Literacy and Technology Fall 2021

SEL & The Use of Technology      Social-emotional learning (SEL) has become a priority in a growing number of classrooms. Especially now as students and teachers wrestle with the changes and uncertainty brought about by school closures during the pandemic.  Social-emotional learning is seeing an increase in the educational landscape. Most recently, the COVID-19 pandemic clearly illuminated the fact that academic growth and social and emotional wellness are interdependent and that educators must take into account the social and emotional aspects of a student’s reality as they consider academic development.       Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, social-emotional learning was essentially its own entity. It’s now, however, become connected with other instructional practices, including the use of technology.  SEL and SEL practices have been designed to empower each student to have a voice and to expand their minds.  For starters, educators...

  Image Credit: ISTE ( International Society for Technology in Education) Before exploring ISTE’s resources last week, I thought digital citizenship dealt mainly with online safety and treating others with respect online. While this is undoubtedly important, digital citizenship has a much broader and more empowering focus. Richard Culatta talks in this keynote about the actual concept of digital citizenship: “using technology to make your community better, to respectfully engage with people who have different beliefs than yours, to be able to shape and change public policy,” and “to be able to recognize the validity of online sources of information.” ISTE identified five core tenets of digital citizenship. Be Inclusive: respectfully and thoughtfully engage with others online, even when you have different opinions; be kind and show empathy. Be Informed: evaluate online sources for accuracy and validity; consider the author’s perspective and possible bias. Be Engaged: how can we use ...

  As technology has become more prominent in education, online literacy programs have become a staple in many elementary school classrooms. Many of these online programs target students' reading comprehension and fluency. Districts around the country purchase subscriptions to these programs for their teachers to use and often require students to spend a minimum amount of time on the program per day or week. While these programs can be helpful tools to differentiate literacy based on each students' reading level and skills, are they engaging enough for the amount of time students spend on them?  Here is a list of just a few online literacy programs that I have seen used in elementary schools and a blurb from their websites: Lexia Core 5 Reading  " Lexia  Core5  Reading is an adaptive blended learning program that  accelerates the development of literacy skills  for students of all abilities, helping them make that critical shift from learning to read to...