Technology in the Secondary English Classroom
For my project, I wanted to research specific ways that technology is being used in English classrooms, and how technology tools can enhance specific elements of the English classroom, including the writing process, writing conferences, reading, and discussion/collaboration.
I was considering the following essential questions:
How might we use cognitive principles and conceptual models of technology integration to design effective instruction and assessment?
I thought of this essential question because really what I’m thinking about are the TPACK and SAMR models, and how technology can specifically be used to enhance, modify, and redesign learning experiences that are specific to my content area. I wanted to find out what people have been doing in terms of using technology tools that are specifically beneficial for improving student learning, not as a replacement tool but as an actual elevation of what is possible.
How might we use technology to enhance real world, collaborative, learner centered education?
I had this essential question in mind for a few reasons. First of all, I wanted to look specifically at tools that promoted collaboration, as that is a huge part of my teaching. Also, I always try to tie my teaching to real world connections, and I wanted to see if people had tried out specific technology tools that could be used to promote a real life connection, and I certainly did find this. For example, I read about a teacher in Germany who is using Twitter as a way to engage students with literature, and this teacher found that by using Twitter, she was able to improve students’ level of interest and excitement in the learning process by a very wide margin. Similarly, I read about how certain technology tools can allow more students to participate and collaborate because they feel more comfortable doing so in a virtual setting than they do face to face.
I was working towards the following learning outcomes:
Demonstrate fluency with new educational tools, and articulate the affordances and constraints of such tools to support educational practice
I wanted to learn more about specific new educational tools that are technology based, and to understand what benefits and drawbacks these tools have had in real classrooms around the world.
Read and synthesize literature and research on educational technology to support personal experiences and deepen conceptual knowledge.
This is exactly what I was doing for this project. I was reading a wide variety of research and literature on educational technology that is being used in classrooms like mine, and I was doing so in order to be able to directly apply this research to my own classroom and even to specific units I will teach in the near future. I hope and plan to apply a lot of what I read about for this project directly to a redesign unit for my final capstone project.
I spent quite a bit of time exploring articles on JSTOR and online; in fact, that became the primary model of my research. I read many articles, and the more I read, the more interested I became in reading more. I began by reading articles specifically about using technology tools for having writing conferences. I moved into looking at articles that were about different types of collaboration that is happening through technology in classrooms, and then I ended by reading about some specific instances of technology tools that were being used for different aspects of English classrooms.
Three of the articles that I learned a lot from are as follows:
Citation: Christiane Steckenbiller. (2016). Am kürzeren Ende der Sonnenallee in 140 Characters or Less: Using Twitter as a Creative Approach to Literature in the Intermediate German Classroom. Die Unterrichtspraxis / Teaching German, 49(2), 147-160. doi:10.2307/unteteacgerm.49.2.147
This article discusses a teacher in Germany who used Twitter as the only means of discussing a novel. The article explores research about the cognitive impact of using a tool such as Twitter, and states that this research allows shy students to feel like they have more of a voice and provides students with a means of producing language and reading in a way that they might not otherwise (Steckenbiller 149). The article also discusses various drawbacks of using a tool like Twitter, such as privacy concerns, but notes that teachers have a responsibility to equip students with the tools necessary to navigate a digital landscape (150). Steckenbiller lays out her entire unit using Twitter as a means of analyzing a novel, utilizing it for everything from tracking basic plot points to analyzing characters and themes. At the end of the unit, she has students reflect on the use of Twitter as a tool to engage with the novel, and she writes that the overwhelming majority of students found it to be helpful as a tool for creating community, interacting with language, maintaining motivation, and increasing student participation. She also identifies drawbacks of the work, including occasional lack of focus, discomfort on the part of some students who were new to social media, and a few other technological mishaps. She offers suggestions for teachers who wish to emulate a similar approach. I found this article to be of particular interest because, as a teacher of literature, I could see my students doing something similar as we read a novel. For my capstone, I am considering a redesign of a literature unit, and I might try out something similar.
DeRouen, A. (2015). Creating the Reader-Viewer: Engaging Students with Scholarly Web Texts. In Dougherty J. & O'Donnell T. (Eds.), Web Writing: Why and How for Liberal Arts Teaching and Learning (pp. 137-148). Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Retrieved November 14, 2020
I found this article to be very interesting and thought provoking for me. It’s about a professor who is reflecting on scholarly writing/criticism, and she writes about how technology is changing the way that students do or should write about literature and, in turn, how we need to change how we teach them to read it. She explores the idea that the traditional written essay does not need to be the be all and end all of even English scholarship, and she also writes about how we need to teach students to become what she calls the “reader viewer”, meaning that students need to learn how to read scholarly web texts, and that the form that these web texts take is as important as the content of what is on them. This made me think a lot about the TPACK and SAMR models, and how English teachers can and should use technology as a tool for expanding the possibilities of how we can both teach our students how to read and also how to write about what they are reading. For example, if students are creating a scholarly web text versus a traditional literary essay, they can make choices about how they position the text on the page, images and sounds that they can pair with the textual content, etc., and this will all enhance the meaning of what they are trying to convey. I am thinking of how I might apply a lot of these ideas to my capstone. For example, rather than having my students write a traditional literary essay on a book they read, perhaps they could make a website or a blog post that incorporates all of these elements, and I can do teaching around how they need to think about how they want their reader to be a “reader viewer” and navigate through the page in a particular order.
Young, C., & Stover, K. (2013). "LOOK WHAT I DID!": Student Conferences With Text-to-Speech Software. The Reading Teacher, 67(4), 269-272. Retrieved November 18, 2020, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/24573572
This article is about how struggling writers (or really any writers) can use text to speech software, specifically a free web based tool at Voki.com, which features an avatar voice program, to have a sort of digital writing conference before meeting with a teacher. This tool reads the student’s writing out loud to him/her, allowing the student to hear mistakes that they might not see when they are reading over their work. Reading their work out loud is something that I ask my students to do all the time for this very reason, but I don’t think it’s something that many of them actually do. This is absolutely something that I will use with my students.
My inquiry absolutely supported my professional growth. The articles I have summarized here are just a few of the ones that I read. I am already thinking about specific ways I can apply a lot of what I read about to not only my capstone project, but to teaching I will be doing next week. For example, in my eleventh grade classes, my students have an essay due on Monday. I am going to introduce them to Voki.com and ask them to use it before turning their work in. Similarly, as I mentioned, I am already thinking about ways I can redesign traditional literary essays, something my students have always hated writing. While I’m not going to throw out the literary essay entirely, I do imagine using the technology piece to enhance not only the way they think about the content, but also their interest level, critical thinking, and creativity.
I will share my findings with my department members. Some of them, in particular the ones I collaborate with directly at the grade team level, are very open to new ideas, while others are less so; at the very least I will share my findings with my grade level partners. I know they will be excited about trying new ideas, particularly during this year when we are all searching for new ways to engage with students. Also, since most of my findings are based in research, I know my colleagues will find validity in them.
Documentation/Evidence:
Here is a list of resources I compiled while doing my research.
English specific articles:
How Tech Can Transform ELA from Good to Great
Urban Youth Use Twitter to Transform Learning and Engagement
Articles/Sources on Collaboration
10 EdTech Tools for Classroom Collaboration
Common Sense - Best Student Collaboration Tools
Why Student/Teacher Collaboration is More Effective with Tech
How Technology Can Increase Collaboration in the Classroom
Advances in Technology Foster Student/Teacher Collaboration
Overcoming Barriers to Collaborative Learning
Tech in the Classroom:
Stimulating Creativity Through Tech
Resources:
JSTOR - this is where I found most of my research. I put in the following search terms:
-technology, writing conferences
-technology, English classroom
-collaboration, technology, English classroom
-tech tools, English teaching
JSTOR is a great research for understanding both the why and the how. For teachers who are trying to understand why this work is important, I came across many articles about the cognitive and social benefits of using technology in the classroom, specifically for teaching literature and writing. I also came across numerous practical examples of things to try.
Since joining Twitter for this class and following a few of my favorite English teachers and English organizations, I have been reading a lot about different ideas for using technology specifically in the English classroom, specifically from Newsela, NCTE, Carol Jago, Kelly Gallagher, and Penny Kittle. Twitter can be used by teachers to come up with ideas and see what others are doing, but it can also be used by students as was referenced in one of the articles I wrote about.
This is the avatar program I wrote about. It is a great tool for students to use in becoming more independent in the revision and editing processes in their own writing. I find many of my students are far too dependent on me to “fix” their essays for them, and this program helps to put the onus on them.
This is a very interesting TED talk for teachers which talks about not only why we should be using technology to teach writing, but it also provides a lot of specific ideas for how to do so. The speaker, who is also a high school English teacher, talks specifically about how having the time to give meaningful feedback on students’ writing is the most difficult part of being a high school English teacher, which is absolutely true, and I think this will ring true for all high school English teachers. The speaker provides some concrete suggestions for using technology to expedite giving feedback to students on their writing.
Next Steps
Going forward, I have a few tools that I will use immediately, such as Voki.com for writing conferences. Similarly, I will immediately use some of the points the speaker in the TED talk made about feedback for students on their writing. For a more long term plan, I hope to redesign a number of my current units with more of a mind towards how I can consider the TPACK and SAMR models to maximize students’ learning and engagement by using technology to allow them to collaborate, think critically, and engage with a text or a writing assignment in a different way. I have one particular unit in mind for my capstone project.
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