Technological Strategies To Improve Literacy Dan Zomack, Shockley Su, and William Childs

Technology & Literacy As teaching and learning enter 21st century, technology in the classroom can promote student literacy. Some examples: o proprietary software; o subscription services; o cloud-based projects; and o public and private websites

Literacy Not just ability to read and write but ability to analyze and understand Critical thinking and engagement is key Not limited to printed word but to all types of communication, although written communication is major goal

Context Type of learners in class guides the type of strategy that teachers will want to employ Technology engages all types of learners, including reluctant readers In 21st century classroom, the real question is when isn't the use of technology to improve literacy appropriate.

Benefits Improve performance on assessments Develop and improve: phonic awareness fluency text comprehension vocabulary spelling

21st Century Skills Technology: Software Cloud computing Internet Education: Critical thinking Creativity Communication Collaboration

Example 1: Read 180

Example 2: Edmodo Edmodo provides teachers and students a secure place to connect and collaborate, share content and educational applications, and access homework, grades, class discussions and notifications. Their goal is to help educators harness the power of social media to customize the classroom for each and every learner.

Example 3: Discovery Ed Implementation of Discovery Education impacts the way an educator teaches, providing them the digital content and the professional development to transform classroom instruction into an immersive experience that inspires a student's natural curiosity.

Example 3: Discovery Ed Charlotte Mecklenburg School District (CMS): Dr. Peter Gorman's (Superintendent CMS) goal was a 3-5% gain in science scores over a very short time frame. A pilot program using Discovery Education Science led to double-digit gains in science scores year-over-year in CMS. Composite retest scores on North Carolina's science end-of-year exam for grades 5 and 8 increased by 26 points.

Example 4: Google Apps Sharing Information: Docs, Gmail, Calendar, Groups Geographical: Earth, Sky, Maps, Sketchup Literature: Book Search, News, Scholar, Trends

Ex 4: Teaching History With Google Earth Night by Elie Wiesel Source: Google Lit Trips

Ex. 4: Student Product Among the products that students could create with this application are: History: a new map for each unit; Math: a summation of distance traveled and/or use of plot points to indicate population trends; English: photos to tie back to the imagery used in descriptive text; Foreign Language: cultural literacy in the language’s country of origin; or Science: demonstrating the place and clime of where various advances were made.

Ex. 4: Rubric For a unit map: Requiremen t DescriptionComments Points Possible Points Earned Plot Points All appropriate points discovered and mapped 30 Map Overlay Best available historical map of the region 30 Content Comments are germane, include images, provide links for further study 40

Conclusion Technology in the classroom used well: Greater literacy Engaged students While this presentation focused on just a few options, there are many out there.

Q&A Are these applications hard to learn? How realistic is it to use a subscription program like Read 180 on a daily basis? How long does it take to prepare these lessons? What do you do for students who don't have computers? Aside from the technology resources we have already mentioned what are the websites/technology you regularly use in the classroom?

Links cooltoolsforschools.wikispaces.com/ web20guru.wikispaces.com/Web+2.0+Resources serc.carleton.edu/sp/library/google_earth/how.html labnol.org/internet/download-audio-pronunciation-words/21064/ labnol.org/internet/101-useful-websites/18078/?sub=dp quizlet.com edmodo.com discoveryed.com googlelittrips.com read180.scholastic.com/faqs