Summarise and reflect on your own significant learning
from this module. Identify its implications for your future role as an English
or ICT subject leader. Make links to relevant readings.
I have enjoyed engaging with this module as it has been effective in developing my knowledge of digital literacies in the classroom. As it is a key theme within the new national curriculum (DfE, 2013), I have enjoyed seminars and reading to gain a greater understating of how digital media and technology can be used effectively in the primary classroom. Higgins (2001) described ICT in the primary school at the turn of the millennium as a ‘complex tool which can be used by teachers and by pupils in teaching and learning’ (Higgins, 2001: 164). This has required all teachers to develop their own practical ICT skills in order to keep in touch with its every changing landscape. Research into this has pointed out that young children need to be educated in new digital literacies (Dean, 2010, Marsh, Brooks, Hughes, Ritchie, Roberts and Wright, 2005, Palfrey and Gasser, 2008), a subject highlighted in seminars in week 6. This has led me to critically evaluate how I have used technology in the classroom over my previous school experiences. I have found there are many areas in which I can explore in my next school experience and I will have the confidence to test the children’s and my own knowledge of digital literacy due to the focus we have enjoyed on this module.
There have been several interesting seminar sessions that has broadened and challenged my perceptions of using ICT in the primary classroom, new digital literacies and multimodal texts. Looking at how comics and popular culture could be used in the classroom was something I had not seen and thought about at any length before. By using mediums of literacy like comic books, which have been described previously as ‘cultural junk’ (Tilley, 2013), in the classroom; I feel they bring a fresh approach that not only engages children, especially boys, but also adds another dimension to the developing literacies of children. This can be through the stages of development of a child’s story; from the draft though to the digital final draft via a comic book creator website such as Comic Life.
By going into a school to help contextualise the theory we have learnt from this module helped me enormously as it has helped me visualise how interactive technology can be used effectively in the classroom. Hargreaves, Moyles, Merry, Paterson, Pell and Esarte-sarries (2008) describe interactivity in two broad forms. The first form contains classifications which denote a surface form of interactive teaching such as the use of small whiteboards or phoneme fans, intended to make life easier for the teacher. The second form contains classifications which encourages a deeper level of engagement and interactivity from the children to ensure co-construction of meaning. The 'talking book' created with the children from Shirley Warren was not something intended to be a gimmick or a cross curricula activity bolted onto to the weekly plan, but as something to engage, challenge and develop the thinking of the children (Beauchamp, 2012). Smith (2005) defines this as pedagogic interactivity; where the teacher focuses not on what is done with the technology but why and how it is done.
References
I have enjoyed engaging with this module as it has been effective in developing my knowledge of digital literacies in the classroom. As it is a key theme within the new national curriculum (DfE, 2013), I have enjoyed seminars and reading to gain a greater understating of how digital media and technology can be used effectively in the primary classroom. Higgins (2001) described ICT in the primary school at the turn of the millennium as a ‘complex tool which can be used by teachers and by pupils in teaching and learning’ (Higgins, 2001: 164). This has required all teachers to develop their own practical ICT skills in order to keep in touch with its every changing landscape. Research into this has pointed out that young children need to be educated in new digital literacies (Dean, 2010, Marsh, Brooks, Hughes, Ritchie, Roberts and Wright, 2005, Palfrey and Gasser, 2008), a subject highlighted in seminars in week 6. This has led me to critically evaluate how I have used technology in the classroom over my previous school experiences. I have found there are many areas in which I can explore in my next school experience and I will have the confidence to test the children’s and my own knowledge of digital literacy due to the focus we have enjoyed on this module.
There have been several interesting seminar sessions that has broadened and challenged my perceptions of using ICT in the primary classroom, new digital literacies and multimodal texts. Looking at how comics and popular culture could be used in the classroom was something I had not seen and thought about at any length before. By using mediums of literacy like comic books, which have been described previously as ‘cultural junk’ (Tilley, 2013), in the classroom; I feel they bring a fresh approach that not only engages children, especially boys, but also adds another dimension to the developing literacies of children. This can be through the stages of development of a child’s story; from the draft though to the digital final draft via a comic book creator website such as Comic Life.
By going into a school to help contextualise the theory we have learnt from this module helped me enormously as it has helped me visualise how interactive technology can be used effectively in the classroom. Hargreaves, Moyles, Merry, Paterson, Pell and Esarte-sarries (2008) describe interactivity in two broad forms. The first form contains classifications which denote a surface form of interactive teaching such as the use of small whiteboards or phoneme fans, intended to make life easier for the teacher. The second form contains classifications which encourages a deeper level of engagement and interactivity from the children to ensure co-construction of meaning. The 'talking book' created with the children from Shirley Warren was not something intended to be a gimmick or a cross curricula activity bolted onto to the weekly plan, but as something to engage, challenge and develop the thinking of the children (Beauchamp, 2012). Smith (2005) defines this as pedagogic interactivity; where the teacher focuses not on what is done with the technology but why and how it is done.
References
Beauchamp, G. (2012) ICT in the Primary Classroom: from pedagogy to practice. Harlow: Pearson.
Dean, G. (2010) ‘Rethinking Literacy’ in Bazalgette, C. (ed) (2010) Teaching Media in Primary Classrooms. London: Sage
DfE. (2013) The national curriculum in England: Key stages 1 and 2 framework document. London: DfE
Hargreaves, L., Moyles, J., Merry, R., Paterson, F., Pell, A. and Esarte-Sarries, V. (2003) 'How do primary school teachers define and implement 'interactive teaching' in the National Literacy Strategy in England?', Research Papers in Education, Vol. 19 (3), pp.217-236
Higgins, S. (2001) ‘ICT and Teaching for Understanding’, Evaluation and Research in Education, Vol. 15 (3), pp. 164-171
Marsh, J., Brooks, G., Hughes, J., Ritchie, L., Roberts, S. and Wright, K (2005) Digital Beginnings: Young Children’s Use of Popular Culture, Media and New technologies
Palfrey, J. and Gasser, U. (2008) Born Digital: Understanding the First Generation of Digital Natives. New York: Basic Books
Smith (2005)
Tilley, C. (2013) ‘Superman Says, ‘Read!’ - National Comics and Reading Promotion’. Children's Literature in Education, Vol. 44 [3], pp.251-263
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