Teaching Digital Literacy to adult EAL learners By

Teaching Digital Literacy to adult EAL learners By Manalini Kane (Lini) Tribhashi Consultant

“Do not keep learners to their studies by compulsion, but by play. ” A famous quote from Plato, (The great Greek philosopher from 427 -347 BCE)

This workshop is going to focus on the teaching of literacy skills integrating digital literacy, especially with the effective use of i. Pads and valuable Apps.

• i. Pads Touch technology Portability Accessibility & Light weight device

Not to replace F 2 F Teaching but they simply drive change when used carefully and thoughtfully, offering a wide range of Apps.

Adults find unlearning difficult especially when they have used desktops or laptops that do not offer touch technology.

The following approach seem to work well: 1 direct instruction with modeling, 2 teacher’s thinking aloud, 3 guided and independent practice, offers us a way to differentiate instruction and ensure that all students are effectively working on literacy concepts targeted to their individual instructional level’. (Northrop L. & Killeen, E. 2013). students are effectively working on

i. Pad Not an add-on skill but to be integrated in the T/L of EAL

Presenting from my personal and professional experience. Two models to develop cognitive skills are as follows:

A holistic conceptual model presented by Eshet (2012) after longitudinal study ‘A survival skill of 21 st Century’ Presented the following six cognitive digital skills

1 Photo visual skills 2 Reproduction skills 3 Branching skills (hypermedia embeds hyperlinks) 4 Information skills (Imp to develop critical thinking to help them identify false, irrelevant, misleading or biased information)

5 Socio emotional skill (net etiquettes, what to share, what not to share, safety, security & privacy in Cyberspace is very important and required)

6 Real time thinking skills (gadgets in this digital era provide information in real time at high speed. Time bound responses force to think on feet, so it’s a good idea to include language related games. It promotes learning from one’s own mistakes)

The results of Eshet’s research the younger participants performed better than the older ones with photo-visual and branching literacy tasks whereas, the older participants performed better in the reproduction and information literacy tasks. Hence, we need to understand the strengths and weaknesses of the age group of the learners in a classroom and provide tasks that can develop and enhance our learners’ digital literacy skills.

SAMR Model by Dr Ruben Puentedura (2010) Substitution (Printed books to ibooks, Pages on i. Pad) Augmentation (‘Teacher. Kit’ to replace Chronicle- student behavior, seating plan or online assessment of formal or informal learning activities, makes report writing a child’s play. ) Costs- $. 3. 99 per month or $39. 99 per year

Modification (To redesign tasks, set up a Whats. App group with our learners and provide a very short text, video clip or a photo encouraging response from every learner that may include picture, photo, audio, video, or text).

Redefinition Encourages ours as well as learners’ creativity’ (Try ‘See. Touch. Learn’ – helps us creating mini lessons using images, text, voice recordings and so on to make highly tailored and interesting learning content- (Cost involved) <https: //www. youtube. com/watch? v=ZQTx 2 UQQ vb. U>

The following wheel was originally discovered on Paul Hopkin’s education consultancy site <mmiweb. org. uk>, adopted by Allan Carrington at the University of Adelaide and further modified for teachers at New Zeeland Public Schools in 2014. It explains in detail both SAMR model and Bloom's Digital Taxonomy that can help us better integrate technology with the use of i. Pads.

Figure 1

Figure 2

Function 1 From voice to text 2 From text to voice App 3 Scanning and sharing documents 4 Navigation with audio visual information 5 To voice record and share 6 Free messaging or video calls for social networking (including international calls) Scannable Dragon dictation Aloud Google maps and Compass Voice memo Viber, Facetime, Google hangout or Skype

Function App Online video conferencing Zoom (Start or join a 50 person meeting with crystal-clear, face-to-face video, high quality screen sharing, and instant messaging)

Function App Grammar games Grammar up (with intermediate and advance level too) To read, write and think Trading cards Timeline Venn diagram For vocab extension and confusing words Wordwit

Function App Word search game Wordmania Learn and create poems Acrostic Word game Missing word Word puzzle game Missing link

Function App Interactive, recordable Educreations whiteboard that applies to Bloom’s Taxonomy For promoting active Phrasal verb machine learning about phrases (British) Social networking Tweetbot Guess a word Hangman

Function App Select articles from various newspapers NPR news Presentations on the go… Prezi (Lite version)and Flowvella Mind mapping Simple. Mind+ Create or use flashcards for interactive learning Quizlet

Function App Selecting the right words in context Sentence Hero Words with difference Sight Words SB Brain teasing Word Abacus Form words Letterpress Connect letters Word Connect Form words with the Classic words allocated letters

Function App

Challenges Access issue-Allow access after class within the organization with the institutional log in and log out facility. Pacing instructions- Try for a bilingual volunteer from upper level class or within the community, for one-on-one assistance, as & when required.

A risk can be that a student may walk away with an i. Pad. It’s a good idea to mark every i. Pad with its identifying number before handing out. You may ask students to sign in and sign out for an allocated i. Pad in the classroom.

Printing or keyboard? i. Pads now provide printing facility and a keyboard for word processing as well. However, every task that students perform can be saved and e-mailed to the teacher/trainer for paperless record of students’ progress and achievements.

A small screen as a constraint Using it only for an hour at a stretch with zooming-in facility and retina display can help solve this problem. In addition, the i. Pad Pro with 12. 9 inch is available now.

The benefits of the effective use of i. Pads outweigh the above mentioned challenges. Therefore, why not try and test some Apps for yourself by assessing the educational value, ability to engage, user friendliness and learners’ progressive abilities to proceed with minimal assistance for collaborative learning?

There are many Apps on Android (open source) as well, that are almost as versatile as i. Pads and may be cheaper than the i. Pads. But educators like me prefer to use Mac for the safety and security that boosts our confidence in the day-today use of an i. Pad.

References Eshet Y. (2012). Thinking in the digital era: a revised model for digital literacy. Issues in Informing Science & Information Technology. 9(10): 267 -277 Knowles, M. S. (1980). The modern practice of adult education: From pedagogy to andragogy (Revised and updated ed. ). Chicago: Follett Publishing Company. Lynda. com, distributor. (2015). IPads in Education: Deploying Shared i. Pads. (Video of Sean Colins’ tips) Mezirow, J. (1997). Transformative Learning: Theory to Practice. New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education, 74, 5– 12.

Figure 1 Retrieved from. <http: //www. educatorstechnology. com/20 /14/03 a-new-fantastic-bloomstaxonomywheel. html> Figure 2 Retrieved from Doug Loader <http: //isupport. com. au/education/bloomssamr-the-3 -cs-2/> ****