A Framework for Digital Learning
Living a Screen-Based Life is Tough
More and more of our communication, for business or pleasure, is screen-based. Can you think of the last time you used a typewriter? (Have you ever used a typewriter?)
With word processing software, page layout and other design programs, we compose all kinds of documents. We edit photos. We compose and send written messages using cell phones and other mobile devices. Some of us even crunch numbers.
Via the World Wide Web, we read newspapers, email, books.We watch videos, we chat via instant message or video “phone calls.” We read news of family and friends on Facebook. We compose blogs, make videos, create websites. We connect.
We rely on core literacies to compose and interpret even in a screen-based environment (Kress, 2003). And there is more to consider in this screen-based world. The design of the “page”. The role the image plays. How to read when you aren’t forced to proceed in a linear fashion—how do you use links in an expanse of text? If you click out of the text to follow a link, do you go back to the original text or continue opening links to see where they take you? How do you decide if what you find is valid? Examine the grammar of a 2 minute video? How do you put these to use in composing your own works?
These new ways of reading, of thinking, can’t replace the core literacies of reading and writing, but they augment them in meaningful ways. And, importantly, they offer us new vantage points for composing with and interpreting written texts.
With word processing software, page layout and other design programs, we compose all kinds of documents. We edit photos. We compose and send written messages using cell phones and other mobile devices. Some of us even crunch numbers.
Via the World Wide Web, we read newspapers, email, books.We watch videos, we chat via instant message or video “phone calls.” We read news of family and friends on Facebook. We compose blogs, make videos, create websites. We connect.
We rely on core literacies to compose and interpret even in a screen-based environment (Kress, 2003). And there is more to consider in this screen-based world. The design of the “page”. The role the image plays. How to read when you aren’t forced to proceed in a linear fashion—how do you use links in an expanse of text? If you click out of the text to follow a link, do you go back to the original text or continue opening links to see where they take you? How do you decide if what you find is valid? Examine the grammar of a 2 minute video? How do you put these to use in composing your own works?
These new ways of reading, of thinking, can’t replace the core literacies of reading and writing, but they augment them in meaningful ways. And, importantly, they offer us new vantage points for composing with and interpreting written texts.
How Do We Bring Digital Learning Into Our Classes?
This site is designed to offer some ideas, first about why you would want to, then about how.
In the left column of this page, you'll find a tab for each topic. Some of the main tabs have drop-down menus as well, containing more related material. Some of the resources link to pages outside of this site.
Living in this digital world is not just a matter of knowing how to make a video or use a Google document or any other tool or process. We have to experience what the digital makes possible in our own lives before we gain a deep understanding of what it makes possible in our teaching.
So don't be afraid to dive in. Try the tools, read other teachers' experiences. Remember-- short of taking a sledge hammer to it, you can't break your computer, and you absolutely cannot break the Internet.
Reference
Kress, G. R. (2003). Literacy in the new media age. Literacies. NY: Routledge.
Kress, G. R. (2003). Literacy in the new media age. Literacies. NY: Routledge.
