The impact of computer technology on Literacy Education
I - TECHNOLOGY IN SCHOOL AS REGARDS TO LITERACY EDUCATION
II - HOW TO GET THE TECHNOLOGY IN THE SCHOOLS – HOW IT HAS BEEN GOTTEN
III - HOW THE TECHNOLOGY SHOULD BE USED – HOW IT IS BEING USED
IV - HOW TECNOLOGY IMPACTS LITERACY EDUCATION
V - PRO/CON VIEWS OF TECHNOLOGY IN EDUCATION
VI - THEORY OF INFORMATION IMPACT
VII - NEW DEFINITION OF LITERACY – NONPRINT MEDIA LITERACY
VIII - CONCLUSION
IX - REFERENCES
I - TECHNOLOGY IN SCHOOL AS REGARDS TO LITERACY EDUCATION
This paper will be a broad overview of many issues related to
computer technology and literacy education. There are so many facets of
technology in education that most will be only briefly discussed, and some
will be left out altogether. As Jerry Willis says in the preface
of Technology, Reading, and Language Arts, “In reality, the technology
garden is a rich collection of multicolored blossoms that cannot be understood
and appreciated by examining just one flower.” (Willis xv). It is now accepted
by almost everyone that schools need to have and teach about and with technology.
This paper will look specifically at how schools can obtain the technology
and train their teachers to use it effectively and integrate it into the
curriculum, including the issues of what should be done versus what is
being done. Then it will examine the benefits and drawbacks of doing so.
Finally, a new set of standards of technology literacy will be looked at.
Although there are some people who object to bringing technology
into the schools, for most people it is not a question of if but of how.
Dr. Karen Swan of the National Research Center on English Learning &
Achievement writes in her article "Nonprint Media and Technology Literacy
Standards for K-12 Teaching and Learning," “the question of whether or
not we should be using new media technologies in our nation’s classrooms
has changed, at least at the policy making level, into that of how we can
best integrate their use across the curriculum.” (Swan 2) Barbara Kantrowitz
interviewed Robert Bilyk for her article “Cyber Schoolrooms” in the May
2000 Score!Newsweek-Kids Online. Bilyk is the director of the two-year
old charter school Cyber Village Academy in St. Paul, Minnesota. He advises
parents to “demand computers in the school, learn how the technology
ties into the curriculum and insist that teachers get adequate training.”
(Kantrowitz 32) This last point is crucial as the President’s Panel on
Educational Technology states that it is clear that educational technology
will be very important in schools, but at the local level that is often
not the case.
The Panel on Educational Technology was organized in 1995 to provide
independent advice to the President on the application of a variety of
technologies, telecommunications and computing in particular, in K-12 education
in the United States. The report presents six high level strategic recommendations.
The first of these is "Focus on learning with technology, not about technology."
It states that ". . . it is important to distinguish between technology
as a subject area and the use of technology to facilitate learning about
any subject area" (Panel on Educational Technology, 1997, p. 128) The Panel’s
second recommendation is similar to the first: "Emphasize content and pedagogy,
and not just hardware." It advocates using technology to help students
develop "the ability to acquire new knowledge, to solve real-world problems,
and to execute novel and complex tasks" (p. 115). These recommendations
of what should be done often conflicted with what was actually being done
with technology in schools and classrooms. “The Panel on Technology
(1997), for example, notes that, for the most part, the use of computers
in American schools involves either learning about technology or is focused
on drill and practice in basic skills. Most computers, they found, are
located in isolated computer rooms rather than integrated into the environment
of classrooms.” (Swan 4)
So it appears that available technology is often not being used
effectively. Why? Swan writes,
“researchers agree that the biggest reason for such underutilization
is lack of understanding.” (Swan 5) Based on my personal experience I would
agree. I am a graduate intern with the University of St. Thomas education
department working with the US West Widening Our World Internet Education
outreach program. I take a network of twelve laptop computers to community
sites, connect them to the internet, and teach people about the internet.
One of our classes is “Applications of the Internet for educators.” Last
week I was at St. Felix school in Wabasha, of the twelve teachers, a few
knew a little about the internet, but most new nothing. The principal was
teaching a computer class, but it focused mainly on word processing skills
and even she knew very little about the internet. However, after two hours
of instruction, they were excited and could see that they had the ability
to learn, and that what was available was very worthwhile and best, it
was free for the taking. My experience with other teachers has been similar,
they see that they are able to learn the new technology, and they also
recognize that doing so has the potential to improve both their teaching
and their students’ learning.
II - HOW TO GET THE TECHNOLOGY IN THE SCHOOLS – HOW IT HAS BEEN GOTTEN
In 1994 the Clinton Administration announced a goal to connect all schools
to the internet. Then we saw the photo ops of Bill and Al in their
blue jeans helping to install a mess of cable spaghetti in a school. Regardless
of what one thinks of other aspects of this administration, they did good
on this point. The goal is almost finished. In 1999 99% of schools were
connected and 63% of classrooms have internet connection. (Schwartz 6)
Thinking back to what schools were like before this, it truly is a new
world. This has been accomplished by a multitude of public and private
partnerships and initiatives. As we know, computers aren’t cheap, and technology
expenses can cut a big chunk out of a budget when buildings are falling
apart. Following are a few examples of how this has been funded. As you
may know, if you have telephone service you are helping to pay for technology
in schools with a small tax on your phone bill. The Educational Technology
and Conservation Exchange Program (ETCEP) is providing schools with education
technology equipment in exchange for empty laser and ink jet cartridges.
Schools collect the cartridges from their community, which they turn in
to ETCEP for points. The points can be used toward more than 5,000 computers,
printers, and software products. The program is free, and ETCEP will send
schools collection boxes with prepaid UPS shipping labels. Schools can
register for the program at www.etcep.com. Businesses often donate obsolete
computers to schools when they upgrade. On the 4-Blocks maillist, a teacher
was asking about how to program some 386 pcs that a business donated to
the school. He had several computers in his classroom, albeit older models,
but that is better than nothing.
Many schools are taking this a step further and issuing laptop computers
to every student. In the May 1, 2000 issue of Time Ellin Martens talks
to a few and looks at how they financed it. Delores Borton, principal at
Carmen Arace Middle School in Bloomfield, Conneticut, convinced the school
board that a $2.5 million plan to give every student a laptop computer
and internet access would improve the schools typical inner city school
problems. Four years later she has been proved correct, with “enrollment
up 20%, disciplinary suspensions down 80%, and scores on state achievement
tests up 35%.” (Martens 57)
Maine Governor Agnus King has a plan to use $50 million in surplus
funds to create a permanent endowment to buy every seventh grader each
year a laptop computer. (Martens 57) The New York City board of education
approved on April 12 a plan “to create an internet portal, which would
make money by selling ads and licensing e-commerce sites.” Profits will
be used to buy laptops for fourth graders, so in nine years all students
will have a computer. (Martens 57). In the article “Web Boosters and Net
Skeptics” in the May 2000 issue of Score!Newsweek-Kids Online, John
Schwartz talks to fifth and sixth graders at Mantua Elementary School in
Mantua, Virginia, all of whom have Apple eMate laptop computers.
(Schwartz 5) In all of these schools, the parents, teachers, and especially
the students are excited about the educational possibilities available
to a student body equipped with personal laptops. These are great ideas
and inventive ways to finance them. I am positive the investment will be
worth it. Some problems I can foresee with such a program are what
to do when a laptop is lost, broken, stolen or even sold by the student
or someone in the student’s household? After all, laptops are delicate,
valuable things. How many will the school provide? If more than one, how
many more? When will the student’s family have to bear the cost of a replacement?
III - HOW THE TECHNOLOGY SHOULD BE USED – HOW IT IS BEING USED
As the Presidential Panel said, computers should be in the classroom.
In a maillist discussion on the topic, a teacher nicknamed [email protected]
agrees. He writes, “actually, research shows that computers can be utilized
much more if computers are in classrooms rather than labs. This way
you can use them in an integrated curriculum as a tool with many uses.”
Even when there is a computer in every room, the teacher needs to know
how to use it effectively. Adams Spanish Immersion School in St. Paul,
where I did my advanced clinical experience, had an Imac in every classroom,
but teacher didn’t know what to do with it. She asked me to review the
programs on it and recommend some to use with the kids. There were
about 15 games that were really good, but geared more towards upper elementary
and she taught first grade. I did find one game that was at her students
level and showed it to four advanced students.
In addition to having computers in the classroom and teachers who are
proficient in their use, it is important to maintain the available technology
at cutting edge. I was at Ames elementary school in St. Paul giving
a introduction to the Internet class for kids in the schools computer labs.
They had many Powermacs, but they had Netscape 2.0 from 1997 and many of
the most interesting web sites, which have java script, were unreadable
by the old browser, so the kids could not access them. I spoke to the lab
teacher. She knew this was getting to be a problem, but she said that the
lab was full of students every hour of the week. One of my colleagues said
this might be do to the lab teachers unwillingness to come in on a Saturday
and download a newer version, but it also could be because the Powermacs’
harddrives are so full that there is not room to download the new version.
Of course schools cannot trade in their computers every year like some
businesses do, but especially with the internet it is important to have
a current browser. As Netscape Navigator can be downloaded for free, this
should not be too big of a problem. This issue is sometimes out of the
teacher’s control. The teacher who had the 386 pcs donated now has several
computers in his classroom, but so far he does not know what to do with
them.
Teaching the teachers to use the technology they do have remains the
big issue. There are definitely a lot of teachers who do know and are using
it to improve their teaching. Generally they are very friendly and willing
to share their knowledge. However, I would say the majority are still a
little nervous about it. Even some who have gotten their feet wet are sometimes
just barely managing to stay afloat. One teacher on the 4-Blocks maillist
asked how to save information from the internet/email. She was saving each
email that had interesting information for her. Her email program was getting
full and the information unmanageable. She knew that it was possible to
cut and paste from email to a word processing program, but she didn’t know
how it was actually done. Several people quickly explained it to her.
It is understandable that some teachers are reluctant to learn
the new technology. They may feel that they are not good with computers.
Maybe they have been getting along just fine without technology for many
years. After all, teachers have taught successfully for millenia without
computers, and that is a strong argument. However, there are also powerful
reasons why teachers today must learn the new technology. Ilana Snyder
writes:
. . . as literacy educators
we must consider ways in which the new
technologies might
be employed for useful purposes in literacy education at
all levels. Just because
we have remained largely impervious to
technological change
does not mean that this is how we should continue to
respond. Even more
important, if we are to begin to bridge the growing
gulf between ourselves
and our students, we cannot afford to remain
ignorant of the characteristics
of these new technologies and their complex
cultural influences
(1998, p. xxiii).(Swan 3)
IV - HOW TECNOLOGY IMPACTS LITERACY EDUCATION
So now that schools have the technology, what will the benefits be?
Many think that education is poised to reap technology productivity gains
already realized by many other information businesses. C. Diane Martin
of the National Science Foundation says, “In education so far you’ve
seen lots and lots of hardware and lots and lots of obsolescence. I think
we are probably right at the cusp of where business was five years ago
– that we are about to see the real increase in learning productivity,
because we are about to get it right.” (Schwarz 7) There can be many and
varied benefits.
Computers help make the education more constructivist and student centered,
thus better for whole language techniques. Mantua teacher Sarah Skerker
says, “We’re shifting from that stereotypical sage-on-a-stage role into
being more of a facilitator. The children take charge of their learning.”
She says she sees kids using their emates to take notes of the internet
connected computers instead of just printing out the pages. Thus the students
are processing the information from the web and “summarizing on the fly.”
(Schwartz 7)
Students can take their learning out of the classroom. Here, home-school
connections are important in technology just as in reading. Zoe Baird of
the Markle Foundation says, “There is just no question that there is tremendous
potential for children to learn outside of school in a way that has never
existed before.” (Schwarz 7)
Learning about technology can bring students hope, especially if they
come from disadvantaged situations. I heard about students in East Palo
Alto, on of Silicon Valley’s “slums” learning html, the code for creating
web pages, and realizing potential to “get out of the slums”.
The computer can be more than just a video game. Dawn Everett, computer
lab instructor at Vernon Elementary School in Vermont, “says her two biggest
challenges are getting the kids to understand that the computer is an actual
learning tool and not just a giant PlayStation, and making sure that students
know how to measure information they get on the Web against that from other
sources.” (Kantrowitz 31)
Some software can help learners with special needs in ways not
possible without computers. Joan Raymond reports in her article, “How Catherine
met Harry,” in the May 2000 Score!Newsweek-Kids Online, about 10-year-old
Catherine Harmon of Granger, Indiana. She has a central auditory-processing
disorder and could not discriminate phonemes. When she was eight educators
told Catherine’s parents that she might never learn to read. A computer
program called Fast ForWord by Scientific Learning Corp. of Berkeley, California
helped her learn to read. It slowed down the phonemes to make it easier
for her to hear them. She clicked on a mouse in a game to record her responses,
which were tracked by the software to see what sounds she was learning
and what she needed more work on. Gradually the speed was increased to
normal speaking speed. After six weeks of working with a speech-language
specialist she was making great progress. Now she reads at grade level
and is writing fiction stories.
Use of the computer can encourage students to get excited about writing.
There is nothing quite like seeing oneself or one’s work in public. The
ease of webpublishing makes this possible. Jennifer Bish was interested
in this and wrote this email to the 4-Block maillist.
I am a Title 1 teacher and I have a second grade class that would like
to publish their stories on the web. We would appreciate the name
of
some sites that publish young writers' stories.
Jennifer Bish, Ohio
People suggested that she try www.kidpub.org. Another place that students work is on the web is a site with samples of Children's Art from Mrs. Livinal's kindergarten class at http://www.kconnect.com/loriportraits.html. This could tie in wonderfully with many writing activities like writer’s workshop or author’s chair.
V- PRO/CON VIEWS OF TECHNOLOGY IN EDUCATION
For all the wonders that it can do, technology is still not a
panacea to all our problems. There are many people who are wary and critical
of techmania, and more who want to balance support of technology with the
knowledge that it is just a tool and does not replace teaching.
Betty Scarlata teaches second grade at the Horace Mann school in New
York City. She wrote an article titled “Teaching the video kids” for the
May 2000 Score!Newsweek-Kids Online. She realizes the importance of using
technology, especially as today’s children expect it and expect class to
entertain them, but she cautions “technology can enhance a child’s
learning, but not when we rely on it as a substitute for the personal touch.
[It] cannot fully duplicate the wonderfully rich world of speaking, writing,
reading and listening.” (Scarlata 72) She continues:
Of all the skills children must develop, language is the most important. Technology can help develop those skills, but it can also get in the way. Videogames, for example, frequently encourage solitary play: a child is interacting with a machine, not with other children. Videogames are “interactive,” but they are not interpersonal, and it is person-to-person communication that most effectively develops language skills.
Clifford Stroll, a computer-savvy astrophysicist who published “High
Tech Heretic,” holds a similar view. He says, “If we want to encourage
people to read books, why do we give them a cousin of television and a
brother of the videogame to learn from? If we want to teach them to write,
why do we give them machines that encourage copy and paste?” (Schwartz
6) Those are good questions.
As in many issues in education, a lot depends on the teachers. Stanford
University Professor Larry Cuban says, “There are clearly some extraordinary
teachers who have used the powerful technology of interactive computers
to enhance their teaching and their kids’ learning, but they tend to be
a very tiny band of teachers. If anything, they represent a vanguard of
what might happen in schools.” He says the majority of teachers are “not
true believers yet.” (Schwartz 6) He also argues that “technology should
be in the background, not the foreground.” (Kantrowitz 30)
This point is echoed in the article “Cyber Schoolrooms” by Barbara
Kantrowitz in the May 2000 Score!Newsweek-Kids Online. She writes,
“technology is just another tool, like books or a blackboard. Its effectiveness
depends on how it’s used.” (Kantrowitz 28) When this is realized, it works
well. “The Mantua program works because the teachers and administrators
recognize that the computers are not going to teach by themselves.” Principle
Ellen Schoetzau says, “The technology is simply a tool to enhance the learning.”
(Schwartz 6)
Todd Oppenheimer has a lot of negative things to say about technology
in schools in his article “The Perils of Webthink” in the May 2000 Score!Newsweek-Kids
Online. He says that the technology skills often hamper the content knowledge.
He observed an 11th grade social studies class that had excellent computer
presentations but little content information. One student spent 10 of the
18 hours of the project working on the graphics. (Oppenheimer 30) He also
says that the internet is not used effectively by most students. “Observing
internet use in schools throughout the country, I’ve found that even when
students are steered to the substantive, they often don’t make the slightest
effort to rephrase selections of text in their own words. And teachers
don’t have the time or expertise to evaluate the multitude of sites their
students use.” (Oppenheimer 31) In some cases, learning about or with technology
can even stifle creativity. “For the very young, most programs function
as little more than video games. One of these – Reader Rabbit, a multimedia
package used in more than 100,000 schools – was found in a 1992 study to
cause a 50 percent decline in children’s ability to think creatively. Children
in the early grades commonly spend weeks of valuable lesson time trying
to master the rudimentary computer skills required to run HyperStudio or
Kid Pix, the two main presentation applications for younger kids. Aside
from a few cute graphics and sounds, the work is no different from what
can be seen in low-tech classes, where student projects are put together
more easily, and often with more imagination, using paper and crayons.”
(Oppenheimer 31) I agree somewhat with these points, especially about primary
kids spending weeks learning graphic programs when developmentally they
actually need to be drawing with crayons. But I feel that Oppenheimer is
a little off the mark when he says that technology skills are not necessary
for employment. He acknowledges that many parents ask, “Don’t we
need to teach students computer skills for employment?” He says that employers
have told him they can train someone in a few weeks, but I wouldn’t want
to go to an interview saying just, I can learn.
Part of me understands the sorrow of teachers who see kids of
the video age. I envy the childhoods of the founding fathers, where children
(at least the educated boys of the upper class) were expected to read Homer
in Greek, Cicero in Latin, and recite epic poems from memory. Our students’
brains are still capable of such feats, but having a kid who can tell me
the names of all 155 Pokemon is just not as romantic as one who can discuss
Homer. Still, we have to work with what we have. Swan agrees, “those
of us who love the written word understandably lament its decline. But
if we care about literacy in a larger sense, we must address nonprint literacies,
especially those involving electronic media.” (Swan 3) Given the on the
whole horrible standard of programming on network television in the United
States, I can understand and even share the snobbish opinion of television
and video games as cultural rubbish. But one also has to admit that when
television is good, it can be excellent. I think that part of the cultural
elite’s aversion to television is the recognition of its power to persuade
and the knowledge that for the most part it is being put to ill use. I
think this topic merits in depth examination.
VI THEORY OF INFORMATION IMPACT
Tell me, I forget
Show me, I remember
Involve me, I understand
I’m sure somebody is responsible for that educational proverb,
but I don’t know who so I’ll attribute it to anonymous. It would be in
danger of being a cliché if it weren’t so true. I believe there
is a heirarchy of what sensory inputs have the most impact on our lives.
These thoughts are an amalgamation of my own observations and a multitude
of readings in developmental and evolutionary psychology. They are pertinent
to the discussion of technology in literacy education because they touch
on the power of nonprint media. They are not hard and set rules, but general
guidelines that can vary in position depending on the situation. I rank
the power of sensory input in this order: personal, witnessed, second hand,
role play/interactivity, seeing something in a play, movie, television,
or photograph, and reading something. Depending on the quality of the information,
reading something could be more powerful than seeing something. Sight is
one of the most important sensory inputs. Seeing is believing is unfortunately
accepted by most people, even when we know that modern technology allows
what we see to be not true. That is what gives visual media such power.
Personal experience is things we experience first hand. It has the
most power to influence our actions and beliefs. I would rather spend a
romantic evening with my wife than see or read “Romeo and Juliet.” Surviving
a car accident because of an airbag is much more convincing than reading
or hearing about the benefits of an airbag.
Witnessed events are things that we see in front of us, but that
are not actually happening to us. Peep shows take advantage of this desire
of many people to see erotic scenes. Actually seeing a car accident victim
walk out of a mangled car because of an airbag is almost as powerful as
personally being in the accident.
A second hand story told by someone we know is the next step on the
impact scale. I know that guys often enthusiastically listen to and tell
about their romantic encounters, and I imagine that women do too. My step-parents
were in a car accident, and their experience has been a lesson to me, but
not as strong as if I had been personally involved.
Role play or interactive games is almost as powerful as personal experience.
It is one of the principal methods children learn to react to the world,
and it can remain a potent learning tool for adults, especially for situations
that are impractical to practice for real. Very realistic and intense simulations
of drowning and accident victims in my lifeguard and emergency medical
technician trainings prepared me well for dealing with those situations
in real life. Our psyches, and I believe that of most mammals, is programmed
to learn through play, as many of the things thus learned are too dangerous
to do without lots of safe practice first. The ability of many computer
games to tap this program is what makes them so appealing and educational.
Humans also seem to be preprogrammed to suspend disbelief. We
eagerly involve ourselves in the lives of fictional characters, whether
they are live people on stage in front of us, actors and actresses on a
movie or television screen, or mere figments of imagination conjured by
lines drawn on paper. Men can get erections seeing or reading erotic material,
people cry real tears over tragedies that happen to fictional characters.
When we combine this with the power of seeing things, we see why television
and movies are so popular and powerful.
Reading is another realm. The experience of reading about something
can be just as, or even more powerful than personal experience for some
people, but for others it remains stale. There is something about the cognitive
processes going on while reading that is often not there when watching
a movie. A picture can be worth a thousand words, but sometimes it is impossible
for a movie to let the viewer into a character’s thoughts as a book lets
a reader do. I love epic sagas like Dickens’ Nicolas Nickelby or Stephen
King’s The Stand. It really is impossible to compress those stories into
two hours.
The quality of the story that is portrayed is also important. I would
rather go to “Romeo and Juliet” at the playhouse than see it in a movie
theater. I would rather read “Romeo and Juliet” than watch “Days of our
lives.” Unfortunately the quality of the majority of television is horrible,
and I think that this is one of the reasons that some people lament the
decline of reading. Some television, like “Sesame Street” and “Blue’s Clues”
is good.
When I read a book or watch a movie, I often dream about what I would
do if I were one of the characters in the story. Sometimes my brother and
I would act out different versions of the story. When we discovered fantasy
role-playing games like “Dungeons and Dragons”, we eagerly spent all our
free time lost in our fantasy world. The interactiveness of computers also
lets users experience such role-playing. When programmers design something
with educational concepts in mind, and make it fun, the result can be a
very rich experience. SimCity or Oregon Trail are excellent examples of
such games that encourage student involvement and learning.
I understand why many disdain the coming of new media and its crowding
out of traditional print media and print literacy, but I believe that the
new media has great potential to be used in combination with traditional
media in literacy education. What is needed is a new definition of literacy.
VII - NEW DEFINITION OF LITERACY – NONPRINT MEDIA LITERACY
Swan calls for the creation of “nonprint literacy standards to
describe the skills students need to have if they are to learn through
using television, video, graphics, computers and the Internet, film, electronic
texts, and other computing and communications technologies.” (Swan 1) She
argues that our concept of literacy must expand to include the new forms
of media. “Today, as students interact with more and ever diversifying
forms of communication, the concept of literacy must be expanded to include
much more than simply the capacity to read and write.” (Swan 1)
She notes that what it meant to be literate used to be different than
what it is today. “People’s notions of literacy are historically, culturally,
and socially determined and are grounded in the materials used for communication.”
(Swan 3) For medieval Europeans other than the clergy, being literate meant
one could understand the pictures on the signs denoting what type of store
it was and the religious messages held in stained glass windows and statues
of churches. I remembering reading about a contemporary of Shakespeare
criticizing him that he had “little Latin and Greek”, but the modern commentator
pointed out that at that time it meant that although he wasn’t fully fluent,
he did know them. Richard Russell, a friend of mine from the Peace Corps,
was made a tank sergeant in World War II because, as a high school graduate
from Minnesota, he could read and write, which he said his comrades from
the South could not. Even so, I bet that those kids were considered “literate”
for their day and age.
According to Swan, what it means to be literate also depends on what
goods most people have. “There is a good deal of evidence that shows that
concepts of literacy are not just socially and politically constructed,
but that they are also materially determined. The dominant technologies
of reading and writing have evolved and changed dramatically in our society
over the past half century, but those changes are not reflected in the
literacy curricula of our schools. It is past time we revised school-based
conceptions of literacy. If we do not, schools will simply cease to be
relevant.” (Swan 18)
Many schools are using literacy curricula appropriate to a print dominant
society, however today print is rapidly losing ground to other media. It
is time that school curricula recognizes that change. Swan writes, “for
the past several centuries, the dominance of print over other communications
media has been overwhelming and largely unchallenged. Recent decades, however,
have witnessed rapid changes in how we communicate, entertain ourselves,
conduct business, get information, create knowledge, and generally make
sense of the larger world. Electronic texts are everywhere replacing printed
ones as the media of choice in a wide range of human endeavors. Our notions
of what it means to be literate are, or should be, correspondingly expanding.”
(Swan 2) A perfect example of this is the St. Thomas Bulletin, which was
printed weekly on paper until last year when it changed to daily online
publication.
Still, for most people the concept of literacy is equated with text,
but the world is changing. “Today, most Americans receive the majority
of their news, information, and entertainment through electronic sources.
It only makes sense that we should teach our children to use those sources
well, and that we should make the use of nonprint electronic media an integral
part of day-to-day activities in every classroom in this country. … In
a series of focus groups and interviews conducted with teachers, students,
and ordinary people, and designed to explore notions and beliefs about
literacy and electronic media, we found that most participants equated
literacy with printed texts, and that this tendency was more pronounced
the closer we came to the classroom” (Swan 3) Teachers seem to be the most
stubborn to consider electronic media as literature, or a big part of literacy,
even though many received most of their news from electronic sources. (Swan
3)
The message of all this is clear: Our notions of literacy must
change and teachers need to integrate nonprint media literacy into the
curriculum. Swan writes, “teachers’ and students’ skills-based notions
of literacy need to be expanded to include being active, critical, and
creative users of a variety of media. Nonprint media needs to be integrated
across the curriculum and their literate use valued in the classroom.”
(Swan 3) In order to aide teachers in this process Swan has created a set
of standards for nonprint media literacy. They include basic skills, critical
literacies, and construction skills for elementary, middle and high school
students.
Basic skills involve the use and manipulation of nonprint media.
Examples of basic skills include an elementary school student knowing
how to
use a mouse and keyboard to operate a computer, or a middle school
student
using a graphing calculator.
Critical literacies concern the ability to
interpret, critique, and evaluate nonprint information.
Critical literacies could be demonstrated by a
middle schooler explaining how inaccurate or incomplete
information could
lead to faulty conclusions.
Construction skills deal with the creation and use of nonprint texts
for developing ideas
and communicating and collaborating with others.
Construction skills would be shown by a high
school student using nonprint information to resolve
problems or answer
questions, or an elementary students using computer-based
drawing tools to
illustrate a story.” (Swan 17)
Swan is not the only one creating new standards. The National Research Center on English Learning & Achievement (CELA)’s Technology and Literate Thinking group is concerned with the role of technology in achieving a new definition of literacy. Its research focuses on two interrelated questions:
What new forms of literacy and literate thinking are occasioned by
electronic media
and how are these correspondent and/or incongruent with
school beliefs
concerning language and literacy development?
By what processes do people develop literate thinking through interaction
with electronic
texts, and how can these processes be shaped by
educators to
maximize such development?
Swan has created the following criteria for nonprint literacy and technology integration standards.
Nonprint media and technology integration standards should be applicable
across subject
areas and grade levels. Electronic media have become an
integral part
of American life; nonprint literacy standards should emphasize
the importance
of their use as integral to teaching and learning across the curriculum.
Nonprint media
and technology integration standards should address
critical and
creative uses of electronic media, as well as basic technological skills.
Nonprint media and technology integration standards should address
issues of graphical
and video literacy and the responsible use of
information,
as well as the literate use of computers and communication technologies.
Nonprint literacy and technology integration standards should identify
classes of observable
performances. (Swan 5)
The International Society for Technology in Education, the leading professional
organization for people specializing in technology and K-12 education,
has created the National Educational Technology Standards (NETS) for Students.
“The NETS for Students are organized into six broad categories – basic
operations and concepts; social, ethical, and human issues; technology
productivity tools; technology communications tools; technology research
tools; and technology problem-solving and decision-making tools. (Swan
6)
Swan also discusses the difference between tool literacies and literacies
of representation. According to Swan, “tool literacies focus more on functional,
simple meanings and basic use – what Hobbs (1998) calls access. Literacies
of representation, on the other hand, stress the need to analyze information
and understand how meaning is created. Traditional (print-based) literacy
addresses both kinds of literacy. Too often nonprint media and technological
competencies are only addressed at the tool level.” (Swan 8) In developing
a way to integrate technology into the literacy curriculum, educators need
to keep both tool literacies and literacies of representation in sight.
VIII – CONCLUSION
As promised, this paper covered a wide gamut of issues, some superficially
some in depth. I think Robert Bilyk’s recommendation to parents can be
applied equally well to teachers. Find out what technology is in the school,
learn how to integrate it into the curriculum, and learn how to use it.
Technology should be used as a tool to enhance learning, not simply taught
as a skill based subject, although learning the skills is an important
lesson too. We are at the edge of a new definition of literacy. What an
exciting place to be.
IX - REFERENCES
Executive Office of the President. (1996). The President’s Educational
Technology Initiative.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/edtech.html
Kantrowitz, Barbara. “Cyber Schoolrooms.”
Score!Newsweek-Kids Online May, 2000: 28 - 32.
Martens, Ellin. “A Laptop for Every Kid.”
Time May 1, 2000: 57.
Oppenheimer, Todd. “The Perils of Webthink.”
Score!Newsweek-Kids Online May, 2000: 30-31.
Panel on Educational Technology. (1997). Report to the President on
the Use of Technology
to Strengthen K-12 Education in the United
States. Washington,
DC: President’s Committee of Advisors on Science
and Technology.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/WH/EOP/OSTP/NSTC/PCAST/k-12ed.html
Raymond, Joan. “How Catherine met Harry.”
Score!Newsweek-Kids Online May, 2000: 28 - 32.
Scarlata, Betty. “Teaching the video kids.”
Score!Newsweek-Kids Online May, 2000: 72.
Schwartz, John. “Web Boosters and Net Skeptics.”
Score!Newsweek-Kids Online May, 2000: 5-7.
Swan, Karen. "Nonprint Media and Technology Literacy Standards for K-12
Teaching and Learning," National Research Center on English
Learning & Achievement
University at Albany, School of Education, http://cela.albany.edu/publication/brochure/standards.pdf
, 1999.
Willis, Jerry W., Stephens, Elizabeth C., Matthew, Kathryn I. Technology,
Reading, and Language Arts.
Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1996.