Literacy Instruction with Digital and Media Technologies | Reading Rockets - 0 views
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This article describes how digital and media literacies are woven into a fourth-grade classroom. Background on how a teacher and school brought new literacies to students through the use of technology is revealed so that other teachers can engage in similar instructional support.
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As new literacies that include digital and media technologies evolve, preparing students to understand and adjust to these literacy demands is critical to current and future expectations for pleasure and work (International Reading Association, 2001; Leu, Mallette, Karchmer, & Kara-Soteriou, 2005).
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Simply using software programs on computers does not prepare students for new literacies' expectations. New literacies are deictic in that they constantly change and require teachers to embrace these changes. New literacies are essential in classrooms so that equal opportunities are offered to all students.
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The Internet has caused educators to confront issues related to new technologies, as previous technological innovations have never been adopted so rapidly and in so many places simultaneously.
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Students use instant messaging (IM) to pair-share during the reading of the story with their 8 o'clock buddy.
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Something not used by most of us growing up is now learned at the age of 9.
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Warschauer's (2006) research found that laptops and connections to the Internet provided scaffolding for many classroom topics, thus building background knowledge. He noted increased student engagement in wireless classrooms as students participated in more diverse writing activities, analysis of reading, and use of media-production software. Finally, he observed how students gained control of reading on the page as well as the screen. The students realized that there was more to a computer than games or chatting and gained practice in reading for a variety of purposes, such as interpreting the textual and visual elements in a document and knowing how to navigate and find information
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Once these activities are complete, he checks to see what the morning sponge is (an activity to keep students engaged as Todd checks in with individual students). Today the sponge is centered on vocabulary, so Michael uses the thesaurus on his laptop for the word launched so that he can gain an idea of what this word means and learn about related words. He then uses his word processing application to write a sentence using this word, thereby demonstrating his understanding of its definition. Complementing the sentence is a nonlinguistic representation of the word that he creates by using a drawing application (see Figure 3). This activity and the class webpage demonstrate the hybridity evident in new literacies documents (Lemke, 1998), where students use word processing, drawing, or music in a single document.
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As more classrooms and schools adopt one-to-one laptop instruction, the need to document the work of teachers and students in such settings is important (Dunleavy et al., 2007). The descriptions found in this article provide the pragmatic details of making such a transition in instruction and can serve as roadmaps for teachers considering such a shift in their instructional practice.
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When working independently, Michael does one of three things. The first is to respond to a writing prompt on his computer that is directly related to the story or informational text read that day. Michael also completes a digital practice sheet or worksheet, a more traditional use of technology. The third activity is a book study. Students are offered multiple titles that are related to the theme of the core program from which to choose.
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The teacher is creating an equal balance of traditional text learning combined with new age technology learning as well.
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Breaks in Instruction During recess breaks throughout the day, students are free to stay in the room and engage in noninstructional activities. Michael engages in sending IMs, checking and sending e-mail, and going online to enter kid-friendly virtual worlds like Club Penguin (www.miniclip.com/games/club-penguin/en/). Students, particularly those who do not have Internet access at home, enjoy engaging in these activities during breaks in instruction.
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A new alternative to just playing the the grass outside. give them free time with the same technology they use to learn on.
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End of the Day Routines Before leaving school, Michael picks up his homework from the server. Tonight's homework is a graphic organizer that is to be filled out from a webpage. Todd saved a copy of the webpage for pickup because not all of Michael's classmates have Internet access at home. Michael leaves school with his laptop tucked into his backpack, ready for out-of-school learning.
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Completely for this type of teaching. while most older teachers are used to the same old school text book learning this teacher has seen what this age is coming to and is teaching in a way the student will be able to use it years after his teachings. great article.
