by Julie B. Wise

Over the past few years, school districts in 46 states have been reshaping their literacy instruction to align their curriculum with the Common Core State Standards (CCSSI, 2010). Two of the more significant changes to English Language Arts standards are in the area of writing and multimodal instruction. CCSS place a stronger emphasis on writing and indicate a broader definition of literacy. For example, fifth grade students are expected to analyze the author’s manipulation of media, create a multimedia presentation, and produce a two page typed document (CCSSI, 2010).

In addition, new literacies challenge our relationship with the writing process. As a result, educators need to re-evaluate and expand their understanding of literacy to include multimodal composition. In traditional poetry, composition is mediated on a piece of paper. The author’s goal is to evoke feelings and mental images through the printed text on a page. In digital poetry, composition is mediated on a screen and meaning is defined by the author’s use of sound, images, and textual motion (Hayles, 2008).

Curwood and Cowell (2011) maintained that their iPoetry project increased 10th grade students’ awareness of audience, a greater attention to mood, and self-reflection. Findings from this study suggests multimodal composition afforded students a meaningful tool to explore poetry within a collaborative, multimedia environment. In addition, digital poetry connected out of school literacies with classroom instruction and added relevance to the study of poetry as a genre.

Canadian researchers, Hughes & John (2009) implemented digital poetry with 6th and 7th grade students. The results highlighted the development of critical literacy and collaboration skills. According to the authors, the use of multimodal composition taught students how the use of multiple modes could increase the mood, imagery, and voice of the poem. In addition, the quality of students’ writing improved along with their ability to edit.

Step by Step Guide

The following three standards (CCSSI, 2010) could be used to guide the design of a digital poetry project:

• RL.5.7 Analyze how visual and multimedia elements contribute to the meaning, tone or beautify of a text (e.g., multimedia presentation of poem).
• W.5.6 Use technology to produce and publish writing as well as to interact and collaborate with others; demonstrate sufficient command of keyboarding skills to type a minimum of two pages in a single sitting.
• SL.5.5 Include multimedia components (e.g., graphics, sound) and visual displays in presentations 

The digital poetry project could consist of sixty-minute sessions over the course of four consecutive Fridays. In between each session, students read mentor poetry texts, record ideas in their writing journal, and collect sounds and images to use in their poem.

Session 1: Have students read and analyze page-based poetry and digital poetry by discussing the differences between two types of poetry. Guide students to think more critically about how sounds, images, and movement worked together with printed text to enhance meaning.

Analyze Poetry as a Reader

Analyzing Poetry as a Writer

Session 2: Introduce the composition process of digital poetry by using a think aloud when modeling how to create a digital poem. Invite students to apply an image, a sound, or a movement to the poem, Grandma, by Ralph Fletcher. After the whole group lesson, ask students to begin to brainstorm possible sounds, images, and movements for their own digital poem.

Digital Poetry Planning Guide

Start with a sound, image, or movement to support your brainstorming process.
Topic:
Audience:
Background: color or picture
Word: font style or size or motion
Explain your steps:

Session 3: Allow students the opportunity to work within PowerPoint or iMovie software to gain a deeper awareness of how sound, image, and movement of text could enhance mood and meaning. Walk around and give specific suggestions and feedback about the effects the students choose. At the end of the lesson, have students sharing how their poem was based on a sound, image, or movement.

Session 4: Ask students to present their digital poems to the class by explaining their multimodal composition process and reading their poem aloud. Allow time for peers to offer feedback in the form of praise, questions, and recommendations for future media choices.

Building a Bridge

Is poetry instruction still relevant in a time when we are preparing students for high-stakes testing in school while we read and write on cell phones, iPads, and laptops out of school? According to these two studies, the answer is, “Yes.” Digital poetry bridges new literacy skills with traditional poetry instruction in a collaborative environment. Any opportunities educators can build a bridge between out of school and in school literacies could increase student motivation and engagement to learn. The affordances of digital poetry instruction can provide the collaborative digital environment students’ desire while meeting the academic demands of the CCSS.

Resources:

Common Core State Standards Initiative. (2010). Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts & Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects. Washington, DC: National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and the Council of Chief State School Officers. Accessed from: http://www.corestandards.org/the-standards

Curwood, J. and Cowell, L. (2011). iPoetry: Creating Space for New Literacies in the English Curriculum. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. 55(2), 110 – 120.

Hughes, J. (2008). The “screen-size” art: Using digital media to perform poetry. English in Education. 42(2), 148 – 164.

Hughes, J. and John, A. (2009). From Page to Digital Stage: Creating Digital Performances of Poetry. Voices from the Middle. 16(3), 15 – 22.

Julie B. Wise is currently in the PhD Literacy Program at the University of Delaware. She can be reached via email at juliebwise@comcast.net.

This article is part of a series from the International Reading Association Technology in Literacy Education Special Interest Group (TILE-SIG).

Thomas DeVere
Wolsey


Scott Bissell

by Thomas DeVere Wolsey and Scott Bissell

In our garages we have many different tools that serve a variety of purposes. Some we use in the garden, some in woodworking, and some when we work on our cars. Just like the garage in our houses, teachers have a digital garage full of tools they can use to improve teaching and learning. The question we explore in this TILE-SIG feature is how do teachers (and their students) choose the best tool in the digital garage for the task at hand.

At times, it is easy to simply use the tools we know, but are these tools the best fit for the purpose? In our work with faculty, PK-12 teachers, and students, we have learned that learning what tools are available and how best to use them increases the information and communication possibilities. We devised a framework of thinking about the particular strengths, limitations, and perceptual modalities tools emphasize. We also wanted to consider the level of difficulty used in using the tool for the creator and for the audience who might need to access the tool. 

The range of tool possibilities is ever-growing, so these are only examples, of course. Podcasts, for example, are relatively easy to create (a strength) but they don’t feature visuals (a possible limitation). The modality emphasized is auditory. This type of media works well when the primary mode of learning is auditory (or presents an auditory version of a print-based work). On the other hand, Voicethread has a free version educators can use, and an educator version with additional features. It is easy to upload and integrate pictures, PowerPoint® slides, video, and to promote discussion via the comment feature. The free version limits the number of projects.  Voicethread integrates linguistic, visual, and auditory channels if the creator chooses to use all three.  For classrooms filtering software may block access to interactive sites, another limitation.

Teachers can also consider the level of difficulty for themselves, for student-authors, and for audiences. Students’ knowledge of the tools also must be considered. A screencast, for example, is a tool for creating a presentation by capturing what is on the author’s screen with some audio narration and sometimes webcam video of the author, as well. The author needs a microphone and the software necessary for capturing the screen (e.g. Jing, Snagit, Screencast-o-Matic). For the creator or author, the level of difficulty is a bit higher than it would be for the audience who needs only click on a link.

Though our PK-12 students are technologically quite savvy in many ways, they also need the guidance of instructional natives (those who know how best to teach other humans) in choosing tools. We offer five guidelines for choosing digital tools:

1. What are the strengths, limitations, and emphasized modalities of the tools we are considering?
2. How do those strengths, limitations, and modalities fit the nature of the learning task?
3. What other knowledge and tools are needed (do media creators—students or teachers-need to use a particular browser, do they need a microphone or webcam, etc.)?
4. To what degree does the technology enhance the learning that is to occur?
5. How might teachers help students make decisions about the tools they use?

Download a tools decision matrix here (Word file).

Dr. Thomas DeVere Wolsey is a literacy specialization coordinator in the Richard W. Riley College of Education and Leadership at Walden University. Scott Bissell is a lead instructional designer at the Center for Faculty Excellence at Walden University.

This article is part of a series from the International Reading Association Technology in Literacy Education Special Interest Group (TILE-SIG).

by Michelle Schira Hagerman

In 2009-2010, more than 1.8 million students in public K-12 schools took at least one online course (Queen & Lewis, 2011). That year, 200,000 others enrolled in full-time online schools (Watson, Murin, Vashaw, Gemin & Rapp, 2011), and recent estimates suggest these numbers have continued to rise (iNACOL, 2012). As more states fund virtual schools and, like Michigan, Florida and Alabama, make online learning a graduation requirement (Watson et al., 2011) it is clear that as a community of literacy educators, we must think deeply about the design of online learning experiences for all learners.

The most recent Keeping Pace report (Watson et al., 2011) shows that 97,700 U.S. students who were identified as English Language Learners, eligible for free/reduced lunch, and/or needing special education services took online courses in 2011 (p. 36). Although online learning holds potential to support these children, the report cites enduring concerns about accessibility. “As virtual schooling matures,” the authors caution, “we all have a responsibility to make sure nobody gets left out” (p. 36).

As a community of literacy educators who integrate technologies in our regular classrooms, and as teachers who create both online and hybrid learning experiences, the essential question, of course, is how do we do this? How do we create online learning spaces that support all learners?

The principles of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) should anchor our approach. Last year, Peggy Coyne began a conversation at TILE-SIG around the potential of UDL as a design heuristic for our technology-supported literacy classrooms. As more of us create online lessons, units and courses, I think it’s important to consider what UDL in the online classroom might look like.

For two years, I have co-taught an online course called CEP 820: Teaching Students Online in the Master’s of Educational Technology program at Michigan State University. It is an online course about online course design for teachers – something of a play within a play – and as students create online course modules during the 16 weeks of the semester, they iteratively revise to integrate UDL principles.

When designing for multiple means of representation, one of three core UDL principles, many of our students integrate screencasts. Using tools such as Screencast-o-Matic, Jing, Camtasia, Screenchomp, and Educreations, they create short video clips for a range of purposes. Many students create an introductory “tour” of their online module that highlights navigational architecture, and essential course resources. On content pages, students often embed illustrations of mathematical problem solving or scaffold literary analysis with short, annotated think-alouds. Importantly, we encourage students to provide a printed transcript of these videos so that the information is accessible via multiple means.

We also emphasize the importance of creating a cognitively supportive learning environment for all students. Designs that are simple, logically organized, consistent in their use of labels and headings, predictable, and linguistically appropriate for their intended audience to allow more people to construct meaning from the online learning spaces we create (e.g., Nielsen, 1999; W3C, 2012). As literacy educators, these ideas align with our understanding of “considerate texts” (e.g., Armbruster, 1984) – words, structures, and ideas must fit together to scaffold understanding so that all readers have access.

Although I’ve only focused on screencasts, scripts, and cognitively “considerate” spaces, CAST.org and UDLCenter.org offer many more ideas and resources for teacher-designers. With our unique understanding of literacies, technologies, and their interactions, and with a focus on the principles of UDL, I am confident that the TILE-SIG community is uniquely positioned to lead in the design of inclusive, accessible online learning for all K-12 students.

For examples of online courses that integrate UDL principles, check out http://www.msuedtechsandbox.com/CEP820/.

See this YouTube video for an example of a screencast: 

References

Armbruster, B. B. (1984). The problem of "inconsiderate text". In G. G. Duffy, L.R. Roehler, J. Mason (Eds.) Comprehension instruction: Perspectives and suggestions (pp. 202-217). New York: Longman.

iNACOL, (2012) Fast facts about online learning. Retrieved from http://www.inacol.org/press/docs/nacol_fast_facts.pdf

Nielsen, J. (1999). Designing web usability: The practice of simplicity. San Francisco, CA: New Riders Publishing.

Queen, B., and Lewis, L. (2011). Distance Education Courses for Public Elementary and Secondary School Students: 2009–10  (NCES 2012-008). U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office. Retrieved from http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2012008

Watson, J., Murin, A.,  Vashaw, L., Gemin, B. & Rapp, C. (2011) Keeping pace with K-12 online learning: An annual review of policy and practice. Evergreen Education Group. Retrieved from http://kpk12.com/cms/wp-content/uploads/KeepingPace2011.pdf

W3C (2012). W3C web accessibility initiative: Designing for inclusion. Retrieved from http://www.w3.org/WAI/users/Overview.html

Michelle Schira Hagerman is a doctoral student in Educational Psychology and Educational Technology at Michigan State University.

This article is part of a series from the International Reading Association Technology in Literacy Education Special Interest Group (TILE-SIG).

by Amber Walraven

You've all read them: articles, blogs, and tweets about how important it is for teachers to pay attention to so-called 21st century skills, digital literacy, it-skills, media literacy, and so on. I've authored some of these articles, blogs, and tweets myself. A common reaction from teachers is: I'm too busy getting "the old stuff" done, don't have time for new things. Or: it's not my task—I'm not a language/reading/writing teacher.

Reactions from others in the educational field often go like this: you can't expect a teacher to teach what he hasn’t been taught. Teachers first need to be educated in anything digital before they can teach it. My answer to comments of both groups is simple: teacher design teams. In this post I'd like to share my experience with this form of professional development.

In a teacher design team, teachers create new materials or adapt existing curriculum materials in collaboration with each other, and often with experts such as educational design experts, educational researchers, and domain experts. The process of (re-)design provides opportunities for teachers to reflect on the curriculum starting from their personal knowledge and beliefs, their practice, and their goals for student learning. The interaction with other teachers and experts may deepen and challenge their reflections. Because (re-)designing curriculum results in concrete artifacts—
curriculum materials—teachers are not only exposed to the new practice, but they actively shape their own practice. Participation in well-scaffolded collaborative curriculum design processes therefore has the potential to contribute to the professional development of the teachers involved and to the production of materials which are valid and feasible in view of both teaching practice and the intended curriculum.

In my research, I have been working with both primary teachers and secondary teachers. All the projects aimed at integrating ICT, or instruction in information/media skills, into the core curriculum. We aimed at (re)designing a course, or a lesson series by keeping the course content, adding content on media literacy/information skills and (slightly) changing the mode of instruction. In primary education, this resulted in the integration of media literacy in the common curriculum. For instance while teaching pupils about summarizing texts, teachers used (and let pupils use) Twitter to share summaries. And besides the actual learning to tweet, pupils were also taught about social media, privacy, and online behavior. An example from secondary education: instead of letting students read a textbook and instructing them about historical figures like Julius Caesar, teachers asked students to make a Facebook fan page about the historical figure of their choice. They had to post a biography, share some updates ("Today I conquered Germany"), find friends from the same time period and so on. Extra attention was paid to the sources students used for their page and learning to evaluate websites was an extra learning goal in this period. In this way, students learned history as well as information skills.

After working with 11 design teams, I come to the following conclusions:

• It is possible to integrate "new skills" in the common curriculum.
• Fear of students learning less when taught in this way is unnecessary.  They score higher on a knowledge test on subject matter, and even gain extra skills.
• Teachers need to be given enough time and support for this form of PD. 
• While designing these lessons, teachers develop knowledge and skills themselves.
• Working in a design team is not a suitable PD form for all teachers.
• Teachers are motivated when they can share ideas about their work with colleagues.
• Teachers become even more passionate about their job.
• Personal differences need to be solved before embarking on the design and PD journey.
• A design team needs to have a strong leader, and motivated members.
• Forcing teachers in a team, and having a team without a personal drive, is a recipe for disaster.
• Being in a design team is contagious; after going through the motions once, teachers tend to collaborate in this way more often. 

Amber Walraven is a senior researcher at the Institute of Applied Social Sciences (ITS), Radboud University of Nijmegen in the Netherlands. Her research includes information, media and digital literacy, educational innovation and teacher professional development.

by Dr. Richard E. Ferdig

The creation and adoption of innovative technologies often provides opportunities to rethink current education practices. For instance, the development of low-cost laptops and their portability helped schools rethink 1:1 technology initiatives (one computer per child). The high adoption of gaming devices at all age and socioeconomic levels gave rise to new thinking about the gamification of learning environments. And the engaging nature of virtual environments have helped teachers reconsider the concept of the field trip.

A new report from the State Educational Technology Directors Association follows suit and asks readers to reexamine and reconsider textbooks and the delivery of content to students. In "Out of Print: Reimagining the K-12 Textbook in a Digital Age", the authors even suggest not calling this new media e-texts or e-books, as they suggest such terminology perpetuates "the old notion of a single textbook per subject as being the optimal source of instructional material" (p. 6).

The authors make a strong argument that there are a variety of important reasons for schools to shift away from traditional textbooks. "It is not a matter of if reimagining the textbook will permeate all of education, only a matter of how fast" (p. 6). The authors note the challenge is that most schools are ignoring digital texts. "The educational environment isn't exploiting digital content for all of the benefits that can accrue for today’s learners. The gap is widening for what we do in our lives—how we communicate, work, learn, and play—and how we’re educating our kids" (p. 5).

According to the authors, the benefits of using digital content (the re-envisioning of the current textbook) are many. Content can be updated immediately; students are no longer required to engage old content just because schools can't afford new print books. Students can also access their texts anywhere they can take their electronic device. And, teachers can push personalized learning immediately to their device. Finally, given the widespread development and availability of open education resources (OER), content can be much richer and more engaging.

The report includes examples from multiple states where e-content is currently replacing traditional textbooks in all content areas. For instance, "the work of CK-12 focuses on middle school and high school Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) subjects; but Utah will be using the platform for support in K-6 and language arts as well" (p. 19). The report also highlights requirements to make this a smooth transition, including recommendations at the policy and practical level.

What impact does this shift have on and for literacy educators? There are at least five considerations.

1. Perhaps the most obvious implication is that literacy educators need to reexamine their current textbooks. What does an anthology of literature look like in a 21st century digital format? How could one draw on the affordances of such tools to move beyond just print stories? How do vocabulary textbooks draw on the promise of personalized learning through just-in-time delivery of differentiated practice and feedback?
2. Successful programs prepared teachers for these transitions. How are we preparing our literacy educators to live in a world where delivery and consumption of content will be electronic?
3. There has been strong argumentation for the connection between literacy, digital literacy, and 21st century literacies. There has also been important research into how students are learning to read and write online. Removing print text will force a deeper understanding of how to best support our readers and writers. As such, there is an immediate need for more funded research in this critical area.
4. A related, critical area of study is multimodal composition. This is the notion that students are not just reading and writing print text in a digital format. Reading and writing is being expanded to include multiple media such as movies, blogs, animations, voice, etc. We need to make sure that the push to digital content does not fall back to print only. And, perhaps more importantly, we have to ensure that teachers and students are not just consumers of such content, but also producers.
5. How can e-content support struggling readers and writers? At the surface level, there is strong argumentation that such text could support such readers and writers more than traditional methods because of the affordances of the tools involved (the report has a timely discussion of CAST's work on UDL). However, just because it can support them does not mean it will do so automatically.

Dr. Richard E. Ferdig is a professor of ITEC and the Summit Professor of Educational Technologies at the Research Center for Educational Technology, Kent State University, rferdig@gmail.com.

This article is part of a series from the International Reading Association Technology in Literacy Education Special Interest Group (TILE-SIG).