New Literacies for Early
Elementary: Web 2.0 Tools to
Support Literacy
Jeremy Brueck
The University of Akron
jbrueck@uakron.edu

Today we will…
• Take a closer look at reading and writing
in the digital age
• Examine the implications of the read/write
web
• Talk about how to use Web 2.0 to cultivate
socially constructed thinking and learning
in your students

Challenges of 21st Century Teaching
•‘Information Age’ technologies have made
available copious amounts of information to
anyone, anywhere, at anytime.
•Strict age/grade level approaches to
education are being questioned as the
appropriate way to prepare students for the
coming decades.

Classroom Teaching Environments
• Education continues to mirror the industrial age ‘assembly
line’ approach.
• We’re trying to produce the most product (to standards) in
the shortest time with the fewest defects.
• Our instruction typically occurs in a room with teacher and
students ‘same place - same time.’
• Content (learning experience) is usually organized by
topics and taught in time slots specified for that topic.

Looking at literacy
New Literacies Traditional Literacies
– Web logs (blogs) – Paper
– video editors
– Pencil
– World Wide Web browsers
– Web & HTML editors – Book
– e-mail
– Text messaging
– Instant Messaging
– spreadsheets
– presentation software
– bulletin boards
– avatars
– virtual worlds

What are New Literacies?
• Using information and communication
technologies to:
– identify important questions
– locate information
– critically evaluate the usefulness of that
information
– synthesize information to answer those
questions
– communicate the answers to others

Why integrate New Literacies?
• Young people will continue to socially engage in
a variety of new literacies.
• Educators need to make school literacy more
engaging for students and more meaningful to
their present and future lives in a digital world.
• Educators MUST understand the shifts in
practices and pedagogy that have taken place
and consider how these shifts should inform our
teaching of reading and writing.