Robbie Zebleckis's List: Misinformation Debate

• Indeed, researchers have affirmed that computer technology provides abundant opportunities for students to build or modify their personal knowledge through the rich experiences that technology affords.
• Kinzer and Leu (1997) demonstrated positive effects of technology on both learning in a content area and learning to use technology itself. They studied the potential of multimedia and hypermedia technologies. One study, The Reporter Project, used multimedia technology to enhance sixth-grade students’ information gathering and writing skills. The Reporter Project was developed and tested in sixth-grade classrooms for two years and showed that students made statistically significant improvement in their recognition and use of elements such as main ideas, supporting details, and cause and effect relationships. Their writing was also more cohesive than their control-group peers who were taught using similar materials and sequences but without the use of technology.

• The authors reviewed 20 research studies related to using digital tools and learning environments on middle-school students in the following areas:

   
  • Strategy Use
   
  • Metacognition
   
  • Reading Motivation
   
  • Reading Engagement
   
  • Reading Comprehension
   

  They defined digital tools to include a wide range of media forms: images, video and audio clips, hypertext, hypermedia, and Web pages.
• Pearson et al. concluded that a wide range of digital tools enhance reading comprehension and vocabulary development by providing students access to word pronunciation, word meaning, contextual information, and comprehension scaffolds to guide an individual’s reading. Thus, a strong research base supports the conclusion that technology can enhance all aspects of literacy development.
• There is also a large body of research that supports the benefits of technology for language acquisition (O’Hara & Pritchard, 2006; Pritchard & O’Hara, 2005; Leu, 2005; Cummins, 2005; Zhao, 2005; Duran, 2005; Egbert, Chao, & Hanson-Smith, 1999; Pennington, 1996; Zhao, 2003). Numerous other studies demonstrate that students who learn in existing multimedia and/or hypertext environments show greater gains in areas of language development than students who learn in more traditional environments (Ayersman, 1996; Boone & Higgins, 1992; Charney, 1994; Martinez-Lage, 1997).

• In a review of studies that focused on technology’s impact on language acquisition, Zhao (2005) examined studies that researched the use of digital multimedia and language. Zhao concluded that technology can be used to enhance language acquisition in the following ways:

   
  • Enhancing access efficiency through digital multimedia. Multimedia presentations (video, images, sound, text) can create stronger memory links than text alone. In addition, digital technologies allow instant playbacks, which provide the learner with quick and easy access to different sections of instructional materials than when they are using a textbook.
   
  • Enhancing authenticity using video and the Internet. The Internet provides learners with access to authentic materials, like news and literature, while video can offer context-rich linguistic and culturally relevant materials to learners.
   
  • Enhancing comprehensibility through learner control and multimedia annotations. Video materials online can be enhanced with full captions, key-word captions, and speech slowdown, allowing the reader to more easily digest the information. Digital reading materials can be hyperlinked to different media, which students can choose to help their comprehension of the material.
   
  • Providing meaningful and authentic communication opportunities. Students can engage in authentic types of communication through e-mail, chat rooms, and other digital means. (p. 16)

4 more annotations...

• In 2009, some 97 percent of teachers had one or more computers located in the classroom every day, while 54 percent could bring computers into the classroom. Internet access was available for 93 percent of the computers located in the classroom every day and for 96 percent of the computers that could be brought into the classroom. The ratio of students to computers in the classroom every day was 5.3 to 1.

   Teachers reported that they or their students used computers in the classroom during instructional time often (40 percent) or sometimes (29 percent). Teachers reported that they or their students used computers in other locations in the school during instructional time often (29 percent) or sometimes (43 percent).

   Teachers reported having the following technology devices either available as needed or in the classroom every day: LCD (liquid crystal display) or DLP (digital light processing) projectors (36 and 48 percent, respectively), interactive whiteboards (28 and 23 percent, respectively), and digital cameras (64 and 14 percent, respectively). Of the teachers with the device available, the percentage that used it sometimes or often for instruction was 72 percent for LCD or DLP projectors, 57 percent for interactive whiteboards, and 49 percent for digital cameras.