Literacy Now

One of the greatest perks of being a university professor (other than teaching amazing students!) is to be able to travel to many schools and chat with the teachers in the field. Most recently during these visits, I kept hearing the same recurring theme: “We have all this technology, now how do we use it?” From my own observations and research, I have found that teachers are comfortable using the technology itself and actually want to integrate technology into their instruction but they are unsure of how to do this in a way that is authentic, relevant, and meaningful for their students. From preservice teacher candidates to graduate students and inservice teachers, I get the same question: “Where do I begin?”

Recognizing the need to ensure that undergraduate preservice teachers are prepared to integrate technology meaningfully into their future classrooms, I have started modeling technology in all of my class sessions. For example, one of the first lessons I teach in my Technology Integration for Early Childhood course is how to find a professional learning community (PLC). Because technology is ever-changing and new tools are popping up daily, it is important for teachers to find information on the newest resources and connect with other teachers who are using these resources successfully in their classrooms. 

A simple Google search will produce thousands of resources for educational technology PLCs. In addition to the wonderful resources that are presented here on the TILE-SIG blog, here are a few of my other favorite PLC sites to visit:

• Teaching Like It’s 2999!  This blog authored by Jennie Magiera provides tons of information for the digital classroom. Jennie offers lists of iOS and Android apps that are useful in the classroom as well as tips for using iPads along with samples of student work using these tools. She also offers resources for using Google Apps for Education and locating grant opportunities.

• Classroom 2.0 Classroom 2.0 is a great resource for any teacher beginning to integrate technology into his or her classroom. This site hosts The Learning Revolution blog that describes a variety of free professional development resources including blogs, podcasts, and webinars. There is also a forum to connect with educators from around the globe.

• Free Technology for Teachers Author Richard Byrne posts daily blog introducing readers to a variety of digital tools and ideas for application in education. This site is very user friendly and is a good place for teachers who are just beginning to integrate technology to get ideas. One of my favorite features of this blog is Byrne’s “Practical Ed Tech Tip of the Week.” Readers can have these tips sent to them in one weekly e-mail.

All of these resources are inspiring and offer a wealth of information, but this can also be overwhelming to someone just beginning to use technology in the classroom. Thus, I end with two pieces of advice:

1. Technology is just a tool in the lesson. The focus should always remain on the content being taught, not on the technology used to teach it.
2. Start small. Technology integration can be overwhelming if you try to do too much at one time. I advise my preservice teachers to pick one thing they would like try and stick with it until they are comfortable. As they become more comfortable, then they can add more.

Kristin Webber is a veteran teacher with over 22 years of teaching experience. Currently, she is an assistant professor in the Department of Early Childhood and Reading at Edinboro University, where she teaches both undergraduate and graduate courses in literacy and technology. She also serves as the program head for the Graduate Reading Program. While in the classroom, Kristin has taught at every level from preschool to high school. Her research interests include the new literacies, instructional technology, adolescent literacy, and reluctant readers.

As educators, we know learners often fail to see the connection between their work inside classroom walls and their lives beyond classroom walls. A question that often arises in many of our students’ heads is, why do we need to learn this?

As the teacher, I wonder how I can help my students see that their time within our classroom is valuable, not just for the few months we are together, but for a lifetime.

One practice I employ is asking students, “Why do you think we need to master this?” Once they get beyond the standard “We need to know it for the test” or “We need this for next year,” my students begin to discover some interesting ideas about how their learning affects them now and in the future.

Recently, our sixth grade had our annual Innovation Day. This day is built on the 20% principle where students can choose any topic, wondering, or problem that interests them. Students get to spend an entire day becoming experts and creating something to use to teach their peers about their area of expertise on the following day during our Gallery Walk, where they get to share their findings.

This year, we challenged students to make something that would be interactive for their peers (and the others guests we invited). We had an incredible day filled with excitement, passion, and creativity as each project was as unique as the student behind it.

I spent more than two weeks working with each of my students in the planning stages. One task they were expected to do was explain what skills or strategies they had taken from their academic classes that would support their learning on Innovation Day. Seeing that “eureka” moment when students realized how much they would rely upon their literacy abilities to discover answers, solve problems, and create something to share with their peers was fun.

Because of our Innovation Day, I had the opportunity to see some of my students in a new light. I saw enthusiasm I had not seen before. Students who had been hard to reach or difficult to connect with through our usual classroom activities were now strong, confident, and excited to share their learning with others.

Several students used Lego Mindstorms kits to build and program robots. Another student created authentic, interactive games teaching peers how to make financial investments. Other students built motors, created inventions, or learned the chemistry behind dyeing hair. Some wanted to create a children’s book using tools like StoryJumper or LINTOR Publishing. Others wanted to create videos using WeVideo, PowToon, or iMovie. Some students wanted to create a how-to guide on a Wiki, Tackk, or a Weebly.

As I took time to visit them during their Gallery Walk, I asked each of the students, “What can we do in ELA to bring this type of learning into our classroom?”

Even though each student created something unique, students’ answers to my probing and valid question were very similar. They each expressed an interest in composing something that could teach others what they had learned. They all wanted to pay forward their learning.

Using their newly gained experience, my students clearly saw how their mastering of ELA standards supported them in anything they wanted to accomplish. They truly have gained an understanding of the importance of literacy in their lives, not just for a grade or a test, but as a vehicle for taking them anywhere they may want to go—now and in the future.

Julie D. Ramsay is a National Board Certified Teacher and the author of “Can We Skip Lunch and Keep Writing?”: Collaborating in Class and Online, Grades 3–8.She teaches ELA to sixth graders at Rock Quarry Middle School in Tuscaloosa, AL. She also travels the country to speak, present, and facilitate workshops in applying technology to support authentic learning. Read her blog, eduflections.

Although there is no single definition of literacy, most hold that literacy is not just a trait that resides solely in the individual—it requires and creates connections with others and leads to empowerment. Literate members of a society are capable of being active participants in their communities. If your goal as an educator includes preparing future citizens, then you might want to look into one project associated with the upcoming 2016 elections: Letters to the Next President 2.0.

The biggest differences between the educational activities offered now compared with 2008 (the last time we knew for sure that we’d have a new U.S. president) are the many ways students can have conversations online. During the 2008 presidential election, Facebook and Twitter were relative technological newcomers. Google Docs was also rather new in 2008, and it serves as a good case study for how things have developed since.

Google Docs was the central technology piece in the original Letters to the Next President in 2008, launched by Google and the National Writing Project. The website was the collecting point for the text of letters to whoever the next president was going to be, written by over 10,000 students. The project was innovative, and the well-designed site featured an interactive map with links to letters from students across the country, indexed by issues. What the site didn’t have was a way for youths to have conversations around those issues.

This year promises to be different. The activities around Letters to the Next President 2.0 will have a lot of opportunities for students to have conversations with one another while they research, write, and make media about issues that matter to them.

For example, Hypothes.is will be organizing “annotatathons” where readers annotate political language together—debate transcripts, candidate websites, speeches, and op-ed pieces. To get more comfortable with social annotation as we introduced it to our own students, some educators and I experimented with synchronously annotating the 2016 State of the Union address, and it was an engaging experience with about 250 comments and replies made during the course of the speech. In February, there was a weeklong Presidents' Day annotatathon featuring great speeches from a diverse sampling of presidents such as Washington, Lincoln, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Reagan; there will be another annotatathon beginning March 14 around President Obama’s 2008 “A More Perfect Union” campaign speech.

I’ve written before on this blog about different ways to annotate text and other media online, but one of the most intriguing aspects of an application like Hypothes.is is that the comments are anchored to the text. In other words, when a user clicks on a highlighted part of the passage, the comment associated with that passage pops up; similarly, if a comment is selected, the part of the passage that it’s based on appears next to the highlighted text (see screenshot).

A number of other partners are involved in the Letters to the Next President project. KQED Education has already begun gathering Do Now resources to facilitate student discussions on political issues via Twitter or on their blog; KQED will also be providing support for classrooms to create and share multimedia responses like infographics and political art. The Lamp’s Media Breaker will engage students in conversations by remixing and annotating political videos. Some of the other partners for Letters to the Next President 2.0 include Mozilla, The New York Times Learning Network, and PBS NewsHour. To follow and add to the conversation use #2nextprez on Twitter.

The months leading up to November 2016 will provide some engaging learning for educators and students. Join the conversation.

Chris Sloan teaches high school English and media at Judge Memorial in Salt Lake City, Utah. He is a teacher consultant with the National Writing Project and KQED Education. In the summer, he is an instructor for the overseas cohort of Michigan State University’s Master’s in Educational Technology program.

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

Where should I start? Teachers who are interested in incorporating digital tools in their classrooms often ask this question. One answer is: Add videos to your mix of teaching materials.

Videos are versatile; they can be used in numerous ways to enhance any unit of study. They are readily available for free on YouTube. They are easy for teachers and students to use, and no special software or equipment is needed. Best of all, videos are a powerful way to enrich what and how you already teach. For example, your students can take virtual field trips, observe changes over time with time-lapse photography, and learn directly from experts.

The use of videos requires mostly both time and thought. The key to making them work involves selecting, saving, and sharing. The following suggestions can help make your digital beginnings more manageable and successful.

Selecting videos

Finding just the right video to improve a unit of study is exciting. The video might help explain a difficult concept, reinforce material, or provoke discussion. Before you search YouTube, think about how some information might be easier to understand with the audio and visual components a video provides. As you start to search, be open to exploring some unexpected videos that come up for your topic, because sometimes they end up being the best ones to use. As you choose the videos that suit your goals, make sure to watch all of them to the end, in case there are any inappropriate surprises.

Saving videos

Once you have found the videos, saving them properly is important. The videos on YouTube do not always stay on YouTube, and it is disappointing when videos you want to use are no longer available. To keep a copy, use Offliberty. The site saves a video in just a few easy steps. The added benefits to saving videos are that they can be viewed without having to rely on Internet access and students do not need to go to YouTube to obtain them. Once you have the videos, it is simple to store them on your computer with each unit of study having a folder containing all the digital resources you use.

Sharing videos

The easiest way to share videos is by showing them to a group of students using an interactive whiteboards or a classroom computer. For students working in smaller groups or individually at multiple devices, one way to provide videos is through a shared folder if your school network is set up for it. The teacher drops the videos in a desktop folder that can be accessed by each student. If this option is not available, posting them on a site that is easily accessible to students, like a teacher page, may be necessary.  

Videos can be incorporated in a variety of ways, such as introducing a unit, explaining information, demonstrating concepts, reviewing material, supplementing homework, or assessing understanding. They offer opportunities for deep examination, lively discussion, improved comprehension, and written reflection. Videos bring new life to old units of study and make new units easier to teach. They are free, readily available, easy to use, and enriching. For teachers interested in introducing digital tools in their classroom, using videos is one good place to start.

Karen Pelekis is a first-grade teacher at Greenacres Elementary School in Scarsdale, NY. 

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

This fall, I discovered my New York Times delivery newspaper package was bulkier than normal. Attached to the newspaper was the New York Times’ version of Google Cardboard—a foldout cardboard viewer in which you can mount your smartphone and experience virtual reality (VR). More than 1.2 million home subscribers of the newspaper received a cardboard viewer to coincide with the launch of the VR film that accompanied The New York Times Magazine article, “The Displaced.” 

After a quick download of the NYTimes VR apponto my smartphone, I went into the viewer and experienced a heart-wrenching story of three children who have been displaced from their homes by war. I was immersed in a 360-degree environment of their war-torn towns and listened to children narrate their own stories in their native languages while I read the translation in the viewer. One can’t help but feel for what the children are going through as you watch them walk through destroyed buildings that were once their homes or their school or wait on a field as relief efforts drop food from planes in the sky. The VR film not only complemented the text article but also transformed it for the reader. The combination of using 360-degree footage with sound and text provided a unique experience, and this format may provide us with new ways to tell stories.

While VR applications have been around since the 1990s, recent improvements in technology have made it accessible through a handheld device. The VR format has been revitalized thanks to affordable viewers including the Oculus, Samsung Gear, and Google Cardboard along with a number of apps you can download for free. Many of these apps provide us with examples of nonfiction and fiction examples of how this format can be used to tell stories. The Vrse app highlights their collaboration with the The New York Times along with other stories and concerts they’ve developed. You can view other journalistic stories through the VRStories app produced by Gannett and available for iOS and Android. The Discovery VRapphas a number of stories where you can walk alongside wildlife or even walk in space. For lovers of fiction, there are a number of immersive stories that can be found through the Google Spotlight Storiesapp for iOS and Android. These are a few examples of the growing number of authors, media makers, and software developers who are teaming up to develop creative ways to tell stories in this format.

The potential for VR as a learning tool in K–12 schools has yet to be discovered. Google is bringing VR to schools through their Expeditions Pioneer Program. The educational division will come to your school with a set of devices and Cardboard viewers to engage students with content area studies in geography and social studies. Students can begin to experiment with creating their own environments using apps such as Sphere and incorporating them into their online writing. Although the technology for students to author their own VR stories is not yet accessible easily for schools, students can study the unique features of this format and the ways VR is being used to tell a story.

By studying new formats such as VR, learning to author with media, and engaging with the process of writing, students can develop their creative capacity to innovate and create a compelling story not just in a VR format but also in multiple and new formats. As the technology continues to improve and more virtual reality stories emerge, we are reminded that the way we tell stories is also evolving.

William Yang is an assistant principal at the Roaring Brook School in Chappaqua, NY. He is also on Twitter.

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