This post was first shared in the ETL533 forum
As I was working through the readings my thoughts were being drawn toward what the writers were doing with their tools and criteria for assessing digital narratives. Firstly, as my interests are not so much directed at digital picture books, I was skeptical if the advice would apply to other digital genres or formats, arguably not.
Besides that, there are some themes suggested in both Yokota & Teale (2014) and McGeehan et al. (2018), that again may be born from the advice being specific to picture books for teaching, especially picture books that are ‘originally’ in print and then ‘enhanced’ digitally.
Firstly, what might be called ‘the primacy of print’. Both articles have a theme of reassuring the reader/teacher that ‘the old standards apply’ and should be considered first. The reassurance is that educators need to ‘remember the basics’ and don’t need to learn a whole new approach, instead of being distracted by the bells and whistles of digital. This reduces the potential or newness of digital texts to create new approaches in education.
Secondly, digital picture books must be everything print can be and more, they must build upon or enhance what a print book can provide, in order to be of value. That seems fair but it also implies that a digital text cannot be of value because it is different, that, effectively, it must be like print but better. An analogy here might be that of equality vs. equity in education or society: judging everyone by the same standards may be equal but not equitable. It may also be the case that saying digital narratives need to conform to how children learn to read ‘in general’ may actually mean ‘how children learn to read in print’. Again, this might be appropriate for enhanced picture books but restrictive when applied to other interactive literature or digital literary experiences.
Lastly, there is a tone of threat and control in the two articles. Teachers are positioned as being on watch for inappropriate, frivolous or ignorant (developers) use of digital features. The conclusions of McGeehan et al. (2018) are almost entirely negative. It concerns me that the digital is then positioned as something teachers need to be on watch about, that it could sneak in and damage education.
Behind these thoughts, inevitably, is my own context. As a Teacher Librarian a lot of my purchases and library sessions are about getting and sharing materials that readers (not ‘students’) enjoy for pleasure, rather than for study, so it’s fair to say that seeing these criteria that focus on educational benefits rarely apply, as I don’t check my own purchasing decisions against educational criteria but a pleasure/interest/developmental/diversity criteria as the library must represent the users. My belief is also that any materials of interest can be used educationally as well, based on how educators use the materials and students’ interests, rather than any intrinsic ‘educational’ qualities of the text; that the education in the conversation and application, not the text, necessarily.
References
McGeehan, C., Chambers, S., & Nowakowski, J. (2018). Just Because It’s Digital, Doesn’t Mean It’s Good: Evaluating Digital Picture Books. Journal of Digital Learning in Teacher Education, 34(2), 58-70.
Yokota, J., & Teale, W. H. (2014). Picture books and the digital world: Educators making informed choices. The Reading Teacher, 67(8), 577-585.