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Using this Make Cycle to support our process, we started by collecting and analyzing mentor texts that inspired us. Then we used these analysis to inform our composition process. And as we composed we worked to document our process and create maker logs to keep track of what we were doing and why. We shared these mentor text analysis and maker logs with each other along with our compositions; we asked for the feedback we needed using a range of protocols and the made revisions or remixes as we chose to depending on our intended purpose and audience.

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Make Cycle Walk-Through, Digital Writing and Multimodal Composing, Spring 2022

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This highlights Jason Reynolds' "For Every One" as a mentor text and inspiration for making an aural composition.

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Quarantine Soundscape Mentor Text  Analysis by Amy Nelson

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Quarantine Soundscape Mentor Text  Analysis by Amy Nelson

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Amy Nelson's Mentor Text, Aural Composition Spring 2022

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An aural story composed from the WhatsApp messages of expats living in Spain.

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https://lkmultimediaportfolio.weebly.com/zine.html

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A Podcast Created for Class - Creating a Habit: The Grocery Store Edition

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A Podcast Created for Class - Creating a Habit: The Grocery Store Edition

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I created this podcast as an attempt at a "primarily aural composition." Although I had never before attempted to create a podcast, I found it very easy to do using Anchor. I have created a "How To" Loom showing my process. It can be found in the "Blogs and Resources" column of this Padlet. I would not hesitate to have students create a podcast in this manner. It would teach students to compose using scripting, compositional skills, interview skills, a real audience, digital editing, and layering techniques for effect. It was a great project that was immediately available to be produced and shared with both public and private audiences.

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Kristen attempts to create a new habit by implementing simple steps that are simple and attainable.

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View of Reimagining a Writer's Process Through Digital Storytelling

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Return to Article Details Reimagining a Writer's Process Through Digital Storytelling

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A Practical Guide to Open Portfolios by Maker Education

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A Practical Guide to Open Portfolios by Maker Education

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Maker Ed's Open Portfolio Project is delighted to offer its full Research Brief Series, which includes Research Brief Series (Phase 1), capturing the findings of its research from 2013 to 2015, and Research Brief Series (Phase 2), which covers the second phase of work from 2015 to 2017.

In addition, Maker Ed's Practical Guide to Open Portfolios distills some of the best practices for documentation and portfolio creation uncovered in 4+ years of work in the field.
Open Portfolio Project Research Brief Series (Phase 2)
Our newest Research Brief Series, published in early 2018, takes a deep look into the motivations, implications, and practices necessary to situate open portfolios as a means of assessment in maker-centered learning environments. The findings and briefs also draw on our analysis in the first phase of work, continuing to reveal the many facets of portfolio implementation and assessment.

Below, the Research Briefs (10 through 17) are organized in chronological order, including the full Phase 2 series in a single compilation. Click to read!
A Practical Guide to Open Portfolios
Our Practical Guide draws from the research findings of both phases 1 and 2 and distills the information into a guide that aims to assist educators and practitioners in getting started - and digging deeper - with portfolios. Throughout our work, key themes have emerged that indicate the challenges and barriers - as well as the insights and successes! - to implementation of portfolios in a thoughtful and thorough way. This guide addresses those areas with suggestions and prompts that help orient thinking and planning. In addition, it includes a more detailed look into the practical tools and tips that we've seen at field sites around the country and concludes with a description of the many workshops we've held with educators and practitioners, in hopes that you bring this back to your classroom or informal setting yourself. Click on the image to access the full online guide!Printed copies are available for purchase as well.

In addition, we developed a one-page overview - Open Portfolios: Journey Map - to help situate and get started!
Open Portfolio Project Research Brief Series (Phase 1)
The research briefs arise from the first phase of the project from 2013 to 2015 and are drawn from findings related to all stages of research, including the literature review, a maker site survey, field site visits (highlighted in our blog series), and National Working Group meetings. They survey the collected data as well as outline emerging themes in the field.

Below, they are organized in the order in which they are released, from left to right, approximately aligning with the different stages of work. The full series of briefs, compiled into a single compilation, is also included below. Printed copies are available for purchase as well.

Suggested citations:

Peppler, K., Keune, A., & Chang, S. (2018). Open Portfolio Project, Phase 2: Research Brief Series. Retrieved from http:// makered.org/opp/publications/

Chang, S., Mohammadi, G., & Regalla, L. (2016). A Practical Guide to Open Portfolios. Retrieved from http://mak ered.org/opp/publications/

Chang, S., Keune, A., Peppler, K., Maltese, A., McKay, C., & Regalla, L. (2015). Open Portfolio Project, Phase 1: Research Brief Series. Retrieved from http://makered.org/opp/publications/

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Maker Ed's Open Portfolio Project is delighted to offer its full Research Brief Series, which includes Research Brief Series (Phase 1), capturing the findings of its research from 2013 to 2015, and Research Brief Series (Phase 2), which covers the second phase of work from 2015 to 2017.

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Vowel Constraint Writing with 1st Graders

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Vowel Constraint Writing with 1st Graders

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Make cycle project on using writing constraints based off the books Eunoia and Ella Minnow Pea.  This make cycle project has brought excitement and intrinsic motivation into our writing studio.  This is the revised version with a list of additional short u word ideas.

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This is an analysis of a Tiktok trend within the Booktok community used as a mentor text for a social composition.

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This mentor text analysis takes readers through the thinking process I used to create through a make cycle. I researched several blackout poems to inform my making to create a blackout poem. I examined the mentor texts as a reader, and a writer, and then I planned the moves that would create a remix using blackout poetry. Finally, I asked for feedback from my learning community to ensure that I considered my audience as a part of my creative process.

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This is a mentor text analysis of a 2-3 Zone Defense, which is a common defensive basketball play. Sports plays are visual compositions and important informational texts.

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A powerful, rich presentation tool that wows!

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Open Canvas

Create, organize, and move freely on an open canvas. Create seamless presentations without the restrictions of linear slides.

Ready-made asset libraries

Choose from millions of images, stickers, GIFs, and icons from Unsplash and Giphy.

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Presentations and videos with engaging visuals for hybrid teams | Prezi Present

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Welcome to Prezi, the presentation software that uses motion, zoom, and spatial relationships to bring your ideas to life and make you a great presenter.

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Tutorial:  How to Create Animated Videos with PowerPoint

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Tutorial:  How to Create Animated Videos with PowerPoint

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Great guide that I have shared with classmates in other courses and with individuals outside of the university.

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How To Create Animated Videos With PowerPoint | Beginners Guide

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Field Guide for Equitable Media Literacy Practice

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Field Guide for Equitable Media Literacy Practice

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This interactive guide is intended to help teachers explore how they can make sure that their teaching practices are inclusive and equitable.

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Mapping Impactful Media Literacy Practices

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Initial support for the research project is made possible through the National Association for Media Literacy Education and Facebook. To ensure the independence and integrity of this research effort, NAMLE maintains full authority regarding project strategy, budget, personnel decisions, or research…

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This book was one of the first resources introduced to us in this class. It was inspiring and lead me to think of my writing classroom as a writing studio. My struggling students come to make and create writing. Designing my intervention classes with this book in mind has created a safe space for making writing for my students. I have shared this resource with colleagues at my school and they too have found it very valuable.

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Make Writing: 5 Teaching Strategies That Turn Writer’s Workshop Into a Maker Space (Hack Learning Series)

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Buy Make Writing: 5 Teaching Strategies That Turn Writer’s Workshop Into a Maker Space (Hack Learning Series): Read Kindle Store Reviews - Amazon.com

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How do we analyze student's digital and multimodal pieces? by Amanda Kling Dickson

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How do we analyze student's digital and multimodal pieces? by Amanda Kling Dickson

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When students write digitally or using multiple modes, standard rubrics just don't cut it. How, then, do we assess this type of writing? In this Canva, I explore how to use and apply the framework discussed in this article when looking at real-life student writing.

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Multimodal and Digital Writing: Student Samples Putting it into Practice  

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Multimodal and Digital Writing: Student Samples Putting it into Practice  

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Based on feedback received from our class I created lessons around writing constraints and and multimodal forms of writing like comic books. By giving the students choice and purpose for their writing they were motivated to come to class and get to making their writing each day. There was cross grade level work taking place which also motivated the writer as well as the reader. The students as writers were also writers as teachers and readers.

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Student Work Samples Multimodal and Digital Writing (1)

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Social Composition: Joining the Book Community on Tiktok 

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Social Composition: Joining the Book Community on Tiktok 

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Here is my Tiktok page which is a social composition. On this page, I connect with others within the book community and we discuss our latest reads.

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Stef (@coffeebreakreads) TikTok | Watch Stef's Newest TikTok Videos

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Stef (@coffeebreakreads) on TikTok | 15.8K Likes. 721 Fans. CR: Things We Never Got Over 🎧 The Final Revival of Opal and Nev

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Here is a "How to Organize Your Google Drive" Screencastify video. Feel free to use this as a model for your own students. My students followed these instructions this year and thought the video was clear and helpful!

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REMIX: How to Organize Your Google Drive.webm

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Tutorial: How to use the Immersive Reader in Buncee

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Tutorial: How to use the Immersive Reader in Buncee

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Buncee's Immersive Reader makes it a useful tool for students with learning differences or for whom English is a second language.

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A wide range of writing prompts with mentor text examples from published writers worldwide. The project was started during the pandemic in 2020.

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Each week we send out a journaling prompt from some of the world's most renowned writers, celebrated artists, inspiring community leaders and unsung heroes. The Isolation Journals began during the coronavirus pandemic, and from our community of 100,000 participants, we have built a living archive of human creativity to document an unforgettable era. We believe in the power of creative expression to edify, heal, and unite.

It's free and all are welcome.

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Artistic Growth | Creativity During COVID | Reflecting on the Pandemic | Creative Meditation | The Isolation Journals

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Each week we send out a journaling prompt from some of the world's most renowned writers, celebrated artists, inspiring community leaders and unsung heroes. The Isolation Journals began during the coronavirus pandemic, and from our community of 100,000 participants, we have built a living archive of human creativity to document an unforgettable era.

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Putting Students in the Driver Seat of their Writing Journeys

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Putting Students in the Driver Seat of their Writing Journeys

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This blog serves as a reminder to teachers the value of giving students choice and some control over their learning. It includes important considerations about students' individual learning journeys and reiterates the importance of teachers being guides for students.

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https://www.instagram.com/globalwritersunite/

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Black Male Student-Athletes, Multiliteracies, and Multimodal Composition 

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Black Male Student-Athletes, Multiliteracies, and Multimodal Composition 

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https://medium.com/@globalwritersunite/black-male-student-athletes-multiliteracies-and-multimodal-composition-1b8bc716a1d6

English teachers and professors can lead a national movement in education to ameliorate the academic achievement of Black male student-athletes through actively engaging them with multiliteracies and multimodal composition. Given that English classrooms throughout the educational pipeline have the most flexibility about what content is learned, English teachers and professors can substantively incorporate multiliteracies and multimodal composition into their instruction to supply these student-athletes with opportunities to activate their prior knowledge from their sports and lived experiences.

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Revised Visual Composition From Feedback Archie's Life 

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Revised Visual Composition From Feedback Archie's Life 

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This is the visual composition made out of colored dots that tell the story of my grandparents or rather the love of life that my grandfather had on this earth for his 99 years of life.  It was revised according to feedback to let the music of their song play with no voice over while reading the quotes from my father's words.

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"Banned Books" An animated digital poster 

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"Banned Books" An animated digital poster 

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This composition is an example of how writers can use digital tools to explore rhetoric surrounding a controversial topic.

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"Banned Books": An animated digital poster

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This animated poster explores book banning.

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"Keep The Memory of George Floyd Alive in Your ELA Classroom" by Antonio Maurice Daniels

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"Keep The Memory of George Floyd Alive in Your ELA Classroom" by Antonio Maurice Daniels

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This aural composition by Antonio Maurice Daniels advocates for ELA teachers to give students opportunities to increase their racial literacy by investigating the murder of George Floyd and racial, social, economic, and educational issues related to his life and murder.

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A Multimodal Teacher Resource: Spine Poetry

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A Multimodal Teacher Resource: Spine Poetry

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This is an example of a multimodal resource teachers can create to engage students in writing found poetry from concrete to digital sources. Students are invited to view links, create poems, and share their work using digital tools like Jamboard.

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This visual composition shows how a basketball play can be a powerful way to engage student-athletes. Sports plays are visual compositions.

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An exploration in using traditional materials to create and remix a piece of writing. (Close up pictures of poem/pages to follow).

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Engaging ESL Students through Multimodal Compositions

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Engaging ESL Students through Multimodal Compositions

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https://medium.com/@k_eshleman/engaging-esl-students-through-multimodal-compositions-4f1cb35dc97e

In this blog post I explore possible ways to engage digitally with students for whom English is their second language.

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"Teaching about social justice and the power of the written word." An excellent book full of ideas on how to teach writing through a lens of social justice and have your students' voices be heard through original work.

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Reading, Writing, and Rising Up: Teaching About Social Justice and the Power of the Written Word

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Amazon - Reading, Writing, and Rising Up: Teaching About Social Justice and the Power of the Written Word: Linda Christensen: 9780942961690: Books

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Racial Trauma Should Matter in Your Classroom 

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Racial Trauma Should Matter in Your Classroom 

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https://medium.com/@globalwritersunite/racial-trauma-should-matter-in-your-classroom-39328c4e1ed1

Let your classroom be a space for healing through reading, making, writing, and sharing.

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Buncee is a creation site that allows educators to create and share compositions such as e-books. It includes an immersive reader that is beneficial for students with learning differences or for students for whom English is a second language. We have included a tutorial for using the immersive reader in the section of this Padlet entitled "Our Blogs and Resources."

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Buncee’s interactive, drag and drop interface helps students, educators and administrators create engaging multimedia projects and presentations to increase interactivity and flip the classroom.

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Loom is a useful tool for creating and sharing videos of your screen. It is helpful for instruction and creating "how to" videos for students.

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Use Loom to record quick videos of your screen and cam. Explain anything clearly and easily - and skip the meeting. An essential tool for hybrid workplaces.

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Anchor is an easy tool to use for creating and sharing podcasts. You may sample a podcast created for this class under the "Our Compositions" tab and a tutorial for using Anchor under the "Our Blogs and Resources" tab in this Padlet.

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Unlimited hosting,
streamlined distribution

Free, unlimited hosting

You own the rights to all of your content and can host unlimited episodes for free, always.

Distribution to all major listening apps

Reach a wider audience quickly and easily, including one-step distribution to Spotify.

Insightful and clear analytics from Spotify

Get paid to podcast

Podcast Subscriptions

The easiest way for creators to offer exclusive content. Creator-friendly features include a wide range of subscription pricing structures and the ability to email subscribers directly.

Ads, read by you

Earn money every time people listen. With Ads by Anchor, record audio ads in your own voice or insert sponsor-read ads, and choose where they go in your episodes.

Convenient creation tools

Exclusive Spotify music integration

Add any full tracks from Spotify to your episodes, and combine music and conversation to explore the full possibilities of audio.

Cover art creator

Generate custom cover art in seconds, using images and fonts to help ensure your podcast has an eye-catching cover.

For everyone, everywhere, for free

We believe everyone's stories can and should be heard, so we're giving creators around the world-from first-time podcasters to pros-a powerful platform to share their voices.

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You own the rights to all of your content and can host unlimited episodes for free, always. Reach a wider audience quickly and easily, including one-step distribution to Spotify. Insightful and clear analytics from Spotify The easiest way for creators to offer exclusive content.

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Digital Literacies and the Inclusive Classroom

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Digital Literacies and the Inclusive Classroom

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This is a blog post on using digital writing in the classroom as a tool for inclusivity. It was published in the EdTech Talks publication.

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Freepik

Close your eyes and picture the ideal classroom.

Are the students diverse? Are they silently writing structured five paragraph essays or are they using 21st century skills to demonstrate learning? How is their teacher supporting their academic and pastoral needs? Are they collaborating? Are they creating? Are they connecting to their peers and the larger community? Are they gaining skills they can carry with them throughout their academic and personal journeys?

An inclusive classroom needs more than a single unit on Black authors during the month of february. It needs more than a rainbow or trans flag hung on the walls. An inclusive classroom does more than introduce students to other people, cultures, abilities, etc. that differ from their own -it pushes students to actively learn, get involved, and interact with topics that are relevant to them. Digital literacies are the key to engaging students and fostering academic learning

Our classrooms are made up of diverse students who come to us with various backgrounds. They come to us with learning disabilities. With different skin colors. With beliefs and customs and family values. They come to us with trauma, with questions, with needs, with secrets and with the desire to find their individuality.

A culturally responsive teacher not only recognizes all of these factors, but actively seeks to support each and every student. And they must do this while checking their own internalized bias about what other people can and can't do, how they learn, how they communicate, etc.

The article, "Exploring Digital Literacy Practices in an Inclusive Classroom," addresses how teachers can use digital literacy tools to support the requirements of all students. The authors explain how educators should be, "constructing learning experiences based on the fluctuating needs of students that attend to the social, political, and economic realities of being labeled as special education, bilingual, at‐risk, struggling, or below grade level." Inclusivity supports students who have Autism to share their experiences with their classmates. It actively challenges curriculum that leaves out Black girls. It works with support teachers to ensure that students with learning disabilities aren't pulled out of the classroom while everyone else is working with digital tools.

In order to bring in cultural relevance and media literacy, teachers must foster a community within their classroom. This means the sharing and celebrating of differences. Students not only share with their classmates, but post questions and publish work that reaches out to the larger community. Students must know that all their voices and interests matter.

" Exploring Digital Literacy Practices in an Inclusive Classroom" portrays a teacher who has set up this type of community amongst her students. In her class, "everyone counts on each other to raise questions, provide resources, and share information that contributes to the learning and development of the whole community." They create podcasts using Garageband, digital comic strips portraying what it's like to be unique, social change projects, and more.

In this community, students can take responsibility as "experts" in given fields. Some students are savvy with intricate platforms like Garageband. Others have an eye for spatial awareness and can create aesthetically pleasing slides using Canva. Students can work together to make the curriculum accessible for their peers. Digital tools also allow for students to record the process of making, organize what they've learned, and share with larger audiences.

Students learn best when they see themselves reflected in the topics they're studying, when those topics can be applied to the real world, and when they feel pride in the work they've created. Digital literacies support each of those necessities.

The article, "From Digital Consumption to Digital Invention," explains that:

Teachers and students need access to previously othered critical traditions such as postcolonialism, poststructuralism, feminism, critical race theories, and intersectional theories. The media classroom needs to see itself as a space that explicitly embraces critical theories and that envisions to create spaces for metatheoretical awareness, cultural analyses, and cultural critique. (16)

Digital tools help students explore these social issues, strengthen 21st century skills, and demonstrate academic thinking about complex texts and ideas. Instead of cumulative tests, students can create stop-motion animated short films, record podcasts, create poems and digital six-word memoirs. They can illustrate their views on history through memes, through comic strips, through multimodal presentations, and more.

The text, "Developing Curriculum to Support Black Girls' Literacies in Digital Spaces," portrays students working on units titled, "Defining Myself," "#Blacklivesmatter," and "Gender Equality." Not only do the girls see themselves directly within the themes and concepts they're learning about, but they also gain academic skills that push them to engage, explore, create, and publish. The text explains:

These experiences provided multiple opportunities for Black girls in the class to explore social issues across modalities and raise questions about audience, privilege, power, voice, and equity. The questions they raised in discussions and the work they produced drew on multiple literacies that were tied to their identities as Black girls. They approached each topic as collaborative problem solvers who were trying to make sense of how race, class, and gender affect their lives and their communities and what they can do about it. (357)

This is equitable education. This is academic learning. This is the elevation of marginalized students. This is the bridge from the classroom to the community. This is digital literacy.

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Digital Literacies and the Inclusive Classroom

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Close your eyes and picture the ideal classroom. Are the students diverse? Are they silently writing structured five paragraph essays or are they using 21st century skills to demonstrate learning? How is their teacher supporting their academic and pastoral needs? Are they collaborating? Are they creating?

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This link is from my blog. The post is entitled, What Can We Learn from the Work Itself? For some, blogging may be intimidating. It sure was for me. I have always desired to write a blog but I lacked the confidence to do so. With the encouragement from the learning community of Digital Writing and Multimodal Composition, I overcame my fears and published my first Blog. This digital writing platform is a way for writers to express their thoughts and can be a useful tool for classroom teachers to encourage multimodal writing.

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Updated: 6 minutes ago

Do you think the quality of children's work is enhanced when working with adults? How does the audience impact the student's work? These are questions that should be considered. I believe that the quality of student work can only be enhanced with the appropriate collaboration from teachers and by having the opportunity to share work with a meaningful audience. In understanding how and why the work is affected by these variables, we must ask ourselves the most important question: What can teachers learn from looking at students work?

Let's review the work: I assigned my fourth graders to create a Civil War Reconstruction Project using digital media of choice. The students were given the options of making a book jacket, a poster, or an ad based on a topic that they chose before class. This student decided to create a book jacket for Fort Sumter using Canva. The jacket had to include the title, author, and a brief description of the subject matter.

Created by London Bonds. 4th grade student. Permission granted to share.

The student was proud of her make. While the student always create competent work, I think because the student was aware that she would be sharing her work with an audience other than the teacher, she was inclined to put even more effort into the assignment. The student was able to print copies of book jacket and share with students as she presented her findings and information to the class.

Looking at the work, we can see that the student put effort towards creating a replica of a real book jacket. The student used mentor texts of other book jackets to get an idea of what a book jacket should look like. I can tell that the student is able to manipulate media for purposes of completing this assignment. Finally, writing in this manner becomes real for my student. The student was able to make a connection to the work by taking ownership of the assignment and completing the task with some assistance from an adult.

Do you think the quality of children's work is enhanced when working with adults? How does the audience impact the student's work? These are questions that should be considered. I believe that the quality of student work can only be enhanced with the appropriate collaboration from teachers and by having the opportunity to share work with a meaningful audience. In understanding how and why the work is affected by these variables, we must ask ourselves the most important question: What can teachers learn from looking at students work?

Let's review the work: I assigned my fourth graders to create a Civil War Reconstruction Project using digital media of choice. The students were given the options of making a book jacket, a poster, or an ad based on a topic that they chose before class. This student decided to create a book jacket for Fort Sumter using Canva. The jacket had to include the title, author, and a brief description of the subject matter.

Created by London Bonds. 4th grade student. Permission granted to share.

The student was proud of her make. While the student always create competent work, I think because the student was aware that she would be sharing her work with an audience other than the teacher, she was inclined to put even more effort into the assignment. The student was able to print copies of book jacket and share with students as she presented her findings and information to the class.

Looking at the work, we can see that the student put effort towards creating a replica of a real book jacket. The student used mentor texts of other book jackets to get an idea of what a book jacket should look like. I can tell that the student is able to manipulate media for purposes of completing this assignment. Finally, writing in this manner becomes real for my student. The student was able to make a connection to the work by taking ownership of the assignment and completing the task with some assistance from an adult.

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What Can We Learn from Looking at the Work Itself?

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Do you think the quality of children's work is enhanced when working with adults? How does the audience impact the student's work? These are questions that should be considered. I believe that the quality of student work can only be enhanced with the appropriate collaboration from teachers and by having the opportunity to share work with a meaningful audience.

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Classroom Lessons I've Created Using Social Media

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Classroom Lessons I've Created Using Social Media

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I've linked my blog post titled "Classroom Lessons I've Created Using Social Media." The premise of this blog post is to explain the benefits of using multimodal writing along with social media to create assignments for students. Within the post are links to student work and activity templates that everyone is more than welcome to use if they wish!

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Blogging as a Tool to Create Online Writing Communities Beyond the Classroom

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Blogging as a Tool to Create Online Writing Communities Beyond the Classroom

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https://medium.com/@globalwritersunite/blogging-as-a-tool-to-create-online-writing-communities-beyond-the-classroom-8b724d148593

Creating a class blog is an excellent way to promote digital writing and to extend discourses beyond the classroom.

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"Every year Writing Project teachers lead programs where teachers across the nation learn how to help youth research and form arguments, expand their learning beyond the classroom walls, and publish their writing about topics that matter to them."

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NWP leaders study and share effective practices that enhance youth writing and learning, work collaboratively with other educators, design resources, and…

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Digital Writing and Multimodal Composition Expand Possibilities for Writers of All Ages

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Digital Writing and Multimodal Composition Expand Possibilities for Writers of All Ages

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https://ccantrill.medium.com/digital-writing-and-multimodal-composition-expand-possibilities-for-writers-of-all-ages-265dacb5da5c

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NCTE's Definition of Literacy in a Digital Age makes it clear that the continued evolution of curriculum, assessment, and teaching practice itself is necessary.

Literacy has always been a collection of communicative and sociocultural practices shared among communities. As society and technology change, so does literacy. The world demands that a literate person possess and intentionally apply a wide range of skills, competencies, and dispositions. These literacies are interconnected, dynamic, and malleable. As in the past, they are inextricably linked with histories, narratives, life possibilities, and social trajectories of all individuals and groups. Active, successful participants in a global society must be able to

Participate effectively and critically in a networked world;

Explore and engage critically, thoughtfully, and across a wide variety of inclusive texts and tools/modalities;

Consume, curate, and create actively across contexts;

Advocate for equitable access to and accessibility of texts, tools, and information;

Build and sustain intentional global and cross-cultural connections and relationships with others so as to pose and solve problems collaboratively and strengthen independent thought;

Promote culturally sustaining communication and recognize the bias and privilege present in the interactions;

Examine the rights, responsibilities, and ethical implications of the use and creation of information;

Determine how and to what extent texts and tools amplify one's own and others' narratives as well as counter unproductive narratives;

Recognize and honor the multilingual literacy identities and culture experiences individuals bring to learning environments, and provide opportunities to promote, amplify, and encourage these differing variations of language (e.g., dialect, jargon, register).

Elements of the Framework for Literacy in a Digital Age
Applied to learners of English language arts, today's literacy demands have implications for how teachers plan, model, support, and assess student learning. We believe that learning is a lifelong process which invites students and teachers alike to benefit from reflecting on questions associated with the continued literacy demands. Understandings of the definition of literacies used here have implications for learner agency, access, action, and opportunities.
Participate effectively and critically in a networked world
The internet is one of the primary information sources of the modern era, making it a necessity for learners to understand how to participate and navigate the networked world. Building and utilizing connections between people, ideas, and information provides opportunities for them to be critical consumers of information, builds agency in their own work, and prepares them for the global world beyond the classroom.

Do learners select, evaluate, and use digital tools and resources that match the work they are doing?

Are learners critical, savvy producers and consumers?

Do learners build and utilize a network of groups and individuals that reflect varying views as they analyze, create, and remix texts?

Do learners analyze information for authorial intent, positioning, and how language, visuals, and audio are being used?

Do learners find relevant and reliable sources that meet their needs?

Do learners take risks and try new things with tools available to them?

Do learners, independently and collaboratively, persist in solving problems as they arise in their work?

Do learners use a variety of tools effectively and efficiently?

Do learners select and use appropriate tools and modalities for audience and purpose?

Do learners take responsibility for communicating their ideas in a variety of ways with different modalities and clear intentions?

Explore and engage critically, thoughtfully, and across a wide variety of inclusive texts and tools/modalities
Learners have access to a wide variety of texts and tools. We engage with many multimedia texts in our daily lives for a variety of reasons. These texts not only give learners new information but also allow us to see our worlds in new ways. Engaging with texts that vary in format, genre, and medium gives us new perspectives and insights. Having knowledge and understanding of the various texts and tools available is important for using them intentionally. Being literate means making choices and using texts and tools in ways that match purpose. It also means thinking about texts and tools in new ways.

Do learners seek out texts that consider multiple perspectives and broaden their understanding of the world?

Do learners critically analyze a variety of information and ideas from a variety of sources?

Do learners choose texts and tools to consume, create, and share ideas that match their need and audience?

Do learners create new ideas using knowledge and insights gained? Do learners analyze the credibility of information, authorial intent, and its appropriateness in meeting their needs?

Do learners use information and the ideas of others to solve problems and make decisions as informed citizens?

Do learners strive to see limitations and overlaps between multiple streams of information?

Do learners gain new perspectives because of the texts they interact with?

Do learners use tools to deepen understandings, to share ideas, and to build on others' thinking?

Do learners develop new skills strategies to meet the challenge of new texts and tools?

Consume, curate, and create actively across contexts
As empowered learners engage in literacy practices, they need opportunities to move from consumers to producers of content. More specifically, learners need to move from content consumers to content curators to content creators. These stages do not have to operate in a sequence, nor should they be mutually exclusive as learners fully utilize the reader/writer nature of digital texts.

Do learners consciously make connections between their work and that of the greater community?

Do learners evaluate their own multimedia works?

Do learners evaluate content they find online before sharing with others?

Do learners apply ethical practices when using media?

Do learners evaluate content and develop their own expertise on a topic?

Do learners collect, aggregate, and share content to develop their voice/identity/expertise on a topic?

Do learners use tools to communicate original perspectives and to make new thinking visible?

Do learners communicate information and ideas in a variety of forms and for various purposes?

Do learners make creative decisions with intention, developing and using skills associated with modality?

Do learners communicate information and ideas to different audiences?

Do learners articulate thoughts and ideas so that others can understand and act on them?

Do learners evaluate multimedia sources for the effects of visuals, sounds, hyperlinks, and other features on the text's meaning or emotional impact?

Do learners have the skills to make informed decisions about their own design choices as much as their choices about text?

Do learners share and publish their work in a variety of ways?

Do learners share and publish original content with a consideration of the intended audience?

Do learners respond constructively to published work and to responses to their own work?

Do learners publish in ways that meet the needs of a particular authentic audience?

Advocate for equitable access to and accessibility of texts, tools, and information
Not only should learners have opportunities to explore and engage with a wide variety of inclusive texts and tools, but they should also be provided equitable access to these texts and tools on a frequent basis. Learners must have ready access to information and information professionals that provide expertise in print-based and digital-based texts and information sources. Additionally, learners with disabilities should be provided equitable access to text, tools, and information and, when necessary, advocate for this access in all of their learning experiences.

Do learners have readily available classroom access to a variety of texts and information sources?

Do learners have access to well-funded school and public libraries?

Do learners have opportunities to engage with and learn from school media and library professionals?

Do learners make decisions in information-rich environments?

Do learners recognize information gaps or information poverty?

Do learners advocate for their own individual and community's access to texts and tools?

Do learners attain a greater understanding of text through accessible text structures?

Do learners use visual cues (headings, subheadings, boxes, graphics) to support their reading of a text?

Do learners access digital texts that adhere to web accessibility principles?

Do learners with disabilities receive equitable access to texts, tools, and information?

Build intentional global and cross-cultural connections and relationships with others so to pose and solve problems collaboratively and strengthen independent thought
Learners need communicative skills in order to work collaboratively in both face-to-face and virtual environments to use and develop problem-solving skills. Cooperation is not collaboration, and learners need to be actively working with one another to pose and solve problems and construct narratives. When learning experiences are grounded in well-informed teaching practices, the use of technology allows a wider range of voices to be heard, exposing learners to opinions, perspectives, and norms outside of their own. Understanding the ways in which connections support learning and being intentional about creating connections and networks are important for learners.
Promote culturally sustaining communication and recognize the bias and privilege present in the interactions
Culturally sustaining communication provides an opportunity for (and is possible when) learners draw on racially, culturally, and linguistically diverse sign systems/modalities to consume, curate, and create in face-to-face and digital spaces. Teaching practices grounded in this framework create opportunities for learners to inquire about how language and power converge in print or digital texts to create and perpetuate biases against marginalized communities. Learners need opportunities to practice recognizing patterns in discourse which are rooted in the oppression of nondominant groups (e.g., race, gender, sexuality, ability) and a variety of strategies they can use to interrupt this discourse.

Do learners have opportunities to raise questions about bias and privilege when consuming, curating, and creating texts?

Do learners have strategies for interrupting discourse that marginalizes people based on race, culture, sexuality, language, gender, and ability?

Do learners have opportunities to identify and discuss how to detect and report fake news/deliberately misleading and false information or information that promotes hate speech and violence?

Do learners create texts across modalities for a variety of audiences and consider how diverse groups would respond?

Do learners have opportunities to collaborate with people/learners from communities that hold different views/ideas/values/beliefs, life experiences, racial, ethnic, and cultural identities, and economic security to address social issues that impact all of our lives?

Examine the rights, responsibilities, and ethical implications of the use and creation of information
Networked, digital spaces offer the opportunity to instantaneously share, aggregate, and access torrents of information from others. These spaces also raise questions about aspects of intellectual property and ownership of ideas, content, and resources online. The rapidly changing digital texts and tools create new categories of ethical dilemmas around these issues. It is important for learners to understand the ethics, or "principles governing an individual or group," as they interact with information in current and future contexts.

Learners must understand and adhere to legal and ethical practices as they use resources and create information.

Do learners share information in ways that consider all sources?

Do learners consider the contributors and authenticity of all sources?

Do learners practice the safe and legal use of technology?

Do learners create products that are both informative and ethical?

Do learners avoid accessing another computer's system, software, or data files without permission?

Do learners engage in discursive practices in online social systems with others without deliberately or inadvertently demeaning individuals and/or groups?

Do learners attend to the acceptable use policies of organizations and institutions?

Do learners attend to the terms of service and/or terms of use of digital software and tools?

Do learners read, review, and understand the terms of service/use that they agree to as they utilize these tools?

Do learners respect the intellectual property of others and only utilize materials they are licensed to access, remix, and/or share?

Do learners respect and follow the copyright information and appropriate licenses given to digital content as they work online?

Determine how and to what extent texts and tools amplify one's own and others' narratives as well as counter unproductive narratives
It is important for learners to have multiple opportunities to engage in multimodal literacy practices as a means to communicate information that supports participating in a diverse and democratic society. Learners are navigating digital spaces during a time when narratives are being constructed for a variety of purposes. Learners need a heightened awareness about how texts and tools can be used to produce and circulate biased narratives aimed at justifying exclusionary practices and policies that disproportionately impact nondominant communities. Learners also need sustained opportunities to produce counter-narratives that expose and interrupt misguided texts that do not represent the fullness of their identities or life complexities. To engage in participatory literacy practices, learners need opportunities within the curriculum to author multimodal stories in order to examine power, equity, and identities and grow as digitally savvy and civic-minded citizens.
Recognize and honor the multilingual literacy identities and culture experiences individuals bring to learning environments and provide opportunities to promote, amplify, and encourage these differing variations of language (dialect, jargon, register)
The use of learners' variety in narrative and lived experience enables us to use our own potential to achieve in deeper and more authentic contexts. In addition, the use of learners' native dialects in education enhances the social, cognitive, emotional, and linguistic development of learners in and out of school. In a multilingual society, the issue of dialects in education, and more specifically the languages of instruction, often are not problematized or debated. The literacy identities and dialects invited into the classroom are often dependent on a variety of factors such as historical, economic, pedagogical, sociolinguistic, cultural, ideological, theoretical, or/and political. As learners utilize and enculturate in current and future digital contexts, they need opportunities to promote, amplify, and encourage differing forms of language. This includes variations within the same language, social and regional dialects, standard and nonstandard varieties.
NCTE 21st Century Literacies Definition and Framework Revision Committee

Shelbie Witte, Chair, Oklahoma State University, OK

Bill Bass, Parkway School District, MO

W. Ian O'Byrne, College of Charleston, SC

Detra Price-Dennis, Teachers College, Columbia University, NY

Franki Sibberson, Dublin City Schools, OH

We wish to extend our appreciation to the following individuals for their feedback at various stages of this revision:

Sarah Bonner

Jennifer Dail

Patricia Dunn

Chad Everett

Danielle Filipiak

Frances Glick

Crag Hill

Ken Lindblom

Ernest Morrell

Amy Piotrowski

Kristin Ziemke

This position statement may be printed, copied, and disseminated without permission from NCTE.

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NCTE's Definition of Literacy in a Digital Age makes it clear that the continued evolution of curriculum, assessment, and teaching practice itself is necessary.

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These videos give a great overview of the research behind multiliteracies and multimodality.

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https://www.macmillanlearning.com/college/us/product/WriterDesigner/p/1319245056

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This is a community of support for teachers and activists committed to racial, social, and educational justice.

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What We Do

Grants

APS Teacher Campaign

APS Teacher Campaign

ATN awards grants to educators and community members who strive to disrupt inequalities and injustice within their schools, communities, or both. We will be launching our 3rd annual grant cycle in late October 2023.

APS Teacher Campaign

APS Teacher Campaign

APS Teacher Campaign

Explore resources to learn about the Atlanta Public Schools "Cheating Scandal" and support the educators facing prison

Programming

Programming

Programming

Year round, we host political education, healing justice, and affinity group events for educators, organizers, students, and parents/caregivers. Follow us on socials to stay up to date.

Resources

Programming

Programming

From our founding guide for racial justice and abolitionist social and emotional learning to a database for queer, trans, and non-binary educators + students, we pride ourselves on being a resource hub for education communities.

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Abolitionist Teaching Network's mission is simple: develop and support educators to fight injustice within their schools and communities. Utilizing the intellectual work and direct action of community organizers, Abolitionist Teachers will organize and take action for educational freedom.

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This book will support teachers in understanding issues, research, and best practices in teaching digital writing.

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As many teachers know, students may be adept at text messaging and communicating online but do not know how to craft a basic essay. In the classroom, students are increasingly required to create web-based or multi-media productions that also include writing. Since writing in and for the online realm often defies standard writing conventions, this book defines digital writing and examines how best to integrate new technologies into writing instruction.

Shows how to integrate new technologies into classroom lessons

Addresses the proliferation of writing in the digital age

Offers a guide for improving students' online writing skills

The book is an important manual for understanding this new frontier of writing for teachers, school leaders, university faculty, and teacher educators.

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Because Digital Writing Matters: Improving Student Writing in Online and Multimedia Environments

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Amazon.com: Because Digital Writing Matters: Improving Student Writing in Online and Multimedia Environments: 9780470407721: National Writing Project, DeVoss, Danielle Nicole, Eidman-Aadahl, Elyse, Troy Hicks: Books

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Abolitionist Teaching and The Pursuit of Educational Freedom 

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Abolitionist Teaching and The Pursuit of Educational Freedom 

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In this book, Bettina L. Love offers ways teachers can engage in social and racial justice in their instruction.

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Winner of the 2020 Society of Professors of Education Outstanding Book Award Drawing on personal stories, research, and historical events, an esteemed educator offers a vision of educational justice inspired by the rebellious spirit and methods of abolitionists. We Want to Do More Than Survive

Drawing on her life's work of teaching and researching in urban schools, Bettina Love persuasively argues that educators must teach students about racial violence, oppression, and how to make sustainable change in their communities through radical civic initiatives and movements. She argues that the US educational system is maintained by and profits from the suffering of children of color. Instead of trying to repair a flawed system, educational reformers offer survival tactics in the forms of test-taking skills, acronyms, grit labs, and character education, which Love calls the educational survival complex.

To dismantle the educational survival complex and to achieve educational freedom-not merely reform-teachers, parents, and community leaders must approach education with the imagination, determination, boldness, and urgency of an abolitionist. Following in the tradition of activists like Ella Baker, Bayard Rustin, and Fannie Lou Hamer, introduces an alternative to traditional modes of educational reform and expands our ideas of civic engagement and intersectional justice.

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We Want to Do More Than Survive: Abolitionist Teaching and the Pursuit of Educational Freedom

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We Want to Do More Than Survive: Abolitionist Teaching and the Pursuit of Educational Freedom [Love, Bettina] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. We Want to Do More Than Survive: Abolitionist Teaching and the Pursuit of Educational Freedom

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Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom by bell hooks 

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Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom by bell hooks 

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In this book, bell hooks helps teachers to support students to "transgress" against racial, sexual, and class boundaries to experience freedom, which the scholar asserts should be a teacher's most important aspiration.

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Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom (Harvest in Translation)

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Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom (Harvest in Translation) [bell hooks] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom (Harvest in Translation)

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Remixing Composition: A History of Multimodal Pedagogy by Jason Palmeri 

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Remixing Composition: A History of Multimodal Pedagogy by Jason Palmeri 

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This book offers an important historical account of multimodal composition.

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challenges the longheld notion that the study and practice of composition has historically focused on words alone. Palmeri revisits many of the classic texts of composition theory from the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, closely examining how past compositionists responded to "new media." He reveals that long before the rise of personal computers and the graphic web, compositionists employed analog multimedia technologies in the teaching of composition. Palmeri discovers these early scholars anticipated many of our current interests in composing with visual, audio, and video texts.
Jason Palmeri's Remixing Composition: A History of Multimodal Writing Pedagogy

Using the concept of the remix, Palmeri outlines practical pedagogical suggestions for how writing teachers can build upon this heritage with digital activities, assignments, and curricula that meet the needs of contemporary students. He details a pluralist vision of composition pedagogy that explains the ways that writing teachers can synthesize expressivist, cognitive, and social-epistemic approaches.

Palmeri reveals an expansive history of now forgotten multimodal approaches to composing moving images and sounds and demonstrates how current compositionists can productively remix these past pedagogies to address the challenges and possibilities of the contemporary digital era. A strikingly original take on the recent history of composition, Remixing Composition is an important work for the future of writing instruction in a digital age.

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Remixing Composition: A History of Multimodal Writing Pedagogy (Studies in Writing and Rhetoric)

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Remixing Composition: A History of Multimodal Writing Pedagogy (Studies in Writing and Rhetoric) [Palmeri, Jason] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Remixing Composition: A History of Multimodal Writing Pedagogy (Studies in Writing and Rhetoric)

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Adolescent Black Girls' Futuremaking through Multimodal Representations of Race, Gender, and Career Aspirations

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Adolescent Black Girls' Futuremaking through Multimodal Representations of Race, Gender, and Career Aspirations

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This article helps educators to understand how to support Black girls in seeing promising possibilities in multimodal composition.

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Toward a Theory of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy 

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Toward a Theory of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy 

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This pioneering article penned by Dr. Gloria Ladson-Billings about culturally relevant pedagogy is a must-read for anyone serious about employing it in his or her classroom.

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An Equity Framework for Culturally and Historically Responsive Literacy 

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An Equity Framework for Culturally and Historically Responsive Literacy 

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This book will support teachers in employing culturally relevant, responsive, and sustaining practices in their digital writing and multimodal composition instruction.

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In Cultivating Genius , Dr. Gholdy E. Muhammad presents a four-layered equity framework-one that is grounded in history and restores excellence in literacy education. This framework, which she names, Historically Responsive Literacy , was derived from the study of literacy development within 19th-century Black literacy societies. The framework is essential and universal for all students, especially youth of color, who traditionally have been marginalized in learning standards, school policies, and classroom practices. The equity framework will help educators teach and lead toward the following learning goals or pursuits:

Identity Development-Helping youth to make sense of themselves and others

Skill Development- Developing proficiencies across the academic disciplines

Intellectual Development-Gaining knowledge and becoming smarter

Criticality-Learning and developing the ability to read texts (including print and social contexts) to understand power, equity, and anti-oppression

When these four learning pursuits are taught together-through the Historically Responsive Literacy Framework, all students receive profound opportunities for personal, intellectual, and academic success. Muhammad provides probing, self-reflective questions for teachers, leaders, and teacher educators as well as sample culturally and historically responsive sample plans and text sets across grades and content areas. In this book, Muhammad presents practical approaches to cultivate the genius in students and within teachers.

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Cultivating Genius: An Equity Framework for Culturally and Historically Responsive Literacy

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Cultivating Genius: An Equity Framework for Culturally and Historically Responsive Literacy: Muhammad, Gholdy: 9781338594898: Books: Amazon.com

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Racial Literacy and Activism for Equity in Digital Spaces 

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Racial Literacy and Activism for Equity in Digital Spaces 

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This is an excellent for teachers to improve their racial literacy to support students' racial and social justice activism in digital spaces.

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Today's students use their digital expertise and the power of their voice to respond to issues of inequity in society. It is essential that teacher educators develop their own racial literacies and those of their preservice and classroom teachers to support student digital activism. From talking about race and racism to resisting the harmful narratives that circulate online but impact face-to-face interactions in the classroom, teacher educators must navigate sociotechnical spaces with a critical lens and develop strategies to help their preservice teachers do the same. This book is designed to increase educators' capacity and agency to respond to inequities that plague our educational system. The authors provide a framework to help readers rethink how curriculum and pedagogy impact classroom instruction. In Advancing Racial Literacies in Teacher Education, Price-Dennis and Sealey-Ruiz provide theoretical and practical entry points into a conversation about race in the digital age that aim to increase equity in schools and better prepare teachers entering the U.S. school system.

Book Features:

Provides examples of how racial literacy can be fostered in teacher education programs.

Offers reflection questions designed to assess the status of racial literacy in both teacher education programs and K-12 classrooms.

Helps educators develop curricula that leverage multimodal ways of cultivating racial literacy.

Offers a conceptual model of racial literacy for the digital age that advances civic engagement for equity in education.

Focuses on pedagogical practices that support racial literacy development in teacher education.

Includes a Foreword by Jabari Mahiri and an Afterword by Rebecca Rogers, leading scholars in the field of racial literacy.

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Advancing Racial Literacies in Teacher Education: Activism for Equity in Digital Spaces

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Advancing Racial Literacies in Teacher Education: Activism for Equity in Digital Spaces [Price-Dennis, Detra, Sealey-Ruiz, Yolanda, Rogers, Rebecca, Mahiri, Jabari] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Advancing Racial Literacies in Teacher Education: Activism for Equity in Digital Spaces

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This blog gives some great pointers for students or those new to blogging.

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Blogging Like a Connected Courses Champion

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You have set up your blog, connected it to this site, and maybe now you are staring at the empty composition screen. What do you do? There is no shortage of web sites, books, articles with tips on …

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This Instagram profile is a living mentor text that showcases the connection between poetry and pictures. It features a mix of original poetry and well known pieces, and serves to model for students that social platforms can function as a way to share writing.

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Mentor-text-inspired graphic design remix project.

Make cycle + teacher feedback = expanded project + multi-character storylines

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The National Writing Project's Write Now Teacher Studio is open to all and is full of opportunities to learn about a variety of ELA topics including digital writing and multimodal composing.

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Hosted by the National Writing Project, the Write Now Teacher Studio is an open, online community of educators for educators. It's a place to write together, examine our teaching, create and refine curricula, and work toward ever more effective and equitable practices to create confident, creative, and critical thinkers and writers in our classrooms and courses.

The Write Now Teacher Studio welcomes all educators interested in writing, teaching writing, and using writing as a learning tool in all disciplines. Members work with youth K-university, in schools, libraries, and community programs. All you need is an interest in writing.

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The Write Now Teacher Studio, an open online community hosted by the National Writing Project, welcomes all educators interested in writing, the teaching of writing, and joyous learning both in and out of schools.

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"The Current is an open publishing site of Educator Innovator and provides a forum for the sharing of resources and stories about what we as educators are observing, doing, and reflecting upon related to Connecting Learning and teaching."

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The current of learning and teaching today. Created and curated by community members.

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Visual Composition: The Dot and International Dot Day 

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Visual Composition: The Dot and International Dot Day 

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This is an example of how to use a strong mentor text as inspiration for a visual composition. This particular visual composition is a part of a larger social movement called International Dot Day

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My Blog Post "What Happens When a Teacher Takes a Creative Risk?" As students' direct mentors and models, why not take some risks to help motivate and inspire? 

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What Happens When a Teacher Takes a Creative Risk

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What Happens When a Teacher Takes a Creative Risk

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What Happens When a Teacher Takes a Creative Risk_ 

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"If you can write anything it's very easy to write nothing.  Constraints make you creative."  -Joe Bunting The Write Project                       Constrained Writing Mentor Text Review  

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"If you can write anything it's very easy to write nothing.  Constraints make you creative."  -Joe Bunting The Write Project                       Constrained Writing Mentor Text Review  

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This is the mentor text review on constrained writing. It looks at the positive benefits that come out of the challenges of constrained writing. Constrained writing can be used across the grade levels and skill levels. From the constraints of alphabet books in kindergarten to writing the Great Gatsby as a lipogram the possibilities are literally endless!

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This is a composition that was created as a remixed composition. I took a book that I authored years ago and created a poem.  The result is a blackout poem that expresses a whole new meaning.

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REMIX: The Red Thread Documentary (aural composition)

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REMIX: The Red Thread Documentary (aural composition)

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https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PYwiysyClJVcw17fSL8yrR599lb7akyA/view

This is a link to my remixed aural composition which I titled, "The Red Thread." I used iMovie to create the video, then downloaded the file, and finally uploaded it to Google Drive.

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A zine with multi genres of digital writing focused on the female and ex-pat experience.

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Read The Guiri by theaveragejolene on Issuu and browse thousands of other publications on our platform. Start here!

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Maximize the aural mode of communication by making a podcast with this tool.

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Make your podcast the next big thing Powerful tools for beginners, pros, and everyone in between - all for free.

Distribute your show everywhere.

Ready to start a podcast? Create and host your show here Enjoy unlimited hosting and distribute your podcast everywhere. Take advantage of our all-in-one, free platform with recording, editing, analytics, fan engagement, and monetization tools.

Already have a show? Keep your host and get free growth tools You can keep your current host and still benefit from Spotify's free growth tools, like analytics and fan engagement. Learn how to expand your audience on Spotify and build a community around your content.

Podcasting how-tos

Start your podcast Everything you need to start a new podcast with confidence.

Grow your podcast Advice on growing your audience, engaging with fans, and more.

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Get to know Spotify for Podcasters, the free, all-in-one podcast platform for every creator.

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Book Creator is a tool for students to create, read, publish and provide feedback on digital compositions from narratives to projects. Students k-12 can add pictures, text, videos, and audio with just a few clicks.

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Book Creator - Love Learning - Book Creator app

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Teachers love it. Students love it. Book Creator is the simplest, most inclusive way to create content in the classroom.

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An excellent resource when exploring the possibilities of digital writing in the classroom.

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Written for teachers of writing by a teacher of writing, Crafting Digital Writing is both an introduction for teachers new to digital writing and a menu

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The Ethics of Digital Literacy: Developing Knowledge and Skills Across Grade Levels

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The Ethics of Digital Literacy: Developing Knowledge and Skills Across Grade Levels

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Series edited by Dominic P. Scibilia - Edited by Kristen Hawley Turner

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The Ethics of Digital Literacy: Developing Knowledge and Skills Across Grade Levels

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This book address ethical issues in the teaching of digital literacy.

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This is a program that I've used with my students. The free version is a bit limited, but it might be a new way for students to create slides and present them to the class.

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Nearpod: Foster a love of learning in every student

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Create active learning experiences students can’t wait to be a part of.

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This is another interactive slides program. It could be another alternative option to the traditional presentation method. You could have students create a Peardeck and present it to their peers.

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Join the Peartember celebration for giveaways, exclusive templates, and more! Learn more >

EFFORTLESSLY BUILD ENGAGING INSTRUCTIONAL CONTENT, RIGHT FROM GOOGLE SLIDES

The fastest way to transform presentations into classroom conversations

Imagine if you could engage every student in your class, every day. What if you could instantly see who's confused and who's ready for more? That's the power of Pear Deck. And now, with the Pear Deck for Google Slides Add-on, you can add the magic of formative assessments and interactive questions to your presentations right from Google Slides.

Design brilliant slides & engage your class

Open up Google Slides & the Pear Deck sidebar

Design a new presentation or open an existing one in Slides. Just getting started with Google Slides? Upload your PowerPoint or Keynote lessons to Google Slides and get going!

DROP IN FORMATIVE ASSESSMENTS

Our team of educators created a library of templates to support learning objectives typically found at the beginning, middle, and end of a class. Think: bell ringers, checks for understanding, exit tickets, and more. Simply drop in one of these templates for instant engagement and watch your class transform.

Create custom questions

You can always create your own custom activity or question from scratch. Use Text, Number Response, Multiple Choice, and Web Slide questions to engage students. Or upgrade to Pear Deck Premium to add Drawing and Draggable™ response types.

ADD AUDIO TO ANY SLIDE TYPE

With the Pear Deck Add-on, you can leave audio instructions, descriptions, or examples for your students to hear while they read the prompts and respond to Interactive Questions in your Pear Deck Slides presentations. Make a new recording instantly or upload one from your computer. The recordings you insert will play in the Student View of your live presentation Sessions, so it's perfect for any remote learning lesson!

Present with Pear Deck

Start your presentation and students will join your Session from any device with a web browser. As you advance your slides, students will be prompted to answer your questions! Students' answers can be displayed anonymously on the classroom projector, so instead of worrying about getting the right answer and feeling silly in front of peers, your students are putting ideas out there in a safe, anonymous way, discussing, and learning from each other.

GO DEEPER WITH THE tEACHER dASHBOARD

As an instructor, you can quickly see what each individual thinks on the Teacher Dashboard. Noticing a lot of wrong answers? Adapt! Take a pause, back up, re-explain. But don't forget to help the learners help each other: Why did some people choose this while others chose that? How can we find out the right answer? What else do we need to know?

INVITE TEACHERS TO YOUR SHARED tEACHER DASHBOARD

This feature enables teachers using Pear Deck Premium to share Session controls and valuable student insight with other designated educators, including student teachers, special educators, co-teachers, or even substitutes. With a real-time view of individual student work and the ability to guide and provide direct feedback, educators teaching together can better support the diverse needs of learners everywhere!

Using Videos, Animations and GIFs in your Pear Deck? Get ready to Power-up!

Want to show a video about the Mars Rover in your Pear Deck presentation? Need to carefully layer in information on a slide to reduce information overload? Found a perfect GIF of a plant emerging from its seed? If you want your videos, animations, and GIFs to play at full resolution when you present with Pear Deck, install the Power-Up Google Chrome extension.

The Power-Up is a free Google Chrome extension. Installing it ensures that videos, animation, and GIFs embedded in your Pear Deck slides play at full-resolution on the projector and student devices - exactly the way they should!

Install the Power-Up from the Chrome Web Store on the device you use in class. Now when you present with Pear Deck, the Power-Up magically enables the display of your videos, animations, and GIFs.

Get the Power-Up

Learn Pear Deck for Google Slides

Watch a video for self-guided Google training:

Or, dive into a self-paced Pear Deck for Google Slides practice deck:

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Pear Deck for Google Slides is the #1 Slides Add-on, making it effortless for educators to add interactive questions and formative assessments to their presentations.

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My class uses Flipgrid quite a bit. It is often on a project choice board to show what you know. Students are able to record themselves with video and voice or just voice as well as display work and talk about it. Students can respond to one another as well. This feature can be turned on or off depending on the purpose and or dynamic of you class.

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We express ourselves in different ways. On Flip, you can use our simple and fun built-in camera to record your thoughts, add effects and share within your Flip group as video, audio only or text in your web browser or mobile app.

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Flip is a video discussion and sharing app, free from Microsoft.

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Flip (formerly Flipgrid) is a video discussion and video sharing app, free from Microsoft, built for classrooms and beyond. Learn more.

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Seesaw is a great place for students to create their own unique multimodal responses to interactive lessons the teacher creates/finds. Students can add voice, draw, type, add pictures, and much more. Students can also create their own posts for others to comment on. Teachers can share lessons with other teachers and student work with families.

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Seesaw | Elementary Learning Experience Platform

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Seesaw | Elementary Learning Experience Platform

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Elementary Learning Experience Platform | Seesaw

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Seesaw is a Learning Experience Platform with 25M+ users, enhancing elementary education, engagement, and school culture while improving academic success.

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Ed Tech Magazine Going Beyond Traditional Notebooks

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Ed Tech Magazine Going Beyond Traditional Notebooks

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This has been a great resource for my struggling writers but can also be expanded for any academic level or grade level. What I really like about it is the ideas put forth to combine digital images with student's original writing. It meets the learning style of many students from paragraph writing to short chunks in image annotations and comic strip writing. The interactive ideas create a collaborative writing studio environment for my classes.

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Google Slides interactive notebooks + 20 activities to fill them

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There are TONS of awesome multimedia activities you can do with interactive notebooks. Get the how-to’s and a downloadable template to get started!

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Alice: A Voice Recorder and Transcribing App 

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Alice: A Voice Recorder and Transcribing App 

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This voice recorder and transcribing app is free and allows one to record his or her voice, make edits to the recording, and access a transcription of the recording. It is an excellent app for aural composing.

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Hi. This is Alice. A voice recorder and auto-transcribing system. That's fast, safe and cost-effective. It's the first evolution of the audio recording app in 20 years. Try it out. It's designed for real journalism under guidance from prolific writers at Wired, New York Times, Inc, Axios, Politico, Gimlet Media, and others along with faculty at prominent schools of Journalism.

Privacy is the central philosophy: no ads, no tracking, no tricks. Alice requires only an email address to use.

Alice is an advanced product with a unique design, which will still feel familiar and comfortable. No buttons, only two gestures: no need to look at your phone in the middle of a conversation and easy to use whether you're right-handed or left-handed or visually impaired.

Speed is the final principle: it's really really fast while remaining reliable.

A fair few writers have shaped the product and the business model and we continue to recruit writers and journalists to join and strengthen the community behind it. In the words of writer Adam Fisher, "Alice is a word processor for audio".

Alice is structured as a simple business: we provide something of value, and if you like it enough, you pay for it, and we get to work again tomorrow. Get started with a full-featured free trial. No subscriptions, pay-as-you-go pricing when you're ready.

A perfect tool for journalists

I am so impressed by how easy this is to use. The app is ready to go the moment you downIoad and open it, and all you need to sign up is an email address. Nothing to figure out because who has time to learn yet another system? Just use it and get your recording and transcription in no time. I wish I had this back in the day when I interviewed people on a daily basis as a reporter. It's perfect for writing on deadline and finding the right quotes quickly. And, no lost interviews. I also appreciate the company's commitment to security and protecting the users' data. I highly recommend it.

Great tool and excellent user service

Have used this excellent app for a while now but when there was an issue with a recording, the Alice app team responded quickly and did numerous updates on the whole app specific to my issue and resolved it in a week. Fantastic all around.

Hit App!!

Can't get over how easy the app makes to record everything i need, and accuracy is awesome as well. Love the design as well as getting the transcript in my inbox just a little after i have stopped recording.

The developer, Alice Parker, LLC, indicated that the app's privacy practices may include handling of data as described below. For more information, see the developer's privacy policy.

Data Not Linked to You

The following data may be collected but it is not linked to your identity:

Privacy practices may vary, for example, based on the features you use or your age. Learn More

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‎Hi. This is Alice. A voice recorder and auto-transcribing system. That's fast, safe and cost-effective. It's the first evolution of the audio recording app in 20 years. Try it out. It's designed for real journalism under guidance from prolific writers at Wired, New York Times, Inc, Axios, Politico,...

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Interactive digital tool to make word webs, gather responses, and make charts of information.

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Your browser either doesn't support Javascript, or you've turned it off. To use Mentimeter, please make sure to turn Javascript on. How do I enable Javascript?

Gain valuable insights from everyone around you with Word Clouds, Polls, and Quizzes.

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Works with your favorite apps

Turn tough crowds into engaged audiences

Build an immediate connection with your audience and make them a part of your presentation.

Create an interactive experience letting everyone vote, ask questions, and interact throughout.

Create truly unique presentations

Use a wide range of interactive slides to pose questions, gather feedback, and connect with your audience.

Build an impressive slide deck in minutes, craft an insightful icebreaker instantly, or find a new and creative way to engage your audience!

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Impress with Interactive Presentations

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Interact with your audience using real-time voting. No installations or downloads required and it's free!

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A lot of us used Canva! It always you to create presentations, zines, magazine covers, feature articles, and more.

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Canva is a free-to-use online graphic design tool. Use it to create social media posts, presentations, posters, videos, logos and more.

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Practically everyone is on Tiktok in some way, whether as a creator or observer. Why not experiment with a social platform most of our students are already on? 

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It's been more than three years since the lip-syncing app Musical.ly, now known as TikTok, first became popular among tweens and teens. The social network has since spread far beyond Generation Z: TikTok has been downloaded over 1 billion times, including 96 million in the United States, according to estimates from the research firm Sensor Tower. It's also owned by the Chinese company Bytedance, now considered one of the most valuable startups in the world. The app itself revolves around sharing 15-second videoclips, which are set to music often licensed from artists and record labels.

TikTok is now beloved not only by lip-syncing 14-year-olds, but also by comedians, athletes, and, yes, brands. Major corporations like Coca-Cola, Nike, ABC, and Google have run advertising campaigns on TikTok. Even Khloé Kardashian has been paid to post sponsored content on the platform. But the app isn't just home to ads: TikTok is also ground zero for some of the internet's most popular memes.

You can be forgiven if you feel like you don't understand TikTok. The app is fast-paced and chaotic, combining elements of Spotify, Snapchat, Vine, and Twitch into a single social network. Here's what you need to know to get started, from TikTok "Challenges" to Coins and Original sounds.

Getting Started: Set Up Your Account

The first thing you'll need is a pair of headphones. There's just no way to enjoy TikTok with the sound off. After you download the app, you can immediately start browsing videos. But in order to post any yourself, you'll need to sign up for an account.

You can make an account using your email, your phone number, or a third-party platform like Facebook. The app automatically assigns you a username. If you sign up for TikTok with your phone number, the app will generate a generic username such as user1234567. Using an email address generates a more personalized ID (although that may present a privacy issue for users).

To change your username, tap the icon in the right bottom corner that looks like a person's upper body. Then hit Edit Profile. Here, you can change it to something more unique, as well as add a bio, picture, and Profile Video.

By default, TikTok accounts are public, meaning anyone can see your profile and view the videos you post. To adjust these privacy settings, tap the three dots in the top right corner of your profile.

Navigating TikTok

Now that your profile is ready to go, it's time to watch some TikToks. The app is divided into two main feeds. The default is For You, an algorithmically generated stream of videos akin to Instagram's Explore page. Swipe left and you'll find the other, Following, which features uploads from people you choose to follow. TikTok is like a never-ending variety show; it's pure entertainment. Follow creators who make you laugh, like @k.chh, who posts hilarious skits, or opt instead for adorable accounts like @cute_puppies12, which posts the tiniest dogs I've ever seen.

You'll notice to the right of every TikTok video a series of icons. The first will take you to the profile of the user who posted it. Then there's a heart, which functions just like hearts, or likes, on Instagram. Next are comments, then a right-pointing arrow for sharing individual TikToks to other platforms. Click the arrow if you want to copy the link to a specific TikTok, for example, to share it on iMessage. (One note for left-handers: You might find TikTok hard to use, at least at first, since it's often right-oriented.)

The very last icon is a spinning record with music notes emanating from it. This represents the song excerpt the user is playing in their TikTok. Click on it to see the track's name and artist, as well as a feed of other TikToks that also feature it. For instance, "Fake ID" by Riton and Kah-Lo-a particularly popular track on TikTok-has been featured in over 1.4 million videos, which are shown on the song's page. These clips are likely not the full extent of "Fake ID" TikToks on the platform, but more on that a little later.

Don't want to see a certain kind of TikTok in your feed? Hard press on the video to reveal a Not Interested button.

Filming and Sharing TikTok Videos

Ready to share your own TikTok? First, tap the plus sign at the bottom of the screen. The camera will open, revealing a red record button reminiscent of Snapchat. Before you start recording, you can add a song, so that your lip-sync, dance, or skit is in time with the music. If you want to film something in the moment, you can skip ahead and start recording without a musical track, then add the music later.

Like Snapchat, TikTok has an array of AR effects that can be used in videos, which do things like change the color of your hair or eyes. Tap Effects on the left-hand side to browse them. The World tab includes options meant for the environment, such as a delicious-looking slice of augmented-reality pizza. There are even special effects designed to be used on dogs and cats.

On the right side of the recording screen is a Beauty button, which subtly erases the dark shadows under your eyes. Below it is the filters menu. Unlike Instagram, whose filters have now-iconic names like Mayfair and Valencia, TikTok's are simply numbered. The last and most important feature here is the timer, which lets users film videos without continuously holding down the record button. It's what makes TikTok's signature dancing videos possible.

TikToks can be up to 15 seconds long, but users can also connect multiple clips together for up to 60 seconds of total recording. You can also upload longer videos that have been recorded outside the app itself.

Once you master regular TikToks, try experimenting with duets, which split the screen in half and let you sing the same song as another creator. To make a duet, tap the share button on the original video, and then hit Duet.

Music, Hashtags, and Challenges

Music is at the heart of TikTok; picking a popular song can be the primary reason a video goes viral. Here's how to choose one. First, tap Add a Sound on the right side of the recording screen. A Spotify-esque streaming menu of artists and records will appear. Here, you can browse the most popular tracks on the platform, as well as check out songs from Apple Music.

There aren't full-length songs on TikTok; the platform is dominated by short clips, which can't be edited. In other words, if you dream of doing the floss to a particular portion of your favorite song, you may be out of luck. But there's a way around this problem. Many TikTok users simply play a song from another device-such as a computer or stereo-while they're recording. TikTok will then register the track as an "Original sound," which other users can then add to their own videos. A word of caution: Using this loophole may result in copyright violations.

On this same music streaming menu are the songs associated with TikTok #Challenges. Challenges are what unite the TikTok community, and they're often sponsored by advertisers. Right now, for instance, ABC is running the #LikeAnAmericanIdol challenge on TikTok, which invites you to "show off your amazing voice!" (So far, 25.3 million videos have been created featuring the hashtag.) Google recently ran a similar challenge campaign with the hashtag #HeyGoogleHelp.

Most challenges aren't sponsored. Instead, they're created by TikTok and the community itself. The app is currently featuring the #faketravel challenge for instance, in which users pretend to be on a luxurious vacation. The meme pokes fun at influencers who brag about their #jetsetlifestyle on other platforms like Instagram.

To browse all of TikTok's current challenges, tap the magnifying glass at the bottom of the home screen. At the top of this same menu, there's a search bar, which can be used to search for specific creators, sounds, or hashtags.

Views, Notifications, and Other Metrics

Once you start sharing TikToks, you can check how many people have watched them by looking at the view numbers on your profile. Tap the notifications icon at the bottom of the home screen to see who has commented or liked your videos. Here, you can also see who has looked at your profile or followed you. One important tip: TikTok is notorious for sending hoards of engagement bait in the form of push notifications. If that sort of spam sounds unappealing, turn off TikTok notifications in your phone's settings menu.

TikTok also notifies users when popular creators are "LIVE streaming" (the feature isn't available for every user). As on Twitch, while watching a live stream you can tip creators in virtual goods, which are purchased with TikTok Coins. $1 equals 100 coins. Creators often acknowledge their fans or answer questions they ask in exchange for these gifts, a portion of which they can convert into regular currency.

You're Ready to Go

You now know how to join the latest TikTok #Challenge. You've added a digital pepperoni slice to your lip-syncing masterpiece. And you maybe even danced a little. You're ready to explore TikTok. The app has plenty of additional features, and the best way to find them is by playing around yourself. So turn up the volume and go forth.

More Great WIRED Stories

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It's been more than three years since the lip-syncing app Musical.ly, now known as TikTok, first became popular among tweens and teens. The social network has since spread far beyond Generation Z: TikTok has been downloaded over 1 billion times, including 96 million in the United States, according to estimates from the research firm Sensor Tower.

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Online Voice Recorder - Record Voice from the Microphone

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Please allow access to your microphone to continue…

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An Interconnected Framework for Assessment of Digital Multimodal Composition

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An Interconnected Framework for Assessment of Digital Multimodal Composition

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NCTE - National Council of Teachers of English

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Invite, encourage, and celebrate students' writing!

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Connecting their classroom experience to research about writing, as well as to framing documents in the field, two seasoned writing teachers distill the lessons they've learned about creating confident adolescent and young adult writers. Troy Hicks and Andy Schoenborn outline a fundamental stance to their approach―to invite, encourage, and celebrate students' writing―that is then echoed in the book's three-part structure. There are numerous classroom activities and assignments on topics from creating writing goals to supporting revision, examples of student work, and questions to guide teachers' reflections.

In this book for any teacher of writing, from middle school through college, readers are invited to try strategies and allow students' voices to emerge, while discussing with colleagues how these approaches might work for them, too.

10 black-and-white images

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Creating Confident Writers: For High School, College, and Life

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Amazon - Creating Confident Writers: For High School, College, and Life: Hicks, Troy, Schoenborn, Andy: 9780393714166: Books

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What does digital writing look like in an inclusive classroom? How does it benefit students who are labeled as "Students with Disabilities", English Language Learners, and general "struggling writers"?

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Imagine walking into a fifth‐grade classroom where students are editing podcasts on GarageBand, drafting scripts for their stop‐motion animation film on creativity, or creating digital response charts to a Langston Hughes poem in preparation for a forum on diversity and equity in American society. These digital literacy practices highlight the potential of 21st‐century literacies pedagogy, but they do not expose the complexity of doing this work in a multilingual and multicultural inclusive classroom (Bray, Mrachko, & Lemons,2014).

Inclusive classroom teachers who engage in innovative pedagogies that draw on digital literacies have to schedule minilessons, learning experiences, rehearsals, presentations, and discussions around multiple pullouts (i.e., tutoring, ESL, speech, occupational therapy, and other related services). Across our previous teaching experiences, this typically meant that students who received additional services often had limited access to working through the layered process of creating digital projects that could demonstrate their capacity to make sense of content across modalities.

As we worked together to understand the potential of incorporating digital literacies into an inclusive learning environment, we recognized that Emily (one of the authors of this article) had fostered a collaborative relationship among the support staff to drastically reduce the amount of time students were pulled out of the classroom for remedial instruction. By doing so, Emily ensured that students identified as needing additional services would receive time in the classroom to experience 21st‐century literacy practices within the same participation structures and time frame as the general education students. As a result, all students in her classroom were positioned as competent contributors to an emerging community of practice centered on digital literacies.

In Emily's classroom, which she aptly named the Hive Society, 10‐ and 11‐year‐olds thrive by drawing on their individual and collective strengths to make sense of the world while trying to make a difference (Saunders & Smith, 2014). Our collective inquiry into how inclusive literacy practices can foster an environment where all students have experiences with digital tools that allow them to become producers and consumers of knowledge led us to think about the specific ways students could engage with 21st‐century literacies to showcase their diverse perspectives and promote academic success.

Students in the Hive Society move seamlessly between individual, partner, small‐group, and whole‐class instruction to broaden, challenge, or affirm their thinking. After deep introspection of this learning environment, our team - a classroom teacher, a university professor, and a doctoral student - felt the need to share the instructional practices enacted in the classroom that help all children succeed. In particular, we chose to highlight how the tenets of 21st‐century literacies (re)positioned Lee, a biracial female fifth‐grade student who was identified as having a learning disability, as a competent and capable learner.

Why inclusivity matters

If the notion that public schools should prepare children to be proficient consumers, producers, and disseminators of a variety of print‐based and digital texts is taken seriously, then all students, particularly those receiving special services, should have access to pedagogies that promote fluency with tenets of the 21st century literacies framework.

By supporting inclusivity, our team wishes to actively work against deficit constructions of students with academic, linguistic, physical, cognitive, or economic factors that impede their ability to access the district‐approved curricula without additional supports (Oyler, 2011). Instead, we promote constructing learning experiences based on the fluctuating needs of students that attend to the social, political, and economic realities of being labeled as special education, bilingual, at‐risk, struggling, or below grade level.

In essence, our stance on inclusivity is rooted in equity‐based pedagogies that require us to provide enriching curricula for all students (Biklen, 2000; Naraian, 2014; Palincsar, Cutter, & Magnusson, 2004; Shelton & Fu, 2004), which includes access to inquiry‐based teaching and the use of technology and rejects the idea that students who receive specialized services should be subjected to remedial coursework or digital tools that position them as passive recipients of information.

The impact of 21st‐century literacies

As a way to understand how Lee engaged with digital tools while addressing social issues, we draw upon two bodies of work: 21st‐century literacies and social justice pedagogy. The International Literacy Association (ILA) and the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE; 2009) published position statements on new and 21st‐century literacies that provide a helpful heuristic for our work. NCTE defines 21st‐century literacies as these abilities for teachers and students:

Develop proficiency and fluency with the tools of technology.

Build intentional cross‐cultural connections and relationships with others to pose and solve problems collaboratively and strengthen independent thought.

Design and share information for global communities to meet a variety of purposes.

Manage, analyze, and synthesize multiple streams of simultaneous information.

Create, critique, analyze, and evaluate multimedia texts.

Attend to the ethical responsibilities required by these complex environments.

This definition anchors possibilities for infusing a print‐based literacy curriculum with elements of new literacies. ILA's position statement complements this definition by focusing on paradigmatic shifts in pedagogy and curriculum development to help understand the following:

1. Digital tool use requires new social practices, skills, strategies, and dispositions for the tools' effective use.

2. New literacies are rapidly changing as defining technologies change.

3. New literacies are multiple, multimodal, and multifaceted; thus, they benefit from multiple lenses seeking to understand how to better support our students in a digital age.

Together, these stances support our commitment to reimagining and revising the curriculum as a tool for innovative teaching. We designed an inquiry that explored topics such as diversity and equity while including hybrid digital tools such as blogs, apps, Web 2.0 platforms, and multimedia texts (Mills, 2010) to promote a learning environment steeped in critical thinking, collaboration, and expansive ways of conceptualizing written and oral communication.

While Emily's classroom engaged in digital literacy practices, the substance of the work the students produced was grounded in social justice pedagogy. The phrase teaching for social justice has proliferated in educational scholarship and settings, generating a variety of discourses about what it means to engage in social justice teaching (Jones & Enriquez, 2009; North, 2008).

We find Lipman's (2004) framework for social justice to be a useful heuristic for teachers to (1) reflect on ideologies that undergird the school curriculum; (2) question how decisions are made and who benefits; and (3) attend to factors that lead to systemic inequities in schools. Lipman's model frames social justice as the pursuit of equity, agency, cultural relevance, and critical literacy.

Developing a curriculum that builds on students' funds of knowledge (Moll, Amanti, Neff, & Gonzalez, 1992) provides access to digital tools, explores social issues, and creates a platform for sharing information with others reflects how our team merged this theory into practice.

We believe Lee's case can provide insight into how a 21st‐century literacies perspective can support inclusive literacy practices students learn while attending to elements of social justice.

Factors promoting student development

As our team continued to observe and analyze Lee's progress alongside the other students in her fifth‐grade language arts class, we were struck by three elements that helped to support and develop her 21st‐century literacies skills. These elements were (1) working in a community of learners, (2) using digital tools to make the curriculum accessible, and (3) linking academic goals with real‐world platforms (Figure 1). Across all three elements, Lee was able to develop a strong sense of what it means to be literate in today's world and have a role in shaping what it means to be literate in tomorrow's world. In the next sections, we provide a general overview of these three factors and then focus on one learning experience that highlights the potential impact digital tools had on Lee's academic success.
Figure 1. Framework for Promoting Student Development
Creating a community of learners

Lee belonged to a classroom community, the Hive Society, where inquiry and democratic learning are principles put into action every day. Emily has cultivated a learning community where students see themselves as teachers and learners. At times, the students take the lead on lessons and devise questions for their peers to ponder about the text they are reading, connect current events in society to these texts, and design social justice projects to extend their conversations to a broader community.

In the Hive Society, students are active participants in their own learning and take responsibility for sharing what they know and how they make sense of the curriculum as a team (Wells, 2000). Creating this type of flexible curriculum requires Emily to get to know her fifth‐grade students as individuals with different aspirations and interests. From the moment the school year begins, students are engaged in activities to define who they are (Saunders & Smith, 2014) or create podcasts about memorable moments in their lives.

For Lee, the memorable moments have centered on understanding autism and being encouraged to voice an opinion that is often silenced in school. Feeling empowered to share her thoughts helped Lee contribute to whole‐group conversations, partner work, and small‐group projects. In the Hive Society, Lee and the other students know their voices and interests matter. In this community, everyone counts on each other to raise questions, provide resources, and share information that contributes to the learning and development of the whole community. Being able to work across modalities while interacting with her peers helped Lee strengthen her literacy knowledge.

For example, Lee used Flipboard, an app for curating news stories, and Bitstrips, a website for creating original comics, to explain her topic of interest in a graphic format (see Figure 2). Whenever Lee's group came across articles that could provide more information, they were able to apply this knowledge to their comic strip in hopes of helping others to better understand autism.
Figure 2. Autism Digital Comic Strip
Being in the Hive Society is a huge departure from the type of learning Lee was accustomed to receiving in school. Unlike previous years, where Lee was pulled out of the classroom for tutoring or to complete worksheets that focused on isolated skills, she is now able to work alone, with a partner, or with a small group, or engage in whole‐group conversations that support her emerging ideas and give her space to consider other perspectives and the context surrounding the information (Stanford, Crowe, & Flice, 2010).

Since the majority of learning in the Hive Society centers on student inquiry, Lee is able to demonstrate her ability to formulate an argument for a position she is passionate about, such as autism, because she has spent time talking about the research on autism with her classmates, examining multiple positions and opinions while simultaneously forming her own thoughts.

Frequently, we would observe Lee debate about the character's intent in Cynthia Lord's (2008) Rules and connect her personal perspective to the characters in the story. These conversations informed her digital expression of ideas and helped her construct projects with a targeted message. For example, Lee composed several drafts for her response before selecting the representation shown in Figure 3 to submit. She shared each draft her with group and debated the merit of the feedback to help her decide how to focus her ideas.

Lee's confidence level and belief in her ability to interact and challenge her peers' thought processes demonstrate the power of the collaborative nature in the Hive Society and the type of community it created. It is this tension in the Hive Society, that creates a dynamic learning space inviting everyone to be a participant and try something new.
Figure 3. Classroom Bulletin Board With Lee's Social Change Project About Autism
Using digital tools to make the curriculum accessible

In the Hive Society, students shared their thoughts and observations using a variety of modalities. As the students worked in tandem with one another, they learned to challenge each other to develop more sophisticated understandings of the information provided. The apps and digital tools functioned as a mediator between individual and collective knowledge.

For instance, after Emily finished a whole‐group minilesson, it was common to see students working in pairs to answer questions, connect texts, or brainstorm potential project ideas to link the content they were learning about to current societal issues. As the students shared their questions, ideas, and connections to the book, they used apps or other Web 2.0 platforms to create a visual depiction of their evolving ideas. Lee's literature discussion group (Maloch, 2005) used an app called Corkulous to help them organize their thoughts on an electronic bulletin board (see Figure 4).

The students in Lee's group recorded their thoughts using color‐coded electronic sticky notes and then created a space on their electronic board for their ideas on the upcoming social change project, which was linked to their literature circle book. In addition, the students posted possible overarching themes of their literature circle text.

Each week, Lee's group would alter their predictions, add more wonderings, or condense their thoughts on the social change project. Given the collaborative nature of group work in the class, if students wanted to incorporate a specific element, they had to convince their group members to include it. This artful deliberation of sharing their thoughts and supporting it with evidence helped to strengthen Lee's textual understanding, her thought process, and her ability to persuade her peers.

Figure 4 is an early example of students organizing their ideas into topics, questions, images, and thoughts from each participant, while Figure 5 shows the students engaged in this process.
Figure 4. Students Using Corkulous to Share Ideas Figure 5. Students Using iPad During Literature Discussion
Another tool students used frequently to compose with is GarageBand. For example, Lee would digitally record a memorable moment that shaped her life, then use GarageBand to edit it and create a podcast (see Figure 6). This activity incorporated all of the elements of the writing and composing across modalities.

First, Lee (along with her classmates) brainstormed ideas about a memorable moment in her life. Next she wrote, edited, and revised her story to incorporate elements from whole‐group minilessons based on NPR's StoryCorps. This program served as a mentor text that provided specific craft lessons about voice, music, tone, inflection, and narration.

Finally, once Lee and her classmates recorded and mixed their stories using GarageBand, they published the podcasts on their class website. During this process, students helped each other with the recording and editing of the podcasts, and a few students were deemed "experts" who could assist their peers as they worked on their projects. Lee listened to the experts' advice and revised her podcast to incorporate their suggestions. Lee's engagement with this type of multimodal literacy was an integral aspect of her learning in the Hive Society.
Figure 6. Students Working With GarageBand
Linking academic goals with real‐world platforms

Incorporating digital tools into the classroom can provide students with authentic audiences with whom to share their learning across a variety of modes. In the Hive Society, each unit of study provided an opening for the students to develop inquiry projects that linked their interests and academic skills with a digital platform. These inquiries encouraged students to closely examine issues that were important to them while learning how to make real‐world connections to what they are learning in school.

For example, in the literature group, all of the students explored a social change project that related to the concepts addressed in the book (see Figure 7). The students had a lot of autonomy in creating and producing their own social change projects, but one component always included community engagement.

Each week, Emily tweeted and blogged about the work students were doing in class, inviting them and their followers to respond with questions or comments (see Figure 8). Sometimes, the comments or questions from followers helped prompt the students to alter or clarify their social change projects. Often, the students could be found checking to see if they received a response on their posted ideas or offers of support for their projects.

By making their work visible not only to the school community but also to others outside of the school, the fifth‐graders are able to share their thoughts about topics on social issues relevant to their community and position themselves as problem solvers who want to make a difference in the world.
Figure 7. Hive Society Website Figure 8. Example of Social Action Project for Pets
Putting it all together

Thinking across the three elements of support - a community of learners, digital tools, and real‐world content - we found that the students' literacy practices and skills became more complex and deliberate. Thus, by integrating real‐world aspects, our inquiry taught us that the students were exceeding the academic expectations set in district standards. This is a departure from what the literature communicates about "at‐risk" or "struggling" students.

For Lee, being part of an environment embedded with inclusive literacy practices provided access to the same rigorous curriculum her peers received and thus increased her opportunity to engage in digital literacy practices. Her academic status no longer functioned as an obstacle that placed her on the margins, limiting the semiotic tools or modes of representation available to her for meaning making. She was a full participant in this community, and that supported her foray into the world as a public intellectual.

However, to make sure that Lee (as well as other students) consistently had these opportunities, Emily had to work with her colleagues to rearrange the schedule, eventually moving from a pullout services model to a push‐in model of inclusion. But did these experiences support Lee's literacy development across print and digital texts?

In the next section, we provide a closer look at how a class project, Hive Talks (modeled after TED Talks), brought together Lee's ability to develop fluency with print and digital texts, work collaboratively with her peers, design and share information, and manage, analyze, and synthesize multiple streams of information that connect to her academic interest.

Situated alongside the apps and Web 2.0 platforms, Hive Talks provided space in the curriculum for to Lee move between modes of representation to share her learning. To prepare for her talk, she had to select a topic, conduct research about the topic, write the talk, create a digital representation of the written paper, and present her talk to the school community.

After a series of minilessons and class discussions about the assignment, Emily immersed the students in the genre of TED Talks by viewing numerous examples (see Figure 9) and creating charts to list the characteristics of the genre, the subject matter discussed in the talks, effective presentation techniques, and strategies the speakers used to teach the audience about the topic.
Figure 9. Genre Study
In the past, Lee would not have been able to fully participate in this learning experience because she was pulled out of class for additional services. But in the Hive Society, inclusive digital literacy practices and differentiated instruction provided Lee with the scaffolds she needed to research and present on her topic.

She brainstormed ideas for her project, then shared her options within her small group (see Figure 10). During her small‐group discussion, she and another student were generating lots of options for the talk and decided that because their interests were similar and they enjoyed thinking about the topic together, they would work as a team for the talk and presentation.

After sharing this option with Emily, they created a plan for accomplishing the tasks related to the assignment and dividing up the workload. Lee and her partner were excited about the project and presenting their perspective about how fashion (their topic) is an avenue for exploring and expressing identity and political beliefs (see Figure 11).
Figure 10. Research Group Meeting for Hive Talk Figure 11. Lee and Alex Presenting Their Project
For eight weeks, Lee and her partner moved between researching their topic, selecting images for the presentation, translating their notes into bullet points for their PowerPoint, writing, revising, and rehearsing their talk (cyclical process). During each phase, they conferred with Emily to receive feedback on their research, drafts of their talk, content of their PowerPoint, effectiveness of their presentation style, and strategies for engaging with the audience.

Emily relied on these conferences to collect assessment data that informed her teaching. She checked in with students, noting their progress, questions, and areas of misunderstanding. She also made note of her students' strengths and areas of leadership and applied this information to her process for assigning jobs for the Hive Talks.

The students were in charge of making name tags, running the computer monitor that was used as a teleprompter, designing and installing the background for the set, setting up the microphone and performing sound checks, and greeting guests who attended the day‐long event (see Figure 12).
Figure 12. Student‐Led Technology Crew
Conclusion

Situating digital tool use in the larger classroom context has potential to illuminate the possibility for 21st‐century literacies to inform classroom discourse and digital learning experiences. By privileging the relationships and roles students developed and sustained across time, their knowledge construction as well as their commitment to collective thinking and learning is honored. Reflecting on Lipman's (2004) framework, the class environment, formulation of the curriculum, and instructional practices align with the pursuit of equity, critical literacy, and agency.

The examples we shared in each section collectively speak to the tenets of this framework and provide accessible layered opportunities to think about social issues across modalities. Table 1 summarizes how the digital tools Lee used across the literacy practices we described in this article repositioned her as a 21st‐century literacy learner and adhered to Lipman's (2004) framework.
Chart of Lee's Literacy Practices
We began this process wanting to understand how educators could circumvent underlying ideologies of school curricula and traditional teacher‐student dynamics through the use of co‐constructed curricula centering on student interests. We found that when students had choice, layered with space for inquiry and collaboration, the curriculum became more inviting and grounded in the lived experiences students drew on to make sense of the world.

We also learned that when student interests are the focus of the curriculum, digital tools and 21st‐century literacy practices were students' preferred modes and means of learning to communicate with a variety of audiences about topics that mattered to them. Lastly, because Emily is committed to embodying a social justice pedagogy in language arts and relates the majority of projects in the Hive Society to topics about equity and power, students are able to examine systemic or institutional causes for such inequities in depth across the school year.

Teaching grounded in a 21st‐century literacies framework created expansive ways of learning and included more problem‐posing innovative instructional practices. For Lee, being positioned as a person who is capable of choosing her own topic for inquiry, creating collaborative advocacy projects, and sharing what she learned across semiotic modes of learning embodied what it meant to be a learner in her class. She was not pulled out of class for remedial instruction that restricted her engagement with 21st‐century literacies; rather, she thrives because of the new skill set she is learning and putting to use each day. It is here that Lee and her fellow classmates learn together as peers, teachers and, perhaps most importantly, co‐constructors of learning in an inclusive classroom where everyone's thoughts are heard, valued, and respected.

About the authors

Detra Price‐Dennis is an assistant professor of elementary inclusive education at Teachers College, Columbia University, New York, New York.

Kathlene A. Holmes is an instructor and doctoral candidate at the University of Texas at Austin.

Emily Smith is a fifth‐grade teacher at Cunningham Elementary School in Austin, Texas.

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Exploring Digital Literacy Practices in an Inclusive Classroom

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Imagine walking into a fifth‐grade classroom where students are editing podcasts on GarageBand, drafting scripts for their stop‐motion animation film on creativity, or creating digital response charts to a Langston Hughes poem in preparation for a forum on diversity and equity in American society.

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A great example of spoken word poetry.

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Students love using Animoto to showcase their learning! This tool pairs words with pictures, music, and videos that anyone can easily create.

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Create videos that engage and impress. Animoto's drag-and-drop editing tools and visual effects make it easy. No training or experience necessary.

Create and share videos for free. Upgrade anytime for more customization.

As you get started making videos, we're here to help along the way! Join other businesses just like yours in the Animoto Social Video Marketing Community on Facebook. Our team of video experts is ready to help you grow with tips, ideas, inspiration, and feedback on your videos. You can also reach our dedicated Customer team directly at help@animoto.com .

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Free Video Maker | Create & Edit Your Videos Easily

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Create, edit, and share videos with our free video maker. Combine your photos, video clips, and music to make quality videos in minutes. Get started free!

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This website is about a Gif creating contest with How to GIF resources.

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3 Runners-up

2 First-time GIF-makers category winners

4 Children and Teenagers Category Winners

Jana Brūvere (Liepāja, Latvija), age 17
Source material: 1.Poultry| Jacomo Victors |DK-National Aggregation Service;
2.William Cheselden giving an anatomical demonstration to six spectators | Wellcome Collection via Europeana

People's Choice Award Winner

GIPHY Backdrop Category Winner
Congratulations to the winners - you will be contacted about the prizes via email. And huge thanks to all the participants! Hope to see you again next year.
Spread the love for GIFs and culture

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Jana Brūvere (Liepāja, Latvija), age 17 Source material: 1.Poultry| Jacomo Victors |DK-National Aggregation Service;2.William Cheselden giving an anatomical demonstration to six spectators | Wellcome Collection via Europeana Congratulations to the winners - you will be contacted about the prizes via email. And huge thanks to all the participants!

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Leveraging Digital Literacies for Equity and Social Justice

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Leveraging Digital Literacies for Equity and Social Justice

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Ideas shared by my teacher classmate:
More ideas:
*Summer Bucket List/ Plans
*Map a character's adventure ("Hatchet", Salva Dut's story, "A Long Walk to Water" etc.)
*Map historical events/ war battles/ underground
railroad
*Map goods/produce to show carbon footprint or
illustrate a call to action
*Map waterways toward the ocean to show the
route a piece of litter/single use plastic takes
to the ocean
*Map immigration and settlements of people in
history, or to show language and culture development
*Map where artifacts were found and where they can be seen in museums around the world
*Map the way music and its influence travels for
example: jazz/blues in the South to the North-
its progression during the Harlem Renaissance

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Advancing media through exploration and experimentation.

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This is a great inspirational tool if you're interested in having students present orally. I've had students create fake "TED Talks" and used this website to model expectations.

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Bring TED-Ed Student Talks to Your School

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Transform your classroom with TED-Ed! Discover hundreds of animated lessons, create customized lessons, and inspire your students to share their big ideas.

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This is another space for students to create digital work!

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WeVideo is a free, user friendly, online video editor that allows you to add layers of pictures/video, music, audio recordings, titles, transitions, and more.

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Free Online Video Editor | Interactive Video | WeVideo

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The #1 video editor for schools, businesses, and solopreneurs. Create professional-looking multimedia projects with powerful, easy-to-use tools. Try free today!

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This tool allows you to create a website or blog. I used this to create an online teacher portfolio when I was first applying for teaching jobs. It's easy to use, and it might be something a teacher or class could create and cocurate together.

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Build your website, build your success

From tech hurdles big and small to business growth tips, help from our Customer Success team is just an email, chat, or phone call away. Begin with Weebly's free website builder and lean on us for help along the way.

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Weebly is the easiest way to create a website, store or blog

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Weebly's free website builder makes it easy to build a website, blog, or online store. Find customizable designs, domains, and eCommerce tools for any type of business using our website builder.

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This is a great tool for news. My school district send one out every week for our newsletter. I also used this tool for my portfolio. It's easy to understand and I think students and teachers could have fun with this platform.

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Smore | Communicate effectively with interactive school newsletters

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Cut through the noise and communicate effectively with Smore. Create interactive newsletters that parents and staff actually read. Get started with free school newsletter templates.

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What does it mean to write or to be a writer? In Shawn Coppola's book Writing, Redefined: Broadening Our Ideas of What It Means to Compose , she challenges the reader to expand beyond standard alphabetic writing and consider alternative forms of composition when assigning writing to students. This book gives teachers the power to change what "counts" as writing in schools and classrooms, opening the door to students who may not consider themselves to be writers, but should and can.visual, aural,

Inside there are alternative, engaging writing assignments that are and multimodal that will involve all students, specifically those:

Who prefer to compose using a wider array of forms and modes

For whom "standard" English is not the norm

Who have been identified as dyslexic

Whose cultural traditions lean heavily towards more aural forms of composition

Who are considered "struggling" writers

students.
While there is no question composition in written form is important and worth of study, broadening our definition of writing expands an enormous range of possibilities for composing for

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Writing, Redefined: Broadening Our Ideas of What It Means to Compose

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Writing, Redefined: Broadening Our Ideas of What It Means to Compose: Coppola, Shawna: 9781625312754: Books

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by Shawna Coppola

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This video that was shared in class really helped put into perspective that while using others' work to inspire our own can feel like a copyright violation, everything we see uses pieces of others' work.  When we take the time to truly understand this, it can become easier to participate in the act of remixing.

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Make Writing! This website is a one-stop shop for thoughts, practices, and resources regarding writing workshop, making writing, and multimodal composition.

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I grew up in Pendleton, New York on the banks of the Erie Canal. Tucked far off the road, our house stood at the end of a long and winding driveway that was made for roller skating and racing my yellow banana seat bicycle down the hill and around the bend. My days were spent skipping stones with my sister and our neighborhood friends, and my evenings were spent alone in the quiet of my room, which overlooked the water.
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I became a teacher because I had good teachers, and children are some of the best.
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Storytelling is a powerful sort of branding. More importantly, it reminds us of who we are and why our work really matters.
I love listening to the stories that people of all ages share with me. I'm passionate about studying how they approach the writing process as well. I've learned a great deal by standing on the shoulders of giants, but I've learned much more by peering over the shoulders of the learners that I support. I'm serious about this kind of action research, and my work here never ends.

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Today, I live in Kenmore, New York with my husband John, Remy the rambunctious Labrador retriever, his brother Wintson, and our sweet cat, Girard. I am an Instructional Designer and adjunct faculty member at Daemen University in Amherst, New York, and I spend my free time reading and writing on my porch, digging in my garden, hiking with my husband and my puppy, visiting our daughters who are grown and flown now, and cooking incredible meals with family and friends.*

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I grew up in Pendleton, New York on the banks of the Erie Canal. Tucked far off the road, our house stood at the end of a long and winding driveway that was made for roller skating and racing my yellow banana seat bicycle down the hill and around the bend.