By Sarah Whitt,
Literacy Coach
We are living in a digital age. Technology is all around us and most of
us would feel completely out of sorts should our favorite smart phone or
computers suddenly be shipped away. Honestly, it makes me shudder just thinking
about it! And to think they call us the “technology learners”! I’d beg to
differ, except that I spend a good amount of my time around kids and I’d be a
fool to deny that they are the experts, and they are our future.
Even the
new English Language Arts educational standards acknowledge the significance of
technology in our students’ lives—so much so that they dedicated two of the ten
writing standards to developing students’ technology experiences.
The main
emphasis of these technology standards in kindergarten-third grade focuses on
students exploring a variety of digital tools to produce and publish writing,
including in collaboration with peers with guidance and support from adults. In
addition, our intermediate students are expected to work toward independently
typing a page, and later two, in a single setting. The research standards within
the writing component expect our third through fifth graders to recall
information from experiences or gather information from print and digital
sources; take brief notes on sources and sort evidence into provided categories.
You can’t argue with the relevancy of each of these standards, but these are
some pretty tall orders!
Of course, teachers at Buckner work hard to provide opportunities and
scaffold learning for each of our students, but we can’t do this one alone. We
need your help. We need for this to be a partnership where students have
opportunities outside of school to practice their learning and try new techie
things at home or a local library.
Here’s how you can support your student(s):
• Allow your child to
type on the computer-anything will do. (menus, thank you notes, stories, books,
notes, articles, poems, etc.) The more experiences they have typing, the better
off they will be.
• Encourage your child to show you new educational
sites or programs (read online books, Brain Pop Jr., http://www.learninggamesforkids.com/
check our teachers’ websites or blog links, etc.) Try them out with your
child—most are well worth your time.
• Ask your child show you how to do
a Prezi, use Glogster, PowerPoint, or use another presentation site and create
some little project together! It’s a great way to kids to show what they know
and have fun in the process.
• Become interested in learning along with
your child. Take a question they ask, or topic of interest and sit side-by-side
to search for, weed through, and then decide what facts or parts to use in
finding the answer or learning more information. Your assistance and modeling
will only enhance their experiences when they have to do the same process
independently.
• Bring images into it by asking your child to talk about
a digital image of interest to them. My son recently got on a “shark” kick. This
led to some interesting conversations and visits to Google Images and YouTube.
Together we found the sites containing kid-friendly information and images that
helped him better understand these fascinating fish.
And when it’s all said
and done, make it fun so that using the technology continues to be engaging,
purposeful, and practical. This is their future and there is no turning back. My
take on it is to simply acknowledge my role as the learner and let them take the
lead.
For more information about best practices in supporting students in all
things literacy visit www.theliteracyconnection.weebly.com,
or email me at [email protected]