Third Article: Integrating technology with the teaching of an early literacy course

I read "Integrating Technology with the Teaching of an Early Literacy Course" by Lesley Mandel Morrow, Steven Barnhart, and Debra Rooyakkers, as found in The Reading Teacher, Volume 56, No. 3, November 2002.

Debbi Rooyakkers taught a college course to teachers and teachers-to-be with the hypothesis that if she as a college professor taught her students that were teachers with technological processes, these same teachers would go back aqnd use the technology they learned in the classes they taught.

In the endeavor of embedding technology into her college-level course, she succeeded. College students were asked to:
1) Chat on the class website at least twice.
2) Participate in an interactive chat on the class website at least once.
3) Post some of their projects, their students' projects, or items of interest on the class website.
4) Read and prepare an abstract for an online article from a professional journal, as opposed to a paper copy of a journal.
5) Use some type of technology you haven't used before (I'm laughing here because everything they mentioned would have been something I hadn't used before!)
6) Use an educational website to locate practical teaching ideas.
7) Participate in an interactive television (ITV) demonstration.
8) Videotape your class presentation for a personal critique of their own work.
9) Use technology in three different lessons and in three different ways in their literacy instruction.
10) Preview and critique one piece of software that teaches a literacy skill.

Evaluation of Rooyakkers project was evaluated on three criteria:

1 Her college students completed a survey that determined their knowledge and use of technology at the beginning and the end of the semester.
2. College students filled out logs to record the technology they used for the course, writing the date, type of technology, and how it was used.

3. A random selection of ten students were interviewed at the end of the semester class. They were asked how the course influenced the integration of technology into their present literacy instruction or what they would do in the future.


A conclusion: After students learned more, during the middle months of the semester, their use of technology increased. Most common uses were the course website, e-mail, Internet searches. The next three most common uses were not used extensively:
1) individually named websites, word processing programs, and different types of software.

Thirteen website addresses were listed as the most frequently used. (Several were new to me and I feel I could learn much from them.)

Most interesting to me was the interviews of students at the end of the course, especially their answer to "How will you use technology in your classroom?" Responses presented were varied. One answer included "create newsletters, student story creations, presentations to students in science and social studies."Another responded that they could use ITV to share "projects with studeents in other parts of the world and compare data and research." Yet another response was, "I'll use technology to have children create their own story and illustrations on Storybook Weaver." Beyond these responses, was that of "using the internet for research purposes and learning things outside their community or state or anywhere in the world." Class websites were also mentioned. Finally, ITV was mentioned as great for staff development.

As a result of this course, one university student took on a project where she paired her first grade class with a sixth-grade class in her school. They worked on an integrated unit on the theme of agrilculture. They e-mailed a farmer in Missouri for consultation on growing plants and used his advice to plant seeds, comparing its growth where they were at to the plant growth of the farmer in Missouri. The sixth grade class used the internet to find strategies and techniques to help their younger partners develop in reading, writing, and speaking skills.

Conclusion: Giving in person help to teach teachers how to use technology pays off
in more creative, project oriented lessons in classrooms for children.

This article reminded me of our class and how Bryan has demonstrated and helped us learn technology in practical ways. It seems a no-brainer that teachers will use what they know and understand to benefit their students. After all, teachers are very dedicated to their students. Also, learning how to apply the uses of technology to our specific curriculum and student population is a "growing/learning experience" for us as teachers.

I'm consistently very excited when I learn something practical in an education course--- sometimes history and theories are so numerous that practical ideas for classroom use are not found! I'm a very practical person and teacher. If what I'm taught isn't useful in my day to day teaching, I don't clutter my brain with it. I think this comes from having taken so many courses that were very theoretical but not practical (or useful) in the "real world".

I will use many of the computer applications I have been taught this term. However, on my own, I know I will be trying many things that may not work or that only work in ways I won't remember exactly what t did (but obviously did do the process correctly or the product would not have resulted). In my opinion, all of this "trial and error" is what real learning is about!



















I will utilize