Futurelab (2010) state
that digital literacy is not just about understanding how to use technology,
but about “collaborating, staying
safe and communicating effectively. It’s about cultural and social awareness
and understanding, and it’s about being creative” (2010:19). This means resources should be understood and
used to inhibit these ideologies of using technology and digital literacy.
From personal experiences, resources seem to have benefits for
literacy teaching, however lack aspects which are essential, for example
resources to reflect upon learning and using these resources. Futurelab (2010) understands
this and therefore suggests using such resources alongside traditional
literacy, whilst Halsey (2007) reinforces this viewpoint saying it is vital to
merge digital skills with other cross curricular subjects other than literacy.
Resources that I have found interesting and beneficial include: ‘Storybird’;
an interactive resource which enables children to create stories, using page
layout techniques, pictures to resemble the story and whole story layout. It
was fun, easy to use and gave children opportunities to express, imagine and
invent their own stories. However, it is limited in its capacity to let
children express their stories as creatively as they may want (for example, the
amount of pictures available to use).
Merchant (2007) suggests that using technological resources like this,
can hinder children by making them lazy with traditional literacy and sloppy in
their written language skills.
Another resource recently used is Tagxedo; a program that lets
children create word art pictures. My creation was words involving the theme of
snow white in the shape of an apple. It is a great way in which children could
maybe show their understanding and comprehension of a story they have read, in
a digital and creative way.
To conclude, with reflections on resources I have used, it is
beneficial to use digital literacy in the classroom to enhance upon traditional
literacy, but caution should be understood that not all digital literacy tools
will fully underpin what is needed in literacy and therefore teachers should be
understanding of this and able to adapt and suit these to their needs (Merchant,
2007).
Futurelab (2010) Digital
Literacy across the Curriculum [online]
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)
Merchant (2007) Writing the future in the digital age Literacy 41 (3)
Storybird http://storybird.com/
Tagxedo www.tagxedo.com
I had not thought about using tagxedo for comprehension . However, I think it would be effective. Could the limit on the pictures encourage children to focus on the text when using storybird ?
ReplyDeleteYes, I had not thought about this. It may enable children to focus on what they want to write rather than focus upon the exciting side of using technology to create stories (even though this should be encouraged). However, it may also limit their imagination as the pictures could be used as stimulus to further their stories?
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