As our middle school prepares to move to a one-to-one
technology model next year, I am trying to shift my teaching now by finding new
ways to integrate technology into my English Language Arts units. Fortunately,
I do not have to travel this journey alone. I am part of a department of
teachers who are all on this same quest; our department goal for the year
involves “enhancing student learning through meaningful technology
integration”. I have a willing teaching partner who is by my side every step of
the way, collaborating, encouraging, questioning, and investigating with me. I
have a technology integration specialist available who understands the
pressures and constraints of the classroom teacher, since she was recently a
middle school Humanities teacher herself. And I have lesson suggestions and
resources at my fingertips through organizations like NCTE, NCSS, NCLE, and ReadWriteThink.org.
At the beginning of each unit, our tech integrationist joins
our department and gives us a manageable suggestion for how to add tech to our
unit. Here’s what we’ve done so far:
- · Short Story Reading: Discussion Thread within our school’s Moodle site, open to each of our two classes of students. Students posted an interpretation about a story they read in class, and responded to others’ interpretations.
- · Literary Essay Writing: A grade-level-wide writing gallery Google site. Each student has a page, on which s/he publishes his/her final literary essay. Other students read and provide (constructive, positive) feedback on it. This site will be used again for other writing units, showcasing each piece.
- · Short Story Writing: Students write stories on a Google document, and share it with the teacher and two other students. Students get feedback through “comments” as they are in the process of writing their stories. Teachers can monitor the document’s history, ensuring that the story is the student’s own work and not being changed or edited by others.
These tech integration tools have not changed the actual
process of reading or writing, or the written product. After all, a
word-processed essay or story is not much different than a handwritten one.
However, it’s the audience that has widened, and this has given students a
chance to bounce partially-formed ideas off of many others, receive feedback
about their ideas to help shape them for clarity and accuracy, and it adds
authenticity to the publishing step because they are writing for peers as well
as the teacher.
Collaboration and communication are two pillars of the 21st
Century Skill set. Using Discussion Threads, Google Sites, and Google Docs
widens students’ audience, thus allowing them to receive more feedback during their
literacy process. This is “meaningful technology integration” that “enhances
student learning”.
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