{"id":39,"date":"2011-07-29T21:51:48","date_gmt":"2011-07-30T04:51:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.somethingworthreading.ca\/?p=39"},"modified":"2011-07-29T21:52:22","modified_gmt":"2011-07-30T04:52:22","slug":"complex-texts-at-odds-with-technology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.somethingworthreading.ca\/?p=39","title":{"rendered":"Complex Texts at Odds with Technology?"},"content":{"rendered":"

This week I randomly picked up an Educational Leadership<\/em> magazine with the headline \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Teaching Screenagers\u00e2\u20ac\u009d so I could quickly pick up a few technology ideas to think over.\u00c2\u00a0 One article that discussed reading complex texts and technology particularly caught my eye.\u00c2\u00a0 The title of this article is \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Too Dumb for Complex Texts?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/a>, and it explores whether this technological age has resulted in students who do not have the capacity or the willingness to comprehend complex texts that are presented to them in university.<\/p>\n

The article initially intrigued me because I had been reading so much about how technology is the wave of the future, and I was starting to feel like if I did not grasp onto this new medium for my classroom fairly quickly it would leave me behind.\u00c2\u00a0 I do agree with a few of the points mentioned in the article.\u00c2\u00a0 For example, the author states that electronic communications require a quick response, which is the antithesis to the slow, receptive reading that is necessary for complex writing.\u00c2\u00a0 Students brought up in the Internet age become active contributors to ideas, because a quick comment on a blog post is often all that is required to become embroiled in an ideological debate.\u00c2\u00a0 However, this doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t work for slow reading, where the reader must take in the entirety of the writing through laboured and conscious thought, and be able to summarize the ideas as well as give his initial opinion.\u00c2\u00a0 Based on what I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve seen online, I could say that this analysis is true.\u00c2\u00a0 I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve often felt that the Internet fosters a certain quickness, and if you do not comment immediately on an idea you will be left behind.\u00c2\u00a0 Also, when I read this article a second time I read it online, and I found myself more likely to use the page down button to scan for main ideas rather than look at each sentence.\u00c2\u00a0 That may have been only because I was re-reading something that I had already gathered information on, but it does pose an interesting question about whether the Internet naturally leads us to scan and not think deeply when looking at printed documents.<\/p>\n

However, I also don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think that technology is completely to blame in this issue. If I remember my own university experience properly, there has often been a struggle for first-year students to understand complex texts, and doing well in secondary school only to then do poorly in university is not a new phenomenon.\u00c2\u00a0 Instead of believing that technology and complex texts are equals in terms of literacy, perhaps technology should play a supporting role in understanding difficult writing.\u00c2\u00a0 Literacy strategies, verbal discussion, Socratic seminars, and other good parts of our teacher training should also be presented to the students.\u00c2\u00a0 Don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t let all assignments take the form of blog posts and videos, but also don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t naturally assume that banning Internet research for a project will yield more methodical readers.\u00c2\u00a0 As in many parts of education, there needs to be a balance.\u00c2\u00a0 Students already have so much technology in their lives, it must be brought into the classroom or teaching methods will become antiquated.\u00c2\u00a0 I do believe that if we set aside time to break down complex writing for students to understand, while at the same time utilizing technology to support and clarify their understanding, we will end up with better readers in general.<\/p>\n

The book-a-day- challenge continues:<\/p>\n

July 23rd<\/strong>: A Single Shard<\/em>, by Linda Sue Park<\/p>\n

July 24th<\/strong>: Teaching and Learning Outside the Box: Inspiring Imagination Across the Curriculum<\/em>, by Kieran Egan et. al.<\/p>\n

July 25th<\/strong>: Parvana\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Journey<\/em>, by Deborah Ellis<\/p>\n

July 26th<\/strong>: Mud City<\/em>, by Deborah Ellis<\/p>\n

July 27th<\/strong>: An Imaginative Approach to Teaching<\/em>, by Kieran Egan<\/p>\n

July 28th<\/strong>: Looking for X<\/em>, by Deborah Ellis<\/p>\n

July 29th<\/strong>: Eggs<\/em>, by Jerry Spinelli<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week I randomly picked up an Educational Leadership magazine with the headline \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Teaching Screenagers\u00e2\u20ac\u009d so I could quickly pick up a few technology ideas to think over.\u00c2\u00a0 One article that discussed reading complex texts and technology particularly caught my eye.\u00c2\u00a0 The title of this article is \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Too Dumb for Complex Texts?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d, and it explores…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-reflections"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5yfMi-D","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.somethingworthreading.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.somethingworthreading.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.somethingworthreading.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.somethingworthreading.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.somethingworthreading.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.somethingworthreading.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.somethingworthreading.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.somethingworthreading.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.somethingworthreading.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}