Why We Should Begin to Address Digital Disconnect for ELL Learners

Gunderson (2013) highlights how technologies can create new opportunities and improve ELL literacies as long as barriers are addressed to improve teachers’ self-efficacy with a focus on  technology skills and confidence in professional development, funding to address equity issues, and curriculum in place to address “Digital Disconnect” in schools. Many opportunities exist to improve L2 academic performance. Park & Warschuer (2016) provide compelling evidence to suggest that activating background knowledge through integration of technology using hyperlinked media can begin to address gaps and provide valuable resources. The Multiliteracy Project is one project that caught my attention as students are able to contribute to a meaningful project in their first language and utilizes many diverse literacies that connect to my research interest. The Multiliteracy Project website, http://multiliteracies.ca/index.php/stat/register, connects students to projects around the world using many forms of literacies that promote social responsibility. Gunderson (2013) shares how hyperlinks in one project. Students produce Blue Sea Creatures hyperlinks. This could be of interest to ELL students, as they are curating content and researching to locate valid information and media, to share with others. We are working on Texas land forms and I could see how ELL learners could use this idea using hyperlinks to create their own website. We could utilize both Spanish and English in hyperlinks to provide additional information to users in Google Sites.

Park & Warschaurer (2016)  provide strong evidence as to how multi-modal vocabulary support can assist ELL learners. Encouraging ELL learners to “express themselves in multiple ways” can provide significant gains in academic vocabulary acquisition (Park & Warschurer, 2016, p. 288). Gunderson (2013) provides many resources and ideas on how to leverage visual imagery to improve comprehensible input. Diccts.info, https://www.dicts.info/, offers users easy search features and includes a universal dictionary, basic vocabulary, picture dictionary, English dictionary, Phrases, Bilingual dictionaries, Flashcards, Vocabulary trainer, English thesaurus, and Examples of use feature. I began searching the words that are using and found that the picture dictionary is limited. For instance, the word mountain and range are both not included in search results.  Range is listed in results but does not populate a search result when selected. While this does serve as a good beginning resource, it highlights the issues facing teachers. I reviewed the PDictionary, http://pdictionary.com, and had a similar experience. I did locate cactus, which is a vocabulary word in this resource. These resources could be useful in teaching ELL students how to look up information, which Gunderson (2013) strongly encourages as a component of information literacy.

As a strong advocate of information literacy, I appreciate Gunderson’s (2013) approach toward teaching critical literacy online. To me this is the largest issue and serves to begin to finally address the Digital Disconnect Gunderson (2013) discusses. So many classrooms and curriculum teach technology as a skill set but this approach sometimes misses the mark. Digital literacy is more than a skill set, it is a critical thinking approach to validating information prior to possibility creating meaning and products. Therefore, I agree that we must teach online critical literacy skills in all courses and begin to address how to search information, how to evaluate media, and how to read online. I really Gunderson’s (2011) practices of “teaching reading online to identify important questions, to locate information, to critically evaluate information, to synthesize information, and to communicate information” (p. 247). In essence, all teachers should be required to address how to accomplish reading online through these five actions. I can suggest that we begin to do this for  makerspace projects. One part of the makerspace process is research and through the making of the product, he will be creating and communicating his process online. So, I have decided to add a digital layer on the process.  This will strengthen is use of vocabulary as ELL learners will select how the student communicates to share final productions online.

Gunderson, L., D’Silva, R., & Odo, D. M. (2013). ESL (ELL) literacy instruction: A guidebook to theory and practice. Routledge.

Park, Y. and Warschauer M. (2016) Reading instruction in a technological age.  In X. Chen, V. Dronjic, & R. Helms-Park, Reading in a second language: Cognitive and psycholinguistic issues (pp. 282-302). New York: Routledge.