Instead of relying on the latest device or app, administrators should leverage the expertise of teachers to sustain classrooms that reflect the contexts of learning encountered in the real world, according to ILA's latest brief, Improving Digital Practices for Literacy, Learning, and Justice: More Than Just Tools.

In our increasingly technology-driven and globalized world, literacy instruction should prepare students to “produce, communicate, interpret and socialize with peers, adults and the broader world.” These skills require a mastery of written and spoken language as well as a familiarity with literary devices and rhetorical structures and must translate across digital and analog worlds.

“Intentionally building time for these online and offline literacy practices allows students to see themselves as agents of change across settings,” says the brief.

The brief discusses the importance of designing digital instruction that mirrors the kinds of work environments students will eventually encounter in their personal and professional worlds. This means a shift away from rote instructional practices, rooted in individual tools, and toward digital resources that inspire students to “make, play, design, hack and innovate.”  

The brief also explores technology’s potential role in perpetuating power structures and widening achievement gaps. When students do not have access to digital tools and resources, they are denied valuable forms of production and amplification that help spotlight areas of necessary advocacy.

“When school administrators take away students’ phones or tell them to put them away during class time, they are teaching implicit lessons about the kind of work environments these students are expected to enter. In this light, digital literacies are a matter of social justice.”

Instead of trying to disrupt inequality with “expensive devices,” the brief suggests that administrators invest in teacher knowledge of the contexts of literacy learning. This approach empowers students to participate in authentic learning activities that prepare them for real-world demands.

The brief closes with a list of limitations to what digital resources can do (i.e., act as a cure-all for legacies of inequity) and a set of next steps.

Access the full brief here.

Alina O'Donnell is the communications strategist at ILA and the editor of Literacy Daily.