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?
Having only graduated at the end of last year my teaching career hasn’t been a long one so far, however I am still learning and growing in terms of technology use and combining literature with technology. I got placed on a 3/4 class at the beginning of the term and their use of technology was amazing. I quickly got up to scratch on utilising Google Classroom and how to incorporate digital technology in any form of lesson. I had not heard of Wushka before and the students really enjoy reading texts from the Chromebooks. Students also have a Chromebook each, which was unheard of in any of my other teaching experiences. Students engage with literature in a different way and are able to access thousands of stories at a drop of a hat.
My teaching practice has to evolve to incorporate the teaching of new formats and teaching students how to develop their own multimodal texts, which is part of the English syllabus. I also utilise Seesaw which is an app where students can record themselves discussing literature and share that with members of the class, creating a stronger sense of meaning and formatting their ideas to be vocally coherent. The change is not a matter of tools but understanding and teaching students how to engage with this new format that is constantly evolving. Serafini & Youngs (2013) discuss how students are still decoding language, however, the structures and formats being presented are different and teachers need to ensure students have the skills to understand these changes. Sharing, such as on Seesaw, has also become global and students are able to participate in social situations to share, discuss and analyse texts online. I am an active consumer of ‘BookTube’ and discuss novels frequently with friends all over the world and I would like to incorporate it more in my classroom next term.
Serafini, F., & Youngs, S. (2013) Reading Workshop 2.0. Reading Teacher. 66(5), 401-404. https://org.ezproxy.csu.edu.au/10.1002/TRTR.01141.