A Review of the "Digital Turn" in the New Literacy Studies

Digital communication has transformed literacy practices and assumed great importance in the functioning of workplace, recreational, and community contexts. This article reviews a decade of empirical work of the New Literacy Studies, identifying the shift toward research of digital literacy applications. The article engages with the central theoretical, methodological, and pragmatic challenges in the tradition of New Literacy Studies, while highlighting the distinctive trends in the digital strand. It identifies common patterns across new literacy practices through cross-comparisons of ethnographic research in digital media environments. It examines ways in which this research is taking into account power and pedagogy in normative contexts of literacy learning using the new media. Recommendations are given to strengthen the links between New Literacy Studies research and literacy curriculum, assessment, and accountability in the 21st century

Educational use cases from a shared exploration of e-books and iPads

E-books and e-book readers are becoming increasingly widely available, particularly for the general reader, and there have been many studies on their adoption. However, less is known about their use for educational and academic purposes. We report here on work carried out on e-books and e-book applications using iPads by academic and teaching staff. After considering pedagogical issues and reporting survey results, we identify a spiral of six key use case areas for e-books. This spiral of use cases moves from basic e-book use, through situational reading, e-books and learning, using multiple learning resources, collaborative/group learning, to e-book production. We discuss each of these use case areas and provide guidelines that will be of interest to practitioners and researchers alike

How Korean K-12 Educators Adapted to Online Teaching and Promoted Digital Equity During COVID-19: A Mixed-Method Study on Practices and Perceptions

The abrupt transitions to online teaching during COVID-19 have exacerbated educational discrepancies worldwide. South Korean schools faced similar challenges primarily due to the insufficient infrastructure and pedagogical guidelines for online teaching. This mixed-method case study investigated how Korean K-12 teachers and administrators converted to online teaching and addressed related digital equity issues during their first semester of online teaching in response to the pandemic. Interviews, as well as survey responses at the beginning and end of the semester, were analyzed through Activity Theory (AT) and Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) frameworks. The study's key insights were that the digital equity issue is related to quality teaching issues beyond infrastructural problems and that teachers took various strategies to maximize the effectiveness of their blended teaching. We aim to shed light on supporting equitable online learning and sustaining positive changes in the post-COVID era

Korean Migrant Youth Identity Work in the Transnational Social Field: A Link between Identity, Transnationalism, and New Media Literacy

Informed by the new understandings of space, culture, and identity in the fast-changing world where communication technology connects and compresses multiple spaces, this qualitative study examines how Korean migrant youth understand, negotiate, and articulate their complex identities across and beyond various borders. The research questions were: (1) What are the contexts in which migrant youth negotiate their identities? (2) How do youth understand and negotiate their sense of belonging? (3) How do youth’s cultural and literacy practices, particularly in new media, inform and shape their identities? Using an ethnographic case study design, I collected data from 32 survey participants and four core participants. Data included 32 surveys, 32 identity maps, 25 interview transcripts, 200 pages of field notes from observations, and 91 literacy documents across online and offline. A grounded theory approach and concepts of design and curatorship were used to analyze the data. Analysis demonstrated the intersections of conflict and flexibility, resistance and resilience, and vulnerability and agency in youths’ identity work. When youths’ identity was confined by the border-oriented discourses such as citizenship, race, and ethnicity, they expressed a sense of dissonance and felt that they were identified by who they are not. However, when they were able to cross national, linguistic, and cultural borders, they flexibly code-mixed and switched between languages, affiliated with audiences of diverse backgrounds, and positioned themselves resiliently. In this trans-bordering identity construction, new media played a crucial role by creating third spaces where youth could draw on their daily cultural practices, hybridizing diverse identity resources across contexts and audiences. New media served as a dialogic space for identity co-construction between youths and their audiences, an interactive learning platform, and a communicative medium for transnational relationships. Despite their relatively unsettled lives, the young migrants in this study behaved as agentive authors and designers of their identities with and in new media. Educational implications include the need to broaden the concept of literacy, to make connections between students’ lives and school curriculum, and to incorporate students’ voices in developing new pedagogy

Readiness of Primary School Teachers On Emergency Curriculum Policies During The Covid-19 Pandemic : A Study Investigating Teacher’ Perception

Abstract This study aims to explore the readiness of primary school teachers on emergency curriculum policies during the COVID-19 pandemic. Data collection was carried out through semi-structured surveys and interviews with fifty-five elementary school teachers across Jakarta province. Thematic analysis was used in this study. The results of the analysis found three main themes, namely, material organization, learning strategies, and learning assessments. Based on findings, it illustrates that most teachers have tried to be ready to implement emergency curriculum policies during the pandemic. The emergency curriculum has changed the education system in Indonesia, starting from the learning system, the selection of teaching materials, to the assessment system. The results of this study indicate that the success of implementing the emergency curriculum depend on the involvement of teachers and parents in guiding students. Parents must guide and facilitate children's learning while teachers must be creative and innovative in creating enjoyable learning for students. This research can also be a reference for future researchers to develop a learning model during the pandemic period. Keywords: emergency curriculum, teacher’s perception, COVID-19   Abstrak Studi ini bertujuan untuk mengeksplorasi kesiapan guru sekolah dasar terhadap kebijakan kurikulum darurat selama masa pandemic COVID-19. Pengumpulan data dilakukan melalui survei dan wawancara semi-terstruktur dengan 55 guru sekolah dasar yang tersebar di wilayah provinsi DKI Jakarta. Analisis data menggunakan peta tematik kualitatif. Hasil analisis menemukan tiga tema utama yaitu, organisasi materi, strategi pembelajaran, dan penilaian pembelajaran. Berdasarkan hasil penelitian, menggambarkan sebagian besar guru telah berusaha siap untuk mengimplementasikan kebijakan kurikulum darurat selama pandemic. Hasil penelitian ini juga menunjukan bahwa kesuksesan implementasi kurikulum darurat bergantung pada keterlibatan guru dan orang tua dalam membimbing siswa. Orang tua harus membimbing dan memfasilitasi anak belajar sedangkan guru harus kreatif dan inovatif dalam menciptakan pembelajaran yang menyenangkan bagi siswa. Penelitian ini juga dapat menjadi acuan pada peneliti selanjutnya untuk mengembangkan suatu model pembelajaran selama masa pandemic berlangsung. Kata kunci: kurikulum darurat, persepsi guru, COVID-1

Proposed Alternatives to Decrease Private Tutoring in Egyptian Pre-University Education

Private tutoring continues to exist in Egypt, even though it has been officially banned by the 2016 ministerial decree No. 53 and the 2018 ministerial decree No. 714. The current research reviews the relevant literature, provides a background on private tutoring, analyzes the current policy for dealing with private tutoring in Egypt, and it proposes three policy alternatives for decreasing private tutoring in Egyptian pre-university education. These alternatives are turning most educational curricula into educational games, lengthening the school day, and returning extra-curricular activities to Egyptian schools. These policy options are evaluated based on the criteria of equity and fairness, effectiveness, political feasibility, administrative ease, and cost. Based on this policy analysis, a recommendation is made for Egypt

A Systemic Review (2014–2023) on the Mobile-Assisted Blended Learning for English as a Foreign Language Education with a Focus on Empirical Studies

Over the past two decades, due to the rapid development of information and communication technologies (ICT), mobile learning (M-learning) and blended learning (BL) have emerged as new trends in sustaining English as a foreign language (EFL) education. The tumultuous COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted traditional teaching and learning, but it has also accelerated the integration of technology in EFL education. Mobile-assisted blended learning (MABL) combines mobile-assisted language learning (MALL) and BL into a single framework that effectively addresses their individual limitations when used in isolation. However, reviews of MABL, particularly in the context of EFL education, are scarce. Sourced from two major databases, namely Web of Science and Scopus, and two supplementary databases (Education Resources Information Center and Mendeley), 25 studies were extracted out of 205 in the latest decade, using specific exclusion and inclusion criteria. This review aims to shed light on the trend of utilizing advanced and effective pedagogy and teaching tools to benefit stakeholders in the sustainable development of English as a foreign language

Building Innovative Online Korean and Japanese Courses: A Pilot on Technology- Enhanced Curriculum Development

Our pilot project created blended/online courses to accommodate the growing needs of precollegiate and collegiate students interested in learning Korean and Japanese. In the initial phase, we conducted a survey of students’ experiences with and perceptions about blended/online Asian language learning. We found a general lack of familiarity with, and moderate resistance toward, online language learning modes. With learner attitudes in mind, we developed online modules for beginning Korean and Japanese courses. In this article, we report the survey results and the process of developing these innovative blended and online modalities of content delivery, focusing on the strengths of the modules and the unforeseen development challenges. The impacts that these technology-enhanced environments may have on student perceptions of transactional distance and tele-/copresence are explored. We suggest that transforming conventional East Asian language courses into blended/online modes is not only feasible but also beneficial for foreign language teaching and learning