Breanna Garrison
December 19th, 2017
Interdisciplinary Article Analysis
Everyone has their personal opinions on the use of technology in the classroom. In the article,Interdisciplinary Literacy Through Social Media, a teacher explains her opinions and present her study on why technology in the classroom can create a positive impact. Gail Casey particularly teaches a math course and within her courses she incorporates the use of computers, online assignments, and group discussions. She creates an individual website for each class each year in which she has the full power to control who views the site, who has access, and moderates who can post. From this personalized website, she has her students post using webcams in groups completing math problems, commenting on peer's discussion post, or reading an article based on what they learned in class that day. She argues unlike other researchers that the use of technology is not decreasing the classroom involvement. Instead, the use technology is enhancing the classroom. Gail argues that we cannot hide from the fact that students are using technology inside and outside of school. She is aware that students use their social devices in the day to day activities, so she has decided to incorporate what the students are comfortable with in her learning exercises. According to Casey (2003), "My curriculum delivery, as in most subjects, is full of text and reading, but I find it rewarding to construct face-to-face classes that incorporate a type of social and online learning environment in which students share their skills" (p.60). Students in today's society do have experience and knowledge with technology and the online world, so why not like Casey, allow the students to express their skills and knowledge with different types of media to complete their assignments. Throughout the article Casey inserted different charts, pictures examples of her classroom websites, and supportive arguments of her study.
As supportive and pro Casey is for the use of media and technology in the classroom, she did acknowledge that there are some issues with integrating it into the classroom. She admits that it is time consuming to monitor all posting activity on her individualized class website. Mentioning that it does take some getting used to navigating the media to find different student's work. Although she found that navigating student's work a problem, she did find an alternative to making this issue easier. Casey had each student create their own individual page, similar to their own blog. With this she was able to locate the student's work on their own blog site. Casey states (2003), I found that by encouraging students to create and publish g their assignments using a blog, and using their "My Page" as a type of e-portfolio, I overcame these problems and, during final assessments and 2 written reports, was able to quickly view a student's work" (p.68). It was a great way to support and explain her conducted research by inserting the screenshot example of a student's "My Page" website. Another issue that Casey found while integrating media in the classroom was how to approach the online slang language that students were using. She had to approach the topic and set guidelines for the students with the style of text language that was allowed to be used.
Math is not a subject you usually hear most students jumping over the moon to participate in. It makes all the difference if you can incorporate personal day-to-day activities that students understand and can relate to their personal lives. According to Casey (2003), "Incorporating students' out-of-school activities helped them come into the math classroom with a relaxed tone; their interests were more visible and, where appropriate, able to be incorporated into the curriculum. These types of activities highlight the intersections and junctures between everyday (home, community, peer group) and school" (p.66).
Gail Casey, a math teacher who conducted this research from her own classroom used several different disciplines to come to her conclusion. From the mathematical aspect, sociology, and psychology. Simply the mathematical discipline is used every day for Casey whether it is in person in the classroom or online at home students doing their work. This is simply because she is a math teacher. The sociology discipline plays a role, because of socioeconomic status. This study cannot be performed in a lower socioeconomic area due to the lack of access to technology. Casey had to make sure she addressed this within the article, that her students are majority from the middle-class area and she feels that they all have access in their personal lives to technology. Overlooking the discipline of sociology could cause a huge problem within the classroom and the students. Without properly evaluating if each student can get to the technology resource could cause a downhill spiral for families and the student. Psychology is looked at when Casey determined that outside technology was such a big part of her students' lives. She realized that by adapting to what was getting her students' attention she could incorporate learning into the new technology wave. She had to see from a different perspective on how to exactly make this work in a math classroom for her students to still benefit from learning. Personally, from each discipline I think Gail Casey covered each and faced each discipline head on. She addressed each problem that could be tacked on with the discipline and acknowledged them within the article. She had graphs and student's work to support her conclusions for each disciplinary. Bringing the outside world of technology and media into the classroom can be difficult for teachers. It usually leaves teachers in an uncomfortable spot of not knowing where to draw the line and lowering their expectations for work, but Casey found a way to incorporate it without crossing that line or lowering her standards.
Similar to Repko from the text, Gail Casey covered majority of the 10 steps that Repko follows. She defined her problem and justified in her problem in several cases. The problem at hand was the criticism and backlash receiving for the desire of wanting to incorporate technology in her students' school lives. She addressed the problem from different discipline aspects. Casey did not just focus on this issue from one discipline mind set, she viewed and addressed it from three different disciplines and possibly more. The three disciplines I recognized within the context of the article were Mathematics, Psychology, and Sociology each were addressed with different conclusion since they each brought their own problems to the table. Gail Casey conducted a literature search of her own by gathering different opinions and research from articles on the subject of technology in the classroom. She had their arguments within the text allowing the reader to see each view point and how she supported fully her own. All the way down the step process ladder Casey covered them all whether in a small aspect or fully explaining them. She recognized the conflicts and approached how she was going to find solutions to the conflicts. She conducted several tests within her two classrooms, students, and their personal blogs.
The article was intriguing to analyze to me personally because I was not a huge supporter of technology inside the classroom until reading this. Gail Casey explained her argument clearly and strongly. She convinced me as a reader that there are different techniques to get students more enthused about their school work and assignments. We all as humans sometimes have to adapt to new learning styles. It is all a part of the cycle we go through in life as our world becomes more technology based. The thought of using websites and online media in classrooms scares many, but I think Casey displays this study well enough to convince most that it is not a bad idea to start tying in media into our daily lesson plans. It allows the freedom to the student to express themselves and find a technique based on the knowledge of technology to turn in their work and assignments. Being able to see your students to self-assess themselves and their peers is a new way of assessing our students. We do not need to be stuck on the idea of the red pen but instead allow peers to comment their compliments and suggestions to other students. All of this will allow each student to have their own personal voice and allow them to be heard. Logically thinking on it as much as we want to go around the classroom and have each student share their opinion, we do not have enough time in the day. If you were able to hear each students’ opinion from a blog post, a mind-map, or a classroom lesson reflection you would be able to hear their opinion shine through. Jenkins states, (2006), "Taking a sociocultural perspective to literacy helped connect the gaps between in-school and out-of-school learning. It provided students with a type of participatory culture, described as a new form of hidden curriculum" (p.70). Covering all key aspects this article was a great find for me. Someone who valued becoming an educator at one point and realizing that all the disciplines that can be incorporated into any line of field. Casey concluded her research with, "I hope that this study will help inform other educators from across subject areas to recognize and implement literacy practices, not as an isolated classroom activity but across their disciplines as well"(p.70). So, now ask yourself, do you think you can positively challenge the new generation to take those technology items they use on a day to day basis to learn and test their skills with different school subjects.
Citations:
Casey, G. (2013). Interdisciplinary Literacy Through Social Media in the Mathematics Classroom: An Action Research Study. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy,57(1), 60-71. doi:10.1002/jaal.216