Before I commenced this unit, I was familiar with the first level of digital narrative as described by Walsh (2013) that is traditional literature presented in digital form. As mentioned in Lamb (2011), in a 2010 study of young readers published in Reading Teacher, Lotta Larson found that digital reading devices promote new literacy practices, such as digital note-taking, and provide readers control over how they engage with the text. My understanding of digital literature has drastically changed after this assignment. This assignment gave me good understanding and insight into other forms of digital literature and also the characteristics of a good digital text. According to Walsh (2013, p. 186), one way of evaluating the appropriateness of a digital narrative for literary text is to compare its literary qualities with the text’s digital features and consider how both integrate into a literary text in digital form. Digital text enriched with multimedia material is rapidly spreading out.
After gaining understanding of enhanced e book and interactive books, I believe that it is extremely important for students to experience print and digital format because the experiences that the digital product can offer the child that the print book cannot. This will also in future provide students with the skills to be digitally literate in 21st century. My understanding
However Yakota & Teale (2014) recommends that as teachers we should examine any potential digital story just to make sure there is no abundance of potentially distracting instances such as decorative fonts that distracts the reader and overlaying word on the illustration as well as the mismatch between what is seen in the illustration and what is said in the text.
Lamb (2011) has influenced me that the affordances of this new form of literature allowed for a positive impact on the way we read and interacted with information in 21st century. In mu future teaching, I aim to use more digibooks for inquiry learning as it is highly appealing and will encourage students’ creativity and motivation. I will also use the nonfiction digibooks for our sustainability club at lunch time for stage 2 students. ABC education digibooks are cost effective and easily accessible. I thoroughly enjoyed viewing the digibooks on ABC Educational website. I have already asked the IT department at my school to install Animalia in Ipads as there is a free version available and will be beneficial to students.
Yokota (2013) Well-designed digital picture books integrate illustration, text, sound, and sometimes also movement so that each complements the other and, together, they provide a multimedia text experience. The ability to process and produce multimedia texts is central to what it means to be literate in then the 21st century, and interactions with digital picture books is an excellent way to begin building these skills. However, Yokota (2013) cautions that for digital picture books to play an integral role in early literacy development rather than merely being window dressing, it is important that educators select wisely from an ever- increasing flood of such materials into the market, knowing when a digital choice is appropriate and stands to benefit the child and not allowing nostalgia or assumptions to guide choices (i.e., “if it was a good/well- known children ’ s book, it must be good as an app” kind of thinking, without fully analysing the app’s features).
Digital literature helps the student to gain a better understanding of the abstract content. In my assessment blog 1, I was still very much of an opinion that physical books are better than eBooks, personally for me, but that opinion has changed after this assignment.
School libraries that adapt to the digital needs of their community not only continue to build a reading culture in the school, but facilitate the divergence and convergence in media needed to support motivation, differentiation, a variety of platforms, collaboration and connections necessary for the new learning ecology of the twenty-first century (Gogan & Marcus, 2013; Hay & Foley, 2009; Lamb & Johnson, 2010; Marcoux & Loertscher, 2009). Considering the advancement in digital technology, it is out role as a teacher librarian to integrate and enhance our content of teaching with any new format that comes along. Dobler (2013) advises that it is necessary for children to express various genres and formats of books, both print and digital in lots of different contexts, to prepare them for the wide variety of reading experiences they will encounter in their future. Since this assignment has given me an understanding on evaluation criteria for digital texts, I will be able to make more informed decisions and structured opinions. Overall, this assignment has given me a rich experience in exploring the world of digital literature.
References
Lamb, A. (2011). Reading redefined for a transmedia universe. Learning and leading with technology, 39(3), 12-17. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.csu.edu.au/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/ login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=67371172&site=ehost-live
O’Connell, J., Bales, J., & Mitchell, P. (2015). [R]Evolution in reading cultures: 2020
vision for school libraries. The Australian Library Journal, 64(3), 194
Walsh, M. (2013). Literature in a digital environment (Ch. 13). In L. McDonald (Ed.), A literature companion for teachers. Marrickville, NSW: Primary English Teaching Association Australia (PETAA). https://doms.csu.edu.au/csu/file/863c5c8d-9f3f-439f-a7e3-2c2c67ddbfa8/1/ALiteratureCompanionforTeachers.pdf
Yokota, J. & Teale, W. H. (2014). Picture books and the digital world: educators making informed choices. The Reading Teacher, 34(6). Retrieved from http://www.academia.edu/3886534/Picture_Books_and_the_Digital_World_Educators_ Making_Informed_Choices