Week 12 - Critical Literacy: Becoming Producers of Text and Powerful Language

The first article entitled, Teaching about Language, Power, and Text: A Review of Classroom Practices that Support Critical Literacy, written by Edward Behrman is about his search for lessons or units published to support critical literacy instruction at the higher primary levels and the secondary school levels as well.  The article states that in theory, critical literacy instruction is supposed to foster social justice by showing students how language is affected by and also effects social relationships.  Unfortunately though, it seems that this methodology lacks instructional strategies for educators to follow or learn to use this approach.  There should not be a set in stone formula for how to produce this instruction, as a goal is for the learning to be more organic; the students should invent critical literacies in the classroom.
In the review of materials, the author finds six categories of critical literacy instruction based on student activities or tasks.  They are as follow, reading supplementary texts, reading multiple texts, reading from a resistance perspective, producing counter texts, conducting student-choice research projects, and taking social action.  In this style of instruction students will feel a deeper connection and understanding of different viewpoints, especially if these tasks are integrated and some done simultaneously.  I see a great window of opportunity for this sort of literacy instruction to be melded into a world of Web 2.0.  Production of journal entries from a counterpointed point of view, or finding supplemental text or perspectives on an opinions via the web may be a great way to integrate new technologies into critical literacy instruction to promote deeper understanding.

The second article is, Becoming Critical Consumers and Producers of Text: Teaching Literacy with Web 1.0 and 2.0, written by Handsfield, Dean, and Cielocha. It begins by denoting the expanse of computer and internet growth in the educational setting, as well as the discrepancy between a Web 1.0 world and the producing and collaborative Web 2.0 internet.    There is mention of an online comic maker, as well as accommodations if Web 2.0 is not available, such as using a scanner.  Also utilizing blogging for readers responses to text is a suggestion made.  The article offers a rather comprehensive list of online resources and descriptions of tools for literacy instruction.  It makes for a great resource for educators to utilize.   

Incidentally, I checked out voicethread.com, and find it totally awesome!  I hope to utilze that tool, maybe for students to comment on one another's drawings, poems, or other published works.  It is another great tool for collaborative and ever changing work online.  

Week 11 - Internet: Online Reading Comprehension

The first article of this week Exploring the online reading comprehension strategies used by sixth-grade readers to search for and locate information on the Internet, written by Coiro and Dobler there is the detailed findings and information on a study of the nature of reading comprehension.  The study used a small number of sixth graders, who were considered to be at the highest reading skill level as well as those students  having the most experience using the internet.  The study noted that although students may be "book smart"  it is important to consider that hypertext on the internet requires a different kind of literacy.  The ability to navigate online for information takes different skills then just reading for content, students need to learn how to utilize search engines and critically analysis the validity of a source. 

The next article, New Literacies of Online Reading Comprehension, is written by a collaborative effort to research instruction and assessment for the New Literacies of Online Reading.  This article offers a lot of information pertaining to the utility of using the internet as a resource for reading comprehension and reading for information.  The article offers advice and tips for educators about how to instruct using the internet in reading for information.  It suggests small group instruction and scaffolding along with other methods to help reading strategies in general, not just in the Web 2.0 world.  There are also warnings and information about the public domain and public policies that educators need to take into consideration when utilizing the internet as well.

Our final article for the week, Expanding New Literacies, is another collaborative work which discusses what should be included in an understanding of the internet, which comments on the analysis of internet components being limited.  It focuses the importance of how the internet is a new tool that is shaping our world and the languages we speak and read.  The internet is indeed a tool for new literacy and collaboration toward information and learning.

I like the idea that strength can be given to weaker readers, if they are educated in online reading skills.  It helps to even the playing field, regardless of intrinsic levels of skill, any student can effectively utilize the internet as a tool for information and collaborative learning.  

Week 10 - Evaluating Websites

Smolin and Lawless's collaborative work brings us the article Becoming Literate in the Technological Age: New Responsibilities and Tools for Teachers.  The article kicks off by giving the reader perspective based on the scenarios of two pseudo-named teachers. The first teacher uses computers for building spelling in text and skill based instruction, where the second teachers has bilingual students and uses technologies to build communication and community skills by developing intervene questions and recording bilingual community members.   The writers stress the difference and their preference to the second teacher's technique.  By having students develop interview questions and utilize technologies in meaningful collaborative ways she is utilizing a student centered approach to focus on multiple forms of literacy.  These students will not only learn about reading, writing, spelling, etc, but they will learn how to communicate via emails, how to utilize cameras, upload and edit media data, and much more.  What I like best is that the skills students are taught to use with technology are not taught out of context, they are integrated in meaningful ways within the larger goal of a classroom lesson and topic as well as the idea of the work being in groups causing it the be collaborative.   The teacher also helps to instruct students how to effectively analysis and critique the information found from sources on the internet as well as limiting and monitoring their online surfing by using kid friendly and safe search engines.   The article stresses the shift in teacher's roles and the importance of teaching students how to use tools and technologies in meaningful ways, typical to everyday life use.  The article also offers a plethora of information and resources for teachers to include in their technological ventures for fostering growth in the multiple-literacies of their students.

In the second article Lawless collaborates again, this time with Schrader and Mayall, the title of this article is Acquisition of Information Online: Knowledge, Navigation and Learning Outcomes.  This research project states information on the vastness of the internet, as well as the dependency of youth's use of it.  The importance of building navigation skills and critical choice making on the web are increasing for classroom teachers.  The authors indicate that building a strong prior knowledge for students to build from when utilizing the internet will help them make wiser navigation choices online.   They test their theory that a pre-reading activity to build prior knowledge will effect navigation choices as well as the amount of information acquired online for students.  To make a very long research project and report short, the pre-reading activity did make a significant enough difference to call it useful in impacting student's web surfing.