
In the fast evolving digital landscape, students are significant consumers of social media. They are using social media for a variety of purposes, however many schools do not consider social media an appropriate or useful educational platform. Why are students choosing digital spaces to make connections and build relationships all over the world? Are there literacy benefits in using social media? What do teachers think about the use and benefits (if any) of social media?
A US study by Crystal Beach from the University of Georgia, titled Evolving Classrooms: Unlocking Teachers’ Perceptions and How They Impact Digital Literacy Practices set out to ‘understand how teachers’ perceptions may impact how digital literacy practices are considered and used within their classrooms’ (p.7). In other words, the study aimed to understand how perceptions of literacy education are being affected by the literacy practices of teachers and students in and out of school contexts. In so doing, it attempted to answer the following questions:
This small study is set in critical theory tradition, guided by social, political, cultural, economic, ethnic, and gender values. An aim of critical theory is to critique and change society and not just to study and understand society (p.5). Set in this context, the author states that teachers need to take action to validate students’ practices rather than wait for the collective powers to decide on the usefulness of social media in terms of literacy (p.6).
The author conducted interviews with three public school teachers, an elementary, a middle, and a high school teacher and analysed the data in order to understand how their perceptions may impact their classrooms. The methodology was justified because it takes into account interview data and contextual information which was gathered through individual interviews (p.7).
The candidates were selected because of their varying years of teaching experience across a number of levels, the diversity of their student population, and their varying levels of access to technology (p.8). An overview of student demographics, teachers’ technology skills and unique definitions of digital literacy, access to tools and support for technology use within the school are provided. Analysis of collected data for each case enabled the author to make comparisons that would acknowledge differences while highlighting similarities (p.12). The author also acknowledges some weakness of the design and analysis approach pertaining to existing personal relationships with the participants and lack of research relating to participants’ school websites or personal websites (p.13).
Four themes emerged through data coding: ‘school support with digital literacy practices, school non-support with digital literacy practices, digital literacy practices within the classroom and ‘at risk’ labels within the classroom that impact digital literacy practices’ (p.15).
School support with digital literacy practices
Technology is being supported by school leaders, technology resources are provided and used. Reinforcing this view were comments expressed by the interviewees such as:
Digital literacy practices within the classroom
Teachers are using technology in order to engage students, encourage collaboration, and explore digital doings. Comments included:
‘At risk’ labels within the classroom
Teachers are limited in how they could use or provide access to digital literacy practices. Teacher comments included:
In short, grounded in critical theory, the study provides a detailed account of the research design and methodology while considering the positives and negatives of this approach. The three case studies described in this paper simply provide an insight into some teachers’ perception of digital literacy and help us understand how they view literacy education – however, no broad generalisations can be made about teacher perceptions and digital literacy. To advance digital literacy and value the literacy practices of students, Beach states more teachers’ voices need to be heard and particularly those working with diverse populations and with those students considered ‘at-risk’ as their needs are more pronounced and their access to digital tools is limited.
Perhaps the most compelling message of this study is that ‘if we don’t give teachers the support they need in order to value these new, digital literacy practices, then we are not valuing all that our students are bringing into the classroom today’ (p.23).
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