Reading Matters Winter 2018

dynamics, and lived experiences can be shared to foster classroom community, acceptance, and appreciation (Axelrod, 2014).

Technology to Enhance Writing Engagement

Technology has changed the landscape of society and is integral to teaching and learning. The use of information communications technologies (ICTs) has enriched and complicated teaching and learning in elementary classrooms (Wood, Paratore, Kissel, & McCormack, 2015). As the National Council for Teachers of English (NCTE) policy statement on 21st century literacies states (2013),“because technology has increased the intensity and complexity of literate environments, the twenty-first century demands that a literate person possess a wide range of abilities and competencies, many literacies.”Therefore, we believe we have a responsibility to educate children to engage in writing in both traditional and digital spaces. Furthermore, incorporating technology into the writing process increases student engagement and motivation (Boling, Castek, Zawilinski, Barton, & Nierlich, 2008). We share how the use of imagery, collaboration, and feedback in digital spaces increases students’ engagement in meaningful multimodal writing experiences. Digital Imagery Students today have access to an endless array of digital images in the form of historical and present-day photographs, illustrations, sketches, and diagrams. This instant access also requires that we educate students on locating and using these images in an ethical and safe manner (ISTE, 2016). There are a number of websites and resources to support this essential work. The Common Sense website, offers free resources to assist with teaching lessons on copyright issues. Additional sites with useful instructional resources include Pexels, Photos for Class , and Google Images . Pexels has free stock photos that have been licensed for use under Creative Commons. After searching a specific term, users can select the preferred photo from the results. Then, teachers should encourage students to click on the photo in order to ensure that the photo is indeed licensed under an appropriate Creative Commons license . Specifically, this means that the image can be used for commercial and personal purposes with no attribution required. Photos for Class is an easy to use website where results are filtered and have been licensed under Creative Commons for public use. This tool is especially appropriate for young users as each image has an accompanying citation. Specifically, Furthermore, students and staff can create an online repository of digital photographs they have taken throughout the year. Having a school wide repository of photographs can aid in building a sense of community among the students (Gabriel & Gabriel, 2010). Students, teachers, and other school personnel can take photographs of events, people, and fixtures on school grounds as shared experiences and spaces. These photographs help tell stories about students’lives in and outside of school. When students take photos of their everyday lives and home environments, a greater understanding of their culture, family after downloading the photograph, the user will notice that the citation is located at the bottom of the image.

Once uploaded to a community repository, students share digital images with their peers to use in their writing. Whether as illustrations or as a springboard for a writing topic, students can begin to have authentic conversations surrounding their peers’photographs. Teachers can take advantage of these naturally emerging conversations and discuss ways in which students can appropriately incorporate these images into their writing by facilitating class discussions and continuing to establish and build the classroom community. Furthermore, having access to a digital repository of photographs can enhance opportunities for increased collaboration among students. Digital Collaboration Collaboration, or the process of sharing and working together, can be brought into the classroom as students are writing with the help of digital tools. By using tools such as Google Docs, Padlet, Wikispaces, blogs, and the appWhiteboard: Collaborative Drawing, students have opportunities to collaborate with peers in a manner that goes beyond the traditional classroom setting. When seeking to authentically engage students in the collaborative writing process, teachers can turn to a number of digital tools to help their students work together. For instance, students can be added to a shared Google document that is stored on a“cloud-based”server. This digital tool allows users to synchronously and asynchronously work together on a piece of text. Collaboration is key within this tool because students can see their peers writing and revising in real-time as well as by viewing a revision history. As students are simultaneously working, they are able to take advantage of features such as chatting or commenting to leave notes, share ideas, or ask questions to further collaborate with their peers. This is beneficial for students who may be co-authoring in different locations. For instance, students do not need to sit side by side or even in the same roomwhen collaborating in a Google document or any of the cloud-based digital tools such as those listed above. As soon as students are satisfied with their coauthored pieces, they can display their work on the InteractiveWhiteboard for their classmates. As the pieces exist in a digital space, students can also share their work beyond the four walls of the classroom by emailing the link to family and friends or posting the link to their blogs or the teacher’s class website. When teachers facilitate the use of digital tools to support collaboration in the classroom, they promote authenticity in the writing process. In the real world, writers craft, discuss, provide feedback, and revise together. Digital Feedback Authenticity in the writing process is key, and the use of technology provides students with authentic audiences to share work with and receive feedback from (Merchant, 2005). Timeliness is an integral characteristic of effective feedback. Instead of swapping papers and leaving hastily scrawled notes in the margins for peers who will struggle to decipher the feedback when the papers are returned, digital tools can help

Reading Matters Technology Matters

| 32 | Reading Matters | Volume 18 • Winter 2018 | scira.org

CLICK HERE TO RETURN TO TABLE OF CONTENTS