Literacy Now

I pride myself on being a pretty good problem solver, and if you’re a teacher and you’re reading this blog, chances are you’re the same. As teachers, we’re constantly solving problems, big and small, as we plan and orchestrate daily learning activities.

Recently, though, I’ve realized that when it comes to integrating technology to foster literacy development, I should pull back a bit. I’ve noticed my penchant for quick and efficient problem solving is actually depriving my students of valuable learning opportunities.

Specifically—and not just in my classroom, but in classrooms I’ve visited—I’ve noticed that, when there are choices to be made and some uncertainty about which app or web tool to use, or how exactly to use a particular tool to solve a problem, the level of engagement and the quality of the intellectual work I see often shoots way up.

Why does this happen?

What I observe is that when students become partners in the work of weighing the affordances and constraints of using web tool A or tool B—or using web tool A or paper and pencil instead—they tend to have strong opinions.

What’s really interesting is I suddenly hear students spontaneously saying specific things about their literacy work habits and preferences (“I’ll start reading this on my phone and then read more later at home on my laptop”) and connecting those to particular affordances of the tool they prefer and to specific features of the texts they’re reading or are about to compose (“With the split screen feature you can read both texts side by side—if your screen is wide enough”; “With the search tool it takes two seconds to find all the places where the author used the word treachery”).

This kind of talk is music to my ears—students are metacognitive, stepping back from a task and thinking about what they’re doing and how they can do it best (or slightly better). Eliciting this kind of talk certainly does not require making technology the focus; there are excellent paper-and-pencil ways to grow your students’ metacognitive muscles. Still, with technology in the mix, I have observed greater interest in engaging in metacognitive reflection.

I also observe that when there is discussion about the pros and cons of tool A and tool B, it’s not always the same students who do the talking. Students who are less-frequent contributors during traditional ELA discussions about things like author’s craft or intertextual allusions may suddenly have a lot to say about a particular web tool—and how it helps them read or write in a specific way. This observation aligns with what we’re learning from research by Julie Coiro, Don Leu, and others about how online and offline literacies overlap but also have distinct knowledge and skillsets. You will likely find the same—some students demonstrate equal proficiency in both areas, and others may demonstrate proficiency in online literacies that eclipses their proficiency in traditional print literacies.

A bonus benefit is even when the discussion is fairly short, I invariably come away with specific new information and insights about my students.

The big pay-off, though, is that these conversations launch students into precisely the kind of thinking and learning we want to be doing in a literacy-focused classroom—thinking and learning about how, in our reading and writing, we can make choices that help us achieve greater clarity, comprehension, intertextual connection, aesthetic appeal, and so on.

However, even if class discussion about alternative web tools is incredibly rich and interesting, you probably don’t want a debate about the relative merits of CiteLighter versus Diigo to completely dominate the class period you set aside for your students to research sources for the essay—or blog post—they’re writing.

Give it a shot—try from time to time to involve your students in reflecting on, investigating, and debating the merits of alternative literacy tools or alternative uses of tools—even when you’re feeling pressed for time and part of your teacher brain is telling you to just make the decision on your own before class.

I predict you will find that when you involve your students in reflective discussion around problems of technology integration, it will stimulate deep thinking and learning that may surprise you. Some of this may focus on technology in a narrow sense, but much of it—the really valuable part—will be about the materials and strategies and challenges of doing things with words and ideas, about reading and note taking and finding contrasting perspectives in texts, about the constraints of a particular genre, and more.

What is gained by writing a text message rather than an email, composing a video essay instead of a traditional prose essay with embedded images, or using one note-taking tool instead of another? Let’s face it: Looking to the future, it’s these conversations—about the affordances and constraints of new apps and tools for enhancing reading, writing, and other literacy practices—that will be increasingly central to our students’ professional, personal, and civic lives.

Paul Morsink is a doctoral candidate in Educational Psychology and Educational Technology at Michigan State University. This article is part of a series from the International Literacy Association’s Technology in Literacy Education Special Interest Group (TILE-SIG).

Recently I was given an opportunity to interview teachers in Germany about their methods for teaching students to conduct online inquiry. Although I came away from these discussions with a variety of insights, the acknowledgment from a majority of the teachers that students need more preparation in critically evaluating online information resonated with me. I’ve heard similar comments from teachers in the United States and South Africa and read various research reports confirming this need.

Cited as one of the five primary processes within online research and comprehension, the evaluation of online information is unique to the digital age. With the click of a mouse, information is now available worldwide, regardless of its credibility or accuracy. Perhaps as a result of this situation, curricular frameworks in Australia, Manitoba, Canada, and the United States require the development of skills in evaluating information found online. Teachers, however, appear to lack specific processes to teach students how to consistently engage in strategies to verify and assess trustworthiness and reliability. Conversations have revealed a tendency to tell students that they should not use Wikipedia as a source. Yet there is much more to this process. Just as students need strategy instruction to be successful within “traditional” reading activities, they also benefit from explicit instruction in how and when to evaluate information found online.

Given the need for instruction in this area, there are several resources I think will be helpful for developing plans to teach this critical skill. First, I recommend an article by Shenglan Zhang, Nell Duke, and Laura Jiménez that describes the WWWDOT framework (Who wrote this and what credentials do they have? Why was it written? When was it written and updated? Does this help meet my needs? Organization of website. To-do list for the future.), which teaches students to direct their attention to six aforementioned dimensions of websites. In collecting and assessing this information, students render a decision on the trustworthiness of the site. What is helpful about the article is the description of one teacher’s process of teaching the framework across four lessons.

Julie Coiro and I also wrote an E-ssentials piece on how to use CAPES (Context, Actions, Products, Evaluation, and Standards) self-regulatory framework. The framework requires students to ask a series of questions, plan actions based on the questions, then evaluate the website on the basis of specific criteria (i.e., standardsof reliability)to determine whether it’s a trustworthy source of information. The article contains a shortened example of a think-aloud that can be used to teach the process of evaluation, and a companion site demonstrates the process in greater depth.

Another useful set of thinking prompts and lesson ideas can be found at Julie Coiro’s post on Edutopia.  From here, you can also read preliminary results of a study conducted among 770 seventh graders asked to make judgments about a website author’s level of expertise, his or her point of view, and the overall trustworthiness of the information provided.  Finally, there are several resources found at ReadWriteThink.org, including a strategy guide and a lesson plan, which both inform and help in lesson development. The common characteristic across the resources is that students are being taught to stop, plan, and reflect about websites and authors, actions they don’t normally take when seeking information.

As a final thought, let me share a comment from one of the German teachers in reference to Wikipedia. He said we forget some Wikipedia entries, such as one about The Beatles, have been edited and vetted by many experts on the band, thus providing factual information. So, instead of telling students they cannot use the website, he allows them to visit it first (which seems to be their natural inclination anyway) and asks them to consider the information on the site as well as the references. Rather than avoid sites that might be questionable, his message was that if we can teach students to effectively implement strategies for thinking about and examining websites and information, they can still effectively use the resources they are most comfortable with. In turn, we can be comfortable knowing that we have prepared them to be systematic, analytic, and critical, as they search for information in the digital age.

Michael Putnam is an associate professor and interim chair for the Department of Reading and Elementary Education at University of North Carolina at Charlotte. This article is part of a series from the International Reading Association’s Technology in Literacy Education Special Interest Group (TILE-SIG).

In today’s world, the topic of using technology in the classroom can be intimidating. In this regular column, join one teacher on a quest to discover the best way to meet the needs of her digital-age learners, moving beyond the technology tools to focusing on supporting each student’s learning. 

In today’s transient world, our classrooms have more diversity than ever before. We have students from different backgrounds, ethnicities, and beliefs. Our students have needs across the learning continuum: Some are performing above grade-level standards and some are below grade-level standards, some have exceptional needs and some are English learners. How do we meet the needs of our diverse population while keeping students focused and motivated with a thirst to learn more?

Not every child will have the highest GPA or be the star basketball player. But every student in our class is growing and improving. As a teacher of middle-level learners, one of the keys to promoting each student’s growth is truly getting to know each of them. Some students, regardless of our good intentions, shy away from public praise or encouragement. They do not want to be singled out in front of peers and opened up for (potential) embarrassment. Other students seem to thrive on the validation of their growth and hard work.

The answer I have found is to tap into some of the tech tools we are already using as a way for students to share their successes, big or small. Sometimes in their learning, our students are missing the forest for the trees. Validation goes a long way toward pointing out the amount of growth a student is making; growth that student would have missed had we not taken a moment to point it out, publicly or privately. Validation goes a long way toward keeping students moving forward and not giving up on their quest to improve.

One way my students share success is through the class’s participation on Twitter, which has become an integral part of our classroom learning. In addition to connecting and learning with their global peers and writing mentors, students can share their successes, no matter how small. Mindful of the 140-character limit, my English learners and exceptional education students search for the right words and thoughts they want to post. Because posting on Twitter is a regular classroom routine, those students who do not want to be singled out with praise feel comfortable posting their successes. That simple act of sharing with the world validates sometimes hard-fought success. Other times, it opens up a discussion among students in other parts of the world, enriching the learning of all.

Likewise, much of our class time is spent in small-group or one-on-one conferring. To document students’ needs and for students to set their personal growth, we use the app Confer. With Confer, one has the ability to e-mail a contact when data are collected. Confer is also a vital part of our learning practice. My students and I collect data, discuss the data, and then set a small, actionable goal, making their learning transparent. They know the target and have outlined a plan to reach that goal. Students often refer to Confer as they are working and occasionally request to send an e-mail to a parent, previous teacher, or administrator to show how much they have grown in a short period of time.

I am also a huge proponent of student blogging. Through encouragement and guidance, my students become reflective on their learning. They learn to share their goals, their plans, and their successes along the way. Although creating this supportive community takes practice, by sharing, students become supportive of one another. They cheer one another on, give encouragement, demonstrate empathy, and provide that “been-there-done-that” or “you-can-do-it-too” support. As the teacher, this is priceless to observe.

These are some of the ways my students celebrate their successes. I’m sure when you look at your classroom routines, you may see other celebration possibilities to meet your students’ needs. The point is, we are taking the time to validate and celebrate each success.

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

Designing thoughtful, continuous professional development (PD) is an important part of a school’s improvement process and culture, but has your school ever considered the benefits of video recording your PD activities? With the advancement of technology, many teaching professionals are using tablets and smartphones to make daily videos of their classroom lessons and happenings. You may be surprised to learn that recording any PD event your school organizes is just as easy: All you need is a laptop, webcam, access to Wi-Fi, and a free Google+ account linked to YouTube.  

Google Hangouts on Air (HoA) is a free, live webcast tool that allows the party hosting the Hangout to record his or her computer screen and audio and upload to a public, unlisted, or private channel on YouTube.

My school, Ruth Fox Elementary School in rural Michigan, is exploring HoA. Using instructional practice as the basis for literacy reform, the teaching staff at my school was interested in learning more about Socratic Circles and how this interdisciplinary strategy could help grow student conversation, community, and close and critical reading and writing, while addressing numerous Michigan Standards.

With this focus in mind, we arranged to have Matt Copeland facilitate three interactive professional development HoA webcasts about the thoughtful integration of Socratic Circles. This video is the first in the series.

In a second example, our school also participated in a HoA with the University of Michigan’s Digital Rhetoric Collaborative (affiliated with the Sweetland Writing Center) to discuss our district-wide PD plans for Digital Learning Day. This HoA session is available here.

Benefits of Recording Professional Development

Before the school year comes to a close or as you look ahead to your 2015-16 PD plans, consider the benefits for recording your school’s next PD session:

• All staff members can revisit the recording and learn more from it, ultimately helping address a key problem with PD—the challenge of keeping it alive for future staff meetings, PLC, and more.
• When PD activities/events involve teachers learning by doing (e.g., Socratic Circles), access to the live recording can be referenced in whole or through selected excerpts to examine crucial aspects of the craft of teaching.
• A recording affords the opportunity to greatly improve future PD activities/events by having outside or in-house PD organizers revisit the recording in specific ways to help make sure there’s clear connections made.
• Colleagues who miss the event/activity can still experience it.
• PD learnings (or excerpts) can be shared easily with colleagues at other schools, conferences, and so forth.
• Participation and focus within the PD are likely to improve. In a nonthreatening way, colleagues know they are being recorded and will more than likely get involved in the PD session.
• The HoA webcast provides an opportunity for parents and other education professionals to get a view into the professional learning teachers are engaged in.
• A webcast creates an opportunity for schools to learn from an expert speaker who may have been unreachable in the past because of such factors as distance, allocations, and time.

Key Points to Consider Before Recording a PD Session With Hangouts on Air

Although it is relatively easy to record and store in the Cloud any PD activity your school could possibly organize, there’s still a few points to consider when using HoA to record your PD session:

• PD can and should be interactive in a HoA format.
• Decide whether your school would like to make the professional development HoA a public webcast (open to all—other educators, parents, and more) or unlisted (you must be invited to view or participate). You may change the privacy settings on YouTube once the HoA is uploaded.
• A handheld microphone is helpful in capturing staff conversation during the recorded PD session.
• If another party is involved in presenting, hooking the laptop/tablet to an LCD projector will allow everyone in the PD to see the computer screen and hear the guest speaker(s) clearly.
• Consider doing a test run with your guest/s beforehand to explore the numerous apps that can be used inside the hangout: screensharing, polls, question and answer, as well as other amenities you may want to include in the recording of the PD session.
• The host party must have a Google+ account (free) linked to YouTube (consider setting up a Google+ Community account to have more privacy and control).
• All invited guests and viewers must have a Google+ account.
• The host and all participating guest(s) should have access to a microphone and webcam on their device—beneficial to have a camera on both ends for recording purposes.
• HoA video can be edited in YouTube or can be downloaded and edited using another digital tool.
• Take a look at all the HoA tips Google offers.

ILA’s next Google Hangout on Air will be April 28 at 8 p.m. ET. Donalyn Miller and Teri Lesesne will discuss “‘Model’ Behavior: How You Can Encourage Wild Reading.” The Hangout will stream live on the ILA YouTube page, but an archived version will be available on demand afterwards.

Amber White is a reading specialist/literacy coach for North Branch Area Schools and a teacher consultant for the Saginaw Bay Writing Project. You can reach her on Twitter or at awhite@nbbroncos.net. This article is part of a series from the International Reading Association’s Technology in Literacy Education Special Interest Group (TILE-SIG).

Each year, I look forward to my annual physical for one reason: My doctor is an avid reader. Without fail, when I visit her office we talk as much about what we’ve been reading as we do about my health. This year was no different. During the past month, she had finished The Art of Hearing Heartbeats by Jan-Philipp Sendker and said she couldn’t put the book down. Within the week, I found myself mesmerized by this story of a young woman’s quest to explain her father’s disappearance, prompted by my doctor’s suggestion, leading me to a book I would not likely have encountered on my own.

So it is with book recommendations. We typically learn of selections we love from other readers whose interests we share. Although youngsters might rely on parents and teachers for reading choices, valuing what peers read takes place late in elementary school and solidifies in adolescence. For those who read avidly, reliance on the reading opinions of friends and acquaintances rarely wanes, even into adulthood. Struggling readers, too, are much more likely to pick up a selection recommended by a peer. Employing the use of Web tools, one’s own peer circle broadens when linked to a virtual audience with more diverse experiences, greatly increasing the likelihood that a reading suggestion will strike a chord with a reader and prompt a connection with a perfect book, series, author, or genre.

Savvy teachers build upon the power of reading recommendations. Although face-to-face conversations about favorite selections can serve as powerful reading motivators for many students, social cataloging websites allow readers to connect, share, discuss, and archive their reading suggestions within and beyond their school settings. Online book communities such as Goodreads and LibraryThing appeal to older readers, offering possibilities for secondary students or teaching colleagues to catalog book selections, form groups, share reviews, and discuss favorites. Shelfari builds virtual bookshelves for readers at all levels, displaying books read in addition to books of interest. Groups can be created, discussions organized, and recommendations sent to other users, making the site friendly for classroom or small book group use. Bookjetty moves beyond the typical reach of most social book cataloging websites with its capability to search for book titles at more than 300 public, school, and university libraries. Although the site includes book selections for readers of all ages, Bookjetty allows users to share what they are reading on Facebook and Twitter, a feature that may dictate cautious use in some school settings.

Public library systems, such as Sheppard Memorial Library, are building on the power of shared reading interests by integrating “read-alike” suggestions within their online catalogs via book recommendation databases such as NoveList. SML Director of Libraries Greg Needham says users have benefitted tremendously from the library’s “if you like this” website feature, which mimics familiar services offered by Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Available 24/7 from any computer or mobile device, library patrons report finding “more of what they are looking for” in addition to “terrific reads they didn't know they were looking for.” Availability of reader advisory features within virtual library resources is one of many reasons that forging stronger connections between school students and public libraries is worth continuing attention.

Finally, North Carolina State University Libraries’ The Best Book I Read This Year blog is worth mention, as it features students, alumni, faculty, and staff members who recommend their favorite reads of the year. Although this site likely has limited utility in school settings, it offers a fine model for creating similar classroom or school blogs saluting its own students, teachers, and selected guests as experts whose suggestions have value and the potential to guide and influence other readers.

Terry S. Atkinson is associate professor in the Department of Literacy Studies, English Education, and History Education at East Carolina University in Greenville, NC. This article is part of a series from the International Reading Association’s Technology in Literacy Education Special Interest Group (TILE-SIG).