New+Literacy+Practice

﻿New Literacy Practice
The Smart Board/Interactive Whiteboard provided a very effective means of engaging students and encouraging them to be active learners and enthusiastic learners, often without even realising. ||
 *  ** Approaches ** ||  ** Evidence Examples **  ||  ** Analysis **  ||
 * The use on an Interactive White Board has shown that a classroom becomes more ‘interactive, increasing the motivation of students because they enjoy interacting physically with the board, text and images.’ (Hardman, Higgins & Smith, 2006, p.445) ||  ** Smart board Interactive Whiteboard ** || The first activity using the Smart Board allowed the students to use the illustration as an aid for words they were unsure of. For example they could see the pirates boots so they needed to look for the word that started with B.
 * Using the i-pod touch in the classroom means that ‘lessons are quicker and more fun, increasing the level of engagement because students are waiting in anticipation for what would appear next on screen.’ (Hardman, Higgins & Smith, 2006, p.445) ||  ** i-Pod Touches ** || In this lesson, the students had to play a memory game matching letters of the alphabet, and each time they finished a level, the degree of difficulty went up. The visual aids and sounds the iPod made helped the children remember not just where the letter was to match it but the sound it made. So they could distinguish what letter they had found and the difference between upper case and lower case. The activity helped the students by using prior knowledge to make new links in their memories so they can recognise letters not just visually but by sound too. By changing the way that information is absorbed, processed, and used technology influences how children read and write. According to Bransford et al (2000) when technology is used appropriately it can contribute to a child’s cognitive development by ‘allowing the teacher to create an environment in which students can learn by doing and help the student visualise difficult to understand concepts.’ This was clearly evident by the use of this technology in the classroom. ||
 * Programs such as ‘Talking Books,’ which are used on computers, has been shown to ‘lead to improvements in spatiality and letter recognition.’ (Hayes & Whitebread 2006, p.46) ‘Talking Books’ are also useful in improving children’s understanding of the stories by offering ‘access to the meaning of the stories and the way sentences work.’ (Hayes & Whitebread, 2006, p.46) ||  ** Talking Books ** || Students using the Talking Books programs were found to not only enjoy reading, but they also appeared to gain confidence in their reading abilities as the program can be catered to individual learning levels and abilities. The program is fun and interactive, and improved the children’s comprehension as the format of the program allowed the children to better understand the stories they were reading. ||