Literacy and Technology: A World of Ideas

"The Internet has opened the doors for many people and has revolutionized learning. People have more opportunities to read when they are on the Internet. Teachers must seize the opportunity to learn the skills that will make it easier for them to use the Internet in their quest for learning and for creating learning opportunities for students. Children today have been brought up with this technology. It is second nature to them, and they clearly see technology as a tool that can help them in a variety of ways. We, as teachers, must look deeply and begin to see the wide range of opportunities that technology provides as we work with our students to strengthen their literacy skills." (Chamberlain, p 63, 64)

Let's face it. Technology is ubiquitous and technological literacy is a fact of life. With new technologies emerging every day, our students must possess the skills, literacies, and adaptability necessary to meet the challenges of today's ever-changing world. Just as we, the educators, are now thinking about technology in expanded ways, so must our students in order to be prepared for life in this information age. Whether they go on to college, become white collar workers, blue collar workers or parents, our students must be technologically literate as citizens of a digital and global community.

So, how do we help our students meet the literacy challenges of today's world?

We prepare our students to communicate proficiently in the 21st century by providing them with pedagogical support for the kinds of literacy practices that clearly characterize our evolving landscape. Since we encounter knowledge in multiple forms daily: print, image, audio, video, and other digital and media contexts, we must familiarize our students with these multiple representations. Our students must be more than adept at navigating informational resources, they must know how to critically evaluate and analyze them. As educators, we must guide them as they interpret the information and help them as they develop and construct meaning. Moreover, we must help them to synthesize and represent their understandings integrating these same multimodalites.

Cathleen Chamberlain, Director of Curriculum and Instruction for the Oswego City School District in New York and author of this chapter, offers these websites to create learning opportunities and to promote multiliteracy:

Jan Brett's Website

Technology and Literacy

Susan Silverman's Internet Projects

Susan Silverman's Webfolio

Electric Teacher

Electric Teacher Online Portfolios

Children's Search Engines

Study Zone

Searching the Internet

Educational Listservs and Collaboration Links

Creating Classroom Webpages

Visual Learning

Fun with Photos

I hope you'll enjoy these additional authentic and worthy sites that foster 21st century literacy skills:

Everyday Spelling

The Write Site

JuniorScholastic

TeenInk

E-CARDS (The Nature Conservancy)

E-Cards (Sydney, Australia)

CNN Video Almanac

Sports Illustrated for Kids

WorldVillage Digital Postcards

PetCentre Hospital Online Forms (Virginia)

United Airlines

Without a doubt, these resources "can provide enriching experiences for [your] students that will enhance the literate environment" (p 53) and, hopefully, serve them well on their learning journey as they grow into multiliterate citizens of the world.