Learning Task #1 -Week 3

In the article, “Literacy instruction with digital and media technologies” by Diane Barone and Todd Wright, it describes how in the past years technology has been drastically increasing in schools/classrooms. This article also discusses how a fourth grade teacher brought technology into his daily lessons. He achieved this by having one to one laptop use for each of his students. This allowed students to interact with their classmates through instant message and email during group work and access worksheets and media files used in the classroom. Technology in the classroom also benefits the students by providing differentiated instruction on a daily basis. I feel that having one to one laptop access available to students really helps students see learning in a different light, but it is not always in the budget so having a laptop cart is a great alternative. Also professional development in schools is a great way to educate teachers to make them more comfortable with integrating technologies into daily lessons. 

The brochure, “New Literacies and 21st Century Technologies” had many great ideas on how to integrate communication technologies effectively into schools. One main point they addressed was the importance of professional development. Professional development helps prepare teachers to use technology to motivate students and to close the gap between social and academic use of technology. Also teachers should not only participate in professional development they should educate themselves by researching and reading professional publications. Another point that was addressed is how the district should provide equal opportunities and access for all students. I also liked that in this article it encouraged parents to participate in learning new technology with their children. Lastly it talked about how generic literacies such as text books are no longer sufficient in the 21st century and new literacies such as wikis, blogs, avatars, podcasts and mobile technologies have taken over. 

In the article, “Toward a Theory of New Literacies Emerging From the Internet and Other Information and Communication Technologies” by Donald Leu, he explains how literacy has had a major affect in every day life since Sumerian society back in forth century B.C. Since then it has been changing drastically, so drastically, that researchers lack a definition on what new literacies are and how they can move the definition beyond only paper printed media. This article also states that as much as literacy is changing the foundations that were required to read paper printed texts will always exist. Another point this article made is how as teachers we need to prepare students for their futures and doing that requires the use of multiple technologies. Technology is used not only at home and in classrooms, but it is used in majority of jobs. So by keeping teachers educated and up to date through professional development we can keep students up to date with the ever changing literacies and technologies.