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Expanding Digital Literacy: Inspiration
Take one look around a classroom today and it quickly becomes apparent that “learning” does not look like it did in the past. It no longer starts with a pencil, paper and textbook. 21st century students come to school armed with a variety of devices - cell phone, ipod, laptop - ready to take part in today’s multimedia learning environment. These students live in a world in which they are continuously inundated with multimedia. Today’s teens spend more time looking at screens than any previous generation. According to a 2010 study by the Kaiser Family Foundation, 8-18-year olds spend an average of nearly 8 hours a day consuming media, with over half that time spent with television content.
I looked around my classroom at the students buried in their screens and thought there must be a way to harness their focus on digital content into a learning opportunity. I became interested in the concept of "digital literacy" and particularly focused on exploring the use of video as a powerful tool for teaching as well as for students to increase their own learning and deepen their research and analysis skills.
It's clear that teaching in the 21st century classroom requires teachers to integrate principles of digital literacy to support their students learning in a way that is effective for the real world as they will live in it. Gone are the days of reading a textbook and answering a series of questions as an effective demonstration of knowledge. Today’s students must use a variety of sources in their learning process, including multimedia sources such as photos, charts and graphs, video, infographics and more. As more and more schools integrate the internet into their classrooms, these sources are increasingly accessed via the world wide web.
Of key importance is the need to support students’ use of various medium as a source for research and analysis, as I realized in examining my own classroom setting. In Literacy in the Digital Age, Frank B. Withrow asserts that “... in the modern world of telecommunication, the literate person can critically evaluate all forms of information from print, audio, film, television, and computer codes. The effective user of these resources becomes the literate person of a modern society.”
Despite the access to multimedia sources, when it comes to research and analysis I consistently found that students still rely primarily on print sources to support their research process. While students are comfortable viewing video as a supplemental learning tool, it seems that they lack the skills necessary to critically analyze video content in the same way they are able to deeply analyze text. All of this brings me to the inspiration for my research: what are effective tools and process that teachers can use to supplement their own teaching as well as help students increase their comfort and skill level with the use of video as a learning tool and a research source?
I looked around my classroom at the students buried in their screens and thought there must be a way to harness their focus on digital content into a learning opportunity. I became interested in the concept of "digital literacy" and particularly focused on exploring the use of video as a powerful tool for teaching as well as for students to increase their own learning and deepen their research and analysis skills.
It's clear that teaching in the 21st century classroom requires teachers to integrate principles of digital literacy to support their students learning in a way that is effective for the real world as they will live in it. Gone are the days of reading a textbook and answering a series of questions as an effective demonstration of knowledge. Today’s students must use a variety of sources in their learning process, including multimedia sources such as photos, charts and graphs, video, infographics and more. As more and more schools integrate the internet into their classrooms, these sources are increasingly accessed via the world wide web.
Of key importance is the need to support students’ use of various medium as a source for research and analysis, as I realized in examining my own classroom setting. In Literacy in the Digital Age, Frank B. Withrow asserts that “... in the modern world of telecommunication, the literate person can critically evaluate all forms of information from print, audio, film, television, and computer codes. The effective user of these resources becomes the literate person of a modern society.”
Despite the access to multimedia sources, when it comes to research and analysis I consistently found that students still rely primarily on print sources to support their research process. While students are comfortable viewing video as a supplemental learning tool, it seems that they lack the skills necessary to critically analyze video content in the same way they are able to deeply analyze text. All of this brings me to the inspiration for my research: what are effective tools and process that teachers can use to supplement their own teaching as well as help students increase their comfort and skill level with the use of video as a learning tool and a research source?
ResearchClick on the icon above to read more about the research into digital literacy, including the evolution of thought on research questions, research findings and implications.
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Design ProcessThe design process looks at the process we as researchers go through in diving deep into our research and analysis process as well as analyzing the needs of the learner from the sociological, instructional, technological and educational perspective. Click on the icon above to read more.
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Support and Next StepsNapaLearns is instrumental in supporting the continuing education of teachers in the Napa Valley. Through their generous grant program I am able to pursue this master's degree and share what I have learned with my students and colleagues. It's a model for supporting the growth mindset and continuous learning. Click on the icon above to read more about community support and next steps.
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