How have these readings changed, confirmed, or complicated your thinking about the effects of digital media on young people's abilities to read and write?
These readings have confirmed my beliefs about the effects of digital media on young people's abilities to read and write. Students want to be engaged in the classroom. If students lack engagement, they lack motivation to achieve success. In order for adolescent literacy instruction to be effective, the lesson must foster critical thinking, student decision-making, address the diverse needs of the students, allow students to be creative and collaborative, as well as provide ample feedback for the students (Adolescent Literacy, 2007). Digital media holds all of these qualities which will help promote more effect literacy within the classroom. The one article entitled, "Writing Now" made an excellent point and got me thinking. The jobs/careers that these students choose require students to write for many different purposes. Job requirements involve individuals writing for many different purposes and if classrooms do not teach to all of these purposes, then we are not preparing our students (2008). Also, I never thought about how simplifying/abbreviating words in texts allows students to display their knowledge of phonics. I do not necessarily agree that texting does not distract students. Being inside the classroom, students do become distracted with texts due to the fact that they are easily accessible. The are able to be accessed easier than a note being passed (Scholastic, 2014).
used with permission from http://www.flickr.com/photos/wfryer/7842702898/
How have these readings changed, confirmed, or complicated your thinking about the effects of school-based writing instruction on young peoples abilities to read and write?
After the reading, I feel that school-based writing instruction needs to incorporate more contexts that the students use outside of school. When students write using media, the students are actively engaged. The students still have to develop and understanding of their audience as well as learn how to use conventions pertaining to a specific genre. Also, many teachers want to stress that students just aren't engaged, however, it is our fault that they are not engaged. Many students don't want to write a research paper on a topic given to them. They want to write using methods that they enjoy using outside of school (Writing Outside of School, 2009). It's not necessarily the students receiving worse grades in an English class due to their lack of skills, it is the student not being engaged inside the classroom and therefore appearing to not care.
What changes do you think educators need to make so that reading and writing in school have a more positive effect on children's abilities to read and write?
In order for reading and writing in school to have a more positive effect, the teachers need to incorporate ways of including extracurricular writing into the curriculum. Teachers need to allow students to create multimedia presentations as well as write blogs. When students are engaged, the students are more apt to learn the content material. However, the media used needs to fit the assignment. If the incorrect media is used, the whole idea/concept can be ineffective and worthless (Writing Outside of School, 2009). Also, in order for reading and writing to be effective, all teachers across all content areas must support reading and writing inside their classroom. Teachers of all content areas need professional development on how to incorporate effective reading and writing assignments using media into their classroom (Reading across the Curriculum, 2011).
Check out this article:"The Digital World of Young Children-Emergent Literacy" Article
In this article, it summarizes how digital media is positively affecting students inside the classroom if use properly. Also, it explain how students are increasingly using digital media outside of school and thus the need for increasing the use of digital media in the classroom.
References:
Adolescent Literacy. National Council of Teachers of English. Retrieved May 23, 2014, from www.ncte.org
Can Texting Help With Spelling? | Scholastic.com. (n.d.). Scholastic Teachers. Retrieved May 24, 2014, from http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/article/can-texting-help-spelling
“The Digital World of Young Children: Emergent Literacy”. (n.d.). Pearson Foundation. Retrieved May 24, 2014, from http://www.pearsonfoundation.org/literacy/research-surveys-and-reports/the-digital-world-of-young-children-emergent-literacy.html
Reading and Writing across the Curriculum. National
Council of Teachers of English, 15-18.
Writing Now. National Council of Teachers of English. Retrieved May 23, 2014, from www.ncte.org
Writing Outside of School. National Council of Teachers of English. Retrieved May 23, 2014, from www.ncte.org
Keri - I wholeheartedly agree that more digital media/technology needs to be incorporated into the classroom. Yes, we want to teach, but we need to reach the students at their level/area of interest to get them actively engaged. While I also believe that we still need to incorporate a good dose of the basics, we can always discover new ways to develop the "standards" with newer technology so that we are covering what we need to via a vehicle to engage and activate our students' minds.
ReplyDeleteAllowing for students to deviate from the "norm" of research papers - allowing for multimodal presentation of information - will engage a greater number of students and allow for them to develop their own interests within platforms that better fit their learning styles and/or abilities. And, as you stated, this will serve them well when they enter the workforce, as they will no doubt be asked for creative, engaging presentations ... by cultivating this at an earlier age, we are better preparing them for entry into the technology-saturated workforce.
Nice post!
I agree with you about letting students pick their topics for research papers as a way to help student become effect school based writers. I think at times though it is still alright to give them topics. They need to learn to do research on topics they might not fully believe in or agree with. Someday for their job or class they might have to do this so we need to give them the skills to still write even when we are not excited about the work. I think figuring out the right mixture will be key to engaging them.
ReplyDeleteKeri,
ReplyDeleteExcellent post! I completely agree with you that teachers should provide motivating ways to engage their students to read and write. I know students are more apt to enjoy or at least get involved with classroom reading and writing when they are instructed to read or write about topics that interest them or their lives. I also believe that students will be more engaged when they are able to utilize technology. I have found myself becoming much more tech "savvy" when I am able to use the resources available to me. This class has made me more aware of these resources that teachers should utilize (blogs, wikis, and power points). Hopefully I can learn to incorporate these resources in my classroom as well.
Keri,
ReplyDeleteA statement you made in your blog made me reflect on something that my school is currently going through:
"Also, in order for reading and writing to be effective, all teachers across all content areas must support reading and writing inside their classroom."
Even though I haven't had a classroom this year (being a sub in PE), I still get to sit through all the faculty senate meetings and the big topic here is cursive writing. As a school we have to all decide if we are going to teach cursive writing to our kids now that it is no longer a CSO. We are having a problem with this because we can't require the students to write in cursive since it is something that is no longer in our standards, but if we decide as a school to teach it then our students at least know how to do it. As a school we had to take a vote on weather or not we wanted to continue teaching students to write in cursive. Many teachers just suggested that we allow the ones that want to write in cursive to do so, and the ones who don't want to or don't know how to write in print. I believe that it's important for students to know how to write in cursive. 'Signing' your name is never going to go away even if we are signing on iPads or other devices.
Commented on Keri Dale
ReplyDeleteHow does their thinking about the effects of digital media on reading and writing differ or is similar to your own?
Keri and I both feel that digital media is key to engagement and motivation in the classroom. We also agree that it was interesting to learn in the readings that texting helps students with their phonics, which is an added bonus. In my opinion, we agree on all information presented. Great minds think alike!
What compelling evidence for their link of thinking do you find compelling? Why? I always enjoy learning new research about technology, and the link she gave in her reading post reveals that mobile devices are a more commonplace for students to engage and interact with digital media. The research also states that children’s opinion of learning is more positively impacted through opportunities in digital media opposed to print material. With the advancements technology has made on research and educational learning options, this point is not surprising. Teachers enjoy new tech tools in their lessons as much as students. We teachers need to come up with ways of mixing it up. Not confining our learning to the traditional methods.
What ideas do they have about improving literacy instruction in school align of differ than your own
We agree completely! The more teachers know about options in teaching with technology in their classrooms, the better. Literacy can be improved if we draw students in with topics that interest them, keep them motivated and keep them engaged. These are all key words in teaching and technology advances have tools for ALL of these points, it is just a question of seeking out the right tools for your class and specific learning needs of the lesson or your students. Keri and I are on the same wavelength.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI wonder how much cursive writing instruction students need to learn how to sign their names? Not much if you examine the signature of my doctor. Digital signatures are already widely used. A digital signature is a mathematical scheme for demonstrating the authenticity of a digital message or document. A valid digital signature gives a recipient reason to believe that the message was created by a known sender, such that the sender cannot deny having sent the message (authentication and non-repudiation) and that the message was not altered in transit (integrity).
ReplyDeleteI do agree that there might be some cognitive benefits to learning how to write in cursive. There was an interesting article about this in the New York Times over the weekend! The researches content that learning to write in cursive help the brain learn to think in very particular ways. Learning to write in cursive appears to help dyslexic children learn to read! I was so intrigued by this article that I've decided to teach my dyslexic son to write in cursive this summer!
Keri,
ReplyDeleteYour comment about how teachers are not teaching students how to use specific job related skills is something that is hopefully changing in the education system. In addition to your examples, students lack the skills in other areas such as math. Think back to school where you learned how to use a checkbook and balance it or when you learned about mortgage rates and borrowing rates and home financing. There are so many areas where literacy in many forms is lacking that has a major effect on students when they become adults. I am a believer that students must know how to read to do anything, even math, but the point is if they are not literate in society, they will have a hard time adapting and becoming an upstanding adult in our society.