Prior to embarking on further research into the digital environments in which education professionals now work, my limited knowledge in this area was based predominately on experience.  My initial thoughts were more pertinent questions to which I now feel more confident to answer (Maloy, 2023).

Firstly, what exactly is digital literature?  Is it engaging or just text on the screen?  The most concise definition presented so far asserts that it is “the practice of combining narrative with digital content” for various purposes including to persuade, to instruct, to record history or to reflect (EDUCAUSE, 2007, p.1).  When created with this in mind, digital literature is not simply text on a screen but, as studies conducted by Handayani, et al. (2020, p. 69) concluded digital literature that is well-constructed is in fact engaging for students.

So then is digital literature the way of the future?  Initially, I believed that digital literature would be detrimental to student learning in the learning to read phase as engagement with visuals and talk around books is vital to students during this phase.  However, as Lopez-Escribano, Montesino & Garcia-Ortega (2021, p.3) explain, studies have actually shown that digital literature can have a positive impact on important emergent literacy skills such as print and phonological awareness, vocabulary development, spelling development and reading comprehension.  It is evident that multimedia technologies, video creation software and social networking services are developing at an exponential rate and our students seem to possess an innate ability to keep up with these changes (EDUCAUSE, 2007, p.2; Lopez-Escribano, Montesino & Garcia-Ortega, 2021, p.1).

Given that digital literature seems to be the way of the future, how can we as education professionals keep up with the constantly evolving plethora of resources out there or do we simply create what we need to suit our purpose?  ETL533 has provided an extensive list of examples of digital literature which I am excited to explore more in-depth when time permits and I have also been introduced to digital libraries such as Project Gutenberg, World Digital Library and ibiblio.  So now the task of expanding the horizons of my colleagues lies with me – I, as a classroom teacher and teacher librarian must become a champion for digital literature and motivate my colleagues to employ digital literature resources within their classrooms to support student learning.

Employing digital literature within the classroom brings about its own set of challenges.  It is imperative that teachers use digital literature not just as a text on a screen but use the features of the text to strengthen learning.  Teachers will need to create learning sequences around the literature (as they would with a print text) to effectively use the resources.  The greatest concern with this would be that resources are not created specific to the purpose and so teachers would be creating their own digital literature to meet their needs.  In producing my own digital literature, it quickly became evident that time would be a major consideration.  To produce a high-quality digital literature piece that contains all the functionality that is intended takes considerable time, not to mention quite advanced technological skills.

My intention when producing my digital literature resource was not to simply digitise the story but to retell main aspects from Chapter 6 of ‘Fish in a Tree’ (Mullaly Hunt, 2015, pp.30-34) with some comprehension tasks and a summative writing task (tamara96, 2023).  Tamara96 encouraged my thinking around animation and how it would add substance to the text.  Given the low interest in reading shown by my students, the animations served to encourage engagement with the text but also to assist those with lower reading levels to maintain the flow of reading by clearly identifying who was speaking.  I specifically chose Chapter 6 as this is a chapter that contains a lot of dialogue and also references coins which my students would not be able to identify with.  In response to Croft (2023), by choosing one chapter to reconstruct, I have kept with limits outlined in the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth) and would only pursue the reconstruction of further chapters with written consent from the author.

In response to a post by Williams (2023), I perused the website of Lynda Mullaly Hunt (2023) but unfortunately, she did not have an audio recording of Chapter 6 of the text.  The list of teacher resources contained within the website is extensive and so I have chosen to include a link to the website at the conclusion of my digital literature piece so that all teachers can access the list if they so wish.

In closing, it would appear that digital literature is indeed the way of the future and we, as education professionals, need to find a way to keep up with the changes.

Reference List

Copyright Act 1968 (Cth), pt. 3 div. 3 s. 40, 5 (2019).
https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C2019C00042

Croft, T [tcroft] (2023, September 7). Topic proposal for assessment 2 (ETL533) – Comment. My Blog – Black, White & Read All Over!! https://thinkspace.csu.edu.au/siobhanmaloy/2023/08/27/topic-proposal-for-assessment-2-etl533/#comment-6

EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative. (2007). 7 things you should know about digital storytelling. https://library.educause.edu/~/media/files/library/2007/1/eli7021-pdf.pdf

Handayani, S., Youlia, L., Febriani, R. B. & Syafryadin. (2020). The use of digital literature in teaching reading narrative text. Journal of English Teaching, Applied Linguistics and Literatures, 3(2), 65-74.
http://dx.doi.org/10.20527/jetall.v3i2.8445

Lopez-Escribano, C., Montesino, S. V., & Garcia-Ortega, V. (2021). The impact of e-book reading on young children’s emergent literacy skills: An analytical review. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 18(12), 6510. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18126510

Maloy, S (2023, July 31). Digital literature – the way of the future? My Blog – Black, White & Read All Over!!
https://thinkspace.csu.edu.au/siobhanmaloy/2023/07/31/digital-literature-the-way-of-the-future/

Mullaly Hunt, L. (2015). Fish in a tree. Penguin Random House.

Mullaly Hunt, L. (2023). Fish in a tree.
https://lyndamullalyhunt.com/books/fish-in-a-tree/

tamara96 (2023, August 31) Topic proposal for assessment 2 (ETL533) – Comment. My Blog – Black, White & Read All Over!!
https://thinkspace.csu.edu.au/siobhanmaloy/2023/08/27/topic-proposal-for-assessment-2-etl533/#comment-4

Williams, J. [Jennifer Williams] (2023, September 3). Topic proposal for assessment 2 (ETL533) – Comment. My Blog – Black, White & Read All Over!!
https://thinkspace.csu.edu.au/siobhanmaloy/2023/08/27/topic-proposal-for-assessment-2-etl533/#comment-5