Literacy Now

When I entered the teaching profession, the prevalent mentality was that there were two basic roles an educator fulfilled: one was in the classroom with students, the other was leading the school as a principal. Often when a teacher reached a level of success with students, he or she was strongly encouraged to “move up” to the role of principal.

I became an educator to work directly with students. I love my time with them every day; helping each student find his or her voice and grow, not just academically, but as an individual. I couldn’t fathom getting up every morning and not having that direct contact. I know many teachers feel this way.

We have worked diligently to sharpen our practice. We have fellow teachers who have reached out to us and given us the benefit of their experience. All of us are the educators we are today because of others sharing with us, graciously providing encouragement and pushing us to grow—all for the betterment of the learning opportunities we can provide our students.

So the question begs to be asked: How can we lead, pay forward our expertise, and make a difference while remaining in the classroom?

As teachers, our plates are overflowing with responsibilities. Thinking about adding one more thing can be daunting. However, we know that as teachers, not only preparing our students for the future, but also paving the way for the future of the profession is important.

Here are a few ways I have found to fulfill those needs:

• Share your voice. In today’s digital world, there are more avenues for sharing your practice than ever before. This is an opportunity to reach a larger audience and pay it forward to those beyond your school. You have the ability to lead others by creating your own blog and posting regularly or offering to write a post for one of many educational organizations with print and digital publications. You can build credibility by sharing your successes and failures with students (and how those failures became great opportunities to grow as an educator).
  
  Another powerful medium is Twitter. Regardless of your content area, grade level, or location, you have the opportunity to build relationships and share ideas with fellow teachers. Sharing your voice pushes you to become reflective and evaluate your own practice, making you a more relevant and effective educator.

• Host others. Telling your students’ stories is one thing; having people experiencing it firsthand is a totally different thing. Offer to host preservice teachers in your classroom, mentor a new teacher, lead a book study, or coach a teacher who is struggling. Open your classroom doors. So many of us are visual learners. With Skype and Google Hangouts, those unable to visit can still see (and hear) what learning looks like for our students.
  
  One year, I had several teachers who wanted to grow in their knowledge of using technology tools to support authentic learning. We decided to meet each Tuesday after school for a 30-minute session. Each person brought either something he or she used with students, a question on how to meet a certain need, or an obstacle he or she faced. The session was a quick sharing of ideas. As the host, I became the facilitator—able to share, learn, and foster leadership in other teachers.

• Continue to learn. If we want to remain relevant and impactful in our instruction, we must continue to grow—whether it’s through a professional development event or learning from the comfort of home. What worked 5 or 10 years ago may not be the most effective way to reach students today. As a leader, our responsibility is to know not just what works with students, but why.
  
  One of the most powerful ways I grew as an educator was by pursuing National Board Certification. I grew to understand deeply the why behind the choices I made, and I became a reflective practitioner. If we want our students to become lifelong learners, we need to model those same practices.

As a leader, you aren’t saying you know everything; you are saying you are on a continual journey in search of the best way to meet the needs of your diverse learners. You are willing to be transparent, pass along your experience, and search for the best way to guide your students—and your colleagues—toward success.

What will you do to lead others without leaving the classroom?

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 United States to speak, present, and facilitate workshops in applying technology to support authentic learning. Read her blog, eduflections.

Meaningful technology integration has become a major component in the courses I teach at my university. I want my teacher candidates to be comfortable with and knowledgeable about integrating technology in their instruction during field and student teaching experiences and eventually into their future classrooms. Because of this, I am always excited when students report back on what they are doing with technology in their placements.

Recently, my student Meg asked what I thought about her giving students a math quiz on telling time using the game-creation tool Kahoot! I immediately told her that I thought it was a great idea and to go ahead with her plan. Her school site had recently received iPads, and she was going to be the first to use them. A couple of weeks later, Meg burst into my office, telling me how successful her Kahoot! activity was. Her students loved the game format and demonstrated that they understood the content well. Then Meg shared some real interesting information regarding assessment in her class.

She stated that the students were very successful with the Kahoot! quiz for review and she expected them to perform satisfactorily on the pencil-and-paper test that followed. However, that was not the case. Despite demonstrating understanding of the math content in a digital format, students performed poorly when given a traditional test assessment. This is evidence that 21st-century learners desire their in-school literacies to match their out-of-school digital lives and that it is time to rethink how we assess students.

After this exchange with Meg, I was reminded of my own experience with digital assessment. When I was teaching a mixed-age middle school class, I found that traditional literature circles were not working with my students. They did not read consistently and were disengaged during face-to-face discussions. Their responses to my discussion prompts were superficial and lacked any evidence of deep thinking.

When I moved the literature circle to an electronic format, I saw an increase in engagement and higher level thinking regarding the text immediately. A group of five students who read Tuck Everlasting used the annotation and notes features in the iBooks app to record their thinking. Collectively, the group recorded 211 annotations and 80 notes. They also posted 91 substantial comments to the digital discussion board for the book. These digital tools provided excellent formative assessment data and allowed me to see my students’ thinking about the text we were reading. That my students were more comfortable with the electronic format and were willing to engage with text at a deeper level than they were with traditional literature circles was evident.

Whether the goal is formative or summative assessment, there are many digital tools available to assist teachers in gathering information on the performance of their students:

Kahoot! is a free, interactive, “game-based” tool that allows users to engage with content in quiz, survey, or discussion formats. Kahoot! is multiplatform, and teachers can use this tool for preassessment and postassessment, as well as connecting with other Kahoot! classrooms globally. As a challenge, students can create their own Kahoot! quizzes.

Nearpod is a multiplatform presentation tool that allows teachers to embed real-time assessments into their instruction. Assessment tools include quiz, poll, drawing, and open-ended responses. The basic version is free. For a small yearly fee, teachers can upgrade to the gold version, which includes options to print individual and class assessment reports.

Socrative is a free tool designed specifically for assessment. Teachers can create multiple choice, true/false, and short answer questions. There is an option for individuals or teams to play a customizable quizzing game called Space Race. Students can submit exit tickets for formative assessment through Socrative. Socrative also provides an assessment reporting system for teachers.

Other digital assessment options include drawing apps and having students record their thinking through video and audio. The possibilities for integrating digital assessment are limitless, especially when teachers embrace assessment methods that go beyond the traditional pencil-and-paper test.

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. 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.

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

Why do we, as teachers, find teaching with digital technology scary? In her recent Literacy Daily blog post titled “Offsetting the fear of digital applications in the classroom,” Carolyn Fortuna wrote about “ideas to gain digital proficiency,” often a very real stumbling block in teaching with technology. Technology can also feel alienating because so often it is mandated without attention to the unique needs of our students—our diverse, idiosyncratic, goofy kids. Blended learning, with programs that designate the amount of minutes and number of questions students must work on each week, or top-down choices about integrating iPads with required apps, can make the digital work of the classroom seem very disconnected from what we as teachers know about our students. We understand the complexity of the needs of our students—from their learning needs to their diverse home lives and languages. And we also understand that we can rely on one another to meet our students’ needs.

As teachers, we must push back against alienating mandates to use digital technology in prescribed ways in order to resituate the goals of the classroom and digital tools as part of our schools and communities, tightly connected to what we know will work. One way to do this is to form a group of like-minded educators in your school and meet to discuss and plan for digital curriculum that matches the needs of your students. It is possible to unite around a shared mandated requirement (such as integrating digital technology into your curriculum) with a shared meaningful goal (such as integrating digital technology that meets the needs of your students in your community) by creating teacher study groups. Your collective voices can guide curriculum to meet your students’ needs and be a supportive space as you try out new digital texts and tools in your classroom.

In a school I have been working with for the past year, I witnessed this occur first-hand. Teachers were tasked with integrating technology (iPads, apps, blended learning requirements, lesson planning tools, etc.) and, as is not surprising, many were initially overwhelmed. Finding time to work together to discuss and solve problems helped teachers feel anchored to their tasks and identify uses of digital tools that were meaningful to their students while also meeting curricular goals. These teachers came away from a year of teacher study groups around issues of digital technology integration with a sense of what mattered to their students. 

The teachers I have had the opportunity to work with in teacher study groups began thinking about technology beyond mandated programs or apps, and they created lessons and units that matter for their unique student population. These teachers have helped students use Skype to discuss global problems like the refugee crisis in Europe, iPads to map their communities and home lives, and social networks to write to kids around the world and community leaders nearby. These ideas came from the opportunity to discuss the needs of their students in teacher study groups.

If starting a teacher study group on digital technology seems like a good fit for you and your school, consider the following steps and ideas:

1. Find like-minded colleagues
   • Who in your school is also deeply interested in integrating technology in the classroom in ways that are meaningful for his or her students?
   • Who is struggling with some of the mandated technology requirements?
   • Who has shared curricular goals that might be met with digital tools?
   • Is there an instructional or literacy coach or expert tech user who could help facilitate your joint conversations?
2. Determine a good time and make a schedule
   • One idea is to use time you are already contracted to be at school: immediately after school, during shared planning, or at regularly scheduled PD days (if allowed).
   • Make a set schedule for the semester or year and stick to it.
3. Choose a study group model and set some shared commitments
   • Lewison, for example, describes a teacher study group model in “Taking the lead from teachers: Seeking a new model of staff development,” a chapter in Teachers and Principals at Work: Becoming a Professional Leader, in which teachers discuss a text or video at each meeting, keep running notes and reflective journals, and work on a shared question or goal.
   • Each meeting can include reading/viewing time, a discussion component, time for questions or problem sharing, and time for reflection or planning on materials from/for the classroom.
   • Share responsibilities about choosing texts, organizing materials, and facilitating discussion.
4. Decide on possible goals and outcomes of the group
   • As a group, take the time to set some attainable goals with possible outcomes, such as developing a meaningful unit plan, writing a grant for additional technology, or bringing a suggested change to mandated technology to the administration.

We all know that students need the chance to use digital technologies in our classrooms, but we also know that it must be meaningful for them. Working together with other teachers can make this possible!

Alexandra Panos is a PhD student in Literacy, Culture, and Language Education at Indiana University. She holds an M.Ed in Teaching & Learning from DePaul University in Pennsylvania and is a former middle school English Language Arts teacher.

Most seasoned teachers can point to a few instructional methods that have been “game changers” in transforming their practice. Some of the most compelling moments of my career have emerged within the context of a face-to-face discussion method, the Socratic seminar. As a technology integrationist, however, I also love the possibilities afforded by digital discussion forums: increased engagement, time for articulating one’s thoughts, a written record of contributions, among others.

If you aren’t familiar with the Socratic seminar, ReadWriteThink, the National Paideia Center, and the Teaching Channel provide introductions to the method. In brief, students sit in a circle to discuss an open-ended question related to a text. The goal is to shift the locus of control from teacher to students, who take turns participating instead of raising hands. However, a few outgoing contributors can sometimes dominate the conversation while excluding quieter personalities. Enter a digital solution: a backchannel chat.

Incorporating a backchannel in any class discussion cuts the number of discussants in half. In a Socratic seminar, an inner circle discusses the question and refers to the text for evidence, while an outer circle observes, listens, and comments within the digital chat space.

It’s important with any classroom backchannel to establish clear objectives. I most often direct the backchannel to observe and comment on the quality of the discussion, noting specific behaviors that move us toward collective meaning construction. Halfway through the hour we switch roles, so everyone gets a chance to speak and to chat online. In our last “metacognitive chat” students wrote, “I can tell they’re listening well because they have good eye contact,” “That was a great piece of evidence for Claire’s point,” and “Luke’s question challenged the group, but it was respectful.” I take this opportunity to teach about positive contributions in digital spaces, and our future seminar goals are informed by the transcript.

In fact, the transcript is what makes a chat so powerful. Although traditional discussions disappear, digital chat remains for future reference. Sometimes I’ll ask students in the backchannel to discuss the same questions as those talking, resulting in two parallel conversations, one vocal and one written. I’ll always have students switch roles at some point, so that vocal and nonvocal students have equal opportunities for participation. In this case, the second “round” begins with a new question, producing a transcript that focuses on two different aspects of a text. Those transcripts become powerful tools for extended learning: sources of evidence for essays, records of changing perspectives and intellectual growth, starting points for blogging; goldmines of our collective thinking.

Picking the right tool for the backchannel is also important. Although we could chat in Google Classroom or in Twitter, I prefer to “cordon off” a conversation to its own digital space. My favorite tools are Todays Meet and Backchannel Chat.In both, I can set up a chat instantly and have students jump right in. (I’ve also used the chat option in Tackk.com.) Each provides a record of the conversation, which I can link to my digital class site or copy to a document. TodaysMeet allows up to 140 characters per comment, great for teaching students to be concise. Backchannel Chat allows space for longer explanations. Both have free versions that meet my basic needs, and paid versions are reasonably priced.

Used thoughtfully, the backchannel is more than a gimmick: It’s a great tool for turbocharging classroom talk.

Angie Johnson is a technology integrationist, media specialist, and language arts teacher at Lakeshore Middle School in Stevensville, MI. National Board Certified in 2002, she has been an educator for more than 25 years and is currently a doctoral candidate in Educational Psychology and Educational Technology at Michigan State University.

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

Recently I have been involved in several conversations with educators about how to use iPads in the classroom for reading purposes. The content of our conversations has covered topics such as when teachers should use iPads for reading purposes in the classroom, what types of texts students should be reading, and what professional development educators need to know about reading digital text. For the purpose of this column, I will summarize a few key points about the topic and raise some related questions. It is my hope that these questions may stimulate further conversations among educators who are using iPads for reading purposes in their classrooms.

First, we know that reading digital text involves a nonlinear reading process, as reported, for example, in work by Jennifer Roswell & Anne Burke and by Julie Coiro. For that reason, how students read is as important as what they read. Research from Maryanne Wolf, for example, shows that reading digital text engages the brain in critical ways. Proponents and critics of the iPad have used the following messages to guide conversations on the topic:

Benefits

• Learners spend more time reading
• Learners engage more with texts
• Scrolling, scanning, and hyperlinks promote improved comprehension of text

Challenges

• Learners engage in more skimming vs. deep reading of text
• Multitasking distractions prevent cognitive focus
• Scrolling, scanning, and hyperlinks interact with recall and learning of information

Second, integrating the use of iPads into the classroom creates many opportunities to engage students with meaningful and critical reading practices. On one hand, iPad applications can be beneficial to students’ reading experiences. On the other hand, teachers need to instruct students how to use applications and device features to read different types of texts while also equipping them with strategies for reading and comprehending digital texts (e.g., short and long pieces of fiction and nonfiction texts, graphic images, maps). As educators, having targeted conversations on digital reading, its purpose and uses in the classroom (e.g., independent reading, research, close reading, discipline-specific reading), and ways to promote deep reading of digital texts for each purpose is important.

As part of these conversations, the following questions warrant further research and invite educators to think about the learning and literacy demands of reading digital text and how e-readers can be used for a range of reading purposes:

•  Does leisure reading of digital text require different reading behaviors and practices compared with reading digital text for academic purposes?
• When is skimming the text for keywords appropriate and when is it not?
• What types of digital reading require a lot of scrolling and scanning (e.g., maps, interactive graphics, timelines) rather than close reading?
•  What strategies do students need to learn to read long pieces of digital text?
•  What behaviors support reading stamina of digital text? How might these differt from those that support stamina for reading printed text?
•  What types of experiences provide students opportunities to use digital devices effectively to practice close reading of complex digital text?
•  How can educators collaborate with publishers to help them develop more interactive fiction and nonfiction digital texts?
•  What else do we need to learn about the adaptive behaviors of students who read digital text with e-readers?

Reading is a personal, social, and cultural act. In her book Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain, Maryanne Wolf explains how technological advancements have been changing the reading process. Using e-readers to read digital text in K–12 learning environments is here to stay. As more students use e-readers to read digital text, we need to learn more about how individuals interact with the devices to read and learn, think about the structure and demands of each type of digital text place on the reader, and provide instruction to facilitate reading comprehension of digital text.

Vicky Zygouris-Coe, PhD, is a professor of Reading Education at the University of Central Florida.

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