NCTE has come out with several articles addressing the changing roles for teachers of literacy.The point is this: As new technologies emerge, they bring opportunities for teachers at all levels to foster reading and writing...not do away with it.
The article recognizes that K–12 students who write with computers produce compositions of greater length and higher quality; they are more engaged with and motivated to write than their peers who, presumably, are not provided with this opportunity. College students who keep e-portfolios have a higher rate of academic achievement and retention rate than peers who do not. They also demonstrate greater capacity for metacognition, reflection, and audience awareness. Finally, students who receive online responses to the writing are said to revise better than those who do not.
If the studies bear this out, then the article makes a strong case for teaching and practicing 21st Literacy Skill sets. Sadly, however, the authors believe this is not happening because so many think technology is about playing with machines. The article goes on to explore other myths about technology and the teaching of literacy... so we ask
¨ In
what ways have you incorporated information and media literacy into your
classroom?
¨ Do
you think there needs to be explicit instruction on information and media
literacy or is It accomplished within a more holistic teaching style
sufficiently?
¨ What
limits are there to following national or even state standards of literacy in
all schools?
¨ Have
you ever been mandated to incorporate information and media literacy into your
lessons?
One observation, given the time constraints attending this assignment: one 6th grade CCSS ELA is forcing/requiring teachers to compare literacies in print and film. Guiding questions necessarily need to discuss the ways in which we can do this. Film uses many purely visual techniques that print cannot incorporate. Print media uses words to communicate story and a point of view; Background and explicit instruction in how filmmakers convey a point of view and the techniques they use to do this should happen. More later
I agree that when students write using computers, they produce compositions of greater length and higher quality. Several years ago, I watched an episode on Oprah about children whose brain functioned faster than their hand can write. These students performed better when they were using a computer because they end up typing faster than writing. When they write, they tend to encounter a lot of errors of misspelling words or omitting words. This is because of the speed their brain is going. It's not that they had a learning disability. To me, this is a great ability. This made a lot of sense to me and should be considered when students are struggling with writing.
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