Kelly Wheatley

Mary Morgan

LITR 630

June 22, 2017

Online Literacy Assignment Written Component

For decades teachers have been honing their craft and evolving to meet the

needs of an ever-changing society. Technology has created immediate access to an

enormous wealth of information that grows exponentially daily. While this

availability of information at our fingertips has created educational opportunities

not even dreamed of a hundred years ago, it has also created a need for teachers to

become savvy technology guides to lead our students in maximizing their

understanding and use of digital media. It is wrong to assume that a student adept

at social media is also digitally literate. According to a Stanford study by Wineburg

and McGrew (2016), At every level, we were taken aback by students lack of

preparation: middle school students unable to tell the difference between an

advertisement and a news story; high school students taking at face value a cooked-

up chart from the Minnesota Gun Owners Political Action Committee; college

students credulously accepting a .org top-level domain name as if it were a Good

Housekeeping seal. Such research findings support the need for rigorous

instruction in digital literacy.

I created my online literacy assignment centered around the topic of fake

news. I foresee my activity and lesson plan being the kickstarter to a much longer

digital literacy unit involving 1) learning about fake news and why its important to
be a discerning media consumer 2) learning how to locate and evaluate websites for

a targeted research project created by the students and 3) learning how to

synthesize information from multiple, credible sources to create a published project.

My lesson described below is only phase 1.

For my activity, students begin by using a laptop or iPad to navigate to my

Weebly site to analyze a photo of an article spread called Space Alien Meets with

Newt Gingrich. The purpose of this is to show students that they already have

some skills and background knowledge in evaluating sources for credibility and that

we will build on these skills to evaluate websites that will not be as obviously false

as tabloids. This meets ISTE standard 3b for the component of: Research and

information fluency: Locate, organize, analyze, evaluate, synthesize, and ethically use

information from a variety of sources and media. As this is an introductory lesson,

we will continue to delve much deeper into this standard throughout the entire

digital literacy unit. As Leu et al. (2011) note, digital literacy is going to be

necessary for students to participate fully, not only the workforce, but in life in

general. Castek (2012) argues, If we do not provide opportunities to teach [digital

literacy] skills, we will not be facilitating the growth of responsible citizens (p.

188). I want to provide my students with the skills to be discerning, educated

citizens of the world.

My lesson plan also incorporates an opportunity for fluency practice using

the article, Fake News Fools Millions. This allows meet to meet ILA standard 2.2:

Candidates use appropriate and varied instructional approaches, including those that

develop word recognition, language comprehension, strategic knowledge, and

readingwriting connections. Fluency practice provides my ELs with a supportive

activity that helps develop reading comprehension as well as speaking practices. So

many of my quiet students will not volunteer to speak in class, but will participate

enthusiastically in the less intimidating practice of choral reading and partner

reading. I embed some vocabulary work in this practice as well. While the article is

read in print form, the non-fiction text provides a foundation for studying online

sources. It also supports how we can compare this print article to digital articles we

find online in subsequent lessons. The lesson also includes an online political

cartoon for analysis. In this way, I incorporate ILA standard 2.3: Candidates use a

wide range of texts (e.g., narrative, expository, and poetry) from traditional print,

digital, and online resources.

Throughout the lesson, I will be using technology as the teacher to present

information, but more importantly, students will engage in technology use to

respond to activities. Throughout the lesson, I will have students respond to

question prompts on Padlet, and I will have groups collaborate on a Google Drive

document. In this lesson, I will model how to use Bubbl.us for mind mapping using

the teacher computer and projector, so that later in the unit, they will be familiar

with the tool and use it to create their own mind map for articles they find

themselves on the web related to their research project. This meets Kentucky

Teacher Standard 6.3: Integrates student use of available technology into instruction.

The goal is to have technology become a more integrated in my instruction with my

students engaging more in lessons by using methods that are more cutting edge and

interesting as well as making it harder for students to disengage and hide when
their responses are published electronically vs. a print writers notebook where I

dont know if students have actually been responding until I collect their notebooks

every two weeks.

Participating in this class has given me a greater understanding of the TPACK

model where I integrate technology content knowledge. I know my students at the

11th and 12th grade level need to engage in critical reading of complex informational

texts to fulfill CCSS standards. They need to engage in research writing by

synthesizing information from multiple sources and multiple source types. Where

the CCSS stops short is how digital literacy is an important component to

accomplishing those goals and making our students truly College and Career Ready.

Leu et al. (2011) notes how struggling students are often even more disadvantaged

because their programs focus extensively on tested areas, such as conventional print

comprehension reading; therefore, they have even less digital literacy instruction

when they perhaps need it more. This course is helping me understand how I can

teach students CCSS standards and digital literacy concurrently using technology

effectively.
 References

Castek, J. (2012). If you want students to evaluate online resources and other new

media - teach them how. In Exemplary instruction in the middle grades (pp.

105-123). New York , NY: The Guilford Press.

Leu, D. J., McVerry, J. G., O'Byrne, W. I., Kiili, C., Zawilinski, L., Everett-Cacopardo, H.,

Kennedy, C., & Forzani, E. (2011). The new literacies of online reading

comprehension: expanding literacy and learning curriculum. Journal of

Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 55(1), 5-14. doi:10.1598

Wineburg, S., & McGrew, S. (2016, December 13). Column: Most teens can't tell fake

from real news. Retrieved June 23, 2017, from

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/column-students-cant-google-way-

truth/