Use of Technology for Literacy Learning: 06

Technology as a Tool for Literacy Instruction

There are two activities on this page. Scroll to the bottom of the page to see the second activity.

• Read the following sample lesson ideas from Burns/Roe/Smith.

Focus on Strategies: Use of Videotape

Two classes of middle school students read the book Bridge to Terebithia and then viewed a videotape of a movie based on the book. They compared and contrasted the book and the video, coming out firmly in favor of the book. The students felt that the movie at times differed from the book "for no reason at all," although they saw some changes had been made because of time constraints. They commented, too, that many important details had been left out of the movie, making the character portrayals weaker.

These classes later read the book Tuck Everlasting and then viewed a videotape of a movie based on it. Once again they compared and contrasted the movie and the book, with similar results. They found many changes to be unnecessary and inexplicable and even decided that the impact of the plot, as it unfolded, was lessened because the movie contained some foreshadowing that was not in the book (Roe and Smith, 1997). [p.420]

Model Activity: Internet Research for Making Books

Read several informational alphabet books to your class. Discuss the characteristics of these alphabet books.

Next, choose a topic such as "Mammals," that you are studying in a particular content area. Discuss what has already been discovered about this topic.

Then divide the class into small groups, assigning one or more letters to each group. Let group members search the Internet for mammals that would fit the assigned letters. Have each group choose from the mammals they locate the ones to use for their book pages. Then have them write and print book pages for their assigned letters, using desktop publishing software or word-processing software. Put the pages together to form a class book. Print multiple copies to use in the classroom, to share with other classes, and to send home to promote parent communication.

Finally, read the book to the class and let the group members responsible for each page tell about their search strategies.

• Look at your handout, "Technology and Internet in the Classroom." Do the first exercise where you brainstorm the possible uses of various technologies available in the classroom.