Emily Divan Personal Inquiry Statement

Teaching With Tech

For me, teaching is a family affair. My grandfather, my mom, and my sister all were
teachers, and now I am on my way to joining their ranks. Because of this, much of my teaching
is influenced by what my family has experienced or researched. One such influence comes from
my sister, who uses blogging as a means of journaling for the Jr. High and high school students
she tutors. As I listened to her stories of students becoming excited to write on their blogs, I
began to wonder if and how technology might be worked into the younger grades, especially
kindergarten through third grade. I also began to wonder how early was too early to begin
teaching students safe Internet habits. So I began searching, and I found that there is little
research done on the impact of technology in the early grades, but what has been focused on is
the multiple modes of representation technology affords, the effective use of eBooks, and the
benefit of touch when experiencing literacy in a technological form.
Finding literature about technology in the early grades was a challenge, despite the
dramatic turn towards technology in the classroom. Similarly, much of what I came across did
not relate to technology and literacy, but technology and math. What I was able to find,
however, was quite useful. Some of the literature focuses on forming identity around books and
using media to express this newfound identity (Anderson, et. al, 2010). Other literature focuses
on the appropriate ways in which to engage children preschool age and up in technologically
meaningful literacy programs (Mangen, 2010; Zipke, 2013). Perhaps most notable is Marcy
Zipkes work (2013) that focuses on the importance of evaluating childrens eBooks, providing
six steps to follow when considering adding to your eBook library.
Because technology is not limited to a specific subject, it can be used at any moment of
the day so long as it is used in a meaningful way. Electronic books can be used during whole
Emily Divan Personal Inquiry Statement
group instruction, as a center, or individually during independent reading. A homework
assignment asking students to make a video or write a blog post discussing their reaction to a
text, like Maddie does in her YouTube viral video Kittens! Inspired by Kittens! (Anderson et. al,
2010), offers the opportunity for students to engage in technology and literacy at home. When
thinking about when to integrate technology into literacy instruction, careful attention needs to
be given to the amount of animation and superfluous antics of the characters. For example, in
The Three Little Pigs by Nosy Crow, a company that develops eBooks for children, Zipke (2013)
found the ability to make the characters do backflips and pronounce silly commentsthat are
unrelated to the story line (p. 379) distracting to her first graders. So if you hope to incorporate
eBooks into your literacy instruction, beware of the extra bells and whistles that come with some
eBooks.
If some eBooks come with unnecessary bells and whistles that can be distracting to
students, why bother using them at all? Why not just leave technology out of the classroom? I
am a firm believer that ignoring or excluding something so prominent in our students lives is a
great disservice to their generation. We need to consider including technology in our literacy
instruction because more and more students are reading and researching online sources, they are
writing papers on computers, and they are posting statuses to social media websites. They need
to be both literate in the traditional sense as well as technologically literate. This means they
know how to type, they know how to navigate a touch-screen device, and they are capable of
expressing themselves through the many media technology has to offer.
Looking forward, I know I want to work effective technology into my classroom and
because of the information I have gathered as a result of this inquiry I feel a bit more prepared to
do so. I know that the technology my students are experiencing now is only the tip of the
Emily Divan Personal Inquiry Statement
iceberg. By the time they reach high school, everything might be touch screen. When they are
in college, they will need to know how to access the Internet, type papers, and research online
resources at the drop of a hat. This is why we need to allow our students time to engage with
technology in the literacy environment; students need the opportunity to develop the connection
between reading and writing and the technological world. Perhaps the most useful pieces of
information I took away from this project are to carefully evaluate eBooks for children and the
importance of the sense of touch in engaging with technology at an early age (Mangen, 2010).
The latter was only mentioned briefly because the research is lengthy, wordy, and developing,
but no less important. My only question left is when: When do we start teaching students how to
use technology a safe and secure manner?




Works Cited
Anderson, D.D., Lewis, M., Peterson, S., Griggs, S., Grubb, G., Singer, N., Narang, J. (2010).
Kittens! Inspired by kittens!: Undergraduate theorists inspired by YouTube. Language
Arts, 88(1), 32-42.
Mangen, A. (2010). Point and click: Theoretical and phenomenological reflections on the
digitization of early childhood education. Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood
Education, 11(4), 415-431.
Zipke, M. (2013). Building an ebook library: Resources for finding the best apps. The Reading
Teacher, 67(5), 375-383.