5 Ways to Engage ELA Students

Purpose & objective

In this session, participants will be able to discuss and analyze five tech tools and strategies (myShakespeare, Blackout Poetry, Loom, Pear Deck, and BookBentos + Google Slides) that can be used in the ELA classroom. Participants will be able to identify and brainstorm ways to incorporate these tools and strategies in their own classrooms while collaborating with other participants.

All tools and strategies are free to use and easy to duplicate and have been personally vetted and used by the presenter. Each strategy and tool will be individually highlighted and explained by the presenter with immediate question and answer sessions after each item is showcased. Participants will be asked to brainstorm ideas for use in their classroom using the chat feature.

Participants will receive digital task cards stepping them through using the strategy and/or tech tool. These cards can be taken by participants to continue their learning at their respective school or district site. Additionally, participants will have access to links and resources embedded in the presentation to further their learning and increase their knowledge and understanding of the tools and strategies. Blackout poetry and myShakespeare will have instructional Loom videos as well.

Supporting research

In researching technology-rich learning environments, Tiene and Luft (2001) conducted a study that used surveys, observations, and interviews to document the experiences of 10 public middle school teachers whose classes spent two months in a technology-rich environment. The teachers and students both used tech equipment extensively in working on class projects and thereby significantly enhanced their technological expertise. The availability of so much technology altered class dynamics in several ways. Students were able to work more independently than in the conventional classroom, and their learning experiences were more individualized.

According to Bush (2012), the learner who is transliterate builds knowledge, communicates, and interacts across a range of platforms, tools, and media. To support transliteracy, educators should consider how technology may be integrated into instruction. Technology integration should support pedagogical strategies, increase information fluency, and facilitate the practice of 21st-century skills.

Research suggests that technology should support instruction, rather than dominate the learning experience. Educators have developed strategies that successfully balance the use of technology and pedagogical best practices. Clark provides several strategies that teachers can use to optimize the benefits of technology for learning:

- Make student thinking visible
- Give every student a voice
- Make sharing work easy and accessible
- Allow students to share work within the classroom and beyond (Passut, 2018)

These technologies have been shown to improve student reading comprehension skills, perhaps because students find the technologies to be fun and motivational (Bursali and Yilmaz, 2019). To be effective, the tech must be combined with pedagogically sound, well-designed learning tasks (Hockly, 2019). Finally, the tech is most effectively integrated into the curriculum when teachers are involved in a collaborative design process for new lessons, or when they customize extant lessons based on stated learning goals (Patterson and Han, 2019).