a former student. While in my class, he complained often that he had to record his presentation. However, he informed me that he no longer feared presenting to anyone because it became natural to him. He also appreciated the fact that he routinely evaluated his classmates’ work while receiving feedback from them during class.

I cannot stress enough of the benefits of game creation as an instructional strategy. For more tools on game making, check out the list I put together along with a few student video examples I presented at the 2016 Good Teaching Conference sponsored by California Teachers Association.

Game­based learning is here to stay

As much as I didn’t realize it, game­based learning is here to stay. I suspect it will become as common and ubiquitous as YouTube videos in the classroom in the near future. I sincerely hope that the teachers realize its learning potential when used appropriately.

* This project is ongoing, set for a workshop at Kern High School District in Bakersfield in April and May of 2016 with a group of theatre, science, and English teachers to test out the pedagogical framework I developed for my dissertation study.

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.

Educators know that when more than 25 students cross the threshold of their classrooms, there’s variability in how each student learns. Recent advances in neuroscience provide evidence of this. Images taken of our brains as we participate in learning tasks reveal that no two images look the same, even when working on the same task. Variability in learners is the norm and not the exception. In order to maximize learning for all students, educators need resources that address this fact.

Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is a framework that helps educators create learning environments to address learner variability. The UDL principles and their corresponding guidelines provide direction for the development and design of these environments. Using the three principles of Multiple Means of Engagement, Representation, and Expression, educators are supported in the design of learning environments that ultimately maximizes learning for all.

Let’s examine how two resources work together to support struggling readers through UDL— Story Shares and Reading Comprehension Booster. Story Shares is a free online resource developed to provide relevant and readable materials for students in late elementary through high school who read below grade level. Reading Comprehension Booster is an app ($3.99) that provides students with engaging options for interacting with and responding to texts.

Story Shares supports the UDL guidelines by providing students with a choice of age-relevant texts. Offering this choice is critical for recruiting interest and maintaining engagement. Text-to-speech, which is embedded, provides an alternate representation of the text and ensures that students are appropriately challenged, helping to maintain engagement.

Once students have read the text of their choice, providing them with multiple ways to express themselves and demonstrate their learning is important. Reading Comprehension Booster, with its integrated supports, customizable options, and range of response modes, makes it an exemplar of a UDL literacy environment.

As students open the app, they immediately create their own bookshelf which, with the touch of a plus icon, they fill with appropriate texts. Students choose how the book is displayed on the shelf (photograph of the book cover or text description). Once the book is digitally opened, eight bookmarks that explore elements of fiction are revealed and each of these has been designed with options for representation and expression.

For example, when selecting the “Character” bookmark, students demonstrate what they know about a character by drawing a picture, typing a description, speaking and recording their response, or inserting an image. Prompts in the form of text bubbles guide students in their task, reminding them to add physical features, personality traits, and other attributes. Text-to-speech can be selected for those students who may need alternate text representation.

Embedded in the app are supports including the map feature in the “Settings” bookmark, which instantly calls up a map of the world and allows students to select the location where the story occurs.

The app is also responsive to students’ input. In the “Big Ideas” bookmark, the background picture on the screen becomes more vibrant and visually richer as students add supporting details and make their responses richer. Students can also collaborate with others (peers or teachers) by e-mailing bookmarks directly from the app and allowing others to comment, give feedback, or exchange ideas. This feature further promotes engagement in literacy learning.

Selecting websites and apps from the myriad of choices can be overwhelming, but when using UDL guidelines to ensure tools address the variability of learners, the task becomes more manageable and student focused. If environments are well designed, with options for representation, expression, and engagement, the technology will work in educators’ favor and provide the flexibility needed to address the diversity and variability of all learners.

Peggy Coyne is a research scientist at CAST, Inc. Leandra Elion is the literacy coordinator (K–12) for Watertown Public Schools and is the chair of the New Literacies Committee for the Massachusetts Reading Association.

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

When speaking with a colleague in the Special Education Department (SPED), I asked whether the integration of teaching students with dyslexia or teaching students with dyslexia using assistive technology was included in their advanced reading course. The answer was no, as dyslexia was not considered a learning disability in the SPED. Thus, we decided to include teaching students with dyslexia in the Teacher Education Department advanced Reading Specialization courses. This blog on enhancing their learning represents the start of my revision to include this topic in an advanced reading course in the Reading Specialization at National University.

Agreement in research on dyslexia

The International Literacy Association’s Research Advisory (2016) reports these important convergences in the research on dyslexia:

• Both boys and girls have more difficulty than others in learning to read regardless of their levels of intelligence; however, with engaging instruction that is responsive to students' needs, the percentage of school children having continuing difficulty is small.
• The nature and causes of dyslexia are still under investigation, although genetics and neurology appear to play a role.
• Dyslexia, or severe reading difficulties, do not result from visual problems producing letter and word reversals.
• Many researchers accept the idea that dyslexia/severe reading difficulties result from analyzing and manipulating sounds in words.
• Currently, there is no best method for teaching students with dyslexia. As students classified as dyslexic have varying strengths and challenges, instruction calls for teachers’ professional expertise.

Integration of technology

Teachers need to integrate new technologies into their repertoire of teaching strategies; however, when teaching students with dyslexia, computer programs need to be combined with direct instruction, as noted by Kelli Sandman-Hurley in Dyslexia Advocate! How to Advocate for a Child With Dyslexia Within the Public Education System. Below are suggested technologies for integration into reading instruction.

Digital tools for word recognition

M any e-books have text-to-speech features to enhance key content. For example, Bridget Dalton and Dana Grisham’s recommendations for Ten Ways To Use Technology to Build Vocabulary include ideas for using digital tools such as Wordle and Wordsift to quickly generate visual displays with word mapping technologies that highlight the most frequently used (and perhaps most important) words in a text.
Other useful learning supports in this category include the following:

• Learning Ally: This collection of 80,000 audio books at all grade levels highlights words as students read along.
• Bookshare: This online library has 370,000 books for people with print difficulties. 
• Dolch Word Lists: These are sorted by grade level, and can also remind educators of the most common 220 words and 95 nouns encountered in children’s books. These words need to both connect to and have meaning for students.

Bookshare is free but Learning Ally requires a subscription, and both require documentation of a print-based disability.

Digital tools for fluency

Students with dyslexia may also experience fluency difficulties because of processing differences in the brain. The process of translating written symbols into the correct combination of sounds in order to create a word can be challenging for some individuals. Consequently, this lack of speed can hinder comprehension. The use of technology can be incorporated into research-based instructional methods to support growth in reading fluency, as Theresa J. Palumbo and Jennifer R. Willcutt wrote in What Research Has to Say About Fluency Instruction. Notably, all of the aforementioned digital tools that support Word Recognition offer students opportunities to practice their reading fluency as well.

Digital tools for comprehension

Several digital tools can also be useful to build reading comprehension skills. A few of my favorites are listed:

• Plot Diagram is an organizational tool that allows readers to visualize the key features of narrative and expository text. Desktop software such as Inspiration 9 or Kidspiration for younger children can also be used to develop graphic organizers to create comprehension lessons.
•  Cast Book Builder supports reading comprehension development in a digital interface that enables teachers to create picture books and texts with embedded pedagogical agents that prompt students to use reading strategies and to provide models and think-alouds.
•  Rewordify is a web-based tool that helps students better understand and learn new words. Readers can click on words in text they do not understand and a word with the same meaning will be shown and pronounced for them. 

Technology is advancing quickly. By 2030, handheld devices and other tools such as iPods, tablets, smartphones, and computers will probably be replaced with new technologies to empower dyslexic students with dyslexia. To keep up with these changes, we, as educators, need to keep learning throughout our teaching careers. For further reading about Assistive Technology Solutions for Dyslexia, visit www.atdyslexia.com.

Marilyn E. Moore, EdD, is professor of education at National University in La Jolla, CA, and serves as faculty lead for the Reading Program.

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

We did take a more exploratory, student-driven discussion during class where I was just sparking an idea that the students would run with. At one point, they literally turned in their seats toward each other, and that’s when I knew they were super engaged not only with me, but with each other. It was AWESOME.

So reflected a preservice teacher we work with, following a lively discussion about Black Lives Matter in an urban 11th-grade English classroom. We are struck by this moment and by the teacher’s excitement.  For her, this moment is unusual and exemplary. Our work focuses around the question: How can such moments of dialogic teaching become more typical, rather than remarkable, in literacy classrooms?  Mary and her colleagues defined dialogic teaching as “the instructional designs and practices that provide students with frequent and sustained opportunities to engage in learning talk” (Juzwik, Borsheim-Black, Caughlan, & Heintz, 2013, p. 5). When teachers create space for such talk, students have an opportunity to build on their own and each other’s ideas and connect them into coherent lines of thinking and inquiry over time (Alexander, 2008; Boyd, 2016). When teachers purposefully nurture and sustain such a stance, they make a dialogic classroom environment possible. Dialogic classroom environments bolster student literacy achievement growth (e.g., Murphy, Wilkinson, Soter, Hennessy, & Alexander, 2009), prepare students for participation in democratic life (Juzwik et al., 2013), foster student engagement (Kelly, 2008), and create more humane and sustainable workplaces for teachers.

Dialogic tools

Mary’s research team identified dialogic tools as a key component of literacy teaching that successfully provided students with opportunities for learning talk (Juzwik et al., 2013). They identified both teacher- and student-centered tools such as anticipation guides, teacher-scripted questions, four corners, fishbowls, and literature circles. Teachers and students collaboratively use these tools in planning and classroom practice to scaffold learning talk (Alexander, 2008; Juzwik et al., 2013). We and the teachers we work with find these tools helpful for instructional planning, both short-term (lesson) planning and long-term (unit or yearlong) planning. For example, English teacher Liz Krause puts up a word chart of dialogic tools behind her desk to provide a reminder as she plans. Others provide students with sentence stems or discussion phrases or rubrics to focus students’ attention on dialogic moves.  
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Dialogic tools embedded in dialogic stance

Talking to learn is more than just increasing student talk or implementing particular tools. Using dialogic tools is more effective when embedded in a broader dialogic stance over time: “A teacher adopting a dialogic stance listens, leads and follows, responds and directs” (Boyd & Markarian, 2015, p. 273). A dialogic stance involves more than successfully enacting some dialogic tool. It further entails a sustained focus on the potential of student and teacher ideas to promote learning and inquiry. For example, a fishbowl tool should focus on the students and teacher building ideas together, not on students performing the elements of a good discussion. At the end of a fish bowl, instead of evaluating how the discussion went, students can instead consider questions about which ideas challenged them most or supported their thinking about a text. These questions emphasize listening, learning, and talking with each other. When teachers orient their classroom practices toward learning talk over the long term, a dialogic classroom environment where students and teachers learn together becomes possible.

Mary M. Juzwik is a professor at Michigan State University. She is also the coeditor of Research in the Teaching of English and coauthor of Inspiring Dialogue: Talking to Learn in the English Classroom. Mandie Dunn and Ashley Johnson are doctoral students in curriculum, instruction, and teacher education at Michigan State University.

The ILA Literacy Research Panel uses this blog to connect ILA members around the world with research relevant to policy and practice. Reader response is welcomed via e-mail.

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Over the last decade, schools have been increasing their technology infrastructure for a wide variety of reasons, including making school more engaging for students. Thus far, the benefits in regards to engagement have yet to materialize. In January, the Gallup Poll released its annual Student Poll results, showing that only 50% of students met the engaged criteria (involvement in and enthusiasm for school) and 21% of students were fully disengaged. According to the survey, engagement declines in every grade, beginning from 5th to 6th grade before bottoming out in 11th grade. Almost half (45%) of responses were neutral or disagreed with the statement “At this school, I get to do what I do best every day.” From 2012, engagement levels at each grade are down across the board, and active disengagement has risen in that time from 16% to 21% of respondents. Although technology may be part of addressing the engagement issue, our current uses don’t appear to be moving the needle. In turn, we might be better served by shifting our focus to engagement itself.

What do we know about student engagement?

David Shernoff and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi have spent years studying engagement and how it is achieved. Full engagement—which Csikszentmihalyi has termed flow—is described as a fully immersive experience where all mental energy is going into a meaningful task. Our skills are matched with an appropriate challenge that stretches our ability, but not to the extent of frustration. Time seems to fly by, we feel in control, and in many cases forget about our outside troubles and shortcomings. Setting goals and using feedback to move toward those goals are also essential components. Larry Ferlazzo has a fantastic blog with additional resources on flow.

According to Shernoff and Csikszentmihalyi, student engagement exists when students experience high levels of three factors: concentration, interest, and enjoyment. Concentration is the focus and mental energy put toward a specific goal or task. Interest is conceptualized as a student’s level of intrinsic motivation to expend time and effort into a task or building specific skills. Finally, enjoyment is a student’s feeling of satisfaction as a result of participating in the learning event.

These conditions arise when students are presented with learning opportunities that they deem to be both challenging and relevant. Choice and control over the learning experience are crucial to student engagement. Mismatches between a task’s challenge and a student’s skill set can lead to anxiety or boredom. Additionally, student flow appears to be symbiotic with teacher flow as high student engagement leads to a teacher’s sense of flow as he or she builds his or her differentiation skills to meet the needs of students. Research suggests that traditional lectures, videos, and exams are typically some of the least effective means to increase student engagement. Well-structured, student-selected inquiry tasks, however, are an excellent method to help students reach “flow.”

Examples from the field

Previously, I’ve written about my own experiences coleading students in interest-driven inquiry via a structure known as Genius Hour. In these multiweek inquiry projects, students are given at least one class period per week to explore a topic of interest. Students then share their findings in a TED-style talk. We’ve made two changes to our model this year. First, we’ve used the Right Question Institute’s Question Formulation Technique to help students better articulate their inquiries via interesting questions. Second, we plan to link students with a mentor or “broker” who can help the student with their chosen project. There is a multitude of resources for implementing Genius Hour including websites, books, and a vibrant Twitter community.

Interest-driven digital inquiry can also be done effectively with specific content area constraints as well. History teachers at Attleboro High School in Massachusetts have been making inquiry a regular part of their teaching practice. In Nicole Lane’s Government Course, students spend the trimester investigating self-selected problems within the local community. Students explore the root causes and solutions via both Internet research and e-mails or one-to-one meetings with municipal and state officials and then publically present their findings at the end of the term. In another class, Ari Weinstein teamed up with science colleague Gregg Finale to create the cross-disciplinary course, Science and Public Policy. In this class, students have tackled topics such as how to install solar panels on school buildings and how to teach middle school students about global warning. An interesting wrinkle to this course is that students design their projects so they can be handed off to peers taking the class in the next semester, enabling future students to build on and expand the existing work.

Attleboro High School History department head Tobey Reed has been a strong advocate for the use of inquiry in history courses. “I believe that this is the way that people learn naturally so why would we try to get them to learn another way?” he asked. “I think that it engages them as well because they are invested in finding out the ‘answer’ or at least understanding the question.”  

Making the pedagogical shift to inquiry, particularly digital inquiry, can be a challenge. “Almost all of it is foreign to them (students) because in many ways it’s the opposite of how they’ve traditionally done school,” said Attleboro history teacher Brian Hodges. “Students tend to struggle with asking good questions, finding and especially evaluating sources, contextualizing information they find and then turning it into a product.” Fortunately, teachers can now look to the Internet for resources to help improve students’ critical evaluation and digital authorship skills.

Despite the challenges, the benefits are extensive for students and teachers alike. Hodges explained, “Inquiry was difficult at the beginning because the idea was foreign to me, but the practice is way more engaging and way more enjoyable.” His students also appear to be reaching flow in these contexts. “There will be stretches in class when I’ll be going group to group and they’ll essentially tell me to go away and stop bothering them because they’re in the zone.” Reed said despite the extra planning, the digital inquiry project process makes it all worthwhile. “When the project is in full swing, it is way more fun to facilitate. The problems are unique and real.  The questions are honest and the engagement is infectious.”

David Quinn is a doctoral student in URI/RIC PhD in Education program and a member of the Attleboro School Committee. Previously, he was a history teacher at King Philip Middle School in Norfolk, MA.

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