Harnessing new technologies - Implications

Harnessing New Technologies - Implications of this session on my future practice.

‘As teachers, we can no longer ignore technology’ (Halsey, 2007: 99), this session on harnessing new technologies has exposed many possible resources that could support my own teaching, ‘whilst as the same time helping students to further their subject knowledge’ (FutureLab, 2010:21).

Fostering digital literacy means going beyond the functional and the presentational and giving students the opportunity to use a wide range of technologies collaboratively, creatively and critically (FutureLab, 2010: 22). I found story makers such as Photo peach and TES IBoard useful resources to model to children the structure of stories, allowing critical thinking about pictures. Photo peach also allows for pictures to be used to create a quiz, this could be used by teachers to model questions which support children in thinking critically.

Another useful resource which at first I had reservations about using was Tagxedo, from reading further literature I can now see how it could be used to create an engaging word bank which children can refer to in their writing, Halsey (2007: 102) supports this idea expressing she used a ‘word power’ section in her school website ‘to provide the children with a stimulus to search out interesting words as they engaged with books, and then share those words with others’.

There are also many ways of supporting speaking and listening aspects of literacy through podcasting, Halsey (2007: 101) reflected that this enabled her class ‘to move past simply recounting events and surface features and into deeper Metacognition’. Previously ‘the separation of literacy and ICT has tended to stand in the way of progress in the classroom’ (Merchant, 2009:39), Internet technologies provide the opportunity for a real audience and helps to create an authentic purpose (Halsey, 2007) creating work which can be viewed on blogs and school websites can encourage more thoughtful content. Photo Peach allows work to be shared on blogs and websites to enable this concept of providing material for an audience.

However although harnessing new technologies is demonstrated to be easily accessible Merchant (2009) states that although the DCSF (2006) provides plenty of opportunity to incorporate digital literacy in the classroom the framework itself sets out what is tested and measureable is the print literacy, therefore when faced with this challenge many teachers still teach through what is measurable and tested.

 

FutureLab (2010) Digital Literacy Across the Curriculum (Sections 3.1 -3.4 Digital Literacy in Practice) http://www2.futurelab.org.uk/resources/documents/handbooks/digital_literacy.pdf

Halsey, S. (2007) ‘Embracing emergent technologies and envisioning new ways of using them for literacy learning in the primary classroom’ English Teaching; Practice and Critique 6 (2) pp 99-107

Merchant, G. (2009) Literacy in Virtual Worlds Journal of Research in Reading, Volume 32, Issue 1, 2009, pp 38–56

Photo Peach: http://photopeach.com/ (accessed 12/02/13)

Tagxedo http://www.tagxedo.com/ (accessed 12/02/13)

TES IBoard http://www.iboard.co.uk/ (accessed 12/02/13)

Reflections on the use of digital literacies; and implications for my future practice.

As trainee teachers, we can no longer ignore technology. It is here to stay and something that will have to become engrained in our teaching. We can no longer wonder what impact technology will have on literacy, as the nature of literacy is rapidly changing and by the time we are teachers technology will be incorporated within Literacy. (Halsey 2007) Merchant (2009) concurs with this view stating that the separation of ICT and Literacy within the classroom has stood in the way of progress. Future Lab (2010) describes digital literacy as “the ability to make and share meaning
 in different modes and formats.” (FutureLab 2010:1) It allows effective creation, collaboration and communication and is the process of critically engaging with technology to reach a different audience. Digital literacy has the ability to impact upon traditional subject knowledge. (FutureLab 2010)

The challenge within the classroom is enhancing classroom practice by transforming pedagogy to make educational uses of new Literacy practices. (Burnett et al. 2006) An effective way of incorporating this new pedagogy into teaching is for both teachers and learners to appreciate the need to engage with both traditional pedagogy aswell as incorporating and making sense of the digital media world and the way in which it can create new opportunities within the classroom.  (FutureLab 2010) Becoming digitally literate is not just exploring new medias but also creating with them and understanding the creativity opportunities that lie within them. (FutureLab 2010) Within classrooms it is easily incorporated as increasingly everyday activities are now mediated through screen-based literacies. In both formal and informally practices digital literacies are being transformed. (Merchant 2009)

Within last weeks seminar the technology that engaged me the most was ‘Storybird’. This was a story making web page where you were able to create your own storybook with words and pictures. This was a technology that interested me in putting into practice within my own classroom. It was easily accessible to different ability children as it was easy to navigate around and children could add as much or as little writing as they felt happy with. As these could then be shared on the school VLE the work of the children can be shared with parents and families at home. Halsey (2007) discussed the advantages of this stating that “Writing for a real audience is said to contribute to more thoughtful content and structure of the writing” (Halsey 2007:102) therefore not only are the children engaged in a productive digital literacy writing task the quality of writing could also be better than that of another writing task. Halsey went on to discuss the importance of anticipating feedback provides a purpose for writing, adding to the motivation of the writer.

Burnett, C., Dickinson, P., Merchant, G. & Myers, J. (2006). Digital connections: Transforming literacy in the primary school. Cambridge Journal in Education, 36(1), 11–29.

FutureLab (2010) Digital Literacy Across the Curriculum: (Sections 3.1 – 3.4 Digital Literacy in Practice)

Halsey, S. (2007) ‘Embracing emergent technologies and envisioning new ways of using them for literacy learning in the primary classroom’ English Teaching; Practice and Critique 6

Merchant, G. (2009) Literacy in virtual worlds. Sheffield Hallam University. 

A comparison of ICT programmes to be used in Literacy lessons.

Futurelab (2010) state that educational settings should “furnish children and young people with the skills, knowledge and understanding that will help them to take a full and active part in social, cultural, economic, civic and intellectual life now and in the future” (Futurelab, 2010; 2). Similarly Burnett, Dickinson, Merchant and Myers (2006) echo the importance of combining the teaching of digital skills together with the importance of cross curricular links, in order to reinforce technological skills, and make the content purposeful.

In my experience, I have used programmes which combine the use of digital skills, with cross curricular links, although some were more obvious than others. These will now be debated further.

Tagxedo (Leung, 2011) required selecting a background image, and then to type in key words relating to a topic, so that they appear randomised on the background image. I used this on a crown background with a theme of Queen Victoria. It would be good to use for a classroom display, allowing children to recap over key words or ideas that they have learned about over a topic. However, the program does not allow children to write in complete sentences, therefore this may be encouraging children to be less literate, which Merchant (2009) explains is an issue with popular culture, as it is disrupts traditional literacies whilst children become lazy with the use of standard English.

Similarly, Wordle (Feinberg, 2011) also encourages children to summarise a topic through one word answers, however does not allow children to select a background image.

A programme that allows children to extend their literacy skills is Story bird. It reverses visual storytelling by starting with the image, and then encouraging children to type a story based on the pictures given. This encourages children to think about the pictures, and the meaning that they carry, whilst making cognitive connections between them. It also allows children to publish their stories on the programe webpage, providing them with a purpose for writing, whilst allowing them to read other children’s stories. In addition, the program does not allow children to critique the stories, which Weil and Kincheloe (2004) argue is a negative of the program, as analysing work is a skill that should be rehearsed and encouraged where possible. However Marsh (2005) argues that many parents do not feel comfortable with their children’s work being criticised and viewed by others, which suggests they would be happy with their children using Story bird. Futurelab (2010) does however acknowledge the limitations of such programs, and accepts that they should be used alongside traditional literacy lessons.

In conclusion, It has been discussed that whilst some programmes can aid in literacy skills, and support cross currciular links, the balance between traditional literacy lessons, and tecnhology based lessons should be made clear as both can support children in learning to be literate.  

 

Bibliography

Burnett, C., Dickinson, P., Merchant, G. & Myers, J. (2006). Digital connections: Transforming literacy in theprimary school. Cambridge Journal in Education, 36(1), 11–29.

Feinberg, J. (2011) Wordle. Available at: http://www.wordle.net/create[accessed: 5^th February 2013].

Futurelab. (2010) Digital literacy across the curriculum. London: Becta.

Leung, H (2011) Tagxedo. Available at: http://www.tagxedo.com/app.html[accessed: 5^th February 2013].

Marsh, J. (2005) Popular culture, new media and digital literacy in early childhood. Oxon: Routledge.

Merchant, G. (2009) ‘Literacy in virtual worlds’ Journal of Research in Reading 32, (1) 38-56.

Weil, D and Kincheloe, J. (2004) Critical Thinking and Learning: An Encyclopedia for Parents and Teachers. USA: Greenwood Press.

Storybird - The lonely princess

Wordle - goldilocks

Digital literacy

Tagxedo

















Jigzone

<a href="http://www.jigzone.com/puzzles/8815F4A1DB2?z=5&amp;m=D2250E0555.A68CA3E"><img src="http://www.jigzone.com/im/pCut/5.png" alt="Click to Mix and Solve" style="width:400px;height:300px;margin:4px;padding:0;border:1px solid #999;background:transparent url(http://www.jigzone.com/puz/zemThumb?p.up.V.60.S0.3pul9:jpg)"/></a>

Photo Peach

Snow white on PhotoPeach<object width="445" height="335"><param name="movie" value="http://photopeach.com/public/swf/spiral.swf"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"/><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true"/><param name="flashvars" value="photos=http://photopeach.com%2Fapi%2Fgetphotos%3Falbum_id%3Dfh80ml%26spiral%3D1&autoplay=1&embed=1"/><embed src="http://photopeach.com/public/swf/spiral.swf" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="445" height="335" flashvars="photos=http://photopeach.com%2Fapi%2Fgetphotos%3Falbum_id%3Dfh80ml%26spiral%3D1&autoplay=1&embed=1"></embed></object>

http://storybird.com/accounts/unpublished/

A story about a horrid fairy.