The world we know and the things around us every day are continuously changing. Modern technology has become more prevalent in and out of the classrooms now more than ever. This has created a critical debate in our society as to how to incorporate the “appropriate” amount of technology integration and use of it in the classroom. Educators in today’s society stand divided by this issue. We can see many who love to find new ways to incorporate technology resources into lesson plans, while many others stick to traditional resources and practices. If one thinks about their everyday life, and how many times a day they text, look on social media sites or just simply browse the internet? One most likely does not know, but as discussed in an article titled, Digital Literacy Fundamentals (click here to read) we as humans live in a media-rich environment. This means that children and adults have a need to become digitally and web literate and conscious of the decisions with technology.
The definition of what it means to be “web literate”, is simply the understanding of the skills one must possess in order to read, write, and participate on the web. To further understand this idea, one can look to the Web Literacy Map (Figure 1.1). This map is divided into three transparent categories that are: participate, read, and write. When an individual participates it means to connect, inquire, and collaborate all on the web. One must read, and explore the content on the internet/web and use their comprehension skills. Lastly, in order to be web literate, you must write. Building content using one’s creativity and online construction skills. I know for me that this model was not the easiest thing to understand, but the more the individual reads about this model the more it makes sense. If you would like to learn more information on web literacy click here.
As discussed earlier, there is a debate on how much technology is too much in the classroom. As our society continuously evolves, there is a high demand for the integration of technology into the classroom, but we must understand how this event occurs. The SAMR model represents just this as seen in this visual representation. SAMR is an acronym for Substitution, Augmentation, Modification, and lastly Redefinition. This model focuses on two things in the classroom, enhancement (substitution and augmentation) and transformation (modification and redefinition). With substitution, technology acts as a direct substitute with no significant change. An example of this is a student writing an essay on a computer rather than paper, they are still writing an essay simply on a different platform. Augmentation also apart of enhancement in the classroom acts as a substitution with some functional improvement. This idea would be creating an essay on a Google Doc, which is capable of being shared with peers and teachers for feedback. Modification is when technology allows for significant task redesigning. That Google Doc the student created now has been formed into a blog post. Students are able to research and use their creativity to present information to an authentic audience. Lastly on the SAMR model is redefinition, this allows the technology to create new tasks that were previously inconceivable. Now, that essay has now become a blog post that is a multimedia package. Click here to watch a video that briefly explains the SAMR Model.
In order to improve the way, we use technology over time in and out of the classroom, we as humans must become educated and familiar with these topics. Incorporating what it means to become more digitally and web literate, also how we can integrate technology into the classroom, for both the benefit of the educator and the student.
Education Boulevard 