Think about your own journey as an educator – what has changed in your teaching practice over the course of your career with regards to technology use and literature? Is that change embedded at a core level, or is it a matter of changing tools?

As I completed the readings for this topic, I was struck by how many of the websites, tools or apps discussed by the authors are now superseded or simply unavailable. Adobe Flash, for instance, was an interesting tool with potential that is no longer supported, causing many of my early teaching resources to be redundant. 

We’ve also moved from the 1:1 device arrangement made possible by the Digital Education Revolution funding to banks of devices which consist of outdated and slow technology to be shared among classes. At the start of my career in 2011 we were excited by the possibility of these 1:1 devices which, although not without their own challenges (such as student distraction and technical difficulties), allowed teachers to broaden their lessons beyond the traditional written page. We spent a lot of time reconfiguring our teaching and learning programs, only for the device roll-out to be discontinued. Due to the simultaneous release of the new Australian Curriculum (and several successive new syllabi) we never had the time to revisit our programs in the depth required to do these new circumstances and changing technological landscape justice. 

While we are constantly encouraged to utilise technology to engage our students, in my experience there is still little training, time, and support for staff to do so. I feel like we’re constantly playing catch-up, and as a result I feel that we often neglect fundamental aspects of digital literacy. One of our Deputies recently purchased two class sets of iPads that can be booked via the library and shared amongst students. He has also organised for one of our Year 7 classes to be a ‘Tech Elect’ class which focuses on the use of technology (especially student-owned 1:1 iPads) as a tool for learning across all subjects. This is definitely an exciting development which has the potential to be beneficial for our students and teaching staff. However, the incorporation of these devices has not been without significant logistical and pedagogical challenges, and excludes students without the financial ability and technological understanding required to participate. Our students often lack the fundamentals of traditional literacy needed as a foundation for exploring digital texts (Leu et. al., 2011; Combes, 2016), and despite their status as ‘digital natives’ often don’t have the ability or knowledge to navigate these rapidly evolving digital spaces effectively; sadly, as teachers, we often lack these skills too.

 

Combes, B. (2016). Digital literacy: A new flavour of literacy or something different?Synergy, 14(1). Retrieved from https://www.slav.vic.edu.au/index.php/Synergy/article/view/v14120163

Leu, D. J. et al (2011). The new literacies of online reading comprehension: Expanding the literacy and learning curriculum. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 55(1), 5-14. Doi: 10.1598/JAAL.55.1.1