Mediators of Inequity: Online Literate Activity in Two Eighth Grade English Language Arts Classes

This comparative case study, framed by Cultural Historical Activity Theory and sociocultural understandings of literacy, investigated students’ online literate activity in two eighth grade English Language Arts classes taught by the same teacher - one with a scripted literacy curriculum and the other without. During a year-long research project, we used ethnographic methods to explore the nature of middle school students’ literate activity in each of these classes, with particular attention to the mediators evident as students engaged in online literate activity. Specifically, this article addresses the following research question: What mediators were evident within and across each of the classes and how did these mediators influence students’ online literate activity? In addressing this question, we illustrate how particular configurations of mediators – even those operating within the context of the same school and same teacher – significantly influenced the nature of students’ online literate activity and the literate identities available to students. This study reinforces the importance of attending to the influence of offline mediators in school settings. Without such attention, students’ formal education is likely to be transferred online rather than transformed online

Academic literacies in the digital university

Academic Literacies is an international field of study concerned with literacies and learning in tertiary education. Some recent work in this field has focused on online and elearning environments. In our book of 2007 (Goodfellow & Lea 2007) we used an academic literacies perspective to critique what we see as the focus in much elearning practice on the 'management of learning' at the expense of disciplinary pedagogies. We argued for attention to be paid to the centrality of texts, however mediated, in the construction of knowledge and the practices of learning. Our current focus on the 'digital' extends this critique to engage with three major discourses of technology currently constructing the 'digital age' in relation to education. The first is the metaphor of the 'digital native' or 'net generation'. The second is the discourse of 'Learning 2.0, the third is the trope of the 'unbundled university'. We conclude that we need to pay much more attention to textual practice around learning and scholarship,and that, as researchers and scholars, we need to work for the reconciliation of new discourses of the digital with the continuing development of critical pedagogical and social practice in the academy and the public sphere

THE IMPACT OF INDIVIDUAL AND CONTEXTUAL FACTORS ON L2 WRITING DEVELOPMENT: THE SHIFTS IN WRITTEN CORRECTIVE FEEDBACK DURING COVID-19

The novel COVID-19 pandemic has caused a rupture in the trajectory of education worldwide. Students, families and schools are experiencing unprecedented times and are navigating uncharted territory together in how we educate our students. In the U.S., it has been noted that the schism within education as a result of the pandemic is the biggest threat to national security (Choi, 2020), noting the importance of education within our democracy. This includes the trauma experienced by families due to deaths caused by the pandemic, the disproportionality of communities of color losing a parent (Brundage & Ramos-Callan, 2020), and the impact on English language development within immigrant communities and Multilingual Learners (Kim 2020). Even prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, Multilingual Learners, specifically English Language Learners (ELLs), is one of the fastest growing student populations across the United States (National Center for Educational Statistics, 2017), and yet has some of the lowest graduation rates, such as in New York (NYSED, 2021). This study seeks to build equity and access of effective instruction through the exploration of one of the biggest challenges for ELLs within academic settings, which is writing, as linguistic errors in L2 writing are pervasive (Bitchener & Ferris, 2012). Written Corrective Feedback (WCF) is a ubiquitous classroom practice in second language (L2) writing development that directly seeks to increase morphosyntactic accuracy (Kang and Han, 2015). This study performed a case study of an English as a New Language (ENL) high school teacher and three Newcomer ELLs within one of the “Big 5” school districts in New York. Guided by Sociocultural Theory from an ecological perspective, data were collected during the Fall 2020 school re-opening during the COVID-19 pandemic. COVID-19 has positioned schools to integrate more digital tools in their interactions with their students, including feedback. ELL student writing samples with their teacher’s WCF, revisions, interviews, retrospective verbal reports, and classroom artifacts were collected to form cases for intra and inter case analysis to identify the individual and contextual factors that mediate L2 learners’ writing development during the pandemic

E-portfolio in education. Practices and reflections

The main activities of the digiFolio Project include: Building a common knowledge base supported by research work on the theory of portfolio usage; Paper and online publication of the results of the research work; Establishment of the pedagogical model for the training course; Analysis of the existing technological infrastructures for digital portfolio usage; Adjustment of the best tools and training course setup; Piloting and evidencing of the training course; Monitoring of the trainees' work by using a specific online teachers' support structure; International seminar. Website: http://digifolioseminar.org/?The present publication addresses the use of digital portfolios in educational context and it is one of the latest dissemination activities of the Digifolio project – Digital Portfolio as a strategy for teachers’ professional development, a COMENIUS 2.1 project which was carried out between 2005 and 2008. It involved several universities and teacher training institutions from five different European countries. The project, which main focus was the reflection on the potentialities of portfolios and digital technologies in the perspective of teachers’ professional development, came to its end with an international seminar which aimed at disseminating the work produced in the frame of a previous teachers training course, as well as allowing and welcoming the contribution of other education professionals with their practices and reflections on the above-mentioned thematic.Europeen Comissio

Integrating Authentic Digital Resources in Support of Deep, Meaningful Learning

"Integrating Authentic Digital Resources in Support of Deep, Meaningful Learning," a white paper prepared for the Smithsonian by Interactive Educational Systems Design Inc., describes instructional approaches that apply to successful teaching with the Smithsonian Learning Lab.After defining its use of terms such as deeper learning and authentic resources the authors review the research basis of three broad approaches that support integrating digital resources into the classroom:Project-based learningGuided exploration of concepts and principlesGuided development of academic skillsThese approaches find practical application in the last section of the paper, which includes seven case studies. Examples range from first-grade science, to middle-school English (including ELL strategy) to a high-school American government class. In each example, students study and analyze digital resources, going on to apply their knowledge and deepen their understanding of a range of topics and problems

When Memories Make a Difference: Multimodal Literacy Narratives for Preservice ELA Methods Students

This article examines multimodal literacy narrative projects designed by students in a methods of teaching course for secondary preservice English Language Arts teachers. For the multimodal project, preservice teachers infused written, audio, and visual text using a variety of creative mediums. Through combined theoretical frames, the researcher explores semiotics and preservice teachers’ use of multiliteracies as they shift their conceptions of what it means to compose. Finally, this article explores how the act of reflection through the literacy narrative influences preservice teachers’ notions of teaching composition through a variety of mediums

A literature review of the use of Web 2.0 tools in Higher Education

This review focuses on the use of Web 2.0 tools in Higher Education. It provides a synthesis of the research literature in the field and a series of illustrative examples of how these tools are being used in learning and teaching. It draws out the perceived benefits that these new technologies appear to offer, and highlights some of the challenges and issues surrounding their use. The review forms the basis for a HE Academy funded project, ‘Peals in the Cloud’, which is exploring how Web 2.0 tools can be used to support evidence-based practices in learning and teaching. The project has also produced two in-depth case studies, which are reported elsewhere (Galley et al., 2010, Alevizou et al., 2010). The case studies focus on evaluation of a recently developed site for learning and teaching, Cloudworks, which harnesses Web 2.0 functionality to facilitate the sharing and discussion of educational practice. The case studies aim to explore to what extent the Web 2.0 affordances of the site are successfully promoting the sharing of ideas, as well as scholarly reflections, on learning and teaching

Playing with Play: Machinima in the Classroom

“So, machinima is really a genre, and not a medium?” The students in my Digital Media and Rhetoric course are grappling with both how to define machinima and how to evaluate whether one is “good” or not. I frustrate them by refusing to provide a definitive answer to this and other similar questions they have asked about the form. This intentional frustration continues as, after watching a few examples they ask me what grade I would give those machinima, if they were turned in for this assignment. Rather than providing a simple answer I redirect, asking them what criteria they would use to evaluate machinima and how the examples we’ve seen in class stand up to this scrutiny. At the beginning of this particular unit, when I announced that we wouldn’t be writing another research paper, they were exuberant. Now, however, the complexity of the task before them is slowly unveiling itself. While a majority of these students are gamers, few of them have experience in video production. None of them have previously looked at fan culture as a source of meaning and knowledge production. We are in unfamiliar territory, and they are getting restless

Mixing the Digital, Social, and Cultural: Learning, Identity, and Agency in Youth Participation

Part of the Volume on Youth, Identity, and Digital MediaHow do youth use media and technology as they learn to be participants in civic and democratic practices? We share two case studies -- one from a media arts production organization and one from a school board youth group -- that revolve around youth-adult interactions in learning environments that offer youth real opportunities to be influential in their respective communities. The cases feature youth and their involvements with digital media, pedagogical approaches, and engagements that enhance their participatory capacities. There are multiple channels through which these interactions happen, some with and facilitated by adults and others created and negotiated by youth. We describe how youth and adults establish learning environments for each other, negotiate the grounds for participation, and explore the possibilities and limitations of social and digital technologies in these processes, supporting the idea that this learning is something that young people do as agents in their development