6) Boosts vocabulary and other kinds of literacy knowledge

) Addresses students' questions and interests

Prepares students to handle real-life reading

1) Provides the key to success in later schooling

Informational text is a type of nonfiction that conveys information about the natural or social world.

t boosts vocabulary, addresses questions and interests, and much more

Revising is defined as the process in which a student dedicates time to systematically review and examine with the intent of improving the overall work product (Hayes & Flower, 1980). The process of reviewing and revising may occur across all stages of the model, however this final step is one in which students consciously examine and evaluate constructed content before finishing the work process

Compos-ing is defined as the process in which a student constructs the online content while weaving elements from the previous three phases into a cohesive composition that is representative of the goals of the inquiry process.

goals of the inquiry and purpose of the content. Additionally, as students organize, they may at-tend to aesthetic decisions about the presentation and ordering of elements of the content

Organizingis defined as the process in which a student cre-ates or manipulates the hierarchical or relational structure of their work product (Flower & Hayes, 1981). In this process, students maneuver content and categories of content to ensure they meet the

Generating is defined as the process in which a student creates or translates initial elements of the digital product based on their memory and organizers (Hayes & Flower, 1986; Collins & Gentner, 1980). These initial drafts and graphic organizers act as elements of the work completed to allow the student to begin reviewing and organizing materials

Planning is defined as a student creating internal and external representations of the content they intend to build and ensuring that it is logically appropriate for the task (Flower & Hayes, 1981). These representations may include paper sketches, graphic organizers, or original designs of future works planned.

The goal of the OCC model is to provide teachers with pedagogical opportunities to move students from content consumers, to content curators, and finally constructors of online content. Content curation in this context refers to a meaning-making activity in which students collect, aggregate, and distill links of online information sources through the use of tools such as Pinterest. The knowledge, skills, and dispositions involved in this communi-cation process are informed by previous research in writing instruction (Hayes & Flower, 1980, 1986; Collins & Gentner, 1980; Scardamalia, Bereiter, & Steinbach, 1984; Graves, 1994) and envisioned as a combination of skills students may employ as they construct online content

OCC was developed to define the abilities necessary to communicate the information assembled while searching, sift-ing, and synthesizing knowledge gained during the online inquiry process (Leu et al., 2004, 2008)

The writing process (Murray, 1972, 1999; Hair-ston, 1982) has been defined as including prewrit-ing, drafting, revising, editing, and publishing. As the writing process moves from print to pixel many of these skills are employed as students construct online content. As student writing moves from page to screen the key difference between the tra-ditional writing process and OCC is that teachers and students need to consider other elements that are particular to working with online informational text (e.g., semiotics, visual literacy, multimodal design).

OCC is defined as the skills, strategies and dispo-sitions necessary as students construct, redesign, or reinvent online texts by actively encoding and decoding meaning through the use of digital texts and tools

There has been considerable research on representation in learningresources from diverse perspectives: Some has focused on comprehensionor on the effect of image on students’ memory or understanding of concepts(e.g., Martinez Pena & Gil Quilez, 2001; Pintó, 2002).

When we compare a textbook from 1935 with a contemporary one, wenote that there tends to be less writing now than there had been, and thewriting that there is differs from the writing of 40, 50, or 60 years ago, bothsyntactically and in its use. Although images were present on the pages oftextbooks before, there are more images now; these images look and functiondifferently from those found before. The page is used differently to the wayit had been: Writing and image are combined in ways that could not havebeen conceived of in the 1930s.

It is the responsibility of educators in all grades and content areas to modify as needed for learners.

The Internet Inquiry Project is an online research project that helps students develop the important digital knowledge and skills needed as they build their web literacies. Internet Inquiry Projects are student interest driven, and are more authentic as a learning activity than traditional WebQuests.

WebQuests play a vital role in the classroom by providing students with a scripted, guided examination of online resources in a topic.

Schools increasingly require students to list the sources of any online information that is used in a report. Take this one step further and require students to also indicate how they determined that each source was reputable and reliable

f you have an interactive whiteboard or a projector, do the same but ask students to come to the projected screen and point to the answer they think is correct, explaining their reasoning and teaching others, showing them the evidence that they used

The ability to read and locate online information is a gate-keeping skill. If one cannot locate information online, it becomes very hard to solve a problem with online information and to learn in online spaces.

Make it a policy to always teach a new technology, with new literacies, to your weakest reader(s) first. This enables struggling readers and writers to become literate in this new technology before other, higher-performing students in reading. Those who struggle with reading and writing become literate in a new literacy before others and can teach this new literacy to others who are not literate with this new form. This is a powerful principle that positions weaker readers as experts

(1) reading to identify important questions, (2) reading to locate information, (3) reading to evaluate information criti-cally, (4) reading to synthesize information, and (5) reading and writing to communicate information

The new literacies of online research and comprehension frames online reading comprehension as a process of problem-based inquiry involving the skills, strategies, dispositions, and social practices that take place as we use the Internet to conduct research, solve problems, and answer ques-tions.

Some believe there is little to teach; our students are already “digital natives,” skilled in online literacies (Prensky, 2001). It is true that today’s students have grown up in an online world and are developing profi-ciency with gaming, social networking, video, and texting (Alvermann, Hutchins, & DeBlasio, 2012; Zickuhr, 2010). However, this does not nec-essarily mean they are skilled in the effective use of online information, perhaps the most important aspect of the Internet. Studies show that stu-dents lack critical evaluation skills when reading online (Bennet, Maton, & Kervin, 2008; Forzani & Maykel, 2013; Graham & Metaxas, 2003) and that they are not especially skilled with reading to locate information online (Kuiper & Volman, 2008).

Thus, when we speak of New Literacies in an online age we mean that literacy is not just “new” today; it becomes “new” every day of our lives.

We live during a time in which new technologies continuously appear online, requiring additional skills to effectively read, write, and learn, sometimes on a daily basis

Most importantly, it is reshap-ing the nature of literacy education, providing us with many new and exciting opportunities for our classrooms.

According to Mandinach and Cline, educators go through 4 stages of development with their use of technology: Based upon the work of Mandinach & Cline. With this in mind, as leaders of technology in our establishments, we need to be mindful of our responsibility to our students and our staff when it comes to technology use. Strategic planning and building in  training for staff is critical if we want transformational learning happening.

According to Mandinach and Cline, educators go through 4 stages of development with their use of technology:

The SAMR model  is a useful tool for helping teachers think about their own tech use as they begin to make small shifts in the design and implementation of  technology driven learning experiences to achieve the next level.

you do need open minds and the willingness to trust students with their learning. You need a culture that values every student's strengths and a school community that believes everyone can learn from each other. In other words, it requires the very things that nearly every school strives for. So why not give it a try?

ceding the floor to her students was at first "unsettling." But now it's clear to her why allowing her students to learn in this way is so powerful. "They're learning more than just math," she says. "They're learning to be more proactive; they're learning how to depend on their peers. When they go off to college, they already know how to work with people and draw out their strengths." And their graduates seem to bear this out. College Prep alumni consistently report back -- through surveys and anecdotes -- how well the school prepared them for the academic challenges of college, teaching them how to reach out for help when needed and helping them to develop the confidence to contribute to college seminars with their own analyses.

What our collaborative learning style empowers and enables is a student's resilience -- how do you look to your neighbor as a resource, how do you test your own theories, how do you understand if you're on the right track or the wrong track?" says Monique DeVane, College Prep's head of school. "It teaches them that it's not just about content; it's about cultivating habits of mind that are the underpinnings of deeper scholarship."

How Collaborative Learning Leads to Student Success Encouraging students to reach out to each other to solve problems and share knowledge not only builds collaboration skills, it leads to deeper learning and understanding

In Collaborative Reasoning discussions, students are engaged with texts through reasoning and deliberation with one another about the multi-faceted issues raised in the text(s). The discussion is a process of teasing out and working through "big" issues; handling of ambiguity and opposing viewpoints; reasoning, exploring, evaluation and building of arguments; and holding one's own or letting go within a social context.

, the teacher poses a question likely to incite different points of view, and students provide reasons to support their positions. Collaborative reasoning aims to "encourage students to use reasoned discourse as a means for choosing among alternative perspectives on an issue" while drawing on personal experiences, background knowledge, and text for interpretive support (Murphy et al., 2009). This approach has been shown to improve argumentation and students' use of the text to defend arguments, while decreasing teacher talk and control of the topic (Murphy et al., 2009).

Providing students with opportunities to ask questions that examine multiple interpretations of a text has been shown to strengthen critical-thinking and reasoning skills

In math classes, the students sit face-to-face in groups of four tables to collaborate. In English classes, students sit around a Harkness table (a large wooden table capable of seating the entire class), which allows every student to see the teacher and all the members of the class as they speak. The foundation is that students come prepared to discuss and collaborate.

assigning students to groups to review their homework, do daily class worksheets, participate in moderated discussions, and complete hands-on projects. Often, teachers give students group tests, which, like the class worksheets, are designed to be harder than the individual assignments. Students quickly realize that they are able to solve problems as a group that they would not be able to solve as individuals. Some of the other ways teachers foster a collaborative-learning environment follow:

teachers must be willing to “cede the floor” to the students. Other things to consider are the need to create an effective classroom geography, focus on the process, build accountability, let students teach one another, and encourage students to be in tune with one another.

Collaborative Learning Builds Deeper Understanding Encouraging students to reach out to one another to solve problems not only builds collaboration skills but leads to deeper learning and understanding.

the TPACK framework offers several possibilities for promoting research in teacher education, teacher professional development, and teachers’ use of technology. It offers options for looking at a complex phenomenon like technology integration in ways that are now amenable to analysis and development. Moreover, it allows teachers, researchers, and teacher educators to move beyond oversimplified approaches that treat technology as an “add-on” instead to focus again

By better describing the types of knowledge teachers need (in the form of content, pedagogy, technology, contexts and their interactions), educators are in a better position to understand the variance in levels of technology integration occurring.

three key components of teacher knowledge: understanding of content, understanding of teaching, and understanding of technology.

Instead, TPACK is the basis of effective teaching with technology, requiring an understanding of the representation of concepts using technologies; pedagogical techniques that use technologies in constructive ways to teach content; knowledge of what makes concepts difficult or easy to learn and how technology can help redress some of the problems that students face; knowledge of students’ prior knowledge and theories of epistemology; and knowledge of how technologies can be used to build on existing knowledge to develop new epistemologies or strengthen old ones. By simultaneously integrating knowledge of technology, pedagogy and content, expert teachers bring TPACK into play any time they teach. Each situation presented to teachers is a unique combination of these three factors, and accordingly, there is no single technological solution that applies for every teacher, every course, or every view of teaching.

develop skills to look beyond most common uses for technologies, reconfiguring them for customized pedagogical purposes. Thus, TPK requires a forward-looking, creative, and open-minded seeking of technology use, not for its own sake but for the sake of advancing student learning and understanding.

TCK, then, is an understanding of the manner in which technology and content influence and constrain one another. Teachers need to master more than the subject matter they teach; they must also have a deep understanding of the manner in which the subject matter (or the kinds of representations that can be constructed) can be changed by the application of particular technologies. Teachers need to understand which specific technologies are best suited for addressing subject-matter learning in their domains and how the content dictates or perhaps even changes the technology—or vice versa.

Technology and content knowledge have a deep historical relationship.

Specifically, according to Shulman (1986), this transformation occurs as the teacher interprets the subject matter, finds multiple ways to represent it, and adapts and tailors the instructional materials to alternative conceptions and students’ prior knowledge. PCK covers the core business of teaching, learning, curriculum, assessment and reporting, such as the conditions that promote learning and the links among curriculum, assessment, and pedagogy.

This generic form of knowledge applies to understanding how students learn, general classroom management skills, lesson planning, and student assessment. It includes knowledge about techniques or methods used in the classroom; the nature of the target audience; and strategies for evaluating student understanding. A teacher with deep pedagogical knowledge understands how students construct knowledge and acquire skills and how they develop habits of mind and positive dispositions toward learning. As such, pedagogical knowledge requires an understanding of cognitive, social, and developmental theories of learning and how they apply to students in the classroom.

this knowledge would include knowledge of concepts, theories, ideas, organizational frameworks, knowledge of evidence and proof, as well as established practices and approaches toward developing such knowledge

Knowledge of content is of critical importance for teachers.

Honoring the idea that teaching with technology is a complex, ill-structured task, we propose that understanding approaches to successful technology integration requires educators to develop new ways of comprehending and accommodating this complexity.

Teachers often have inadequate (or inappropriate) experience with using digital technologies for teaching and learning. Many teachers earned degrees at a time when educational technology was at a very different stage of development than it is today. It is, thus, not surprising that they do not consider themselves sufficiently prepared to use technology in the classroom and often do not appreciate its value or relevance to teaching and learning. Acquiring a new knowledge base and skill set can be challenging, particularly if it is a time-intensive activity that must fit into a busy schedule.

Understanding how these affordances and constraints of specific technologies influence what teachers do in their classrooms is not straightforward and may require rethinking teacher education and teacher professional development.

Digital technologies—such as computers, handheld devices, and software applications—by contrast, are protean (usable in many different ways; Papert, 1980); unstable (rapidly changing); and opaque (the inner workings are hidden from users; Turkle, 1995).

Teaching with technology is complicated further considering the challenges newer technologies present to teachers.

knowledge of student thinking and learning, knowledge of subject matter, and increasingly, knowledge of technology.

Teachers practice their craft in highly complex, dynamic classroom contexts (Leinhardt & Greeno, 1986) that require them constantly to shift and evolve their understanding.

socially embedded, interest-driven, and oriented toward educational, economic, or political opportunity. Connected learning is realized when a young person is able to pursue a personal interest or passion with the support of friends and caring adults, and is in turn able to link this learning and interest to academic achievement, career success or civic engagement.

Rather than see technology as a means toward more efficient and automated forms of education, connected learning puts progressive, experiential, and learner-centered approaches at the center of technology-enhanced learning.

Connected learning is when someone is pursuing a personal interest with the support of peers, mentors and caring adults, and in ways that open up opportunities for them

Connected learning isn’t a burden that one organization shoulders on its own, and is about building connections across different sites of learning

Traditional education is failing to engage many students as they enter their middle school, high school, and college years.

Teaching for transfer means that learners are given opportuni-ties to apply their learning to new situ-ations and receive timely feedback on their performance to help them improve.

Teaching for understanding requires that students be given numerous opportunities to draw inferences and make generaliza-tions for themselves (with teacher sup-port).

The UbD framework promotes not only acquisition, but also the student’s ability to know why the knowl-edge and skills are important, and how to apply or transfer them in meaningful, professional, and socially important ways

Can apply by effectively using and adapting what they know in new and complex contexts.• Demonstrate perspective by seeing the big picture and recognizing differ-ent points of view.• Display empathy by perceiving sensitively and walking in someone else’s shoes.• Have self-knowledge by showing meta-cognitive awareness, using productive habits of mind, and reflect-ing on the meaning of the learning and experience.

When someone truly under-stands, they• Can explain concepts, principles, and processes by putting it their own words, teaching it to others, justifying their answers, and showing their reasoning.• Can interpret by making sense of data, text, and experience through images, analogies, stories, and models.

Stage 1 focuses on “transfer of learning.”

Learning priorities are established by long-term performance goals—what it is we want students, in the end, to be able to do with what they have learned. The bottom-line goal of education is transfer. The point of school is not to simply excel in each class, but to be able to use one’s learning in other settings.

According to Maslow, individuals must meet the needs at the lower levels of the pyramid before they can successfully be motivated to tackle the next levels.

eople become actualized to accomplish higher motives only after they have fulfi lled certain basic needs

Backwarddesignmaybethoughtof,inotherwords,aspurposefultaskanalysis:Givenaworthytasktobeaccomplished,howdowebestgeteveryoneequipped?Orwemightthinkofitasbuildingawiseitinerary,usingamap:Givenadestination,what'sthemosteffectiveandefficientroute?Orwemightthinkofitasplanningforcoaching:Whatmustlearnersmasteriftheyaretoeffectivelyperform?Whatwillcountasevidenceonthefield,notmerelyindrills,thattheyreallygetitandarereadytoperformwithunderstanding,knowledge,andskillontheirown?

The teacher as designer is similarly constrained. We are not free to teach any topic we choose. Rather, we are guided by national, state, district, or institutional standards that specify what students should know and be able to do. These standards provide a framework to help us identify teaching and learning priorities and guide our design of curriculum and assessments

In addition to external standards, we also consider the needs of our students when designing learning experiences. For example, student interests, developmental levels, and previous achievements influence our designs

or example, teaching digital skills would include showing students how to download images from the Internet and insert them into PowerPoint slides or webpages. Digital literacy would focus on helping students choose appropriate images, recognize copyright licensing, and cite or get permissions, in addition to reminding students to use alternative text for images to support those with visual disabilities.

Unfortunately, many focus on skills rather than literacies. Digital skills focus on what and how. Digital literacy focuses on why, when, who, and for whom.

Having these skills on the web expands access and opportunity for more people to learn anytime, anywhere, at any pace.