Tools of the Trade:Strategies for Incorporating

Digital Literacies Into the Classroom

Daniel Marx

Multimedia “Multimedia” encompass multiple

literacies in multiple modes in which media is produced and used to make possible new ways of communicating meaning (not just print text).

Teaching through a multiliteracy approach involves making meaning dynamic, using multiple forms of text and skills.

Connecting out-of-school literacy practices to academic content.

Lankshear & Knobel (2003)

• “This is a world in which a very high level of reading…will be an indispensable foundation for everything that comes after for most members of the workforce”

National Center on Education and the Economy (2006) (p. xii)

Integrating Digital Technology into the Classroom

Digital storytelling Students created a digital story narrative via computer. Students prewrite, script, and storyboard, bringing together narration,

image, print text, motion, and color. Working with multiple modes and media to communicatePodcasted Literature Circle Discussions Students participate in literature circles for discussion. Each discussion

was digitally recorded and posted to student blogs as a podcast Students learned base skills for recording and uploading audio files with

software such as Audacity or GarageBand through minilessons and then mixed synthesis podcasts to pull “essential” 5 minutes from an hour-long discussion

Read more about Podcasting in the classroom at:Pod casting in the Classroom!

Kajder (2007)

Weblogs & Wikis• Over the course of the class,

students were required to maintain a reflective weblog (“blog”) to self-evaluate their thinking and learning

Provided textual connections w/ others on and offline

Comment on other’s blog posts and replying to comments on one’s own

Hyperlinks to info sources Site meters to monitor “visits” from

others And including range of modalities

(audio podcasts and video streams)

• Kajder (2007)

• Luce-Kapler (2007)

• Students were taught how to make “Wikis” which are form of e-literature (electronic lit)

Students can type stories and narratives

Incorporate pictures Share their narrative with other

classmates via online database Make comments and corrections on

others’ wiki pages while answering to comments on one’s own wiki

6th grade students in study preferred pictures to narrative b/c they “actually show what’s happened.”

“You don’t have to write with your handand pencil, and plus it’s funnerbecause you can put pictures in that are

actually real pictures.” – Joseph, 6th grader

References• Kajder, S.B. (2007). Bringing new literacies into the content area literacy

methods course. Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education, 7(2), 92- 99.

• Lankshear, C., & Knobel, M. (2003). New literacies. Buckingham: Open University Press.

• Luce-Kapler, R. (2007). Radical change and wikis: Teaching new literacies. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 51(3), 214-223.

• National Center on Education and the Economy. (2006). Tough choices or tough times: The report of the new commission on the skills of the American workforce. New York: Jossey-Bass. (p. xii).

• Selingo, J. (2006, January 25). New york times report: Students and teachers, from k to 12, hit the podcasts . Retrieved from

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/25/technology/techspecial2/25podcast.html.