Using

Digital
Tools to
Improve
Student
Learning
An Action
Research Project
Kristy Bateman
EDUC 526
June 1, 2015

Abstract
Our educational systems are changing rapidly in an attempt to better reflect
the extent to which technology is integrated into our daily lives. Productivity
in the world market is fully dependent on technology tools, yet classroom
productivity has not made the necessary shifts. If students utilize digital
tools in the classroom is there an increase in their engagement and an
improvement in their learning? This question is the focus of the following
action research project. A class of third grade students was presented with
an unfamiliar text and asked to organize the essential information from the
story and then take a text-based comprehension assessment. This task was
completed twice: once with a traditional graphic organizer and again with a
digital presentation tool. The purpose of the research was to ascertain
whether there was an observable improvement in student engagement and
overall understanding of the text.

Introduction
A significant number of students enter my third grade class without the
basic early literacy skills that are needed to be successful, independent
learners. There are a variety of intervention systems in place to address this
problem, but these systems are not creating a significant enough impact to
close the gap between the struggling students skills and the grade level
expectations. As a result, students with below grade level reading fluency
show limited reading comprehension of grade level text, as well as reduced
engagement in independent reading activities.
This year, fifty-eight percent of my students entered third grade
reading below grade level. At this time, intervention for early literacy skills is
a small group pull-out instructional block that targets phonics and fluency
skills. Students are removed from my classroom for forty-five minutes each
day, and while some growth has been achieved in reading fluency, classroom
reading comprehension assessments have shown little to no change over the
course of the school year. Many of my students demonstrate little interest in
classroom activities related to reading comprehension, and I have observed a
pattern of students who hastily complete classroom activities with little
interest and even less attention to the quality of their work. While the
purpose of our classroom assignments is to facilitate student engagement
with unfamiliar text and support their comprehension of this text, I find that
the main focus of the student is to complete the task as quickly as possible
with minimal effort.
As a result of my interest in the area of digital teaching and learning, I
designed a research study to conduct in my classroom to determine whether
introducing a technology-based component to reading comprehension

activities would result in increased engagement and improved learning for

my students.

Research
The role and value of technology in the classroom has been widely
researched during the past twenty years, and school districts across the
country are continually investing significant amounts of money and
resources into implementation of classroom technology. The International
Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) includes equitable access to not
only technology tools and resources, but also reliable connectivity, among
the essential conditions for implementation of technology standards in
schools (Essential Conditions, n.d.). This emphasis is driven by the belief
that technology improves learning, and as a result, can positively influence a
students academic trajectory and future opportunities. Since 2002, the New
Media Consortium has worked to analyze the emerging technology trends in
education, an effort known as the Horizon Project. As part of this project, an
annual report is released that highlights shifts and points of emphasis that
are developing at the international level in educational technology. The 2014
Horizon Report supports what educators are seeing in their districts, schools,
and classrooms: there is a growing emphasis on deeper learning approaches,
and technology is widely viewed as an essential tool in this process (Johnson,
Adams Becker, Estrada, and Freeman, 2014). This focus on deeper learning
experiences for students is a cornerstone of the concept of 21st century
learning, which is a key topic in education. P21, the Partnership for 21st
Century Learning, defines four key areas that together represent necessary
student outcomes for 21st century learners. It is no surprise that one of the
four key areas is Information, Technology, and Media Skills (P21, 2015).
There is an abundance of research that supports this view. According
to the Alliance for Education and the Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy
in Education, technologywhen implemented properlycan produce

significant gains in student achievement and boost engagement, particularly

among students more at risk (Amos, 2014). A recent study of 266
kindergarten students claims that students using an iPad in the classroom
universally received higher scores on literacy assessments than students
who did not use the iPad (Schramm, 2012). It is important to note, however,
that technology in and of itself does not promote learning. In an article
entitled Technology and its Role in 21st Century Education Utkarsh Lokesh,
Co-Founder and CEO of EdTechReview, emphasizes this point. Technology is
not the solution to 21st Century education, technology is simply a tool to aid
education and learning, he argues. The place of technology in pedagogy is
based on various factors and questions of effectiveness, time saving,
increased outcomes, etc. (Lokesh, 2013). This use of technology as a tool is
the focus of my action research project.

Implementation
As a control, students were first asked to read an unfamiliar text and
perform a reading comprehension task using traditional materialspaper,
pencils, and crayons. The text provided was a fable, which they were asked
to read independently. After reading the story, each student was asked to
create a six box graphic organizer in which they record the setting,
characters, and main idea of the story, as well as the key events from the
beginning, middle, and end. This is a familiar activity for the students. After
completing this activity, the students were given a five question reading
comprehension quiz that reflects Common Core State Standards for third
grade. I assessed student engagement in the activity by observing the
students at work, as well as by observing the quality of the work produced on
the graphic organizer. Their overall understanding of the text was measured
by an assessment I created which consisted of 4 text-dependent questions
and a fifth activity in which students were required to put key events from
the story in the order in which they happened.

The next day, students were again given an unfamiliar piece of text to
read. In order to ensure that the type of text given was an independent
variable in this research, the text provided was a fable, which they were
asked to read independently, as in the first phase of the study. In order to be
consistent in giving unfamiliar text, I had to select a different story, but I
chose one as similar in length and text complexity as possible. The
dependent variable in this project was the classroom activity. Rather than a
traditional, paper-pencil comprehension activity, students were asked to
create a six-slide digital presentation on an iPad, using the Keynote app. My
students are familiar with this app, and theyve used it in other content areas
in our class, but theyve never used it for a reading comprehension activity.
The information requirements for the six slides of the keynote were the same
as the requirements for the six boxes of the paper graphic organizer: setting,
characters, main idea, beginning, middle, and end. After completing this
activity, the students were given a five question reading comprehension quiz
that utilized the exact same question types and format as the quiz given in
the control portion of the research process. I again assessed student
engagement by observing the students at work, as well as by observing the
quality of the work produced in the Keynote presentation.

Results

Student Engagement:
Based on my observations during the two activities, the digital tool
held the advantage of dramatically improved student engagement.
While creating a Keynote presentation, the students worked actively for
an extended period of time. They frequently consulted other students
with questions related to the task, and they more frequently brought
their work to me for my opinion and feed back. This was a stark
contrast to their engagement with the paper/pencil activity. During
this activity, students worked quietly without asking for feedback from
the teacher or peers. They completed their work quickly and moved

onto another task without prompting. When they were working on

their Keynote presentations, however, more than four times as many
minutes were given for the completion of the task. When the task was
ended due to lack of additional time, many students complained and

asked repeatedly to return to the activity.

Quality of Work:
There was some variation in the quality of work for individual students,
but overall, the quality of work was visibly higher when students used
a digital tool to complete the comprehension activity. Certain students
are attentive to detail and produce quality work, regardless of the
format or media. Among students who have a tendency to create
hasty, sloppy work, the digital product was significantly better. When
using a digital tool, these students showed improvement in utilizing
appropriate writing conventions such as punctuation, capitalization,
and grammar. Their use of spacing and visual organization was also
better with a visual tool. In addition, while working to create a Keynote
presentation, many students spent a great deal of time selecting
images to represent the essential information on each slide. For the
paper/pencil graphic organizers, illustrations were often hastily done.
Interestingly, the quality of individual students drawings played a role
in their performance on the assessments, which will be explained in

more detail below.

Comprehension Assessment
The student results in this area were initially surprising. Students
generally received very similar scores on the two assessments, with
several showing decreased scores when using a digital tool. It appears
that for many students, the process of engaging in the complex activity
of building a Keynote presentation actually created a distraction in
terms of reading comprehension. Nearly every student in my class
accurately identified the main idea of the text when they completed a
paper/pencil activity, while less than 80% of students accurately
determined the main idea of the text when they completed a digital

presentation. In addition, more students made errors in putting the

events of the story in order after creating a digital presentation. The
factor that appears to have had the greatest impact on the students
assessment performance was not the type of comprehension activity
at all, but rather the amount of detail a student included in his or her
visual representation of each part of the story. Students who drew
detailed drawings and those who included appropriate images for each
of the components of the retell process performed better on the
assessments, regardless of the type of media they used for the activity.

Summary
As a result of this action research project, I conclude that student use
of a digital tool can improve student engagement and quality of work, but it
is not solely capable of improving student achievement on standards-based
assessment. The factors that contribute to student achievement are
complex, and there are certainly many facets of learning that are not
measured by standards-based assessments. For example, while utilizing a
digital tool did not improve my students ability to identify the main idea of a
text or make inferences about a character, they did engage in a wide range
of relevant learning experiences. They gained experience in conducting
internet searches and selecting appropriate results; they learned how to
insert images, text, and objects into a digital media presentation; they made
discoveries about the tools available in the presentation software and taught
other students about their discoveries; and they refined their ability to utilize
web- based resources to answer their own questions about the world. These
learning experiences are highly valuable in that they fostered
communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity in my students.
While these skills are not measured on my classroom assessments, they are
no less essential.

The correlation between my students drawings and their

comprehension of the text was intriguing, and I would like to conduct
additional research in this area. During the course of this school year, I
began teaching my students to use visualization and illustration techniques
when solving word problems in math. I saw an improvement in their ability
to solve complex problems this year and this, along with the results of this
action research project, validates the need to further explore the role of
visualization in building comprehension.

References
Amos, J. (2014, September 23). Using Technology to Support At-Risk
Students Learning: Technology Can Close Achievement Gaps and Improve
Learning Outcomes for At-Risk Students, Finds New Alliance Report.

Essential Conditions. (n.d.). Retrieved May 11, 2015, from

http://www.itse.org/standards/essential-conditions/equitable-access
Johnson, L., Adams Becker, S., Estrada, V., and Freeman, A. (2014). NMC
Horizon Report: 2014 K-12 Edition. Austin, Texas: The New Media Consortium.
Lokesh, U. (2013, April 13). Technology and Its Role in 21st Century
Education.
P21: Partnership for 21st Century Learning (2015, May). Framework for 21st
Century Learning. Washington, DC.
Schramm, M. (2012, February 20). Study: iPads improve Kindergarten literacy
scores.