Module 6: Navigating Networked Communities and Digital Ecologies

Digital platforms and tools in the classroom are new to me. I grew up during a time when technology was beginning to evolve at a rapid pace. In high school I learned to type on an electric typewriter. When I first started college, I used a word processor. My father insisted I had a cell phone when I was commuting to Buffalo State College my junior year. The cell phone plans were for calls only and it was pay by the minute usage. My husband and I had dial-up internet when we were first married. 

For over twenty years, I stayed home with my children, and did not step foot in a classroom until fall of 2023. So much has changed over those years. While I am comfortable with digital platforms and tools, I do not have a lot of experience with digital tools used in the classroom. It has been a learning curve, and honestly, I would love to find time to familiarize myself with some digital platforms and tools available to use in the classroom. 

There are a few digital platforms and tools I am regularly using in my classroom. The first is ClassDojo. I first started using it when I was co-teaching a class last summer. We mostly used it to communicate with students’ parents or guardians. I loved sending quick messages or a picture to students’ parents or guardians during the day. When you work with students with disabilities, especially nonverbal children, having an instant line of communication makes a huge difference in building relationships with the students’ support system. 

ClassDojo is a communication app with interactive games for students. The platform states it is the safest online community for kids to play. While I have not used the game piece, I have used a few of the other features of the platform. Teachers set up an account and add students to their class. Parents can sign up and log into the class using either a QR Codes or a classroom code. A printable invite can be sent home with the student or they can be emailed to the student's parent or guardian. An email account and some type of internet access through smart phones, devices or computers are required to sign up for an account and access the features.

There are a lot more features than I am currently using, however, next school year I plan to incorporate more of ClassDojo's content in my classroom. For now, I chat with parents, send announcements, or mass messages.  Under tools, there are options for timers, groups, randomizers, group maker, noise meter, directions think pair share, and music. The randomizer might be one of the best features. It eliminates the arguments and adds a level of anticipation. There are numerous possibilities for use in the classroom. 

One of the features is the ability to reward students for positive skills such as helping others, on task, participating, persistence, teamwork, and working hard. There is an option to add skills. By clicking on the student's monster avatar, the teacher is able to reward the student with points for the different skills. These skills can easily be used as a classroom management and reward system. I would love to incorporate it next school year. The students in my class benefit from frequent intentional praise. That can be a challenge when one student is disrupting the class with their behaviors. Using this feature in my class would allow my staff and I to track and monitor the students’ behaviors and offer an alternative reward system, such as so many points to earn a prize or reward. 

Another digital tool I have used in my classroom is Google Drive. Our school has a shared drive with for administrators, teachers, and axillary teams access. For privacy reasons, most of the Google Drive information is shared with specific staff members. Staff email and a link to a specific files is needed to access the files. Within the files, there are Google Sheets and Google Docs of class lists, master schedules for each classroom, policies and procedures, various forms, bus departures, and curriculum files. There is a master CSE meeting schedule for all the students, along with the paperwork needed to complete student's IEP drafts. The master schedule is a Google Sheets with tabs on the bottom labeled for each classroom and service provider. Within the class schedule is the days and times for student’s required counseling, speech, occupational therapy, and physical therapy. 

This year I utilized a literacy unit study that was a licensed school access purchases from an online teacher resource store. The files were shared with me from another teacher. I was able to download the files and print what I needed for the unit studies. The unit study gave me access to digital anchor charts on google slides for the different units. It was easy to download the google slide and pull them up on the smartboard when we needed them. Students were able to interact with the slides. They enjoyed using the digital anchor chart slides on the smartboard. 

Both ClassDojo and Google Drive require internet and a device for access. There are safety and privacy in place with email and password encryption, as well as permissions. Access to both platforms allows users to share information. To locate the needed resources, however, the user needs to know what they are looking for and where to find it. Google Drive can easily become cluttered, and it can be difficult to find the files one needs. Proper labeling is necessary. For example, our school’s Google Drive has two different master schedules for this school year. By December 2024, there were several students that switched classes or left the school. As a new teacher starting in January, it was confusing. I had to ask for clarification on several occasions to understand which file was the current version. The school I worked at previously used Share Drive. It took me some time to navigate the different sections, but once I understood where to find the information I needed, I found it to be more user friendly. 

Resources

ClassDojo. (2019). ClassDojo. ClassDojo. https://www.classdojo.com/

Google. (n.d.). Google Drive: Online File Storage for Business | Google Workspace.                    Workspace.google.com. https://workspace.google.com/products/drive/

Module 5: Conducting Research on New Literacies

As an early childhood special education teacher, I recognize the importance of literacy. I am interested in learning ways to improve my ability to support my students. For this assignment, I searched for research articles about improving literacy for special education students through iPad usage. I have selected five research articles for this annotated bibliography. Four out of five of the articles were published in the last five years. Only one article was ten years old. Two of the articles specifically addressed educators’ professional development to improve literacy in special education. The other three specifically focused on the use of iPad apps and games to help children improve literacy. Two of the articles used the term open apps and closed apps. Closed apps are instructional apps where the player earns coins for completing the game. Open apps allow for more creativity in the players learning. The open apps mentioned in the articles were more appealing for the students and lent themselves to play-based learning. I am more familiar with closed style apps than open apps. I would be interested in learning more about open style apps and finding ways of introducing them to the students in my class.  

Annotated Bibliography

Benner, G. J., Strycker, L. A., Pennefather, J., & Smith, J. L. M. (2022). Improving Literacy for Students with Emotional and Behavioral Disorders: An Innovative Approach. Teacher Education and Special Education, 45(4), 331-348. https://doi-org.sunyempire.idm.oclc.org/10.1177/08884064221079813 (Original work published 2022)

Students with emotional and behavioral disorders have significant deficits in reading. This study sets out to answer three questions to determine the feasibility of a professional learning program to address teachers’ knowledge, self-efficacy, and burnout. A 10 week online professional development program, called Integrated Literacy Study Group, was developed to equip elementary teachers to meet the literacy needs of students with or at risk of emotional and behavioral disorders.

Fantozzi, V. B. (2021). “It’s Everyone’s iPad”: Tablet use in a play-based preschool classroom. Journal of Early Childhood Research, 19(2), 115-127. https://doi-org.sunyempire.idm.oclc.org/10.1177/1476718X20983835 (Original work published 2021)

The study looked at the use of iPads in a play-based preschool classroom over the course of two years. The article defines closed apps as coin earned instructional led apps, while open apps are user directed and support teaching. Open apps more closely align with play-based philosophy and were used in the study. The iPads were used for language building and storytelling activities. In a play-based classroom, the children’s response and initiative are important to encourage the teachers to continue to incorporate the iPads into the day.  

Flewitt, R., Messer, D., & Kucirkova, N. (2015). New directions for early literacy in a digital age: The iPad. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 15(3), 289–310. https://doi.org/10.1177/1468798414533560

This article explores the use of iPads in learning possibilities, as well as teaching early literacy development to nursery schools, early childhood, and special education classrooms. The study looked at open and closed ios apps and their effects on learning. Closed apps tend to be repetitive, and the students lost interest quickly. Open apps allow creativity in learning. The article listed drawbacks, such as teachers spending extra time outside the classroom finding apps and students frustration over apps.  While the study was exploratory in nature, the authors expressed the benefits of using iPads in the classroom. 

Vasalou, A., Benton, L., Ibrahim, S., Sumner, E., Joye, N., & Herbert, E. (2021). Do children with reading difficulties benefit from instructional game supports? Exploring children’s attention and understanding of feedback. British Journal of Educational Technology, 52(6), 2359–2373. https://doi-org.sunyempire.idm.oclc.org/10.1111/bjet.13145

The paper studied twenty-six children ages 8-11 with reading difficulties in England to understand how the children respond to literacy learning games. Students played two games per session of a game they had previously played. The screen was recorded, and audio dialogue was recorded. When a student encountered an error, the student was asked a series of questions to determine the reason for the error to determine if the student attend to, understand and act upon different types of feedback within the games.

Zepp, Lauren B., et al. “Preparing Special Educators to Teach Reading Using Multimedia Instruction: A Literature Review.” Journal of Special Education Technology, vol. 39, no. 4, 13 Feb. 2024, pp. 500–512, https://doi.org/10.1177/01626434241232121. Accessed 21 Mar. 2025.

The research article delves into multimedia models efficacy for intervention taught in special education preparation. The research specifically reviewed reading instruction from fourteen quantitative studies, excluding any studies that did not include reading instruction. Skills such as phonics, phonological awareness, and phonemic awareness were the most common forms of intervention. The research saw significant gains in pre-service teacher knowledge from technological interventions from multimedia vignettes and Content Acquisition Podcasts (CAP). The podcasts align with Richard Mayer’s Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning (CTML). CTML states that the use of text, images, and audio helps individuals learn better. The theory is that multimedia instruction approaches are more effective than traditional approaches.  

 References

Benner, G. J., Strycker, L. A., Pennefather, J., & Smith, J. L. M. (2022). Improving Literacy for Students With Emotional and Behavioral Disorders: An Innovative Approach. Teacher Education and Special Education, 45(4), 331-348. https://doi-org.sunyempire.idm.oclc.org/10.1177/08884064221079813 (Original work published 2022)

Fantozzi, V. B. (2021). “It’s Everyone’s iPad”: Tablet use in a play-based preschool classroom. Journal of Early Childhood Research, 19(2), 115-127. https://doi-org.sunyempire.idm.oclc.org/10.1177/1476718X20983835 (Original work published 2021)

Flewitt, R., Messer, D., & Kucirkova, N. (2015). New directions for early literacy in a digital age: The iPad. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 15(3), 289–310. https://doi.org/10.1177/1468798414533560

Forzani, E., Leu, D. J., Yujia Li, E., Rhoads, C., Guthrie, J. T., & McCoach, B. (2021). Characteristics and Validity of an Instrument for Assessing Motivations for Online Reading to Learn. Reading Research Quarterly (John Wiley & Sons, Inc.), 56(4), 761–780. https://doi-org.sunyempire.idm.oclc.org/10.1002/rrq.337

Vasalou, A., Benton, L., Ibrahim, S., Sumner, E., Joye, N., & Herbert, E. (2021). Do children with reading difficulties benefit from instructional game supports? Exploring children’s attention and understanding of feedback. British Journal of Educational Technology, 52(6), 2359–2373. https://doi-org.sunyempire.idm.oclc.org/10.1111/bjet.13145

Zepp, Lauren B., et al. “Preparing Special Educators to Teach Reading Using Multimedia Instruction: A Literature Review.” Journal of Special Education Technology, vol. 39, no. 4, 13 Feb. 2024, pp. 500–512, https://doi.org/10.1177/01626434241232121. Accessed 21 Mar. 2025.