Can a Google Extension Increase Student Success?: Using Google Read&Write to Support Readers

    As I am focusing on creating increased opportunities for students to build their digital literacy skills as a broad focus in this course, I wanted this first blog opportunity to have a related core idea. 

     For that reason, I’ve chosen to look into the ways that we can use assistive technology such as Google Read&Write to support struggling readers to find success in the classroom.

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     I should note that, as a staff, we are, of course, looking into reading/literacy programs that can help address reader needs through direct literacy instruction (such as UFli), but I wanted to focus on what we’re able to do for students who have not yet mastered their reading skills and are struggling across the board in other subject areas as a result. 

    

     The root of this issue tends to be that, unfortunately, we are not in a position to have enough resources to supply reading materials for each students’ level on all curricular topics (McGlynn and Kozlowski, 20). This then can impact student ability to demonstrate knowledge and understanding in curricular areas and ultimately results in reduced self esteem and a negative view towards school in general (Wyk and Louw, 246; Manzer,1). 

     Fortunately, this is where technology can help us. With a school district that already utilizes GSuite for students, a clear option here is encouraging students and teachers to try Google Read and Write for these kids. See the video below to explain how Google Read and Write can be used to support students in their literacy at school (and at home!).

 Essentially, Google Read and Write is a Google Chrome extension which allows students the opportunity to “access reading material and tasks that would otherwise be too difficult” (McGlynn and Kozlowski, 20). It can easily be downloaded through the Chrome webstore, and remains available thereafter any time that a student is logged into Google Chrome (McGlynn and Kozlowski, 20). 

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     There is both a free option which allows students to use basic functions of read and write (having text read aloud, and the option to translate texts into other languages) and a premium version for a fee (you can request a quote here for your school OR note that teachers also get free accounts to trial the premium) that includes a much longer list of features including many of those cited in the youtube video above and on the Chrome webstore page (McGlynn and Kozlowski, 20; Texthelp, "Free For Teachers: Read and Write."; Texthelp “Read&Write for Google Chrome™”; Texthelp, “Upgrade in Product”, “Using Read&Write to Support Every Pupil in Your Classroom”).

     Once installed, and its features are properly taught to students and staff, it becomes an invaluable tool in supporting and fostering reading culture in all students across all subject matter (McGlynn and Kozlowski, 20). 

     As librarians and educators, we “advocate for equitable access to educational technology, digital content and learning opportunities to meet the diverse needs of all students.” and “model for colleagues the identification, exploration, evaluation, curation and adoption of new digital resources and tools for learning” (ISTE). Given this, it seems natural to me that using tools like read and write to support student literacy, should be a part of our instruction and a part of creating digitally literate students.

     I recognize that this, in part, begins by providing effective exposure and professional development opportunities to teaching staff about that programming and so, I hope to use my digital literacy platform that I want to work on during this course and my collaborative opportunities as a TL to showcase tools such as google read and write to staff, students and ultimately our school learning community as a whole (Ratkovitch, 2). 

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Works Cited 

  Manzer, Kimberly. "Providing Support to Struggling Readers using Technology-Assisted Reading." Morning Watch (St.John's), vol. 41, no. 1-2, 10/01/2013, pp. 1. https://www.mun.ca/educ/faculty/mwatch/vol41/fall2013/kimManzer.pdf 

 McGlynn, Kaitlyn, and Janey Kozlowski. “Using Technology to Unlock Content for Students.” Science Scope, vol. 40, no. 6, 2017, pp. 20–23. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/26393788. Accessed 29 May 2023. 

International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE). "ISTE Standards: Educators." ISTE, www.iste.org/standards/iste-standards-for-teachers. Accessed 29 May 2023. 

Ratkovitch, Amanda. "The Impact of a Hybrid Professional Development on Teacher Instructional Strategies: A Study of the Integration of Google Read and Write to Improve Instructional Practices." Order No. 27548508 The University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee, 2019. United States -- Wisconsin: ProQuest. Web. 29 May 2023. 

Texthelp. "Free For Teachers: Read and Write." Texthelp, www.texthelp.com/products/free-for-teachers/read-and-write/ 

 Texthelp. "Read&Write for Google Chrome™." Chrome Web Store, 17 May 2023, chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/readwrite-for-google-chro/inoeonmfapjbbkmdafoankkfajkcphgd. 

 Texthelp. "Upgrade in Product." Texthelp, www.texthelp.com/products/read-and-write-education/upgrade-in-product/. 

"Using Read&Write to Support Every Pupil in Your Classroom." Youtube, uploaded by Texthelp, 8 Nov. 2016, www.youtube.com/watch?v=by48FATAyR4. van Wyk, Gerda, and Arno Louw. 

"Technology-Assisted Reading for Improving Reading Skills for Young South African Learners." Electronic Journal of e-Learning, vol. 6, no. 3, 2008, pp. 245.

Reading Assignment Part B: Reading Review Blog Post #2

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Below is my short-list of resources that I encountered and found the most valuable during my search. I've never created an annotated bibliography before, so this is my rough first attempt. As my understanding is that an annotated bibliography is meant to be generally objective about the source, I've included my own personal thoughts, rationales, and opinions about each source below the annotation!

Hopefully these are helpful!

• Approaches to Teaching Digital Literacy | Cultivating Digital Literacy

"Approaches to Teaching Digital Literacy | Cultivating Digital Literacy" Youtube, uploaded by Adobe for Education, 13 Dec, 2021. www.youtube.com/watch?v=svIcRFpOnxQ 

This video outlines what digital literacy is and different ways that it can be cultivated by educators, as told by different educators. It posits that digital literacy is “a way of thinking” that needs to be nurtured through exposure to technology in different contexts and experiences. While each teacher’s process is different, the general focus is on active learning opportunities for students coupled with collaborative opportunities. In these opportunities students are encouraged to create and make artifacts of learning. Additionally, there is a focus on explicit scaffolding for supporting student learning in Digital Literacy to ensure that students understand why and how to use different technologies for their purposes. 

My thoughts:

I enjoyed this resource as an opportunity to re-affirm some of my own personal thoughts about what digital literacy is and how we can support it in classrooms. I also found that the different approaches for how teachers are teaching digital literacy in their own classrooms was valuable for me to hear since we all know that there are certainly many ways to teach the same thing. Interestingly, I found that there were many foundational similarities, just that the path they took to reach those goals was different.

• BC’s Digital Literacy Framework

BC’s Digital Literacy Framework. Province of British Columbia, British Columbia, n.d. www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/education/kindergarten-to-grade-12/teach/teaching-tools/digital-literacy-framework.pdf 

This framework has been designed for classroom teacher usage in British Columbia for teachers who are instructing digital literacy concepts. It outlines the skills and knowledge that students need to have in order to be successful as 21st century learners from grades k-12 based upon six characteristics identified by “B.C. educational leaders”. The language used here provides teachers and students opportunities to see what skills and knowledge they should expect to learn and teach. . Additionally, the page that this document is found on, includes the ways in which digital literacy skills from the framework are linked to BC’s Core (or “Cross Curricular” Competencies) for grades k-12. 

My thoughts: 

I chose this resource because I believe that this is one of the key resources that my district has based our own digital literacy framework on. As I am hoping to work closely with my district's plan throughout this course, it made sense to revisit this resource and refresh my memory in places. Additionally, it served as a good reminder that the digital literacy skills we are working towards are embedded within the core competencies, and are therefore not an additional thing to teach necessarily, but a way to teach something that we should already be teaching!

• Classroom Guide: Integrating Digital Literacy into your classroom practice

Classroom Guide: Integrating Digital Literacy into your classroom practice. Media Smarts, Ottawa, Canada, 2018. 

mediasmarts.ca/sites/mediasmarts/files/guides/classroom_guide_digital_literacy.pdf. 

Designed as a guide to accompany a workshop for teachers, this document is a guide for how teachers can embed digital literacy content into their classroom practices. Along with describing the general skills and technology exposure you might expect students in different grades to have, it suggests ways to further their skills that will be developmentally appropriate for their ages. There are additional suggestions for ways that Digital Literacy learning can be integrated cross curricularly into things like language arts, social studies, health and more. 

Finally, tips are provided for teachers who are less confident in their own technology skills, classroom management while using technology, online identity, and more. The resource concludes with a variety of links to lesson plans for teaching digital literacy, a webography of further resources (based on the workshop that this is meant to be paired with- though they are also useful just as links to have regardless of the workshop), and an extremely useful list of resources that can be used by students to make media in classrooms (ie/ animation programs, audio editing programs, blogging platform options, video editing programs and more). 

My Thoughts:

This would be an excellent resource to use with teachers as they are beginning their digital literacy instruction journeys. I'd also be interested in seeing the accompanying workshop, though I've been unsuccessful at finding it so far. I think that the way this is laid out is incredibly user friendly, and gives just the right amount of information without creating overwhelm. The lists of resources are useful and a a great addition of information for when staff are ready to move into the actual teaching phase with students, and/or just for personal exploration and development if they are interested in learning new programming themselves. 

• Creating Access to   Digital Citizenship and  Media Literacy Education: A Legislative Solution to Support Digital Learning in Public Schools
  
  

“Creating Access to   Digital Citizenship and  Media Literacy Education: A Legislative Solution to Support Digital Learning in Public Schools” Common Sense Kids Action, 2017.  www.commonsensemedia.org/sites/default/files/featured-content/files/2017_dig-cit-white-paper_final.pdf 

This article outlines how schools in the United States have recognized the need for students to learn and be taught digital citizenship skills and media literacy skills. To that end, it describes how in 2016, Washington state “championed the nation’s first comprehensive digital citizenship and media literacy legislation”.It further includes 5 steps of recommendations for how the state intends to move forward in their promotion of instruction of digital citizenship and media skills, including school library’s roles in that teaching. Finally, it includes a glossary of terms and definitions for commonly used words/phrases related to digital literacy. 

My Thoughts:

I found this article to be interesting in that my district is currently using a newer digital literacy implementation plan and I found that there seemed to be a lot of parallels in the way that our district program is being implemented and supported vs how their plan is described (of course, we don’t have “legislation” but rather the BC Digital Framework also listed as a resource on this post).

• Developing Digital Literacies:  A framework for Professional Learning

Summey, Dustin C., and SAGE Knowledge Complete A-Z List. Developing Digital Literacies: A Framework for Professional Learning. Corwin, a Sage Company, Thousand Oaks, California, 2013, doi:10.4135/9781483387901.

Seemingly made for supporting anyone looking to support a school staff in forming digital literacy skills, Summey’s book provides an extensive look at Digital Literacies and a framework for how to best support teachers in developing their own digital literacy practices and their teachings of digital literacy. 

Items of particular interest include: ways to increase teacher engagement in digital literacy, how to best provide professional development opportunities to staff, different types of professional development that are effective, and how to create a needs assessment survey for staff. 
This resource is valuable to anyone looking to encourage staff to include digital literacy as a part of their classroom programming to enrich student learning.

My thoughts:

As this is the only "book" resource of the ones I've included on this list, it is certainly incredibly extensive. It covers far more topics than I had time to read within my few hours of searching and looking. However, in the sections that I did read, I found the information to be useful. For example, as a focus for me is finding out how to bring digital literacy to staff in accessible ways, the section on different types of professional development that could work, and the needs assessment survey suggestions were particularly helpful. While this would be a long read, I do think it is a valuable resource, and would be one worth potentially delving into further or having around as an extra reference for how to approach different situations in supporting teachers through digital literacy implementation.

Reading Assignment Part A: A Continuation of a Journey into Digital Literacy Exploration

     While I haven’t had the opportunity to work in a TL position yet, one of the items that I keep coming across in my courses for this diploma and in my own teaching is a need for Digital Literacy and the desire to support students and staff in becoming 21st century learners. In fact, it comes up on this blog a few times from past coursework...

The Canadian Library Association says that:

“Without an excellent school library functioning as a learning commons, students are severely disadvantaged. Students need to be working with the best technologies and resource collections available. They require expert instruction and guidance to become sophisticated users of information and ideas in our complex world. To meet their learning potential and participate fully as successful learners and contributors our students need learning opportunities and new environments deliberately designed to engage and inspire” ( 7).

And if that doesn't sound like it means we should consider using School Library Learning Commons programming to encourage and include digital literacy skills as an important part of learning that needs to be promoted and supported, by staff and the wider learning community, I don't know what does...

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Below is my brief story about how I ended up here and why I'm after digital literacy in my school as a hopeful one-day TL:

    For me, my introduction to the idea of digital literacy started a few years ago with a coincidence of circumstances and a text message from my then teaching partner, who also happened to be our wonderful VP at the time. 
    To begin, I should mention that our regular school TL had gone on a leave part way through the year. She was replaced by a lovely older librarian who came out of retirement to do the job. She was very sweet, but had no interest in technology or new district initiatives whatsoever, and was certainly out to run the library program in what we might consider a more “old fashioned” way. 
    I was sharing a grade 5 classroom with our vice principal; entirely oblivious to the ways of the school library learning commons, and digital literacy (and honestly just trying to keep my head afloat as a new-ish teacher), when one day our VP texted me and said something along the lines of “Hey, how would you feel about partnering with me for a tech initiative that the district is working on? We need an intermediate teacher from our school and I think you’d be great. Normally it would be TL and Intermediate teacher combo, but I think the two of us can do it”. I believe the phrase digital literacy may also have been mentioned. And, being a newer-to-the-school teacher with a bit of a “yes” attitude, I warned her that while I was no tech-guru, I’d be happy to be on board and help however I could. 
    So, to greatly shorten what would otherwise be a long story of me learning about a really interesting district-wide initiative to support Digital Literacy in schools, working with and learning from other district teacher librarians (Hi Darcy!), and making my first ever awkward (read: I am a nervous staff presenter) but hopeful presentations to staff during staff meetings… What essentially happened is that I realized how absolutely necessary Digital Literacy skills are for students (and staff!) and that they were just not happening at my school and are continuing to not really happen even now (for a variety of reasons).
At the time that I received that initial text message though, I had no idea that this would be a bit of a rabbit hole that I’d fall down that would actually ultimately lead me here to the path of teacher librarianship!!!

    As I’ve learned more about technology use in classrooms and digital literacy skills related to that, one of the most interesting components of the concept is that it is not meant to be taught in isolation from the curriculum. Instead, it is meant to be integrated into what teachers are already doing and it can be related to the core competencies that we are also already meant to be teaching (see the amazing work done by teacher librarians in my district to put together slides outlining connections to core competencies here - I should note that my only contribution to this presentation was simply editing a copy of it for school names, colour theme etc.).

    It isn’t meant to be a “one more thing to do” piece, but rather, a complement to the teaching and learning that is already occurring. 

    For me,  the wonders that I still have surrounding Digital Literacy Promotion at my specific school center around helping teachers get on board and get excited about this. As the student in this ted talk mentions (among other poignant things), kids instinctively know how to use devices when we put them in their hands, or are quick to figure it out (though, this does NOT make them digitally literate). Students love using technology. When I tell my class that we are headed to the computer lab, or that I’ve booked out our class set of iPads, I’m generally met with cheering. They love being responsible for caring for our tech carts of iPads and are always asking when its their turn to put away and plug in the iPads. These kids are in grade ⅔. They are eager to learn about how to best use tech. It is our job to give them those opportunities and ensure they grow the skills they will need to be successful and safe online citizens. 

    Adults, however, are not the same. Many of the staff I work with find that technology is outside of their comfort zone and isn’t something that they want to actively pursue as an addition to their teaching. This doesn't mean that they're unwilling, or in denial of its importance (unlike the meme below!) but rather that they're overwhelmed and unsure where to start.

And so, my wonder in many ways is about supporting staff and learning communities in their Digital Literacy journeys:

What programs, frameworks, teaching, and collaborative opportunities can we use to support Elementary classroom teachers and our learning communities in incorporating meaningful technology use and digital literacy skill instruction into their classrooms so that students remain engaged and excited while growing their Digital Literacy skills? 

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Keywords/ phrases that I might use while exploring this topic: 

• -digital literacy skills
• -digital literacy as related to success in other areas of learning
• -collaboration to support technology use in classrooms
• -collaboration to support digital literacy learning
• -what digital literacy can look like in elementary schools
• -providing professional development to teachers
• -promoting digital literacy with parents and students
• -programs for digital literacy skills
• -importance of digital literacy for learners
• -digital literacy as related to access to information and privacy concerns
• -Makerspaces and their connections to digital literacy and digital media creation/sharing or Digital Makerspaces as a means of digital literacy opportunity
• frameworks to support technology use in classrooms

I’m hoping that throughout this course, I can continue to grow my understanding of how and why I can and should promote digital literacy learning in my school with both staff, students, and the wider school community! 

Let me know if you have any ideas :) 

Works Cited

Canadian Library Association. (2014). Leading Learning:  Standards of Practice for School

Library Learning Commons in Canada.llsop.canadianschoollibraries.ca/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/llsop.pdf

"Digital Literacy Skills to Succeed in Learning and Beyond" Yimin Yang, TedxYouth@GrandviewHeights. Youtube, uploaded by TEDx Talks, 09 Sept. 2022, www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgEGbMPJcAo

Fidler, C., Kaercher, M., & McNee D. “Deep Cove Building Digital Literacy”. Google Slides, 12 April, 2021. docs.google.com/presentation/d/1hjM2PU7LvnbIOJYvVBh895SwG75YnOd8U14OTwsJxFA/edit?usp=sharing.