Introduction:
The first cycle in this action research process is one that involves seeing how children use the internet and other digital media to engage in inquiry and research on their research topic. These are considered the "New Literacies," and while they may be foreign to many who grew up with out them, they are native to students of today. “The new literacies include the skills, strategies, and insights necessary to successfully exploit the rapidly changing information and communication technologies that continuously emerge in our world…new literacies regularly change; as new technologies for information and communication continually appear, new literacies emerge.” (Farstrup & Samuels, 2002) The students have spent some time inquiring and researching about their topics in print, and now are being encouraged to push themselves to a broader band of research in the digital media. “The Internet and other networked technologies will be increasingly important to enable individuals to access the best information in the shortest time as they solve important problems.” (Farstrup & Samuels, 2002) The goal for this cycle is to research and analyze how students use and evaluate various digital media, and how this discourse influences their reading and writing. I will also be analyzing how students interpret data that is skewed from a certain perspective, and how certain perspectives from digital media may influence their own point of view. I am hoping to support students’ experiences in this digital discourse, and eventually move them towards using digital literacies to create their own digital literacy projects and creations, from their own perspective, that cause a reader to feel a certain way. The question I am using to support my inquiry and research so far on this topic is, "How can I support students in using digital literacy to foster their inquiry and research and in turn create a digital literacy project based on their inquiries and research?"
Action 1 Using Digital/Media Sources to Further Their Inquiry and Research
Previous to this research cycle the students learned how to focus their research in nonfiction expository print by extracting and developing main ideas and details, to extend their writing and talking about the thoughts they are having while reading and researching nonfiction, and they learned to develop ideas helping them to become experts on their research topic. In my first action of Cycle 1 the students learned to push themselves further by using the Internet and other digital media to extend their inquiry and research on their topic. During this action period the students participated in minilessons that helped them utilize the structures and strategies they learned to navigate expository nonfiction with the Internet, podcasts, documentaries, and other forms of digital media. The student researchers were taught to critically evaluate the information they encountered about their topic by cross checking the information with more than one website, blog, documentary, etc...“…new literacies…are increasingly dependent on the ability to critically evaluate information….assist students in becoming more critical consumers of the information they encounter.” (Farstrup & Samuels, 2002)
Action 1 Student Data
This student clearly identified the main idea of what she read, and she included pertinent details directly related to it.
This student not only wrote a paragraph supporting his main idea of 'Sharks are smarter than people give them credit for,' but you can also see signs of synthesis in his writing and learning.
This student created a box and bullets to show the main idea and details she collected from part of the film, "March of the Penguins." This clearly shows that films are a good digital source of information for research, right along with print and other digital media. It also proves that students can be active rather than passive participants when watching films.
This student used a focused question to guide his research further. His question and resulting research helped this student to develop his own idea about insects being pests.
This student is definitely developing feeling and her own position about penguin mothers stealing others' eggs. Developing this positionality can help her develop focused research, but it can also hinder her by causing the possibility of her being closed off early to other points of view.
This data shows that students are clearly able to generate their own thoughts and ideas beyond printed text and into digital media, such as the student above who is developing empathy for the penguins' situation from the movie "March of the Penguins."
Action 1 Reflection:
On the whole students did an excellent job of using the different digital literacies to research and form ideas about their topics. Their engagement was extremely high, even more so than with their topic book baskets and texts. The student researchers also did very well with transferring what they learned about main idea and details, using boxes and bullets, into their research with the digital media. This can be seen above where one of the students wrote about a main idea and its supporting details they got from the movie March of the Penguins. In a preliminary action I did before teaching them boxes and bullets, their Internet search was so random. Now because of the boxes and bullets their research with digital media became much more focused.
As researchers ourselves we know one of the best ways to begin a research cycle is to come up with a focused research question to investigate. "Questioning is the strategy that propels learners on...Questions are at the heart of inquiry based learning...Questions open the doors to understanding." (Harvey & Daniels, 2009) I found myself not stressing enough of this, and focusing maybe too much time on main idea and details, boxes and bullets. I definitely plan on modeling this a bit more with my students, so that they see the importance. The student data from “Why do insects seem like pests?” shows the success student researchers can have with guided questions in their research.
When it comes to critically evaluating the information they are encountering on the Internet, in blogs, etc., not all teams are doing this consistently. I need to think of a way to model the importance of this in a way that will stick and last with them. After seeing the student data above about ‘sharks being smarter than people give them credit for,’ I realized that I need to do more work with synthesis and modeling for the students how digital media allows huge opportunities to synthesize information as we progress in our research. The student that did this shark entry did synthesis on their own and it is a good stand out piece to show kids how all of the literacy strategies we are learning are transferable to another text, another day and another time.
Too often students in classrooms are shown videos just because the content fits within their unit of studies. Little is expected of the students in regard to the content of the video. The data in this first cycle of my research shows that kids can be ‘active participants’ with content videos/documentaries. The students in my class continually referenced scenes from documentaries to add validity to their ideas and research. The next step in my research with digital literacy is to see how I can help students to be reflective researchers so they can develop better plans for themselves.
Action 2 Using Student/Teacher Made Podcasts to Be Reflective Researchers
The second action of cycle one was actually born out of a request from one of the research teams. They had noticed that I had been recording some of the group talks and group conferences that had been going on around the room during Reading Workshop. This group, whose conference and group talk can be found in the sound bite below, told me that they often talk about so many things and don't get a chance to jot down all of the new discoveries their talk brings forth, so they thought that by listening to their past conversations and conferences they might gain new insight and find new ideas about their topic they didn't even know they had. "...using electronic information effectively shifts the emphasis to certain literacy skills, particularly skills that involve collaboration and the thoughtful use of information." (Harvey & Daniels, 2009) This sparked great interest in the entire class. “One of the more common patterns we find in hypermedia and networked technologies for information and communication is that they generate greater interest and motivation…students and teachers.”(Farstrup & Samuels, 2002) We quickly named these sound bites/clips our 3D Podcasts. Each time I recorded a group talk or conference on my iPhone I immediately transferred the clip onto one of the class iMacs, and we labeled the folder of sound bites '3D Podcasts.' The students are encouraged to listen to the podcasts for further inquiry. They are also encouraged to use them in order to be reflective and make their research team meetings better and more meaningful.
Cycle 1 Action 2 Teaching Points
Insect Topic Team Podcast of
Book Talk and Team Conference
The podcasts we have begun to create in class have not only been useful to the students, but to me as well. Listening to some of the podcasts, such as the one above, really afforded me the opportunity to see that I needed to do a better job as a facilitator, helping the groups focus their research and talks. The kids often came to their talks well prepared and enthusiastic, but often times each member had something different that they were eager to share. The talks then became overly random and disconnected. I need to teach, possibly with a fishbowl group, how groups can better prepare their research and come with a common goal to make their talk more focused. Some of the groups were identifying this problem themselves when they listened to their podcast. This definitely showed me that the ‘3D Podcasts’ were a beneficial part of their research process.
The podcasts really did help some of the students add to their thinking and come up with new ideas. The notebook entry about bugs and arthropods is a piece of student data that supports this. The podcasts also helped them to develop some more main ideas and details that they passed by in the first go round of their talks. Some groups heard points in their podcasts that they had just zoomed by, they then jotted it down so they could come back and talk more about it next time. Just like Janet Evans states in Literacy Moves On, "...using digital forms of interaction would allow everyone to draw on some tacit forms of awareness." (Evans, 2005)
The podcasts also generated talk between topic teams. For instance I overheard one student from the ‘severe weather’ team ask this of a member of the penguin team, after listening to their podcast. “You guys talked a lot today about how penguins survive in cold weather. How did you get ready to talk so much?”
I was hoping that the podcasts would help the students organize themes they were hearing in their talks, but that did not seem to emerge from this. I definitely want show students how to mine their talks for possible themes they could expand upon.
The students, for the most part, were able to identify the author’s point of view on the topic they were reading online or in other medias. Helping students to identify with a certain perspective and forming their own opinion was difficult, and I don’t feel that I modeled this enough in my instruction, nor as I facilitated during group or independent work. Since this is a higher level thinking skill I believe it is something that needs to be modeled multiple times.
During this action some kids wrote about their own points of view, chose a stance and tried to get readers to feel through their writing. If you look at the student data above about global warming and penguins and the pages about sharks, you can see that students are more than capable of this kind of thinking and work. However, the larger majority of the class didn’t do this, so I definitely need to emphasize this and model it more through minilessons, small group instruction and conferences.
Using digital literacies, especially when researching topics, is highly effective as it engages students on levels that regular print simply cannot. It stimulates more senses, and motivates the student researchers to find the best information possible. Organization and preparedness are hugely important for success on the part of the teacher and the students. The vastness of digital media is beyond the scope of our understanding, and it is easy for students to get off track and lost. So, as powerful of a tool digital media/literacy can be, for success, it can also be a detriment to students if they are not prepared to use it.There were some positive themes that seemed to come out of my research with using digital literacy in the classroom to help students with inquiry and research.
I. Collaboration
The first theme that was evident across the boards was that collaboration is key for success. The groups that failed to collaborate effectively quickly became disconnected and almost lost in their research. The students themselves saw that collaboration made their research with digital media stronger and more fun.
II. Organization and Planning
Another theme that comes right off the heels of collaboration is organization and planning. The students, who organized and planned their research, were more prepared and focused for their talks and reports. This theme also relates to myself as teacher and facilitator. Just when I thought I was organized in my instruction, it often times was not enough. For example, even though I thought I prepared my students for identifying and developing point of view in their research, I was not not nearly organized enough, nor did I map out enough of a plan to help them do that. As Falk and Blumenreich say in The Power of Questions, “…try to plan and sequence the learning experiences to capitalize on what you know about your students’ interests and their developing skills.” (Falk & Blumenreich, 2005) Of course engagement and participation were other major themes that came out in my research. Since we spent a couple of weeks researching just with books and magazines, I was clearly able to see a huge shift in student engagement with their topic, talks and of course reading and writing.
III. Literacy as a Social Process
Literacy is a social process and I noticed in my classroom that the social activity surrounding their literacy events with digital media was higher than with regular print. Students were asking each other questions, their talk was more often on topic and opinions were being constructed and shared. What Farstrup and Samuels argue in their book What Research Has to Say About Reading Instruction held true in my classroom, “Students have much to contribute to their own learning as they negotiate meaning and socially construct knowledge through learning situations that require discussion and writing.” (Farstrup & Samuels, 2002)
Next Steps
I now need to continue to plan how I can further support my students in digital literacy in regard to organization, being critical and evaluative participants, and creating digital literacy projects to respond and share their research. Along with continuing to model and facilitate the above competencies with digital media research, I now want to push my students further by getting them to respond to their research with digital literacy with such modalities as blogging, wiki pages, digital story telling, podcasts, videos, etc… Since researching with digital media was successful in engaging students and getting them more vested in their research topics, I want them to explore the vast possibilities there are in sharing their research findings in digital literacy form. The digital world is one that is nearly impossible to keep up with, which makes it even more important to give students ample opportunities to explore digital media in literacy. “The amount of new technological information is doubling every two years… We are currently preparing students for jobs that don’t yet exist, using technologies that haven’t yet been invented in order to solve problems we don’t even know are problems yet.” (Fisch & McLeod, 2007)
