Article reviews

Adolescent Literacy: What's
Technology Got to Do With It?
http://www.ldonline.org/article/35792/
This article points out the lack of technology preparation for students who are learning disabled.  Interestingly enough, technology tools can support the teaching and learning process and promote independence.  The problem here is that these students are not getting exposure to these technologies.  The article points out that teachers need to pay close attention to the student’s background knowledge and vocabulary, comprehension strategies, the synergies of reading and writing, and the importance of interest and motivation.  I think that when technology is introduced it is so important, especially with learning disabled students, to know what they are capable of in order for the technology to be beneficial not harmful.  Knowing what level your students are working at, is essential to the learning environment.  Delivering a multisensory instruction to students can benefit our LD and ESL students because they gain exposure to new vocabulary through sounds and spelling patterns.

Technology to support learners:

Digital Text: Scanning text into the computer and adding digital text and audio
Text to Speech: Providing read aloud versions of stories or work.
Annotations and study skill features: Learning how to use virtual post-it notes, bookmarking, highlighting, and color-coding.

 “Tomorrow will not be like today”: Literacy and identity in a world of multi-literacies
http://igenlit.pbworks.com/f/williams%20multiliteracies.pdf
Technology is evolving at such an exponential rate that everything that we are learning about in this program could very well be obsolete in five years.  This points to the fact that educators always need to always be developing and researching new technologies to stay on top of the kids.  Online environments can be beneficial for students because they have the opportunity to create personas that can be different from the way they present themselves in face to face interactions.  Shy students can really come out of their shells in an online learning environment.

Student’s are now being bombarded with information online, from forums to discussion boards.  Student’s now need to know how to sift through information and be able to pick out what is valuable and credible.  Being digitally literate is a new skill that we need to help out students reach.

 Preparing Tomorrow's English Language Arts Teachers Today: Principles and Practices for Infusing Technology
http://www.citejournal.org/vol1/iss1/currentissues/english/article1.htm
This article brings up a number of great points that are very relavant to this course and this program.  As educators we now need to not only know our content and our educational pedagogies, but also instructional technologies.  With this, just knowing technologies is not going to make the cut.  We need to know how to effectively use different technologies with students to promote academic learning.  Without proof of academic achievement, one should evaluate their teaching methods.

Seven principles as touchstones for infusing technology into English language arts teacher preparation.
1.) Introduce and infuse technology in context.
2.) Focus on the importance of technology as a literacy tool.
3.) Model English language arts learning and teaching while infusing technology.
4.) Evaluate critically when and how to use technology in English language arts classroom.
5.) Provide a wide range of opportunities to use technology
6.) Examine and determine ways of analyzing, evaluating, and grading English language arts technology projects
7.) emphasize issues of equity and diversity.

I would like to focus on number five: provide a wide range of opportunities to use technology.  It is important to begin to make student work accessible for outside the classroom.  The key to future success in education is to create virtual classrooms that students can access for their mobile devices and home desktops. There are a number of great resources that we have learned about in the NYIT program that make this a possibility.  Edmodo, MyBigCampus, blogging, and even Google Docs.  These programs all allow for universal accessibility and promote 21st century collaboration amongst peers.