September 28, 2020 – EDTE 500 Principles of Teaching and Learning
Posted on September 28, 2020 By janelletenhave	
Literature Research and Data Collection on Digital Literacy
As a continuation from my first reading review, I have chosen to broaden my topic a bit, as to leave room to research and find new ideas around this topic. I have chosen to dig further into Digital Literacy. This is something that I believe will be relevant to the current situation in my library. In my district, and specifically at my school, we are not having the students enter the library, instead I go from class to class with a bin of books, in hopes that I have chosen books that these students will be interested in reading. The little ones are fairly easy to please, but the intermediate students are very specific in the books/genres they will read.
I have heard many times “I like that series, but I’ve read all of the books except the most recent one”, and “I only read books about adventure/dragons/haunted history”. How am I supposed to know ahead of time what they are precisely looking for? I am on the hunt for a new system I can implement to be able to satisfy their reading thirst, as well as not add heaps of extra work on my plate. I came up with the idea to introduce a bit of digital independence into the lives of these students, by teaching them how to browse, choose, and put books on hold through the system Destiny. This will make our lives much simpler (I hope!). The next step is “merely” teach them all how to do this.
Digital Literacy covers a wide range of topics, in which I will cover many as I dive deeper into the research this topic. Some of which will include helping students decipher between good and bad information online, how to find good and credible resources online, and being a good digital citizen.
Follow along with me as I embark on a learning journey of digging deeper into Digital Literacy, in order to provide practical techniques, good information, and new ideas for myself, my colleagues, and my students.
A weekend trip to Russsel’s books in Victoria. This picture represents an influx of information, and the ability to decipher between the good, the bad, what is needed, and what is not.
The first resource I will be using to do my research is Digital Literacies by Julia Gillen. In this book she covers a range of topics such as applied linguistics, particularly in the areas of literacy and multimodality. This book will be able to aid me on my search to discover ways to decipher between good and bad information online.
The second resource I will be looking into is Can we Teach Digital Natives Digital Literacy? by Wan Ng. This will be an interesting and insightful read, as I first need to find new and engaging ways to teach the use of technology in the classroom, so students who have known nothing other than technology in their life. It is likely they have things to teach me as well. Some highlights from this book include a study showing that digital natives are not familiar with educational technologies, thus they need to be made aware of and taught about these educational technologies (this is where I come in!).
The third resource I would like to use is Supporting young children as digital citizens: The importance of shared understandings of technology to support integration in play‐based learning by Kelly Johnston. This will be a great support for information on being a good digital citizen. This paper provides an understanding of the complex and interwoven nature of factors that influence the belief of educators and practices in integrating technology.
Finally, I found a few youtube videos in which I can use to demonstrate to my intermediate classes how to place books on hold in Destiny. They both explain the process quite easily and simply, these will be helpful to provide visual and auditory examples of how to search for a desired book, and put said book on hold for future library checkout and book exchanges.
These resources and ideas are merely the beginning of my journey, but I am excited to embark.