EDU 5301 Analyzing Digital Media in Teaching and Learning
This course offers teachers and teacher candidates an opportunity to analyze how media, texting, chat, status updates and hypertext change the way texts are read and interpreted, both in and out of the classroom. Teacher candidates will study various theories of literacy and how it changes with the introduction of digital technologies. The effective integration of technology to increase student achievement and how teachers and teacher candidates apply pedagogical theories to integrate technology will be emphasized. This course also helps to prepare teacher candidates for the edTPA Assessments by analyzing and applying the task of planning for instruction and assessment. Teacher candidates will use the following definition of digital literacy to develop best practices for the integration of new digital media into their classrooms with their students: The ability to use digital technologies and communication tools to locate, evaluate, use and create information; The ability to understand and use information in multiple formats from a wide range of sources when it is presented using a variety of twenty-first century media; A person's ability to perform tasks effectively in a digital environment. Literacy includes the ability to read and interpret media, to reproduce data and images through digital manipulation and to evaluate and apply new knowledge gained from digital environments. As new literacies that include digital technologies evolve, preparing students to understand and adjust to these literacy demands is critical to current and future expectations for pleasure and work (International Reading Association, 2001; Leu, Mallette, Karchmer, & Kara-Soteriou, 2005). For instance, teachers may identify with past models of literacy that are paper and pencil bound. However, new conceptions involve continually changing views of reading and writing, particularly with the advent of the Internet (Leu et al., 2004; Warschauer, 2006). These new literacies include innovative text formats (multiple media or hybrid texts; Lemke, 1998), new reader expectations (reading nonlinearly; Warschauer, 2006) and new activities (website publication; Leu et al., 2004). They extend traditional literacy experiences with comprehension of information on the Internet; effective use of search engines to locate information; evaluation of internet sources; communication using e-mail, texts and chats; and the use of word processing programs (International Society for Technology in Education, 2007).
Distribution
Education