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All things digital literacy

PK-2

Jennifer Sweeting

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Objective:

At the conclusion of this presentation, the audience will be able to recognize the benefits of digital literacy in the classroom and how podcasts can enhance overall student learning.

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What is digital literacy?

The American Library Association defines digital literacy as “the ability to use information and communication technologies to find, evaluate, create, and communicate information, requiring both cognitive and technical skills.”

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Benefits of digital literacy

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  • Increases student engagement
  • Allows content to be expressed in ways that are interesting and exciting to students
  • Allows content to be expressed in multiple formats to boost student understanding and knowledge
  • Differentiation for all students
  • Grants students the opportunity to partake in the 4 C’s: creativity, communication, collaboration, and critical thinking
  • Teaches students how to properly use technology
  • Has the ability to lower achievement gaps
  • Portability and flexibility

Click for a visual of differentiation!

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Podcasts as a form of digital literacy in the classroom

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What are podcasts?

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“It’s a series of spoken, audio episodes, often focused on a particular topic or theme, like cycling or startups. You can subscribe to the show with an app on your phone and listen to episodes whenever you like on your headphones, in the car or through speakers.”

How do they work?

“Any particular Podcast will be themed around a particular topic, about which they talk every week – e.g. triathlon racing or dog training. Then, each episode of that podcast will talk about something specific within that topic - nutrition tips for taking part in a triathlon, or how to stop your dog fighting with other dogs.”

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ERIC ARTICLE 1: “Podcasting as a language teaching and learning tool” BY Fernando Rosell-Aguilar

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  • This article reflects on the past 15 years of utilizing podcasts as a language learning tool and as a learning tool in general.
  • When podcasts became popular, it was questionable if they could be used as a language learning tool or not. They also looked into how podcasts could be utilized for educational purposes.
  • They found that podcasts were convenient due to its easy format and portability.
  • Podcasts are outside of the traditional teaching methods and, therefore, make students more engaged and motivated to learn.
  • They discovered that language subjects would benefit most from podcasts. “ With podcasts, materials became free and easy to find, and also easy to play without the need for language laboratories or multiple devices.” Think about how technology translates a broad number of languages.
  • iTunesU Research Project: iTunesU was stated to be a “university in your pocket.” The author of this article conducted a survey study at UK’s Open University (OU). His survey consisted of three questions: “Who downloads podcasts from iTunes U? What do they do with the podcasts? And what do they think of them?”
  • They found that language learners are twice as likely to use podcasts as their primary source for learning.
  • Overall, this article concluded that podcasts are a great development for education.

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Go to Article

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“The main benefit is that podcasting in general, and iTunesU in particular, allows people to learn whatever they are interested in at their own pace, where they like, when they like. It is personalised learning in a way that has never been achieved before.”

A quote from Fernando Rosell-Aguilar

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Benefits of podcasts

  • Only requires auditory skills (for those who dislike speaking in front of others)
  • Allows for the 4 C’s
  • Builds listening and writing skills (scripting)
  • Unique/non-traditional form of instruction and learning
  • Transcripts available for ELL students
  • Can better teachers through mentoring

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Is podcasting possible in PK-2?

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How can podcasts be used in a PK-2 classroom environment?

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  1. Instructional purposes

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Podcasts can be used for whole-group instruction, small-group instruction, and for centers.

What about students that are absent and miss what the class learned that day? Instead of them falling behind, a teacher could send them to a “podcast center” and allow them to listen to a podcast on content learned the day before. Once finished with the podcast, they could fill out the sheet on the left for a quick assessment!

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How can podcasts be used in a PK-2 classroom environment?

2) A way to inform parents of what their children are currently doing in school

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Class podcast

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How can podcasts be used in a PK-2 classroom environment?

3) An assessment tool

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Having students create their own podcasts based on content material being taught can inform the teacher on each students’ level of understanding and who needs more assistance.

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How can podcasts be used in a PK-2 classroom environment?

Although this video is of a 5th grade classroom, you could easily apply this activity with developmentally appropriate content depending on the grade level!

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ERIC ARTICLE 2: “The Impact of Podcasts in Education” BY Thomas Goldman AT Santa Clara University

  • This article starts off by stating the convenience of podcasts because of their portability and flexibility.
  • Podcasts have a reputation of being just a form of entertainment.
  • In the classroom, podcasts can improve on several aspects in the classroom: “podcasts can improve teacher candidate readiness and preparation, podcasts can act as an innovative teaching resource for teachers to design new classroom activities, and podcasts provide various learning benefits upon students both inside and outside the classroom to aid in the learning process.”
  • Some opinions are that teachers are using podcasts to replace lectures. What do you think? It has also been suggested that podcasts have little-to-no impact on student learning gains and performance. The author is strongly against these opinions of podcasts in the classroom.
  • Podcasts “help bridge the conceptual distance between new and prior knowledge, better understand topics in lectures and stimulate thinking more deeply about the lecture’s content and the possible applications of the subjects of the lecture.”
  • The article also talks about the benefit of podcasts being universal and not just in first world countries.
  • Through the use of podcasts, students develop recording, editing, and publishing skills.
  • Podcasts allow for learning in a new way.

Go to Article

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“In an experimental trial, a teacher candidate preparation course created two groups of learners. One group of teacher candidates were given specific podcasts in addition to the course text, while the other group received text-only instruction. At the end of the teacher instruction course, both groups were tested on knowledge and application, and were also asked about motivation. The results revealed that the participants who had podcasts supplemented in their instruction scored significantly higher on the knowledge and application assessments and claimed to feel more motivated than those who received text-only training (Kennedy et al., 2016, p. 303).”

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“Both students and teachers benefit from this digital tool. If teachers are teaching with the most up to date textbooks, and students are learning the most up to date information, why should they not be using the most up to date technology?”

More from eric article 2:

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“How well it is used as a teaching tool has a direct effect on its ability and success as a

learning tool.”

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Quote by Thomas goldman

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Podcasts in all content areas

Science:

  • Reducing, reusing, and recycling in the environment
  • Weather reports
  • Natural disasters
  • Famous scientists

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Mathematics:

  • Addition and subtraction
  • Friends of ten
  • Measuring units
  • Telling time

English Language Arts:

  • Retell a story
  • Rhyming
  • Elements of a story
  • Parts of a book
  • Write and read poetry

Social Studies:

  • Describe leaders and their role in the community
  • Timeline of historical events
  • Explain needs and wants

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Additional Ideas

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Group activity

  • We are going to split into groups of four. Each group will have one participant play the role of the wolf and the other three will pick one of the pigs to act out.
  • Each group will work together to compose an interview. You will write out the questions you want to ask and the answers you want to give.
  • The wolf of each group will be the one asking the questions.
  • Think about:

Why did each pig not let the wolf in? (Personal response- what do you think?)

Why did each pig build their house the way they did? (What do you think?)

Read first!

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Resources:

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Resources:

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Credits

Special thanks to all the people who made and released these awesome resources for free:

  • Presentation template by SlidesCarnival
  • Photographs by Unsplash

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Presentation design

This presentations uses the following typographies and colors:

  • Titles: Amatic SC
  • Body copy: Merriweather

You can download the fonts on these pages:

https://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/amatic

https://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/merriweather

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  • Light gray #f5f6f7
  • Dark gray #95a5a6
  • Navy #2c3e50
  • Salmon #f55d4b

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You don’t need to keep this slide in your presentation. It’s only here to serve you as a design guide if you need to create new slides or download the fonts to edit the presentation in PowerPoint®

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