Kent Jarrell's List: Technology has not led to a decline in literacy skills

• Because American schoolchildren spend more time watching television than they do in school or play. The average child watches approximately thirty hours of television per week! The Los Angeles Times recently reported that 37% of children aged 9 - 11 have their own TV's, as compared to 49% of 12 -13 year-olds, and 54% of 14 - 15 year-olds.
• The purpose of media literacy is to empower young people to understand the mass media and how it works so that they can be in control of this important aspect of their own lives.

• Despite the lack of data showing that technology has a tremendous effect in the classroom, teachers have found that using technology may help address students' specific learning needs.
• "The only tool that has enough research behind it is plain, old word processing," MacArthur says. "Students with writing difficulties are able to produce a text that looks good, and they can go back and fix things without introducing new mistakes."
• The technology "builds those auditory and language skills" of students, allowing them, generally, to be more receptive to learning because typically 80 percent of the instructional day relies on auditory information, Egli says. "They're better able to make use of classroom instruction because they can understand the language of the instructor better," she explains.

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