Reading and Writing Entry 2

Reading/Writing Blog

Entry 2

          According to Hicks, teachers of writing should consider the three main elements in the framework of a digital classroom; the students, the subject of writing, and the spaces in which the writing is done.  As a teacher, not only of literacy, but of other subjects as well, the thought of a digital classroom entices and excites me.  Unfortunately, my experience in the classroom consists of my days of observation and student teaching during my undergraduate years.  The prompt for this blog post asked us to think about our classrooms, keeping in mind the three elements mentioned above, and answer the following questions:  What was there already in place to begin a digital workshop and what else was needed in order to create a successful digital writing workshop?

          I am a business educator, teaching computer applications, accounting, economics, and a number of other business/computer related courses.  These courses and classrooms have more technology available within them than most other high school courses do.  During student teaching, I was charged with teaching the computer applications and accounting courses.  During my time at this particular high school, I taught a group of students that were computer savvy in certain regards but lacked the skills needed to navigate many computer application software programs, such as the Microsoft Office Suite programs including Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.  Looking back on this time, very little time was devoted to reading and writing in these courses.  Pew Internet and American Life Project (Lenhart et al. 2008) confirm most [teenagers] are more adept than their elders at particular digital skills like texting, blogging, uploading photos or videos, and using social networks such as Facebook—they do not necessarily possess the capacities that make them critical and creative digital writers (Hicks, 2009, pg. 127).

          The classrooms that I taught in contained certain elements that I believe made a good start to a digital writing workshop.  The rooms were equipped with computers loaded with word processing programs.  The room had comfortable chairs and tables for the children to work at.  Each student had their own computer and therefore their own writing space.  Besides the computers, there was a Smartboard in the room and a digital projector.  The students within these classrooms had chosen to take these classes as their high school electives; therefore, I believe that their motivation level was higher than the average student who was required to take the courses. 

          Even though these classrooms were well equipped technologically, there are other things that could be integrated within the courses that would aid in the development of a digital workshop.  As Warschauer (2006) argues, a combination of new mind-sets for teachers, administrators, students, parents, and other stakeholders must accompany substantive change in literacy practices enabled by technology.  Understanding when, why, and how to use different forms of media to convey a particular message requires a working knowledge of the mode—that is what an audience expects from a piece of writing in order to be moved to action—and how to effectively manipulate the media in which it is composed (Hicks, 2009, pg. 127).  This new mind-set that Warschauer refers to was lacking in this classroom.  Skills were taught with regards to manipulating software programs, but nothing new was done with this technology.  Students read the textbook for homework the night before, so when they came to class they were ready for a hands-on lecture on the reading, then they were asked to create a template using the skills they had just learned.  They were never asked to take those skills and create something meaningful for themselves. 

References

Hicks, T. (2009).  The digital writing workshop. 
     Portsmouth, NH:  Heinemann.