Spring 2009

Transforming pedagogies

Tell me a story − a new story!

As computers become more sophisticated so too do the ways we use them for literate purposes. With every new technology, it appears that new kinds of texts and language processes emerge. Lisa Kervin presents new insights.

It is argued that computers are to contemporary children, what television and radio were to previous generations. Computer-based technologies permeate the lives and daily routines of many children as they engage with computer technologies in a variety of ways. Referred to as ‘clickerati kids’, ‘net generation’ and ‘millennial learners’, many children use computers as part of their daily literate activities.

Our understanding of literacy has expanded. While the traditional notions of reading and writing are still vital, so too is the ability to use, manipulate and respond to technology. Computer-based technologies increase the volume and sources of information available, bringing about change in what is valued as ‘literacy’ and redefining subsequent literate practices.

Children need opportunities to access, consume, interpret and create digital text with careful scaffolding and support. Three digital activities are explored below that support literate activity as they engage children in reading, writing, talking and listening processes.

Digital Language Experience

The Language Experience Approach has for some time provided an example of a strategy focused on meaning making as children engage with language to construct text. Children engage with an experience, talk about it, write about it, and reread constructed text in a scaffolded environment. It is a carefully planned approach that includes direct and explicit instruction, as well as significant opportunities for reading, writing, speaking, and listening. It has been long acknowledged as a powerful approach for early years classrooms as strong connections are evident between oral and written language, and the processes in creating oral and written text are explicit.

Labbo’s (2002) digital innovation on this strategy consists of four key steps:

1. Setting up the experience—an experience is negotiated between the teacher and children, and ‘moments’ to photograph are planned.
2. Photographing the experience— as the children engage with the experience, the ‘moments’ are photographed with a digital camera.
3. Composing a multimedia story or photo essay—the photographs are imported onto a computer. The children recall the experience as they view the photographs. They then make decisions about which photographs they will use to tell their own story of the experience. These are ordered and annotated on the computer.
4. Engaging in follow-up activities—the children continue to interact with their stories. Labbo suggests that this might occur through recording voice, printing and rereading stories or revising the story with editing software as pictures are altered to change or add to the meaning.

Digital Retell

The ‘read and retell’ strategy has been promoted for some time as a way to support readers in comprehending various genres, language structures within these and interpretation of these (Brown & Cambourne, 1987). The retelling process can take written, visual or oral form, with readers capturing the key information and understandings from text.

Computer-based technologies afford the reader a range of ways to record and reflect upon understandings throughout the meaning-making process. The read and retell process is enhanced with technology as readers capture key information in multimodal ways. It is a strategy that encourages responsive and reflective reading as the child uses technology to represent their ability to predict, hypothesise, retell and internalise as they demonstrate their expanded knowledge and understandings.

This strategy consists of four steps.

1. A theme or topic is identified and children identify knowledge they have about that.
2. Child is provided with a range of texts that respond to the one theme or topic. They engage with the texts.
3. Using the retell prompt, ‘make a movie in your mind’, the child represents their understanding using computer-based technologies. Children might use a software application, create a movie or oral account of the experience.
4. The digital retell is shared.

Internet Workshop

Leu (2002) developed the Internet Workshop, a strategy that relies on the teacher selecting a website and carefully scaffolding and leading student discussion to support the meaning-making process. This approach supports teachers with varying levels of knowledge and confidence with the internet to engage students in purposeful activity with web-based text. The strategy promotes the following steps:

1. 1. Use a search engine to help locate a website appropriate for the children. This may be connected to a curriculum theme or unit of work.
2. Design an activity for children to complete as they engage with the site. This might be to build background knowledge or to develop critical reading skills. Open-ended tasks are encouraged to enable children to present different responses to the activity.
3. Children complete the activity.
4. Children share their responses to the activity as they identify new understandings and raise questions that require further exploration.

Considerations for teachers in the Early Years

Each activity presents considerations for teachers as they look to incorporate these within classroom literacy activities.

1. Selecting a digital activity.
   Young children are able to engage with computer-based technologies to support their learning. However, for this to happen, the activity needs to be shaped in response to the needs and interests of the children and firmly grounded within learning outcomes to allow for seamless integration within the classroom. Digital activities are most effective when teachers are convinced of the learning potential and possibilities they offer.
2. Time for the activity.
   The activities described are not quick, one-shot text creations. It is important that sufficient time is provided for children to move through the identified stages as they engage with the processes of reading, writing, talking and listening. Time for the teacher, or other adult to support the child as they work through the task, is important too.
3. Understanding the process of the activity.
   As teachers, we need to examine and reflect upon what we know about how children learn language and literate practices and firmly embed these understandings within any technology-related activities we include in our classrooms. Identifying opportunities for children to read, write, talk and listen throughout the process of using technology provides a balanced literate experience.
4. Empowering children through the activity.
   The extended timeframe for these activities provide opportunity for children to control and monitor their own learning as they take ownership of the process. Throughout their engagement with activities, children learn literacy process and technology simultaneously, thus enabling flexibility and transferability of the skills and strategies they learn.

Teachers wishing to incorporate digital activities in their classrooms can use the activity descriptions presented here to assist their thinking, planning and implementation of experiences.

Reference

Brown, H & Cambourne B (1987), Read and Retell. Heinemann, Portsmouth.

Labbo, L.D., Eakle, A.J., & Montero, M.K. (2002). ‘Digital Language Experience Approach: Using digital photographs and software as a Language Experience Approach innovation’, Reading Online, 5 (8). Available: www.readingonline.org/electronic/elec_index.asp?HREF=labbo2/index.html

Leu, D.J., Jr. (2002). ‘Internet Workshop: Making time for literacy [Exploring Literacy on the Internet department]’, The Reading Teacher, 55 (5). Available: http://www.readingonline.org/ electronic/elec_index.asp?HREF=/electronic/ RT/2-02_Column/index.html 

Lisa Kervin is a senior lecturer in the Faculty of Education, University of Wollongong, and currently NSW state director of the Australian Literacy Educators Association.

The author owns the copyright in this article. For information related to the reuse of this work in any form please contact the publisher denise.quinn@curriculum.edu.au