A new methodology for using ICT and digital literacy to encourage a love of literature

Announcing the availability of a new teaching resource from the #amoresproject. The new teaching methodology focuses on improving students engagement with literature through interactive and collaborative use of ICT to create e-artefacts (for example online videos, comic strips and animations) and the opportunity to critically reflect on their production through participation and social interaction.

Polish students working on Mr Blot's Academy

We worked with our teachers from Croatia, Denmark, Poland, Sweden and the UK to create the new teaching methodology. This new methodology includes new instructional strategies, teaching methods and learning activities.

You can find this resource at http://www.amores-project.eu/results.html

The official title is: (D2.7) Methodology for teachers in teaching national and European literature supported by interactive ICT tools

Creating e-artefacts is a learning strategy that involves the highest order learning skills, standing at the top of the revised Bloom’s taxonomy. The pedagogical theory that best describes learning by creating is that of Papert’s idea of constructionism. This not only emphasises the learning that is triggered by the constructivist approach of activity-based learning (or learning by doing), but also the importance of the learning that occurs as a result of discussion leading to shared meanings. This then led to the importance of two elements of the methodology:

•  Encouraging students to learn by creating
• Encouraging students to learn by sharing and discussion

Kolb’s learning cycle is used to consolidate learning. This involves encouraging students to reflect on activities and develop their activities based on their reflection. Kolb also emphasise that learning is improved via reflection. With this in mind the methodology contains two additional elements, that of:

•  Encouraging students to maximise their learning by scaffolding activities around creation, observation and reflection
• Encouraging students to develop “metacognitive” approaches by reflecting on their learning

Students’ reflecting on their learning also has the additional benefit of providing much needed data on the effectiveness of the learning activities.

Recommended teaching methods are:

• collaborative or individual creating of e-artefacts based on works of literature
• sharing e-artefacts
•  discussion of e-artefacts
• reflection on the process of creation of e-artefacts and on the whole learning process.

The recommended learning activities should align with the teaching methods, which include learner-generated content such as creating an e-artefact that can be shared in and between schools and discussed face-to-face and via videoconferencing. Social interaction is a central part of the methodology because it enables annotation, co-creation and feedback on the development of artefacts; it also provides a basis for team- and trust-building between the participants.

This article was first published at https://geoffwalton.wordpress.com/2015/03/04/a-new-methodology-for-using-ict-and-digital-liteacy-to-encourage-a-love-of-literature/

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