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Author: Dr. Jennifer Miller-Ray

  • 3 Ways to Address the Equity Gap in Educational Technology Post-Covid 19

    3 Ways to Address the Equity Gap in Educational Technology Post-Covid 19

    Over 50 million K-12 public school students learned remotely this past year, with 37% of students located in rural communities lacking broadband compared to 25% of suburban households and 21% of urban households lacking connectivity. Texas ranked highest in the nation, with 34% of students lacking broadband connection and 24% of students lacking access to a device (Chadra, Chang, Day, et. al, 2020). Post COVID-19 presents the immediate need to rethink digital leadership approaches to begin to address the digital divide presented by equity and accessibility issues. Research indicates  English learners, students with disabilities, students experiencing homelessness, and students in foster care in middle and high school were all less likely than their peers to access district school platforms in the spring (O’Keefe & Repeka, 2020). Many schools in remote areas of far west and south Texas were fully remote in 2021. In fact, New Mexico schools were mandated to remote learning until late March 2021. What did we learn from this experience? How could leaders improve the strategic plan process to better address the needs of our students, specifically underrepresented populations, students with disabilities and remote schools serving at-risk populations?

    Recognize and identify where the digital divide exists in your community.

    Accessibility issues can no longer be defined in terms of physical access. The pandemic has shown that schools must approach  the use of distance education and digital learning from an equity lens. Age does not define digital fluencies or abilities to apply digital skills to communicate effectively. The term ‘digital divide’ traditionally was used to describe inequities in access to devices and broadband, but this definition fails to capture gaps in educational experiences, curricula, and social, cultural, and economic realities of many (Gorski, 2005). This issue has long been debated in literature but school closures during the pandemic magnified preexisting socio-economic and education disparities on a massive scale, revealing large inequities in access to resources and learning quality (Vishkale, 2020). Schools must begin to truly identify gaps in accessibility to include physical access, technology mediums used,  equity, resources, digital learning, and digital literacy experiences. Strategic planning often fails to provide clarity and efforts to truly identify and address digital divide gaps could greatly equip learners with digital skills. The main factors contributing to the digital inequities may not be identified as physical access only but rather a divide in digital skills/literacy to the extent in which populations are divided and excluded (Li & Li, 2021).

    Invest in teachers and measure professional development efforts.

    The pandemic has presented teachers with a renewed insight on the importance of participation in digital learning development, as now they are aware of their own digital skills, abilities, and limitations (Toto & Limon, 2021). This presents an opportunity for organizations to foster stronger development approaches and to identify gaps in digital competencies, teacher capabilities, and abilities to use technology to communicate well, or digital fluencies. Schools can look to the ISTE standards,  Common Framework for Teaching Digital Competence, or TPACK as a starting point. TCEA is a leader in this area and is an essential partner in the solution for districts to begin addressing this issue. Investment in technology training cannot be an afterthought during the strategic plan process and is a required component to equip students with future-ready skills. Measuring the quality of teacher training and resources can provide insights into how financial allocation of professional development is impacting student engagement, use, and academic performance.

    Live interaction for accelerated instruction will continue to matter.

    Gaps in learning will require strategic planning to heavily invest in accelerated instruction platforms and approaches. Overcoming traditional barriers will be required of administrators to support positive learning experiences as an evidence-making approach within the multi-tiered system. Quality engagement with personalized feedback using technology can have a large impact toward addressing gaps. For example, Houston Community College is offering students virtual support through online advising and tutoring services via a virtual lobby. These types of initiative can go a long way to improving our response using technology as leaders.

    Chandra, S., Chang, A., Day, L., Fazlullah, A., Liu, J., McBride, L., … & Weiss, D. (2020). Closing the K–12 digital divide in the age of distance learning. Common Sense and Boston Consulting Group: Boston, MA, USA.

    Gorski, P. (2005). Education equity and the digital divide. AACE Review (Formerly AACE Journal), 13(1), 3-45.

    Korman, H., O’Keefe, B., & Repeka, M., (2020, October 21). Missing in the Margins: Estimating the Scale of the Covid-19 Attendance Crisis. Bellwether Education Partners. Retrieved from: https://bellwethereducation.org/publication/missingmargins-estimating-scale-covid-19-attendance-crisis#Why%20aren’t%20students%20attending%20school.

    Vishkaie, R. (2020). The pandemic, war, and sanctions: Building resilience for the digital divide in education. Interactions, 27(4), 36-37.

    Li, S., & Li, E. (2021, July). The Impact of Digital Divide on Education in USA Amid COVID-19 Pandemic. In International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (pp. 571-576). Springer, Cham.

    Toto, G. A., & Limone, P. (2021). From Resistance to Digital Technologies in the Context of the Reaction to Distance Learning in the School Context during COVID-19. Education Sciences, 11(4), 163.

  • Higher Education Technology Trends and Developments

    Higher Education Technology Trends and Developments

    readtechlove's avatarEducational Technology

    EDUCASE’s Horizon Report (2019) highlights significant challenges that are impeding technology adoption in higher education. They summarize and discuss six challenges that are considered or expected to impede innovation, adoption, or scale when it comes to improving the teaching profession in higher education.

    Improving Digital Fluency

    The topic of digital fluency in higher education might seem unnecessary to discuss as some might feel that a certain level of digital fluency should already be achieved by students. However, according to EDUCASE’s Horizon Report (2019), there is a difference between digital fluency and digital literacy and this should be acknowledged in higher education along with all levels of schooling. Digital fluency has more to do with understanding the digital environment, creating content, and adapting to new digital contexts. Experts would suggest that it might not be all that simple to differentiate between digital literacy and digital fluency and that it would also…

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  • Evaluation of Professional Learning for Technology Integration

    Evaluation of Professional Learning for Technology Integration

    Such an important topic!

    readtechlove's avatarEducational Technology

    Researchers from the School of Business and Economics at North Carolina A&T State University perform a qualitative study that examines the characteristics of professional development evaluation activities for the integration of instructional technology into teaching practices found in the literature. The goal of the researchers is to develop a high-quality professional development model for the evaluation of activities performed in each training.

    The questions the researchers raise are: what are the characteristics of recent professional development evaluation activities for the integration of instructional technology into teaching practices, and, what are the characteristics of a high-quality model for the evaluation of professional development activities related to the effective integration of instructional technology into teaching practices? Using content analysis methodology to identify patterns, themes, and biases in 20 published studies, the researchers use the following steps to evaluate the literature:

    1. Identify material (professional development evaluation activities related to instructional technology) from over…

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  • Put Technology At The Top Of The “To Do” List

    This is long over due in our classrooms. Our students deserve better.

  • Leveraging Multisensory Approaches When Teaching Phonological Awareness Tasks

    Birsh (2018) defines phonemic awareness using The Partnership of Reading’s definition “as the ability to notice think about and work with the individual sounds in words (2003, p. 2). Phonemic awareness is an essential toward learning how to read as it helps children connect the spoken word to written language Birsh (2018). How does multisensory approaches facilitate phonemic awareness in children? Farrell & White (2018) suggest that “multisensory strategies guide students to in simultaneously linking input from eye, ear, voice, and hand to enhance learning during the carefully sequenced teaching of all systems of language” (p. 47). Phonological stimulation must begin as early as possible. Sensory stimulation through a multisensory approach of increased “auditory modeling and feedback, tactile stimulation of the articulators, visual feedback through clinician modeling, picture models of articulatory placement and the use of mirrors build cognitive connections to phonological awareness”  Pierettie, Kaul, Zarchy, & O’Hanion (2015) Adoption of multisensory approaches assists teachers in facilitating multiple avenues toward improved cognition and fully involve students to an improved learning experience.

    What does a multisensory approach to teach phonemic awareness look like in an early learning environment? Segmenting is a phonemic awareness task introduced later in the hierarchy of teaching phonemic awareness. Children learn segmenting of phonemes as they learn to identify and sort objects beginning with the same sound and later progress to focus on words with the same ending sound. An auditory task that teachers could incorporate besides saying a new vocabulary word through segmenting and blending might be to give directions using in a robot voice. Students could also make a bead slide, in which children use beads to move on a string to break the word into individual sounds as the teacher and children say the sound aloud. Teachers can use shoelaces and beads to complete this activity. This activity leverages both auditory and kinesthetic activities to assist with teaching segmentation. Games are a fun approach toward teaching the segmenting phonemic awareness task and can incorporate auditory, kinesthetic, and visual cues. For example, using “Elkonin boxes to tap a finger or place a chip in a designated box to match the number of syllables to a word” (Paulson, 2018). After a teacher models this activity, students can take turns saying and moving a chip or token. Over time the visual cue or box can eventually be eliminated from this activity.

    Strengthening cognition through multisensory approaches during early literacy will promote successful decoding when reading, which will allow for additional time and energy to be focused on reading comprehension (Pierettie, Kaul, Zarchy, & O’Hanion, 2015). Understanding how to leverage multisensory approaches to strengthen phonological awareness in early childhood programs can lead to an improved early intervention program. An emphasis on multisensory approaches within new teacher training could assist in building a stronger phonemic awareness early literacy program.

    Pieretti, R. A., Kaul, S. D., Zarchy, R. M., & O’Hanlon, L. M. (2015). Using a multimodal approach to facilitate articulation, phonemic awareness, and literacy in young children. Communication Disorders Quarterly, 36(3), 131-141.

    Birsh, J. R. & Carreker, S. Multisensory teaching of basic language skills (4th Ed). Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co.

    Farrell, M., White, N. C. (2018). Structured literacy instruction. In Birsh, J. R. & Carreker, S. Multisensory teaching of basic language skills (4th Ed). Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co.

    Paulson, L. H. (2018). Teaching phonemic awareness. In Birsh, J. R. & Carreker, S. Multisensory teaching of basic language skills (4th Ed). Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co.

     

     

  • Screeners to Assess Literacy Skills in Primary Grades

    Hess and Marzola (2018) shed light on the importance and benefits of administering screeners in early childhood as screeners can “predict future reading performance” or used to assist the early literacy teacher in flexible grouping and instructional design (p. 269). Screeners afford the opportunity to improve instruction through improved and targeted invention approaches offered early on in a child’s educational experience. These benefits provide numerous added value to preschool children’s academic success (Farver, Nalcmoto and  Lonigan, 2007) , but assessing each literacy skill set should be conducted in a “manner appropriate to the grade level of the child and evaluated for bias to ensure results do not stem from cultural and linguistic differences” (p. 269).

    What are the common focus skill sets for primary screeners? Hess and Mazola (2018) suggest focus skills should center on phonics, phonemic awareness, and listening processing skills  in kindergarten. Screeners measuring fluency and reading comprehension are not appropriate for this grade level. As a child moves into first grade, phonemic awareness and decoding skills monitoring should continue, with a focus placed on oral reading fluency and vocabulary as the child progresses. Reading comprehension can be measured toward the end of 1st grade. As a child moves into 2nd and 3rd grade, instructors should continue to closely monitor phonemic decoding, fluency, vocabulary, and reading compression (Hess and .Mazola, 2018). ELL children are at substantial risk of early academic reading problems and currently there is limited data on early identification and intervention for these children and a need for further research exploring primary ELL screeners, early language and literacy intervention approaches for ELL populations (Farver, Nakamoto, and Lonigan, 2007).

    Screening provides an early opportunity to meet the literacy needs of primary students. Through improved and early screening, targeted instruction can assist in making great academic gains early on, reducing the many negative consequences of delaying intervention. Improving training on the use of screeners along with an improved understanding on how to evaluate the quality of screening approaches can benefit schools and early childhood programs.

    Hess, L. & Marzola, E. (2018). Assessment of Reading Skills.  In Birsh, J. R. & Carreker, S. Multisensory teaching of basic language skills (4th Ed). Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co.

    Farver, J. M., Nakamoto, J., & Lonigan, C. J. (2007). Assessing preschoolers’ emergent literacy skills in English and Spanish with the Get Ready to Read! screening tool. Annals of Dyslexia, 57(2), 161–178. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11881-007-0007-9

  • Digital Libraries: A Critique

    via Digital Libraries: A Critique

  • Support Systems for Literacy Coaches

    Support Systems for Literacy Coaches

    literacypages's avatar

    Literacy coaching is very rewarding and also hard work. There will be days where you will feel on top of the world because you made a breakthrough with a particular teacher.  Then there will be other days where you feel so frustrated that you just want to go home and bury your head under your pillow.

    Coaches must have strong support systems in place to

    • celebrate successes with
    • lean on when things get tough
    • learn from to become a better coach

    Strong support systems can reenergize the coach so that she can be on top of her game.

    Who supports the coach?

    Your Principal

    Your building principal supports your work by conveying to the staff the expectation that all teachers can benefit from coaching no matter how experienced. Coaching is not just for new teachers or teachers with low data scores. Your principal can support your work by creating a culture of collaboration…

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  • 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.

    pexels-photo-278312.jpeg

     

    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.

  • The battle over technology in schools

    david the aussie's avatarDavid's Doctoral Research Space

    (Disclaimer, this post is more of a rant and less of an academic critique!) Every teacher has heard it hundreds of times – there’s this crazy rhetoric amongst school officials that “student to computer ratios” and “number of smart boards” are excellent metrics for evaluating how well a school has “incorporated” technology into the school environment. Yet, the reality inside classrooms is that the technology is rarely shared beyond ICT. English, math and science rarely use computers or labs. Smart boards are gathering dust in the corner of history classrooms. Teachers are too busy to rebuild their curriculum around technology and many are too afraid of technology to try and do more with it. Add to that the fact that technology breaks, becomes obsolete every two years and technical problems eat up valuable instruction time.

    So it’s no surprise the European Commission has concluded 63% of 9 year old students…

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