Literacy -ICT Teaching Strategies

As Brindley (2000, in Gamble and Easingwood, 2000, p.1) states “ICT stands in interesting relation to literacy, being as it is capable both of supporting and promoting the basic skills of reading and writing - the dominant classroom definition of literacy.” Yet, when ICT is being used to support the teaching and learning of literacy, it is the literacy objectives that remains the main focus of the lesson. Therefore, the following strategies will help you develop confident readers and writers in an ICT-integrated, digital society.

Planning for Integration

It is said that thoughtful and thorough preparation is the hallmark of all effective teachers” (Taffe & Gwinn, 2007, p. 59). However, whenever you are preparing to incorporate the use of ICT activities into the literacy curriculum, which it takes on new and multifaceted dimensions for those who successfully integrate technology into their instruction. So you will need to focus on what you do individually as well as in collaboration with others to prepare for this instructional time.

Step 1. Determine what your instructional objectives are

The context of this resource covers the following curriculum objectives:

STRANDS DESCRIPTION

Language ACELA1793 - Identify features of online texts that enhance readability including text, navigation, links, graphics and layout. ACELA1496 - Explore the effect of choices when framing an image, placement of elements in the image, and salience on composition of still and moving images in a range of types of texts.

Literature

Literacy ACELT1603 - Discuss literary experiences with others, sharing responses and expressing a point of view. ACELT1794 - Create literary texts by developing storylines, characters and settings. ACELY1692 - Use comprehension strategies to build literal and inferred meaning to expand content knowledge, integrating and linking ideas and analysing and evaluating texts ACELY1694 - Plan, draft and publish imaginative, informative and persuasive texts containing key information and supporting details for a widening range of audiences, demonstrating increasing control over text structures and language features. ACELY1697- Use a range of software including word processing programs to construct, edit and publish written text, and select, edit and place visual, print and audio elements.

However, there will be many other opportunities to create throughout your literacy teaching and learning.

Step 2. Determine a starting point for students

It will be important to use your knowledge of students in your instructional planning. In this part of your planning you will need to consider:

• Student interest and attitudes: gain information about your students from what they submit in class.

Communicate with parents to gather a more in-depth understanding about what your students enjoy the most. For example, if you understand that a student likes to paint or draw a lot at home, then you could plan to use graphic programs in their literacy learning;

• Their current capabilities in ICT: it is vital that you have an appreciation of where the children are, where they ought to be and where they might be heading next. This will help for when you are planning for progression. Proper assessment will provide you with real evidence and knowledge of where the students are up to. Without it any planning conducted would be worthless. When trying to establish an existing understanding with students you could look for:

1. Preconceptions – either a misconception, which is, a technical incorrect idea, or a partially understood technical idea; 2. Missing – a technical idea for which there was no evidence of any knowledge or understanding; 3. Knows – a technical idea of which the child demonstrated knowledge and understanding.

An idea would be to use a range of practical activities with no ICT and identify the level of the student’s understanding using questioning, written tests or practical tasks. In addition, you may also be able to decide the level of capability through class discussion.

Step 3. Know what resources are available

An important part of instructional planning is the identification and utilisation of available resources. When it comes ICT resources, no two schools are the same and you may see yourself in either a low or high resource setting.

If you are teaching in a low resource setting in which there may only be one computer in the room. Depending on the nature of the task and of the software, in this case a word processor such as MS Word, you may need to divide a group of six students into two of lots of three and give them 10 minutes each. This could become the working group for the week and the class can be rotated. As a consequence you will need to plan other literacy work for students to do whilst they are waiting away from the computer.

Additionally, if you have access to a data projector and there is access to the carpet area, then students could be preparing small presentations on the learning objectives. An activity like this will further develop their higher order thinking skills.

Step 4. Ensure that students have the support they need

Consider the following questions: • What is the educational purpose of the activity – to develop student ICT capability, to support the learning of literacy in the curriculum or both? • Will the students need to be monitored so that you can identify the best times for intervention and the enhancement of ICT skills? • Will the ICT activity provide the students with the experience of using ICT as a tool? • Have you accounted for opportunities within the ICT activity for you to assess the students’ ICT capability? • How will the students work – cooperatively or collaboratively?

Activity

10 minute onscreen reinforcement of learning objective

Software

Tutorial CD, focused aims, revision in a game-style environment.

Literacy Vs. ICT potential

High Literacy

Low level ICT skills

10 minute onscreen search and replace, reinforcement of learning objective Word processing High literacy

Low level ICT skills Collaborative work on presen- Presentation software High literacy tation for the plenary about a particular learning objective. Word processing High level ICT skills Table 1. Plenary in a low resource setting (Potter, Sharpe, Turvey & Alllen, 2007)

Activity

Group activity reinforcing learning objective for 20 minutes

Software

Three computers, tutorial software or word processing

Literacy Vs. ICT Potential

High literacy

Low level ICT skills (tutorial)

Group activity on search and replace, guided writing

Collaborative work throughout literacy lessons on learning objective, used on the interactive whiteboard and perhaps published online on the school website PDAs or laptops available for group

Network room presentation software, html editors etc.

Word processing software, Authoring templates provided by the online supplier High level ICT skills (WP) High literacy

High level ICT skills High literacy

High level ICT skills

Table 7. Plenary for a High level resource setting (Potter, Sharpe, Turvey & Allen, 2012)

Introducing New Software and Techniques

The effective use of ICT in activities demands higher order skills and so students need to recognise when the use of ICT might be appropriate for a task. To achieve this, start by discussing what can it do and how it might be achieved. You might want to discuss with them: Where there have seen this software before; how was it used etc.

A good example of how to develop autonomous learners would be to discuss with students the different software available. It doesn’t mean to go into great detail but share with them what they are, what they are mostly used for and then go further and explore various key features of them and question students as where and why these features would be used.

your own skills and confidence Identify

unique features of software • What can the software do that other instructional strategies cannot? • How can you capitalise on these features?

Troubleshoot

potential problems

• What areas might cause difficulty for your students? • What questions will they have? Stretch • Think creatively and brainstorm ideas for unanticipated uses of your imagination the software. • Talk to other teachers. • Use you observations of students’ interactions with the software to spark ideas. Table 8. Guidelines for preparing to use software with students (Taffe and Gwinn, 2007 , p.68)

Build on experiences from Home

This strategy builds on the previous strategy about determining a starting point. Digital natives such as this generation of students use a computer with increasing confidence and competence in their own homes. For this reason, teachers should build on their ICT experiences in order to gain most from their ICT work at school. Ensure that:

• Student activities are interesting to them; • Activities are structured in such a way to stimulate understanding that may be difficult for them to achieve unaided; • You appreciate the nature of children’s ICT work at home; • You provide opportunities both inside and outside of the lesson for children who do not have home access to ICT facilities.

To capitalise on home use of ICT ensure that:

• You set clear objectives; • Activities are structured;

Structure and Stimulate Activities

• You set high expectations of students in terms of ICT use; • You have an appreciation of any problems likely to experienced and have planned strategies to deal with them.

Use the following teaching method: 1. Whole class briefing on the context of the activity; 2. Detailed explanation to each group when they were ready to work on the activity; 3. Careful choice of pairs to work on the computer in turn; 4. A review of the key points with the group afterwards.

Also it is best to work the whole class or group beforehand to clarify your expectations, focus their attention on the activity, and generate ideas and to conduct the demonstration of ICT techniques.

Research (Kennewell et al., 2000) also indicates that it is best to identify to the students when it is the most appropriate to plan their work on paper first so that they had a clear view of what they intended to do. It highlighted how important learning activities need to be introduced by explanation and questioning of students, and then concluded with further questioning and a reflection activity that clearly summarises what they had learned.

Monitor Student ICT Activities

It is important to monitor student progress on computers for two reasons:

1. It is common for students to appear to be usefully occupied with the activity when in fact they are working very inefficiently and failing to exploit the potential of ICT; 2. Because of the richness of the resource, students may divert from the intended task without it being obvious from their behaviour. (Kennewell et al., 2000, p. 94)

ICT capability is made up of five components that each should be monitored. These include:

• Routines – Definition: the ease and speed by which ICT techniques are carried out. For each year level, have a checklist of techniques available that each student should be able to use routinely. Keep this checklist up-to-date according to the software and hardware available. If students struggle with a routine then extra practice is needed; • ICT Techniques – Definition: a skill that has not become a routine yet. In this case, they can be carried out using the affordances on the screen (icons, menus) or with the help of adults or peers (Kennewell et al., 2000). Have a checklist for each class ready in order to keep track of each students’ confidence in

ICT techniques – Give students who need help the minimum amount of support and then withdraw the support as soon as possible; • Processes – Definition: made up of several ICT techniques. Students need to have an understanding of

the relevant concepts needed in order to make decisions about which ICT techniques are appropriate for the task. It is essential that they are not given step-by-step tasks so that you as a teacher can let them try out their ideas, and intervene when they fail to make the expected approach. As with ICT techniques, the minimum amount of support should be provided. Structure the activity with questioning, prompting and demonstrating if necessary. Then withdraw the support as soon as possible. Note: If a student uses a desktop publisher to produce a poster or a spreadsheet, you cannot use a checklist. Instead, your description of how a student understood a process should include the way a student approached a task and the level of support they received. You could then use the level description that best matches the approach to the task in the ICT capability Learning Continuum and record the level of support given; • Higher order skills – Definition: level of decision-making a student has during a process. There are three ways you can aid their development:

1. Model the techniques of strategic planning by thinking out aloud in front of the students to highlight the questions that might be asked during a process; 2. Give the students responsibility for planning a task and then coach them by asking them focusing questions at intervals to guide students towards a viable plan; 3. Involve the students socially in planning, monitoring, evaluating and reflecting through whole class teaching.

Teacher Intervention

Intervening in a student’s ICT activity can go a long way towards developing their higher order skills. Ensure that you:

• Use focusing questions in the form of generalisations to help students in the formation of generalisations; • Split the task into stages if it is complex or if you are teaching a low-ability class; • Only explain the next stage when a number of students have completed the current task; • Plan particular points in the lesson when you will stop the class to review what they have done and explain the next stage.

In planning consider – • Planned points to explain or demonstrate something which was not appropriate at the start or perhaps question students about what they are doing; • Unplanned points for when a student has a problem. It would help if you can predict these difficulties; • Intervening to drive the pace of the work forward or even setting more specific targets. (Kennewell, 2004)

If you find that a group or the whole class is struggling and then they all need to stop. The point which you want to make needs to be important and may involve redirecting, focusing or highlighting. Ensure that you give them a clear signal to stop, and that you have their full attention before making your point. Students need to be facing you, turning their chairs if necessary, with their hands clearly away from any devices.

Scaffolding and Affordances

Affordances in relation to ICT basically means the opportunities provided to the student by the technology is support of the task, the social support provided by the teacher or any other adult and also the contextual support provided by the setting in which the activity occurs (Kennewell et al., 2000).

Scaffolding may also be provided by the technology itself in lessons using ICT. However, there must be a gap to bridge between the student’s abilities and the requirements of the problem situation if learning is to occur. This gap can be reduced if you add to the affordances of the environment e.g. providing an information sheet to assist in the use of the software or a clear demonstration using the data projector.

Arrange the following conditions: • On the basis of the student’s current abilities, the affordances are insufficient for the learner to complete the set task; • Adjust the affordances of the learning environment to reduce the gap sufficiently for the students to be able to bridge it with effort; • Student’s abilities change as a result of the experience. (Kennewell et al., 2000)

To encourage the use of higher order skills and understanding ensure that the affordances of the planning, monitoring and evaluating the activity is not too great.

The predominant source of learning for each ICT capability component are: • Routine – through practice; • ICT techniques – copying a teacher, peer or trial and error; • Concepts – through verbalisation of activities and by reflection on experience; • Processes – supported combination of ICT techniques into multistage procedures in a range of problem situations, with an increasing degree of personal autonomy and active involvement on the behalf of the student; • Higher order skills – developed in an environment which encourages exploration when opportunities are presented to decide which software to use and how to use it, to make plans, to monitor progress through an extended and evaluate and reflect on solutions made by ICT. (Kennewell et al., 2000)

Student Reflection

Along with displaying your own enthusiasm towards the use of ICT to help with the development of the students’, they also have to articulate their thoughts about the opportunities, processes and strategies which they have experienced. This could be in the form of verbal, written or email and must be interactive.

Students should consolidate their thoughts in the end through reflecting formally on their ICT learning. If we encourage students to reflect on the use of techniques across contexts and situations, they are more likely to generate principles, ideas and strategies that are widely applicable.

In terms of processes, the particular techniques and the sequence are not fully determined by the goal, and the user needs an understanding of both the goal and the tools available in order to make appropriate choices. Sometimes the choice made will not produce the desired effect, and a different technique will be tried. Reflection on this mistake will lead to learning which improves the user’s ability to make an appropriate choice in the future.

Concepts are developed through verbalisation of activities and by reflection on experience – particularly experience which is carefully structured. As a teacher it is important that you model the decision making process to students. If you model the techniques of strategic planning by thinking out loud in front of students, you will demonstrate to them the questions that might arise during the process.

Secondly, give students the responsibility of planning a task and coach them by asking focusing questions at intervals to guide them towards a viable plan. Finally, involve the students socially in planning, monitoring, evaluating and reflecting through whole-class teaching.

Assessing ICT Capability

If you wish to assess your students’ ICT capability I recommend that of which Kennewell et al. (2000, p.99) states:

• Devise methods of enabling the students to monitor and record their own progress e.g. self-assessment sheets; • Question students and ask them how they went about a task; • Set occasional prescribed challenges e.g. Can you write a caption and print it out for me?

• Make use of well briefed parent helpers to work exclusively with children at the computer, recording the the amount of help each child received; • Vary pairings to see how children work with other partners; • Encourage children to save their first drafts as well as their final drafts of each piece of ICT work.

Summary of Key Points

• Thoughtful and thorough planning is the hallmark of effective teachers; • Align your planning with the curriculum requirements; • Establish a starting point for your students’ journey to ICT capability; • Know what ICT tools and resources are available; • Become intimate with the required programs and decide how its features can best meet the learning needs of the students; • When introducing new software and ICT techniques, start by discussing about what it can do and how it might go about achieving it; • Ensure that ICT activities are interesting to the students; • Set clear objectives and make sure that your activities are well-structured; • Monitor and observe student ICT activities to prevent disruption to learning; • Intervene when students meet the need for the attention; • Ensure that there is a gap between the student’s abilities and the requirements of the problem situation; • At the end of every lesson, leave time to allow students to reflect on their literacy-ICT learning experience.