New Literacies
More than two billion people across the globe have Internet access (Internet World Stats, 2013). NCES (Snyder & Dillow, 2012) reported that the percentage of schools with Internet access increased from 8 percent in 1995 to 98 percent in 2008, meaning that if students do not have access at home, most of them have access at school. In response, an educational movement has emerged around what are considered the new literacies of the Internet.
Donald Leu, Charles Kinzer, Julie Coiro, and Dana Cammack (2004) defined these new literacies as “the skills, strategies, and dispositions necessary to successfully use and adapt to the rapidly changing information and communication technologies and contexts that continuously emerge in our world and influence all areas of our personal and professional lives” (p. 1572). Leu and his colleagues argued that successful use of the Internet requires a set of new literacies and that students need explicit instruction in those new literacies. Four points support their claim.
First, the Internet gives students an unprecedented opportunity to freely publish content as quickly as they can write it. Donald Leu, Ian O’Byrne, Lisa Zawilinski, Greg McVerry, and Heidi Everett-Cacopardo (2009) commented on this inextricable link between reading and communicating in an online context:
Online reading and writing are so closely connected that it is not possible to separate them; we read online as authors and we write online as readers (Huffaker, 2004, 2005; McVerry, 2007; Zawilinski, 2009). Thus online reading comprehension includes the online reading and communication skills required by texting, blogs, wikis, video, shared writing spaces (such as Google Docs), and social networks. (p. 266)
This close connection between reading and writing on the Internet requires that students possess a unique set of skills that is more varied and multidimensional than the skills required for traditional print-based reading and writing activities. For example, a printed text is a finite resource; all of the information is contained between the covers of the book, pamphlet, magazine, or journal, and the organization of the text is usually designed to guide the reader through the content. In contrast, Raven Wallace (2004) explained, the Internet is “unbounded and large,” and its organization “does not readily lend coherence to a topic” (p. 474). Finding information in a printed text usually involves consulting the table of contents or the index, two structures that may be hidden or absent from most web pages. Research shows that when students cannot perceive the organizational structure of a text, they remember less of its content (van Dijk & Kintsch, 1983). Therefore, students must be taught to read texts that lack a clear organizational structure, as well as how to formulate keyword searches, use Boolean operators, identify characteristics of reputable journal articles, and distinguish library catalogs from bibliographic databases (Mittermeyer & Quirion, 2003).
Second, evaluating sources on the Internet is categorically distinct from evaluating sources in traditional print materials. According to Christopher Weare and Wan-Ying Lin (2000), the Internet “is rapidly becoming the largest repository of information ever known” (p. 276). As we know, however, not every piece of information in that repository is equally useful, and some of it is either misleading or factually incorrect. A study by Nielsen (2013) found that teenagers had a low tolerance for websites they thought were boring and generally found visually appealing websites more plausible than others. As Jane David (2009) pointed out, such misconceptions create the need to teach students basic critical-thinking skills that “reflect the open-ended, continually changing online context” (p. 84).
Third, as of 2013, the knowledge and skills necessary to efficiently use the Internet are still overlooked in assessments and curriculums. State reading standards and assessments in the United States—including the Common Core State Standards (CCSS)—do not include or test any standards that distinguish between online reading comprehension and print reading comprehension (Leu et al., 2009; National Governors Association Center for Best Practices [NGA] & Council of Chief State School Officers [CCSSO], 2010a, 2010b). Because of this oversight, educators may neglect to provide formal instruction in the literacy skills most crucial to navigating, reading, using, and evaluating information on the Internet.
Fourth, teaching new literacy skills may have positive effects for low-income students. Digital technology tools, such as laptops and academic software, have been shown to help low-income students develop proficiency and confidence in literacy, cultivate strong independent work habits, decrease disciplinary issues in class, and build skills and self-efficacy related to technology (Blachowicz et al., 2009). In a study by Kelly Shapely, Daniel Sheehan, Catherine Maloney, and Fanny Caranikas-Walker (2011), “economically disadvantaged students in treatment schools [with technology] reached proficiency levels that matched the skills of advantaged students in control schools [without technology]” (p. 310). Shapely and her colleagues pointed out that while these increased technical proficiencies “may not raise [students’] standardized test scores, new competencies could have long-ranging effects on students’ future academic and career options” (p. 310).
Despite the demonstrated effects of teaching new literacy skills in low-income schools, U.S. public policies fail to provide incentives for teaching them. Consequently, these policies “may serve to increase achievement gaps, not close them” (Leu et al., 2009, p. 267). Leu and his colleagues (2009) elaborated on the effects of this digital divide:
Children in the poorest school districts in the United States have the least amount of Internet access at home (Cooper, 2004). Unfortunately, the poorest schools are also under the greatest pressure to raise scores on tests that have nothing to do with online reading comprehension (Henry, 2007). There is little incentive to teach the new literacies of online reading comprehension because they are not tested. Thus students in the poorest schools become doubly disadvantaged: They have less access to the Internet at home, and schools do not always prepare them for the new literacies of online reading comprehension at school. (p. 267)
For some low-income students, school may be the only place where they have the opportunity to interact with the Internet and other technologies. If schools fail to teach the new literacies that students need to meaningfully interact with and use those technologies, they may continue to fall behind their more affluent peers.
Research on Educational Technology
Along with an increased use of technology in K–12 education, and the discussion and opinions that accompany this increase, there has been heightened interest in the research on the effects and utility of educational technology. However, researchers, theorists, and educators have not clearly and unanimously defined the terms technology and educational technology. We define technology as electronic, digital, or multimedia tools used to achieve a goal more efficiently or effectively. This definition is broad enough to accommodate the wide variety of innovative tools and strategies included in this book, yet narrow enough to exclude tools that already enjoy universal use in schools, such as the chalkboard or the pencil. In keeping with this definition of technology, we define educational technology as the use of technology tools in the classroom to improve learning.
Several meta-analyses (along with numerous independent primary studies) have addressed the general effects of educational technology on student achievement, motivation, and behavior. A meta-analysis is a method of statistical research that involves gathering a large number of studies on a particular topic or strategy in order to calculate its average effect. Basically, a meta-analysis aims to quantify the general effectiveness of a certain strategy or topic by combining the results from numerous individual studies. The strategy’s level of effectiveness is frequently conveyed using a number known as an effect size. In educational research, effect sizes near 0.15–0.20 are considered small, sizes near 0.45–0.50 are considered medium, and sizes near 0.80–0.90 are considered large (Cohen, 1988; Lipsey, 1990). The greater the effect size, the more effective the strategy. Table 1.2 reports the findings from several meta-analyses that examined