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Articles That Are Worth The Read!

Sternberg, B., Kaplan, K., & Borck, J. (2007). Enhancing Adolescent Literacy Achievement through Integration of Technology in the Classroom. Reading Research Quarterly, 42(3), 416-420. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/20068306

This article focuses on the idea that technology is the essential key in helping the literacy achievement crisis as well as address parents, teachers and students on how technology can and should be implemented in literacy classrooms. Technology can help students enhance their literacy skills by providing excellent tools that will assist with vocabulary, spelling, grammar and sentence structure in English Language Arts classrooms. One excellent tool that is touched upon in this article is a word processor that will help students and their writing abilities. By implementing this technology tool the article showed that improvements were made with adolescent children and their efficiency, organization, accuracy and even thoughtful in their personal writings. The article also helps parents understand that this new technology that is being accessed during classtime can also be accessed in the students home to continue working on their literacy skill. There are plenty of at home websites, apps that provide the same internet based activities that the students are highly interested in and are eager to use. Apart from the student and parent aspects, this article shows that technology can also assist teachers in finding new ways to help improve literacy in the classroom, with online webinars and workshops, online literacy coaches and even online professional learning communities. These provide great feedback for teachers through collaboration worldwide in helping them make their literacy classrooms both exciting and engaging for their students. 

Lai, S., Chang, T., & Ye, R. (2006). Computer Usage and Reading in Elementary Schools: A Cross-Cultural Study. Journal of Educational Computing Research,34(1), 47-66. doi:10.2190/95bg-4xdr-mjwd-kara

This article discussed the differences between fifteen countries and the implementation of computers into reading classrooms. The results were highly surprising and showed that the United States and Israel showed the most usage of technology in the classroom compared to other countries such as Turkey, Hong Kong and Russia. Their use of technology in literacy classrooms showed a high use of reading, writing and communicating with their peers as well as others. This use of technology helped students and their developmental reading skills with various strategies that were adopted from the other students they collaborated with online. Not only did their skills increase but these studies showed that the countries that had the availability to use technology in the classrooms increased the students reading interests through the use of differentiated instruction, and softwares on the computers that satisfied the eyes of the students. Apart from this, the computers were used on a weekly basis for gathering information to help their writing skills and showed a big improvement on the students writing. Overall, this article shows a great comparison to schools who do not implement technology with literacy and the countries that do and how they benefit from the use of computers for both reading and writing skills through various softwares, games and operations. 

Doering, A., & Beach, R. (2002, September). Preservice English teachers acquiring literacy practices through technology tools. Language, Learning & Technology, 6(3), 127. Retrieved from http://libproxy.library.unt.edu:2309/apps/doc/A91579596/LitRC?u=txshracd2679&sid=LitRC&xid=8ef293b5

This article focuses on the use of technology with literacy skills in the form of a multi-genre writing project. This project set an example of how students can gain new literacy skills through various online tools. The results of this study showed that the students showed improvement levels of 88% with the help of online discussion boards that assisted them in mastering core literary concepts and topics. Applying the writing project entirely online provided these students with an alternative way to process the texts that were assigned within the class by the teacher. These levels of achievement were produced with the use of teaching these literacy concepts through online computer games and activities that ultimately showed an increase in the students engagement levels, participation and community learning. Having the lessons being approached in a new way increased the students excitement about learning which then resulted in their eagerness and desire to learn even more. Another literacy practice that showed increased levels of comprehension and performance consisted of the students imposing their own questions in collaboration with their peers as well as inquiry based exploration of key social and academic issues. Overall, this article showed various amounts of improvements from the students partaking in the writing project study with their literacy skills.

Yang, Y. C., & Wu, W. I. (2012). Digital storytelling for enhancing student academic achievement, critical thinking, and learning motivation: A year-long experimental study. Computers & Education,59(2), 339-352. doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2011.12.012

This article is very informative on the use of Digital storytelling within classrooms to enhance literacy. Through this year long study that was conducted, the article showed results of students becoming more invested in their learning due to the high levels of interest and collaboration with their peers. The use of digital story telling showed English achievement with English Language Learners as well as an increase in critical thinking scores and questionnaire responses in learning motivation. A major impact in the students understanding of core course content and applying it to real world experiences. Overall, this article is a wonderful read regarding the various positives that digital story telling can accomplish when implemented into English Language Arts correctly. Students using technology to explore literacy in their own way can help increase their english skills with vocabulary, reading, writing as well as interpretation and imagination. One result that came from the article showed that digital story telling allowed the students to explore their work and increase their responsibilities and self efficiency in recognizing the task values. 

Beach, R. (2012). Uses of digital tools and literacies in the english language arts classroom. Research in the Schools, 19(1), 45-59. Retrieved from https://libproxy.library.unt.edu/login?url=https://libproxy.library.unt.edu:2165/docview/1284529081?accountid=7113

This article is about implementing digital tools for literacy in English Language Arts classrooms and how teachers can use them to introduce new concepts into their classrooms. Digital tools allows the students in the classroom to not only collaborate with their own classmates but can also collaborate worldwide with other students their age through feedback, gaming and online portfolios. Taking a closer look at how these digital tools can enhance the students literacy, the teacher can then use information from other professionals around the world and how they approach their literacy teachings. One of the examples from the article includes students constructing online novels which then showed an increase of the students engagement. This article also shows that the study presented findings of more interest in the students sharing their own ideas as well as adopting others perspectives on those ideas. 

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