The Advantages ofUsilng Technology inSecond Lanlguage E.docx

The Advantages of
Usilng Technology 'in
Second Lanlguage Educat'ion
Techwnology lntegrat'lon 'in Foreilgn ILanguage
to a Cownstructmovist Learn'lng Approach
BY Li WANG
UNIVERSITY OF CENTRAL FLORIDA
38 T.H.E. Journal I www.thejournal.com I May 2005
ith the advent of networked comrputers and lnte:rnet
technology,
computer-based instruction has been widely used in language
class-
rooms throughout the United States. Computer technologies
have
dramatically changed the way people gather information,
conduct research
and communicate with others worldwide. Considering the
tremendous startupyV
expenses, copyright issues, objectionable materials and other
potential dis-
advantages of technology, much research has been conducted
regarding: the
effectiveness of, and better strategies for, technology
integration.Taking the

characteristics of language learning into account, 'this article
helps answer two
important questions: Do we need technology in language
classrooms? And
what kinds of services do comp:uter technologies provide for
:these classroomrs?
Background Studies
Web-based writing instruction has proved to be an impor-
tant factor in enhancing the writing quality of low-ability
English as a foreign language (EFL) students. In a study
designed to examine the effectiveness of Web-based instruction
in the writing of freshman EFL students, Al-Jarf (2004) found
that the use of Web-based lessons as a supplement to tradi-
tional in-class writing instruction was significantly more effec-
tive than teaching which depended on the textbook alone. The
experimental group of students received online instruction in
which they posted their own threads, short paragraphs, stories
and poems on a discussion board. They also located informa-
tion from the Internet, as well as wrote paragraphs and checked
their own spelling using Microsoft Word.
In another study, Hertel (2003) describes an intercultural

e-mail exchange at the college level where U.S. students in a
beginning Spanish class and Mexican students in an interme-
diate English as a Second Language class corresponded weekly
for one semester. Survey results revealed this student-cen-
tered endeavor had the potential to
change cultural attitudes, increase _
knowledge and awareness of other The best
cultures, foster language acquisition, al anguag
as well as boost student interest and active, aur
motivation in language and cultural ronmenti
studies.
Bernhardt, Rivera and Kamil technoloe
conducted a study in 2004 to exam- interet
ine the practicality and efficiency ful tools 1
of Web-based placement testing for these apj
college-level language programs.
Qualitative analysis of the data indi- langiJag
cated that students, administrators
:wi
re
ith
' 1
and instructors benefited from the online placement tests. For

students, accessing a placement test at their convenience with-
out making an extra summer trip to campus was seen as an
incredible time-saver. At the same time, having students partici-
pate in an academic exercise prior to arriving on campus sends
a positive message regarding the importance and prestige of
the language program at the university. For administrators, the
time saved by eliminating this extra step throughout a summer
orientation period is significant. Supervisors and instructors
reported that more effective decisions were made when they
had time to contemplate their students' performances, which
brought them greater confidence in their curriculum when they
encountered students at the beginning of a class session.
However, Chikamatsu (2003) conducted a study to exam-
ine the effects of computers on writing efficiency and quality
among intermediate learners of Japanese who found computer
use neither sped up nor slowed down their writing. Its use also
did not facilitate writing efficiency in composition. Yet comput-
er use did improve accuracy at the word level, indicating that

_____________________ learners benefited from computer
writing. The study also showed that
qjt to learn a possible explanation for the appar-
is in inter- ent ineffectiveness of computer use
entic en vi- was that students might not have
con_ puter been skillful typists. For logographicCu puter
Slanguages such as Japanese and
.. s and the Chinese, which have input processes
re poiwiser- different from those of English and
r assisting other Indo-European languages,
VAch6s td 0 S Hcomputer use by second language
oaches to 0 learners is relatively uncommon and
teaehing. its impact on writing is uncertain.
____________________ Results from many other studies
May 2005 1 www.thejoumnal.com I T.H.E. Joumal 39
Foreign Language Education
(Perez-Prado and Thirunarayanan 2002;
Cooper 2001; Smith, Ferguson and Caris
2001) also point out how students ben-
efited from the technology-enhanced
collaborative learning methods and
interactive learning process, while con-
currently finding some drawbacks with

use of the medium, such as technology
and group-work frustrations.
Analyzing Advantages
and Disadvantages
Most of the above studies showed
technology's positive effects on language
learning, which answered the first ques-
tion: Do we really need technology in
language classrooms? The answer, of
course, is yes we do.
First, the advantages of using new
technology in language classrooms can
be interpreted in light of the changing
goals of language education and the
shifting conditions in our postindustrial
society (Warschauer and Meskill 2000).
New technology was part of the social
fabric at the turn of the century. So

while we taught foreign language stu-
dents to write essays and read magazines
a generation ago, we must now teach
them to write e-mail and conduct online
research. Thus, integrating technology
into language classrooms is inevitable.
Second, technology integration in
foreign language teaching demonstrates
the shift in educational paradigms from
a behavioral to a constructivist learning
approach. Language is a living thing,
so the best way to learn a language is
in interactive, authentic environments.
Computer technologies and the Internet
are powerful tools for assisting these
approaches to language teaching. Even
though constructivism is not a theory
associated with using technology, con-

structivist assumptions are guideposts
for developing a vision for integrating
technology into the language curriculum
(Brown 1997; Wolffe 1997). The follow-
ing are summaries of these assumptions:
Learning is an active process.
Learning is a natural, integral and
ubiquitous part of living; not some-
thing handed as a package to somebody
else (Bintz 1991; Anderson and Speck
2001). In today's language classes, the
teacher's role should shift from "sage on
the stage" to "guider on the side," while
students should actively search foi and
explore answers instead of receiving
standard interpretations. Technology
integration helps this shifting process
for teachers and students.

Problem solving is the focus.
The Internet, as well as some simula-
tion software, provides a stage for the
real world where students observe,
think, question, organize and test their
ideas. Unlike libraries, the Internet is
a living medium that offers updated -
5 Ways Technology Can Help Literacy Learning
e aware that technology is just a tool, and designing
creative instruction is the key to successfully inte-
grating technology into classrooms.To do this,
teachers must first know whatthetechnology can do for
language learning.Thefollowing are five ways teachers can
use technology to help literacy education:
1. Word processing -- Word processing is a great way for
students to engage in writing, prewriting, drafting, revising,
editing, saving, printing, inserting tables and graphics, and
publishing. In this information age, word processing is a
necessityfor any language class.

2.Technology texts - Electronic books are rich supple-
mentsforprintedtextbooks,thoughtheywill nevercompletely
replace traditional books (Leu and Leu 1997). Stories on the
Internet are enriched by multimedia to dramatically motivate
reading-reluctantstudents, leading to better literacy results.
3. Publishing students'work - Because students are
motivated, and investthemselves in their workwhen they are
engaged in authentictasks, a primary goal in teaching literacy
isforstudents to engage in meaningful andpurposefuI assign-
ments (Anderson and Speck200l). Computertechnologies
make students' work easy to publish in multiple ways, such as
in newsletters, flyers,Web pages, CD-ROMs, etc.
4. Communication throughthe Internet -While language
is for communication, the Internet has broken down commu-
nication's distance barrier.Therefore,students can build up
partnerships with learning peers in target languagesthrough
the Internet.The main ways of communicating on the Internet
include e-mail, instant messaging, chat rooms and bulletin

boards.With MSN and Yahoo I messengers, students can
not only send instant messages, butalso have audio and
video conversationsthat greatly motivate andimprovetheir
speaking and listening abilities.
5. Searching for online information -The Web offers valu-
able resourcesfrom around the world (e.g., databases, online
journals, news, instructional materials, etc.)thatenable many
teachersto use the Internetas their "virtual library."
-L.:Wang
40 T.H.E. Journal I www.thejoumal.com I May 2005
information - enriched by graphics
and animations - to help students
solve real-life problems.
Learning is a collaborative pro-
cess. According to Anderson and Speck
(2001), students prefer working with
a partner over working alone on com-

puter activities. Leu (1996) adds that
"students often learn about complex
multimedia environments by showing
each other cool things." Thus, through
collaborative technology activities, stu-
dents benefit from working with each
other. Technology has also created a
great way to communicate with people
in different cultures. For instance, the
Internet offers a worldwide learning
environment that makes distance conm-
munication fast and affordable. By using
the Internet, cross-cultural cooperative
groups can be built up.
Despite these advantages, potential
drawbacks of using technology always
exist. Some of the main disadvantages
regarding technology integration in lan-

guage dassrooms include:
A few common pitfalls of Internet
use include objectionable materials,
predators, copyright violations and
plagiarism, viruses and hacking, net-
iquette behavior, and privacy issues.
Teachers must be prepared to deal
with these issues as they use technol-
ogy in their classrooms.
Startup costs, which include hard-
ware, software, staffing and train-
ing, are expensive. Warschauer and
Meskill (2000) indicate that intel-
ligent use of new technologies usu-
ally involves allocations of about a
third each for hardware, software,
and staff support and training. It is
often the case in poorly funded lan-

guage programs that the hardware
itself comes in via a one-time grant
(or through hand-me-downs from
science departments), with little
funding left for staff training, main-
tenance or software.
* Technology may not be good for
every language at all levels. For logo-
graphic languages, computer typing
may not help improve efficiency in
composition, especially with lower-
level learners. It also takes a long
time for students to become familiar
with computer typing; therefore,
teachers should creatively use tech-
May 2005 1 www.thejournal.com I T.H.E. Journal 41
Foreign Language Education
ESL Ptrogram Focuses on Improvitng Literacy Skills

s children and adults whose primary language is not English
attemptto get
an education, the basic tools are necessary before they can
achieve their
goals.lTking a step at ending illiteracy among Spanish-speaking
students,
the new lLeamboslLet's Read) PC is an easyto-use program that
enables users to
read andWrite in Spanish in less than 100 hoursT7hesoftware
was designed by
eTeleNext Inc. and derived from workbookswritten by the
Centro Latino de
Educaci6n Popular, a LosAngeles-based nonprofit learning
center.What makes
l Leamosl PCu nique isthatitteaches literacyfor Spanish
speakers intheir native
language, so students can use itas a stepforward in their questto
learn Eng lish.
"While Einglish asa Second Language programs
arefrequentlyvoffered through
adultschools, community centers and libraries, there are
farfewer resources dedi-
rarmsfocused onteaching ESL,but allof
s native language ' says Stephens. "Our

h speakers who had never learnedto read or
- Alx-x Roman
nology but not rely on it alone.
Spending too much time on com-
puters is considered harmful to a
child's development of relationships
and social skills (Roblyer 2003). The
American Academy of Pediatricians
calls for limiting children's use of
media to only one to two hours per
day.
Van Dusen (1997) is optimistic that
the technology integration movement
will alter traditional professor-centered
methods and bring about more con-
structivist ones. But he also emphasizes
that this shift will not happen without
intensive professional development. In

Warschauer and M4eskill's (2000) view,
it is futile to compare use of comput-
ers to nonuse of computers because a
computer is a machine, not a method.
Therefore, computers and the Internet
create a vast new medium that is com-
parable, in some ways, to books and
other print materials in a library.
The Future
We can definitely agree that tech-
nology has done a great job in helping
language learning, but this is just the
beginning of the age of technology-
enhanced education. In the future, wire-
less networks, videoconferencing and
other multimedia-enhanced commu-
nication methods will be more popular
in the language classroom. However,

teachers should always remember that
technology is just a tool, and students'
learning achievement relies on appro-
priate and creative instruction. If you
are aware of the pitfalls of using tech-
nology to design creative activities, tech-
nology will work harder and better for
foreign language education. THE
To view the references cited in this
article, log on to www.thejournal.com.
42 T.H.E. Joumal I www.thejoumal.com I May 2005
COPYRIGHT INFORMATION
TITLE: The Advantages of Using Technology in Second
Language Education
SOURCE: T.H.E. J 32 no10 My 2005
WN: 0512100462005
The magazine publisher is the copyright holder of this article
and it
is reproduced with permission. Further reproduction of this
article in

violation of the copyright is prohibited. To contact the
publisher:
http://www.thejournal.com/
Copyright 1982-2005 The H.W. Wilson Company. All rights
reserved.
42 E d u c a t i o n a l l E a d E r s h i p / M a y 2 0 1 5
E
ight years ago, when I first began
helping schools incorporate e-book
reading into their curriculums, stu-
dents were bound to desktop com-
puters, and electronic books for
kids were scarce. Today, there is a limitless
supply of e-book titles, and advancements in
e-book technologies allow for a portable and
interactive reading experience. Improvements
in technology, coupled with falling prices
and a greater supply of books, have prompted
a rise in e-book reading among kids. In
fact, last year, 60 percent of all school-age
children reported having read an e-book.
Although most e-books are read at home,
e-book reading at school nearly doubled in
the last two years, from 12 to 21 percent
(Scholastic, 2015).
Although there is still much to learn about
the potential of e-books for schools, it is
clear that effective e-book implementation

can enhance students’ literacy experiences
(Larson, 2010; Moyer, 2012). But it is not
enough to simply place digital reading
devices in the hands of students and expect
reading scores to improve. Readers need to
be strategic in their use of e-books and their
many features. To do so, they need effective
reading instruction (Dalton, 2014; Larson,
2013). Let’s examine how e-books and digital
reading devices can effectively support lit-
eracy learning.
Customizing the Reading Experience
Perhaps the greatest advantage of e-books is
the ability to differentiate literacy instruction
for all learners. Students who struggle with
reading or who have visual impairments may
opt for a larger font or change the contrasting
colors of font and screen. Students may
also adjust page orientation, background,
typeface, line spacing, or margin size to best
accommodate their needs and preferences.
In addition, many e-books feature text-
to-speech or professional audio narration,
note-taking tools, dictionary support, and
translation. These can be particularly helpful
for English language learners. Teachers play
a crucial role in helping students determine
how to apply these tools and features to best
The Learning
Potential of
e-Books

Built-in dictionaries, audio support, and other features
make e-books a valuable addition to literacy instruction.
Lotta Larson
©
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Larson.indd 42 4/2/15 4:21 AM

A S C D / w w w . A S C D . o r g 43
It is not enough
to simply
place digital
reading devices
in the hands
of students
and expect
reading scores
to improve.
suit their individual learning needs
(Dobler, 2015).
A few years ago, I worked with a 5th
grade classroom in which each student
was given an e-reader loaded with
books of varying reading levels. All

titles were also available in print, pro-
viding students with a choice. When
interviewing students about their
reading preferences, I learned that
struggling readers were the strongest
advocates of e-books, suggesting that
e-books helped them gain confidence
in their reading abilities.
Students who normally would
feel intimidated by a book’s volume
reported feeling less overwhelmed
because they focused only on the text
on the screen immediately before
them, rather than on the seemingly
insurmountable number of unread
pages. One struggling reader, who
often compared his thin leveled books
with a classmate’s thick Harry Potter
books, explained, “On the Kindle,
nobody else knows what I’m reading
and that I’m a slow reader.” To this 5th
grader, the privacy of e-book reading
came as a relief (Larson, 2013).
Easy access to a wide assortment of
books is essential. With a few simple
clicks, thousands of e-books for
children and young adults are available
for instant download. If a student finds
a book uninspiring or too difficult, it’s
easy to change titles. Ideally, teachers
and students can select books that suit
diverse interests and academic needs.

In short, e-book reading can level
the playing field as students strategi-
cally customize their own reading
experience. To learn more about how
students can use e-books to become
strategic readers, access the lesson
plan “Going Digital: Using e-Book
Readers to Enhance the Reading Expe-
rience” at www.readwritethink.org/
classroom-resources/lesson-plans/
going-digital-using-book-30623.html.
Developing Fluency
and Vocabulary
Reading aloud to students has long
been recognized as important to devel-
oping vocabulary and reading fluency.
Students may reap similar rewards by
accessing the audio features embedded
in many e-books. Particularly well-
documented are the benefits of audio
support for students with special needs
or young readers still acquiring basic
skills (Biancarosa & Griffiths, 2012).
Audio features in e-books come in
many forms, including professional
narration, a far cry from early text-to-
speech options featuring a computer-
generated, robotic voice. A relatively
recent advancement in e-book tech-
nology is what Amazon refers to as
“immersion reading,” in which profes-
sional narration is synchronized with

a digital text. Currently, immersion
reading is available on Kindle Fire HD
and Android devices. If both e-book
and audiobook versions of the same
text are downloaded to the device, the
text can be highlighted in the e-book
while students listen to the audiobook.
Recorded audiobooks, which often
feature the author’s own voice, well-
known actors, or professional nar-
rators, may offer an additional benefit
by modeling fluent pronunciation and
attention to proper punctuation and
cadence (Gander, 2013; Moyer, 2012).
For struggling readers or English
language learners, audio support is
useful for introducing new vocabulary
and for modeling fluent reading
(Serafini, 2004). Moreover, the
combined experience of listening
and reading offers students who are
reading below grade level a chance to
interact with grade-level texts without
concerns about fluency or decoding
issues (Dalton, 2014). For advanced
readers, combining e-book reading
with audiobook listening will compel
them to slow down and listen to every
single word, preventing skimming of
the text (Grover & Hannegan, 2012).
Recently, I worked with a 6th grade
teacher and his students as they inte-
grated immersion reading into their

literacy curriculum. The students stra-
tegically accelerated or decelerated the
narration speed and adjusted the font
size of the digital text to support their
individual needs (Larson, in press).
They also used immersion reading
to help them pronounce unfamiliar
words, often in combination with the
built-in dictionary. Katie, a reluctant
reader, explained, “Sometimes I had
trouble pronouncing a word, so I used
the audio so I could listen to the word,
and I used the dictionary so I could
know the meaning of the word.”
Two-thirds of the class listened to
the audio recording for more than half
of the book, but five students opted
to read the e-book without audio
support. According to Carlos, an avid
reader, “the voice was distracting and
[the narrator] didn’t sound the way
I read in my head.” His comment
emphasizes the need for autonomy as
students decide which e-book tools are
the most beneficial for them.
Many digital reading devices have a
built-in dictionary, which makes the
process of looking up words both con-
venient and effortless. In some cases,
links to images, multimedia represen-
Struggling readers were the strongest
advocates of e-books, suggesting
that e-books helped them gain

confidence in their reading abilities.
A S C D / w w w . A S C D . o r g 45
tations, language translations, online
resources, and audio pronunciation
may also be available.
During a visit to a 2nd grade
classroom, I observed students looking
up words from their weekly vocab-
ulary list while reading a Junie B. Jones
book on their e-readers. The room was
buzzing with excitement, despite what
I presumed to be a daunting task for
many 2nd graders. Immediately after
looking up a word, students inserted a
digital note paraphrasing the definition
or providing examples of the word’s
meaning. Students later gathered in
small groups and enthusiastically dis-
cussed their digital notes. The teacher
told me that she had never, in more
than 20 years of teaching, had students
reveling in dictionary tasks, but now
“they look up words all the time, and
they love to share their digital notes
with one another.” The e-book format
made vocabulary instruction exciting
(Larson, 2012).

For more ideas on how to use the
e-book dictionary to support vocab-
1. Get started. Tablet and e-book readers range in price
and capabilities. Consider cost, compatibility with current
classroom technologies, and plans for maintenance and
upkeep. How will the devices be used? What kinds of tools
and features do you want? Will students be able to access,
create, and share multimodal content on the Internet? What
types of e-books will you acquire?
If students are allowed to take their devices home, con-
sider asking parents and students to sign user agreements
that clearly explain expectations
and responsibilities for technology
use. Ask yourself, who can use the
device outside school? (Student only?
Parents? Siblings?) May parents
purchase and download additional
books for their child? Can students
use the device to access the Internet
or download apps for personal use?
Make expectations clear, but be
flexible and adjust as needed.
2. Plan and support. Students need careful guidance in
becoming strategic e-book readers. Hence, teachers need
time and support to develop new lesson plans and consider
ways to effectively use e-books to meet instructional goals
and education standards. Administrators can help by offering
extra planning time; uncovering opportunities for profes-
sional development; and providing resources, including tech-
nical assistance. Scheduling times for teachers to share and
discuss their experiences with colleagues is also important.
3. Purchase and download e-books. Teachers and

students feel frustrated when they have devices with a very
limited number of books. One of the main benefits of e-book
reading is the opportunity to quickly access books that meet
individual students’ needs. It is important that teachers,
administrators, and technology staff develop and agree on
a sensible process for purchasing and downloading books.
Begin by asking a few basic questions: Who can purchase
books? Does each classroom, student, or teacher have a
budget? How will books be downloaded and accessed? Will
district firewalls block e-book downloads?
4. Select quality e-books. Not all e-books are created
equal. When selecting e-books, it pays to be an informed
consumer. Look for e-books with tools and features that
support literacy learning (for example, dictionary, audio
support, highlighting and note-taking
tools). Consider
multimodal content, such as hyper-
links, animation, and video. These
tools can be helpful in supporting
comprehension, but be aware of inter-
active features that appear motivating
but have little or no connection to the
text.
Elizabeth Dobler’s blog post “Let
the Reader Beware: Evaluating
Digital Books,” which includes a
rubric for evaluating e-books, is an excellent resource
(http://literacybeat.com/2013/01/30/let-the-reader-beware-
evaluating-digital-books).
5. Consider the extras. Also consider any accessories or

resources you may need. If your e-books will be equipped
with audio support, you will likely want a set of headphones
for each device. Each device also needs to be properly pro-
tected. If the budget does not allow for protective cases,
simple (and in expensive) 6 x 9.25 inch bubble envelopes
work well.
Some e-readers come with chargers; others do not.
Create a charging station using power strips and shoebox-
size containers that hold multiple devices. Decide who is
responsible for charging the devices. In some schools,
students are responsible for charging their devices at home
every night and bringing them fully charged the next morning.
Tips for Successful e-Book Implementation
ulary learning, see the lesson plan
“Digital Word Detectives: Building
Vocabulary with e-Book Readers” at
www.readwritethink.org/classroom-
resources/lesson-plans/digital-word-
detectives-building-30838.html.
Interacting with the Text
Most e-books enable students to
annotate passages or compose digital
notes that document their responses
as they read (Dwyer & Larson, 2014;
Larson, 2010). In school-owned print
books, students are often not allowed
to add notes or highlight passages; but
in e-books, such actions should be not
only permissible but also encouraged.

Students can use e-book note-taking
tools to compose an alternate ending
to a story, summarize supporting
details and ideas, or offer interpreta-
tions and analysis of text. Teacher-
created prompts can initially guide
student responses. As students become
more familiar with response writing,
they require fewer guidelines.
By accessing students’ markups and
notes, teachers get a glimpse into each
reader’s mind. Knowing what students
understand, question, and respond to
while reading helps teachers assess
comprehension and plan subsequent
lessons (Larson, 2010).
The lesson plan “e-Book Reading
and Response: Innovative Ways to
Engage with Texts” (www.readwrite
think .org/classroom-resources/lesson-
plans/book-reading-response-
innovative-30670.html) offers addi-
tional ideas on how students can use
e-book note-taking tools to respond to
and interact with text.
Not a Replacement
But what about “real” books? Won’t
students miss turning pages, “hugging”
books, and browsing through stacks in
the library? These are valid questions,
often posed by concerned educators
who love literature and want to instill

a passion for reading in their students.
I, too, love curling up with a book and
will forever treasure trips to the library
and favorite bookstores.
Electronic books are not meant to
replace traditional books, but it is
crucial for students to become profi-
cient readers of many different forms
of text. Consequently, educators need
to understand how to effectively inte-
grate e-book technologies into edu-
cation settings. In addition, e-books
offer boundless opportunities for dif-
ferentiating literacy instruction and
customizing the reading experience to
help all of our students become
success ful and confident readers. EL
References
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Technology tools to support reading in
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Dalton, B. (2014). E-texts and e-books
are changing the literacy landscape. Phi
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Dobler, E. (2015). e-Textbooks: A per-
sonalized learning experience or a
digital distraction? Journal of Adolescent
and Adult Literacy, 58(6), 478–487.

Dwyer, B., & Larson, L. (2014). The
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response. The Reading Teacher, 64(1),
15–22.
Larson, L. (2012, November). Exploring
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vocabulary. Paper presented at the
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168–173.
Larson, L. C. (in press). E-books and
audiobooks: Extending the digital

reading experience. The Reading
Teacher.
Moyer, J. E. (2012). Audiobooks and
e-books: A literature review. Reference
and User Quarterly, 51(4), 340–354.
Scholastic. (2015). Kids and family
reading report (5th ed.).Retrieved from
Scholastic at www.scholastic.com/
reading report/Scholastic-KidsAnd-
Family
ReadingReport-5thEdition.pdf
Serafini, F. (2004). Audiobooks and lit-
eracy: An educator’s guide to utilizing
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resources/audiobooks.pdf.
Lotta Larson ([email protected]) is an
associate professor in the Department
of Curriculum and Instruction, College of
Education, at Kansas State University,
Manhattan.
In English, our teacher had us use an online classroom to hold a
group
discussion about poetry and possible motifs for specific poems.
We used our
cell phones to comment. The discussion began strictly online
but once everyone
saw what everyone had to say, it became a lively and
compelling frontchannel
discussion. More kids participated because the shyer and quieter

kids felt this
was a comfortable place to express their opinions. Because more
students
participated in the discussion than usual, there was a greater
variety of opinion.
I contributed more to the discussion than I usually do because I
felt I didn’t have
to fight to be heard.
—Rebecca Hogarth, 11th grade, South Lakes High School,
Reston, Virginia
Better Classroom Discussions
A Student View
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Unintended Benefits of Distance-Education Technology for

Traditional Classroom Teaching
Author(s): Mark Evan Edwards, Sheila Cordray and Jon
Dorbolo
Source: Teaching Sociology, Vol. 28, No. 4 (Oct., 2000), pp.
386-391
Published by: American Sociological Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1318588
Accessed: 07-04-2018 00:46 UTC
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UNINTENDED BENEFITS OF DISTANCE-EDUCATION
TECHNOLOGY FOR TRADITIONAL CLASSROOM
TEACHING*
MARK EVAN EDWARDS SHEILA CORDRAY JON
DORBOLO
Oregon State University Oregon State University Oregon State
University
WHILE RAPIDLY GROWING NUMBERS of universi-
ties embrace Internet delivery of distance
education, critics have repeatedly decried
this trend as a threat to effective pedagogy
and creative control over instruction (e.g.
Farber 1998; Noble 1998). However, soci-
ologists have at their disposal analytical
tools and skills for considering the non-
obvious and potentially positive implications
of this development (Portes 2000). Rather
than embrace a solely negative stance, Mer-
ton (1967) would have us consider the latent
functions of distance education. This en-
deavor would steer us away from "naive
moral judgments" (Merton 1967:124), al-
lowing us to examine whether or not the
explicit goals of Web-based distance educa-
tion might unexpectedly strengthen class-
room experiences on campus. Such an ex-

amination speaks to enduring questions
about how new technologies may shape the
classroom experience for teacher and student
(Cuban 1986).
Into the debate over the merits of distance
education we here insert a note of optimism
over how electronic technologies may inad-
vertently promote the improvement of tradi-
tional courses. These unintended benefits for
traditional classroom-based education derive
from how such technology creates interac-
"*An earlier version of this paper was pre-
sented at the 1999 Pacific Sociological Associa-
tion meetings in Portland, Oregon. Please ad-
dress all correspondence to Mark Evan Edwards
and Sheila Cordray, Department of Sociology,
307 Fairbanks Hall, Oregon State University,
Corvallis, OR 97331 or Jon Dorbolo, Valley
Library, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR
97331. E-mail, respectively, should be sent to
[email protected], [email protected], and
[email protected]
Editor's note: The reviewers were, in alpha-
betical order, J. Michael Brooks, Carol Jenkins,
and Karl Pfeiffer.
tion possibilities for students and teachers
and requires creative and managerial capaci-
ties in the teacher who chooses to use it
effectively. In short, we suggest that this
technology, developed for other purposes,

can strengthen traditional courses.
We are quick to assert that an unexamined
adoption of the technology, of template-
driven, cookie-cutter course construction is
not what we have in mind. Simply putting
one's lecture notes on a Web page or "filling
in the blanks" on generic course-
administration software does not make full
use of the opportunities afforded by these
technologies. In the dynamic course model
we propose, the instructor still holds the
primary creative and maintenance role and
technology is selected for its appropriateness
to the teaching goals at hand. Meanwhile,
we remain agnostic on the relative merits of
distance-education courses in comparison to
on-campus traditional course delivery. Par-
ties continue to disagree over the assessment
of teaching effectiveness in distance learning
(Boling and Robinson 1999; Farber 1998;
Institute for Higher Education Policy 1999).
We take as given the development of
distance-education courses and the Internet
technologies to deliver them whether or not
they accomplish what they promise to dis-
tance learners. Our focus is on how the
technology and the instructor's efforts at
developing distance-education courses might
benefit traditional courses on campus.
UNINTENDED BENEFITS

Our list of unintended benefits is put forth as
a set of propositions rooted in our experi-
ence, inviting empirical analysis and discus-
sion. We begin with the pragmatic technol-
ogy transfer from distance-education courses
into the classroom, and then consider the
Teaching Sociology, Vol. 28, 2000 (October:386-391) 386
00:46:38 UTC
TECHNOLOGY 387
potentially positive effects on pedagogy and
student-student, student-teacher, and
teacher-teacher interactions.
Distance-education courses and transfer-
able components. The development of cre-
ative Web-based courses provides the possi-
bility of spin-off components that are trans-
ferable to the traditional classroom. In the
same way that NASA research ultimately
led to improved heat-insulation materials
and instant orange juice, we note how some
components of distance-education course
technology produce units that work as out-
of-class teaching tools for on-campus
classes. For example, a module designed for

introducing path analysis and status attain-
ment for a Social Inequality Web-based
distance-education course has proven useful
as a homework assignment for an on-campus
course focused on research methods and
statistics (Edwards 1999a). This tutorial con-
sists of a series of Web pages, each of which
requires single-click responses from the stu-
dent. For example, the student is asked to
select a dependent variable (in this case,
income or occupational prestige), an inde-
pendent variable (education, for example),
and then observe a scatter plot of the data
and a regression line overlaid on the plot.
Next, the student is asked to select the
control variable, is shown tabular output of
regression coefficients and how to interpret
those coefficients, and must finally study a
path diagram with the computed coeffi-
cients. An interactive quiz at the beginning
and end of the tutorial automatically submits
answers by email to the instructor, indicat-
ing whether or not the student has learned
something new in the process.
Similarly, the tutorials and exercises in
several of our courses have been effectively
used in face-to-face versions of the same
courses (See Cordray 1999; Edwards
1999b). Cordray's interactive tutorial on the
sociological imagination illustrates for stu-
dents how social and cultural conditions can

affect their lives. This exercise, developed
for a Web version of Science and Technol-
ogy in Social Context, proved so successful
that it was adapted for use in an on-campus
version of the same course. In the Web
version students were asked to select from a
list of everyday situations and post to the
discussion forum how they would handle the
situation if they lived in 1850. A link was
provided to a site giving a brief description
of technological options in the mid-1800s.
Choices included transportation issues (Your
mother is very ill and may die. She lives 100
miles away. How do you respond?), medical
practices (You are chopping wood and cut
your leg with an axe. What happens to
you?), and daily life (You are hungry. What
do you do?). Other students in the distance
course were asked to comment on the solu-
tions posted and to compare them with how
they might handle the situation at the end of
the 20th century. These discussions led to an
understanding that daily life, even life and
death, are affected by social conditions.
'Private troubles' are created and solved
through 'public issues.' In the face-to-face
version of this exercise, students are placed
in groups and asked to identify, through
Web searches, the technologies available in
the specified time period and to prepare a

presentation discussing how their lives
would be affected by social conditions and
technologies in several different time peri-
ods.
Edwards' (1999b) "Weber Towers" activ-
ities provide a series of Web pages that
simulate the dwellings of families from dif-
ferent social classes. "Clickable" objects in
the families' apartments reveal short (1 to 3
paragraph) texts that articulate how the so-
cial meanings of material items vary by
class. For example, 'baseball' or 'lottery
tickets' are demonstrated to mean something
different to someone living in a basement
versus someone living in a penthouse. Over
the academic term, students see stratification
processes illustrated in the short texts and in
the unveiling of a hypertext novel that illus-
trates the interrelation of differently situated
families. This Web-based interactive project
designed for distance-education students is
being used as a source of illustrative data for
class discussions in the on-campus version
of the course. Several students have indi-
00:46:38 UTC
388 TEACHING SOCIOLOGY
cated that they anxiously awaited the out-

come of the story as the end of the academic
term approached. In each of these described
cases, modules initially designed for
technology-dependent courses have become
useful tools in technology-integrated
courses.
Part-whole relationships and instruc-
tional clarity. Good teachers always make
sure that the individual components of their
courses fit well into a coherent whole. They
are also clear in their explanations of com-
plex processes or techniques, showing how
individual steps produce the whole. Instruc-
tor clarity about part-whole relationships in
the course, and in a particular class session,
is a major component of high-quality teach-
ing. We propose that such clarity for the
traditional classroom is called forth in teach-
ers who develop Web-based distance-
education courses.
Students may or may not immediately
recognize the absence of good organization
or thematic integrity in a course. And when
they do not understand a process or tech-
nique, they may attribute their confusion to
their own inabilities or to the inherent diffi-
culty of the material. But instructors of all
skill levels can create the dubious impres-
sion of organization with official looking,
but noncommittal syllabi that allow them
wide latitude as the course progresses. They
may explain detailed processes in a disor-

derly, mechanical or uncreative manner that
fails to communicate the material, while
never admitting to having prepared casually.
Excellent teachers have a clear sense of how
the parts of a course fit into the whole and
communicate this to their students. We sug-
gest that teachers who attempt to develop
innovative distance-education courses are
likely to strengthen their traditional courses
in terms of organization, thematic integrity,
and instructional clarity.
Instructors who have developed distance-
education courses must have a thorough
understanding of how the entire project
holds together. Like a novel whose dramatic
ending relies upon plot development early in
the text, an online course requires careful
attention to how the parts contribute to the
whole. One cannot easily re-organize the
entire Web site part way through the term.
Thus, the simple requirement of planning
out the entire course for a distance-delivery
class is likely to assist those same teachers in
carefully planning their traditional courses.
Organizational and managerial habits re-
quired to teach a course at a distance are
thus likely to be helpful in the traditional
classroom.
Self-directed Web-based modules also re-

quire instructors to pay careful attention to
detail and to outlining step-by-step pro-
cesses. Because such modules are usually
used by students in the absence of the
teacher, these tools must be exceedingly
well organized and tested to be effective.
For example, in creating a Web-based tuto-
rial on the construction and interpretation of
a social-mobility table (Edwards 1999c), we
carefully introduced students one step at a
time to the actual insertion of cases to a
blank table, computing appropriate percent-
ages, highlighting the internal and marginal
percentages, and then interpreting the result-
ing statistics. This Web-based activity
helped undergraduate students carefully cre-
ate a mobility table (something not many
graduate students ever do), interpret its
numbers, and write about it. The exercise
required us to break the process down into
its component parts and then show students
how these steps created the final table. The
sequencing of processes in the Web tutorial
required painstaking care in understanding
how one step led to the other.
Such concern for instructional clarity is
part of how any good instructor organizes
and teaches a course. However, the develop-
ment of distance-education teaching tools
such as we have described requires even
greater attention to detail because students
are asked to learn on their own. Therefore,
the instructor must anticipate all manner of

potential misunderstandings, knowing that
s/he will not be present to observe and
respond to the confusion on students' faces.
Good teachers in the classroom respond to
those confused looks with alternate explana-
00:46:38 UTC
TECHNOLOGY 389
tions. But good teachers may become even
better teachers in the classroom by having to
develop instructional tools that carefully an-
ticipate points of student misunderstanding.
Extending class interaction and increas-
ing teacher control. One of the promises of
electronically-distributed education is the
creation of virtual communities that partici-
pate asynchronously in an online course
(Brooks 1997). This form of interaction can
be used effectively for a physically-present
community of students who spend a few
hours each week in the same room. When
creatively integrated into the course, these
communication technologies can motivate
students to invest more in their traditional
classroom setting than they might otherwise.
As opposed to being sent off alone to read

and study a text, students can now collec-
tively participate in an out-of-class activity.
The increased levels of extra-curricular ac-
tivity of modern students (usually in the
form of full and part-time work or family
obligations for older than average students)
make the asynchronous quality of these
forms of learning all the more effective for
including all students. Thus, class interac-
tion is extended not only quantitatively
(more hours thinking about the material) but
also in terms of including students who
would otherwise only participate during
class periods.
Using information technology can also
extend didactic direction into more of the
students' learning time. University and col-
lege curricula typically assume that for each
hour spent in the classroom or lab, students
will commit two or three hours of study
time. Therefore, two-thirds to three-fourths
of the learning time in a college education is
not face-to-face nor is it usually directed
(i.e., while readings, written work, and
problem sets may be required, how the
learner accomplishes those tasks is com-
monly left open). If teachers were able to
effectively direct more of the students' avail-
able learning time, it is likely that they
would learn better. Information technology
provides the means to effectively direct
more of the student's available learning time

(i.e., to determine what they do with that
time), whether that learning is through inter-
action with other students or through using
Web-based learning tools developed for
distance-education courses.
The extended interaction between students
outside of class is not just post-lecture dis-
cussion or illustration. It may also be used to
encourage discussion that changes the nature
of class periods. A typical image of a class
period is that of the teacher provoking the
conversation for the day, attempting to rally
and focus a group of disconnected and unfo-
cused individuals. However, with extended
electronic discussion outside of the class-
room, the lecture period can take on the tone
of a continued conversation in which the
instructor may draw upon comments made
in a virtual discussion, call on someone to
expand on an idea they already tentatively
put forth, or even resolve disputes that
developed in an online discussion. This dy-
namic element of out-of-class student inter-
action can animate the classroom session to
an otherwise unlikely degree.
Controlling, sanctioning, and rewarding
student participation and performance poses
dilemmas for teachers who want students to

participate well in class and in group work.
Free-riding in the classroom and in the
working group cannot readily be sanctioned.
Meanwhile, public rewarding of good par-
ticipation potentially stigmatizes or embar-
rasses students. The communication tech-
nologies used in distance-education courses
may be effectively used to sidestep these
problems in a traditional course. Students
may prepare their comments more carefully
before posting them in an online discussion
as compared to the immediacy required in
the classroom. Regularity of participation on
an electronic bulletin board/discussion page
can be quantified more readily than the
number of times a student speaks up in
class. Monitoring of work-group participa-
tion can be observed online rather than
requiring group members to report on one
another's contributions. Logistical problems
(and hence excuses) for why work groups
were unable to complete their projects be-
00:46:38 UTC
390 TEACHING SOCIOLOGY
come much less difficult to address. Indeed,
the instructor can participate in the online

work group without needing to personally
meet with each group.
Thus, through the use of email lists, bul-
letin boards, and threaded discussion groups
that encourage extended inter-student partic-
ipation, students can work together regard-
less of schedules, their participation or lack
thereof is clear to the instructor and other
students, and the teacher may participate in
these small group discussions without having
to be in several places at once. Student
performance can be more reasonably ex-
pected, more carefully monitored, and re-
sponded to more personally.
Teacher as student: student feedback and
self-assessment. The development of modu-
larized teaching units from distance-
education courses used in the traditional
classroom affords a unique opportunity for
teachers to 'be as students,' asynchronously
consuming the product. Like a chef stepping
around to evaluate a meal from the alterna-
tive point of view of a customer, teachers
may join students in evaluating the teaching
module as a teaching tool.
There is a powerful personal quality to
lectures-they are performances. It is un-
likely that we teachers want students to
critique our delivery and content each week,
and students know this. Teacher hesitation

about evaluation derives, in part, from the
fact that lectures are uttered from our own
lips and once spoken remain only in the
memories and notes of student and teacher.
Student hesitation derives from the power
difference between student and teacher. But
the stand-alone, ontological otherness of the
teaching module or Web page we have
created allows us as instructors to approach
the learning tool as a student to see how it
does or does not communicate effectively.
This experience of taking the role of the
other is easier when approaching a physi-
cally and temporally separate creation in-
stead of a lecture; we may stand alongside
students to evaluate the item as a teaching
tool rather than assess it as a personal
performance. Indeed, solicitation from stu-
dents about effectiveness not only improves
the teaching tool itself but also provides
students a chance to think about their learn-
ing, helping them become self-conscious
thinkers who can better understand how they
learn. This process further presents an espe-
cially unique experience for students-the
chance to see how their teacher learns, and
to see how their suggestions help improve
the pedagogy for the next cohort of students.
Team work and pooled expertise. While

the earliest creators of Web-based distance-
education courses operated independently,
the institutional embrace of distance educa-
tion makes possible more team development
of instructional activities and strategies. In
delivering a traditional-classroom experi-
ence, instructors need no special help other
than the occasional visiting speaker or the
visit from the audio-visual specialist to set
up the video projector. However, Web-
based distance-education media calls for
technical, graphical, and pedagogical exper-
tise that no one person can reasonably be
expected to possess. Constraints on faculty
members' time and departmental resources
prevent most individuals from developing all
of these skills. Hence, collaborative work
between a subject-matter expert (the instruc-
tor) and media specialists (programmers,
graphic artists, and course developers) offer
the most promise.
At our university, experience in the col-
laborative generation of courses and course
components has been very positive except
for the usual challenges of co-production.
Team-based educational development has
been necessary for the creation of innovative
and appropriate pedagogical uses of this
technology. Admittedly, increasing market
and organizational pressures to expedite and
homogenize these courses may limit such
collaborative possibilities in the future.

However, our experience demonstrates that
with institutional support, the pooling of
expertise has led to creative innovations in
course design and in the adoption of compo-
nents for traditional on-campus courses.
This cross-disciplinary pedagogical develop-
ment was not an intended goal of distance
education.
00:46:38 UTC
TECHNOLOGY 391
DISCUSSION
Teaching skills called forth by online-course
development, technology used in online
courses, and the stand-alone elements of
those courses can strengthen many tradi-
tional classes on campus. Admittedly, the
unintended benefits of distance-education
technology for the traditional classroom are
not available to everyone. Not all universi-
ties embrace distance education, and others
lack the resources to provide extensive stu-
dent access to such technologies. Instructors
who are forced to use this technology are not
likely to be convinced, and uninspired, cyni-
cal teachers in the traditional classroom are

not likely to become good teachers simply
by using distance-education technology.
However, as the resources for developing
distance education become more available to
on-campus teachers, many may find that the
use of distance-education technology pro-
vides opportunities for improving on-campus
classroom education.
REFERENCES
Boling, Nancy C. and Daniel H. Robinson. 1999.
"Individual Study, Interactive Multimedia, or
Cooperative Learning: Which Activity Best
Supplements Lecture-Based Distance Educa-
tion?" Journal of Educational Psychology
91:169-74.
Brooks, J. Michael. 1997. "Beyond Teaching and
Learning Paradigms: Trekking into the Virtual
University." Teaching Sociology 27:1-14.
Cordray, Sheila. 1999. "The Sociological Imagi-
nation." Science and Technology in Social
Context (Soc 456 Oregon State University).
Retrieved July 10, 2000 (http://osu.orst.edu/
pubs/sociology/edwards/webreferences. html).
Cuban, Larry. 1986. Teachers and Machines:
The Classroomi Use of Technology Since 1920.
New York: Teachers College Press.
Edwards, Mark Evan. 1999a. "Status Attainment
Research and Path Analysis Tutorial." Social

Inequality (Soc 426/526 Oregon State Univer-
sity). Retrieved July 10, 2000 (http://
osu. orst.edu/pubs/sociology/edwards/webref-
erences. html).
. 1999b. "Weber Towers: A Virtual Expe-
rience of the Structure and Process of Stratifi-
cation in America." Introduction to Weber
Towers. Retrieved July 10, 2000 (http://
osu.orst.edu/pubs/sociology/edwards/webref-
erences.html).
. 1999c. "Mobility Tables Construction and
Interpretation Tutorial" Social Inequality (Soc
426/526 Oregon State University). Retrieved
July 10, 2000 (http://osu.orst.edu/pubs/sociol-
ogy/edwards/webreferences.html).
Farber, Jerry. 1998. "The Third Circle: On
Education and Distance Learning." Sociologi-
cal Perspectives 41:797-814.
The Institute for Higher Education Policy. 1999.
"What's the Difference? A Review of Contem-
porary Research on the Effectiveness of Dis-
tance Learning in Higher Education." The In-
stitute for Higher Education Policy: Recent
Reports. Retrieved July 10, 2000 (http://
www.ihep.com/PUB.htm#diff).
Merton, Robert. 1967. On Theoretical Sociology.
New Yo}k: Macmillan.
Noble, David F. 1998. "Digital Diploma Mills,

Part II: The Coming Battle Over Online In-
struction." Sociological Perspectives 41:815-
25.
Portes, Alejandro. 2000. "The Hidden Abode:
Sociology as Analysis of the Unexpected."
American Sociological Review 65:1-18.
Mark Edwards is assistant professor of sociology at
Oregon State University. He teaches social inequality
(on campus and via the Internet), research methods, and
sociology of work and occupations. His research fo-
cuses on work and family, determinants of welfare
participation, and sociology of housing.
Sheila Cordray is an associate professor of sociol-
ogy at Oregon State University. Her primary field of
interest is social change. This interest has led to re-
search projects in natural-resource areas and using
sociological insights to understand the role of science,
technology, and the media in American culture. She
hopes to do more teaching using the Internet.
Jon Dorbolo is the Distributed Learning Developer
at Oregon State University, designing distance-
education courses. He has been teaching InterQuest:
The Fine Art of Philosophy, osu.orst.edu/instruct/
phi201, since 1993. Jon has received university and
state-level awards for his leadership in developing
online education.
00:46:38 UTC
Contentsimage 1image 2image 3image 4image 5image 6Issue
Table of ContentsTeaching Sociology, Vol. 28, No. 4, Oct.,

2000Volume Information [pp. 415 - 420]Front Matter [pp. i -
vi]Women Are Teachers, Men Are Professors: A Study of
Student Perceptions [pp. 283 - 298]Packaging Poverty as an
Intersection of Class, Race, and Gender in Introductory
Textbooks, 1982 to 1994 [pp. 299 - 315]The Controversial
Classroom: Institutional Resources and Pedagogical Strategies
for a Race Relations Course [pp. 316 - 332]A Skill, Process,
and Person-Oriented Graduate Seminar on Teaching [pp. 333 -
345]Integrating "The Real World" into Introduction to
Sociology: Making Sociological Concepts Real [pp. 346 -
363]NotesNurturing Graduate Students: Integrative Scholarship
through Textbook Projects [pp. 364 - 369]Putting the Pieces
Together: Using Jane Smiley's "A Thousand Acres" in
Sociology of Families [pp. 370 - 378]Probability Sampling and
Inferential Statistics: An Interactive Exercise Using M&M's
[pp. 379 - 385]Unintended Benefits of Distance-Education
Technology for Traditional Classroom Teaching [pp. 386 -
391]Book Reviewsuntitled [pp. 392 - 393]untitled [pp. 393 -
394]untitled [pp. 394 - 396]untitled [pp. 396 - 397]untitled
[pp. 397 - 399]untitled [pp. 399 - 401]untitled [pp. 402 -
403]untitled [pp. 403 - 404]untitled [pp. 404 - 406]untitled [p.
406]untitled [pp. 406 - 408]untitled [pp. 408 - 409]Video
Reviewuntitled [pp. 410 - 411]Back Matter [pp. 412 - 414]
109
FOR THE PAST TWELVE YEARS, the New South Wales
Department of Education and Train-
ing (NSWDET) has funded a suite of screen literacy learning
projects for “at risk” students from low
socio-economic and ethnically diverse backgrounds (Mills,
“Tools”; “Expanding Horizons”; “Screen
Literacy”). Developed with the related aims of engaging
students in learning and having a positive

impact on their traditional literacy skills and capacities, these
projects operated in the space where,
as Jane Mills outlines, “old literacies meet new literacies, old
media meets new media, screen culture
meets other visual cultures, and theory commingles with praxis”
(“Screen Literacy” 289). Purposefully
acknowledging the students’ existing knowledge and
understanding of popular screen culture, they
addressed challenges for literacy, identity, and schooling for
youth in the age of “new” (i.e., digital)
media. The latter has been characterized as a profound change
in the semiotic landscape, worldwide,
summarized by Ilona Snyder as a general shift from “page to
screen,” and described by Bill Green in
terms of a similarly paradigmatic shift for literacy from print to
digital electronics, and by Gunther
Kress as a shift from text to image.
Abstract: This article discusses a trial project to explore the role
of popular screen culture
in student engagement levels, the capabilities of the smartphone
camera for screen literacy
learning, and the potential of digital communication technology
for cultural participation and
global citizenship. It asks if screen literacy learning so framed
could point to a new pedagogy
of cosmopolitanism.
Keywords: cosmopolitanism, mobile phone technology,
pedagogy, screen literacy
Popular Screen Culture and
Digital Communication Technology in
Literacy Learning:
Toward a New Pedagogy of Cosmopolitanism

A global community of cosmopolitans will consist of people
who want to learn
about other ways of life, through anthropology and history,
novels, movies,
news stories in newspapers, on radio and television. Indeed, let
me make my
first entirely concrete practical proposal … Do what people all
around the
globe are already doing with American movies: see at least one
movie with
subtitles a month.
(Appiah 94)
BY Jane Mills AND Bill Green
Copyright © 2013 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
DOI: 10.1080/01956051.2013.787355
110 JPF&T—Journal of Popular Film and Television
Adopting a multimodal approach that
looks beyond language to all forms of
communication, as has been variously
discussed by Kress and Van Leeuwen,
Jewitt et al., and more recently by Kress,
these NSWDET-funded screen literacy
learning projects took a “three-screen”
approach comprising cinema, televi-
sion, and computers. Initially, the proj-
ects worked within a mainstream view
of literacy pedagogy, as endorsed by
NSWDET. In the most recent of these
projects, the pedagogical and conceptual

framework for the screen-based com-
ponent has drawn on Green’s tripartite
(3D) model involving the interplay of
the operational, cultural, and critical di-
mensions of literate practice and peda-
gogy (Durrant and Green; Green, “A
Literacy Project”). This model provides
a bedrock for media literacy learning in-
volving media consumption and produc-
tion competence (i.e., the operational),
understanding the meaning systems in,
and being able to construct one’s own
meanings from, media texts (i.e., the cul-
tural), and, at the same time, responding
critically and responsibly to those texts
(i.e., the critical) (Durrant 2012). The
conceptual design of the screen literacy
projects under discussion has also drawn
on what, in a somewhat parallel devel-
opment to Green’s model, Andrew Burn
has called a 3C model involving the cul-
tural, the critical, and the creative. In
this, not only is movie-making closely
linked to critical analysis, but screen and
literacy are also conjoined, as are screen
literacy, traditional literacy learning,
popular film and television studies, and
English studies. All these fields can and
do stand alone but, arguably, they be-
longed together if the students were in-
deed to become properly screen-literate.
Popular screen culture—that is, films
and television programs that were not
part of the respected and hallowed
canon—was a crucially important as-

pect of these screen literacy projects.
Following James Gee’s notion of af-
finity spaces, as well as his distinction
between formally taught and informally
acquired learning, specifically learn-
ing attained outside the classroom, the
teachers involved in the projects were
encouraged to publicly and explicitly
value the knowledge and understanding
which the students had acquired from
their viewing of television and films in
the home and local community environ-
ment (Finch). Thus the projects sought
to bring popular screen culture—some-
thing about which the students had
learned a great deal outside the class-
room—into the classroom. They then
built on this informally acquired knowl-
edge in the classroom, where critical
analytical and production skills were
taught.
For the movie-making component of
the projects, the students followed an in-
dustry model: from concept and devel-
opment through pre-production, produc-
tion, and post-production, culminating
in exhibition in the form of a screening
for family and friends in their local cin-
ema. As most rural Australian towns
have no cinema, other local venues,
such as the Returned Services League
(RSL) Club, were used. Thus the stu-
dents first brought their knowledge and
understanding of popular screen culture
into the classroom, and then took their

enhanced knowledge, understanding,
and new production skills back into the
home and community, whence their orig-
inal knowledge—and their passion—
had started.
Impact of Screen
Literacy Learning
In each of the projects, researchers
and teachers observed an immediate
positive impact on student engagement,
and a significant enhancement in lit-
eracy levels. A positive impact on the
sense of self and identity that the stu-
dents developed in relation to the rest of
the class, to the school at large, and to
their families and community was also
observed. This was of particular signifi-
cance to students who hitherto, due to
their low levels of engagement and lit-
eracy, had been held in low regard by
their peers and, often, by their teachers.
However, their sense of identity in rela-
tion to that which existed outside their
local community, that is, to the nation
and the rest of the world, appeared to
be unchanged. In short, the students ap-
peared to be relatively untouched by a
global perspective.
This requires some elucidation, since
popular film and television in Australia,
as in most parts of the world, is noth-
ing if not global. As Graham Nash and
Kathy Mackey point out, Hollywood

and the Internet are widely considered
examples of the globalized culture that
our students inhabit as “natives.” But
how meaningful is this if they continue
to act and to imagine themselves as un-
connected to the rest of the world? Cer-
tainly, in terms of content, the students’
movies demonstrated knowledge of the
global—indeed, the “glocal,” to use
Roland Robertson’s apt neologism. For
example, the students skillfully adapted
Hollywood genres such as horror, the
chick flick, and kung fu to their own
local specifics. But a blinkered local-
ism was manifest in the students’ lack
Popular screen culture—that is, films and television programs
that were not part of the respected and hallowed canon—was a
crucially important aspect of these screen literacy projects.
A New Pedagogy of Cosmopolitanism 111
of interest in viewing films they were
shown that were made by students from
other schools and other towns, in show-
ing their films outside their immediate
community, or in viewing and learning
about films in a foreign language or
genres specific to Hollywood or main-
stream Austalian cinema.
The students appeared to experience
what John Tomlinson calls “banal glo-
balism.” Bronislaw Szerszynski and

John Urry (122) argue that “‘banal glo-
balism,’ the almost unnoticed symbols
of globality that crowd our daily lives,”
might be “helping to create a sensibil-
ity conducive to the cosmopolitan rights
and duties of being a ‘global citizen’ by
generating a greater sense of both global
diversity and global interconnectedness
and belonging.” Our observations, how-
ever, suggested that the promise of such
citizenship remained unfulfilled.
In short, the three screens opened up
a world to our students but did not en-
able them to access, or participate in,
the world. While the local links between
school, home, and community were
expressly sought and valued, the proj-
ects failed to overcome a parochialism
that disadvantages rural youth in many
educational and societal senses. Not, of
course, that there is anything intrinsi-
cally “wrong” with the local or the paro-
chial. As explained earlier, the projects
actively encouraged a local connected-
ness between school, home, and com-
munity. There was, furthermore, an im-
plicit understanding that, as Ulrich Beck
argues, globalizing is also a matter of
situating and localizing. But the projects
did nothing to actively encourage wider
horizons. This did not synchronize with
cinema, which has been a global phe-
nomenon since its inception, it ignored
the global cultural flows within the
new eduscape (of which the students

were clearly a part, although seemingly
unaware that this was so), and it con-
tradicted the increasingly transnational
direction of contemporary literacy
studies.
The projects responded to what Jewitt
et al. argue is the “need to make curricu-
lum knowledge ‘relevant’ by connect-
ing with students’ out-of-school experi-
ence” (17). For our students, however,
“out-of-school” was located very close
to the boundaries marked by their school
fence. In the social terrain inhabited by
our students, it proved difficult to de-
termine the extent to which their screen
literacy learning was having an impact
on “the social and political boundaries
of English [learning]—determined by
teachers, schools, Local Education Au-
thorities, by policy and by diverse so-
cial interests—boundaries [that tend to
be] tightly guarded and regulated by a
highly prescriptive policy context” (18).
The images the students looked at and
filmed, and the sounds they heard and
recorded, provided the starting point
to extend the horizons of their literacy
learning, but they were unable to go
further. The overriding need for teach-
ers to deliver the outcomes formulated
narrowly in the National Assessment
Program: Literacy and Numeracy (NA-
PLAN) in all Australian schools meant

that many of the social and political
boundaries of the English curriculum
remained in much the same place, thus
keeping the students in much the same
place, and indeed “in their place,” as
Richard Edwards and Robin Usher
(115–34) discuss. To make the social
terrain for our students more equitable,
we needed to dismantle the boundar-
ies that preserved localism—not be-
cause the home-community focus was
not needed but because it came at the
expense of the students seeing beyond
the boundaries that denied them access
to global citizenship. The boundaries,
which prevented the students experienc-
ing or establishing a global–local dia-
logue, needed to become porous.
Adding Value
To address this issue, a trial screen lit-
eracy learning project involving teach-
ers and educators in Australia and Japan
was designed to add value to previous
projects in two ways. First, it included
the fourth screen: the mobile-phone
camera screen. Second, it added a trans-
national framework by linking students
in rural–regional NSW with similarly
situated and (dis)engaged students in
Japan. It was determined that students
in both countries would use mobile
smartphones to communicate with and
learn from each other, both to record

their films and to distribute them to their
counterparts in the other nation.
We selected Year 10 students in a
medium-sized secondary school in rural
New South Wales, at which most stu-
dents came from low socio-economic
backgrounds, for a seven-day trial the
week immediately after the School Cer-
tificate exams ended. The significance
of this is that the Year 10 cohort is an
underresearched group within the total
school population: literacy education
attention tends to fall on the early and
senior years of schooling, and more re-
cently on the middle years, with little
focus in particular on Year 10 as such.
A further consideration was that, in
NSW, students sit for the School Cer-
tificate at the end of Year 10, and this
is widely seen as a limbo period in their
total schooling context, within the larger
black hole of the junior secondary school
(Sawyer, Brock, and Baxter), particu-
larly for students and schools classed
as “educationally disadvantaged.” It is
worth noting here that although we had
applied for federal funding to support a
The students appeared to experience what John Tomlinson calls
“banal globalism.”

larger, more comprehensive project, we
were unsuccessful. We remained con-
vinced, however, of the value of such
an undertaking, and this article will in-
dicate something of why we feel that is
the case.
The Fourth Screen
In his discussion of the mobile phone,
Gerard Goggin (115) points out that this
particular technocultural development
offers possibilities for the coordination
of activities and greater independent
communication with peers. It was this,
coupled with a desire to better under-
stand, and contribute to, the theoriza-
tion of this emerging aspect of com-
munications culture, that led us to the
fourth screen. As Goggin argues, the
coming together of the moving image
and telephony in the form of the smart-
phone is evidence of the convergence
of “formerly distinct communications
platforms, technologies, audiences and
cultures in which cell phone and mo-
bile technologies are being fervidly
embraced” (162). The fourth screen,
therefore, offers not only moviemaking
technology but moving-image commu-
nication and sharing capacity as well.
We also wanted to address, and per-
haps pre-empt, a moral panic similar
to the one that has developed around
text-messaging and “sexting” (Lumby

and Funnell). Could, or would, the new
practice of smartphone moviemaking
be accused of posing a threat to literacy
and also to cultural film values and can-
ons, thus leading to a new generation of
screen illiterates? The general intoler-
ance of teachers toward digital phones
was another factor. Although mobile
phones are not banned from all schools,
their use in the classroom commonly is.
As Goggin explains:
because of their prevalence and avail-
ability, their portability, their intricate
incorporation into the patterns of ev-
eryday life, and increasingly, their
function as media, mobiles [pose] con-
siderable challenges for the conduct
and regulation of private and public
spheres, and the boundaries and rela-
tionships that pertain to and traverse
these (115).
The argument for using the smart-
phone in our trial project was clinched
by the principal of our participating
school, which up to that point had al-
lowed mobile phone use in the play
areas only. Recognizing the existing
conflict between teen culture and new
forms of pedagogy, he observed: “Mo-
bile phones are in our classrooms now
and they are causing us problems. Let
us see if we can turn them into learn-
ing and teaching tools.” In other words,
rather than a threat, could they be seen

as an opportunity?
Some Outcomes
Accepting that in so short a time and
in such circumstances we could not
adequately gauge literacy levels, and
knowing, too, that Japanese students
could not participate until the following
year, our aims in this trial project were
confined to the interrelated exploration
of the role of popular screen culture in
student engagement levels, the capabili-
ties of the smartphone camera for screen
literacy learning, and the potential of the
“fourth screen” for cultural participation
and global citizenship.
Engagement
As explained above, we targeted Year
10 students in the week immediately af-
ter their School Certificate exams. Un-
til the announcement a year earlier of
the raising of the school leaving age in
NSW, the majority of this cohort had ex-
pected to join the ranks of school leav-
ers once their exams were over. We thus
anticipated very low levels of engage-
ment. What we got, however, was a high
level of engagement. For example, stu-
dents volunteered assistance throughout
all stages, supplemented the work of
teachers, used their initiative to offer so-
lutions and, often unasked, assisted one

another. Some voluntarily took work
home in order to complete their work
on schedule—a rare occurrence in this
cohort’s culture, as we were told. The
students took time-keeping seriously,
with almost all arriving on time for each
class throughout the project, and several
returning from another class although
they had been told it was not necessary.
At the screening, furthermore, several
students demonstrated hitherto unsus-
pected hospitality and social skills, vol-
untarily welcoming parents and guests
and offering them refreshments.
There were some failures. After the
first day, six students left because “it
sounds like it’s going to be too much
hard work.” Some disappeared for one
or two periods, or a whole day, for a va-
riety of reasons, such as romantic entan-
glements or because they were bored.
More generally, the uneven nature of
the filmmaking meant that not all were
fully involved all the time. In the period
immediately after lunch, engagement
levels dropped very noticeably, making
the planned learning and teaching dur-
ing this period virtually impossible.
Mobile Phone Capability
The small cameras proved easy to
use, and several students quickly be-
came skilled in their use—demonstrat-
ing, for example, an understanding that

on such a small screen, the close-up was
Could, or would, the new practice of smartphone moviemaking
be accused of posing a threat to literacy and also to cultural
film values and canons, thus leading to a new generation
of screen illiterates?
a more appropriate shot to use than the
wide shot. Student enjoyment and en-
gagement flowed partly from having
access to expensive, latest-model smart-
phones, and also from a sense of trans-
gression, as demonstrated by their de-
cision to film themselves tearing down
the posters around the school banning
mobile-phone use.
The downside was that the quality of
the image was not as good as had been
hoped, and indeed proved inappropri-
ate for screening in the large assembly
hall at end of term, although this was
of greater concern to the teachers than
the students. A more significant prob-
lem was that the students’ government-
provided Digital Education Revolution
(DER) laptops provided, at times, proj-
ect-threatening incompatibility between
the camera and the editing software.
Cultural Participation and
Global Citizenship

As already mentioned, due to the
time constraint in this instance, we were
unable to fully implement the global
aspect by directly involving Japanese
colleagues and students in a fully col-
laborative, transnational moviemaking
project. However, the students were in-
formed of this aspect of the project from
the start and were asked to make films
for Japanese students their own age,
which would later be shown to academ-
ics and students in Japan. (This subse-
quently took place at a conference of the
Australian Studies Assocation in Japan
in Tokyo on July 3, 2011.)
After some initial protestations of ig-
norance, the students discovered they
possessed considerable knowledge of
Japanese popular screen culture, which
they shared with their fellow students.
Many had been avid viewers of the As-
troboy television series when younger,
for example, and most knew about, al-
though had not necessarily seen, the
popular horror Hollywood movies The
Ring and The Ring Two, the remake
and sequel of the globally successful
Japanese film Ringu. Some students had
even seen the Japanese original, or ex-
tracts from it, on YouTube. These films
offered a wealth of material to prompt
further viewing and discussion of is-
sues of importance to screen literacy

learning, such as genre, the remake, na-
tional cinema, and other Film Studies
concepts. Their existing knowledge of
popular film and television was further
extended by accessing Japanese moving
and still images from cinema, television,
and news sources on their computers
and on the smartboard. Preconceptions
of “uncool” Japanese school students
were quickly swept aside by the down-
loaded images of cosplay teenagers at
Harajuku. Although this shared knowl-
edge of Japanese culture did not have a
direct impact on the students’ filmmak-
ing technique or practical production
skills, it did mean they lost interest in
reproducing stereotypical images and
ideas of either themselves as Austra-
lians or their Japanese audience. Rather
than stress perceptions of national and
cultural difference in terms of Austra-
lian superiority, their film ideas came
to demonstrate interest in communicat-
ing similarities and differences between
themselves and Japanese students of the
same age. There is, of course, much else
that might be explored in such work,
such as, for instance, how to deal with
narrative patterning, or what is involved
transculturally in the visual image; how-
ever, our opportunity was limited in this
regard.
Reflection and
Feedback

At the end of the project, the students
were invited to participate in a group
discussion designed to encourage re-
flection and elicit feedback. The key
teachers and educators were invited to
engage in a semistructured interview
and to comment on a draft report. This
was then redrafted to reflect all views
and experiences.
From the student feedback, we
learned that what had proved difficult
for us had also been difficult for them.
However, they went further than simply
commenting on the problems they had
experienced and made helpful sugges-
tions for how the project might be im-
proved for future students. In particular,
they acknowledged the problem of stu-
dent dropout by offering ideas for im-
plementation the next year. Prior hands-
on experience of cameras and editing,
they told us, would “show them [i.e., fu-
ture students] before [they start] who is
good and who isn’t and they can choose
them what are best with the camera or
[those who] can do good sound or edit-
ing. That would save a lot of mucking
about.” They recommended that future
projects should include hands-on cam-
era experience on the first day because
“that way they’ll know there are good
bits coming and they’ll cope with the
boring bits.” They thought that future
students should be shown more smart-

phone “mini-movies,” “to learn what
works and what doesn’t from what
Rather than stress perceptions of national and cultural
difference in terms of Australian superiority, their film ideas
came to demonstrate interest in communicating similarities and
differences between themselves and Japanese students of the
same age.
others have done.” As for the problem-
atic period immediately after lunch, they
suggested it would be a good time for
viewing smartphone mini-movies: “Then
they can be sort of quiet and not be all
stressed out, and learn at the same time.”
Their comments about future proj-
ects, in which they themselves would
not be participating, demonstrated what
their teachers suggested was an un-
usual degree of altruism among a cohort
which, until now, had been regarded as
disempowered and largely disengaged.
The Head of English later commented:
when I speak to the kids who were
involved in the [trial] Screen Literacy
project, I am beginning to realise just
how much benefit they received from
the experience. Some of them were
very negative “customers” [i.e., ex-
tremely uncooperative] and their whole

attitude to me and to school now seems
to be much more positive.
Cooperation was indeed one of the
most significant outcomes of the project.
Movie-making is usually an intensely
collaborative process and several stu-
dents commented that they were unaccus-
tomed to the degree of cooperation that
was required of them. The teachers and
researchers also noted this outcome, with
one commenting that the students “took
collaboration to a whole new level.”
Transnational
Collaboration
Upon hearing that their films would be
screened in Japan, many of the students
initially responded with caustic, xeno-
phobic remarks employing racist stereo-
types relating to physical appearance,
contemporary fashion, military coward-
ice, and Asian inferiority underpinned
by a belief in Australian superiority.
Their “us against them” remarks can be
characterized as a mixture of ignorance
(“Do they talk the same as in China?”;
“Do they wear those long dressing
gown things?”), low self-esteem (“They
won’t want to see our films”), and sar-
casm directed toward our “good” inten-
tions for their self-improvement (“We’ll
make a crap film to show how crap our
school is”).

Quickly, however, it became “cool”
to be involved in the transnational as-
pect. The first manifestation of this was
the poster that three students designed
collaboratively. Using Photoshop skills,
inside the screen of an enlarged image
of a smartphone downloaded from the
Internet, they wrote:
Do you use your mobile phone in
class? We did! We made movies using
this small screen. Literacy means not
just reading and writing but also view-
ing, listening, and representing. We
are showing our movies to family and
friends this Friday… and to students in
Japan next year. Are you jealous?!
In the group discussion, the students
suggested how the Japanese connection
in future projects could be improved.
Their use of “we” and “them” in their
comments below refers to future stu-
dents, both Australian and Japanese.
This time, however, by placing them-
selves in the position of future students
they expressed an empathy for others
that they had previously lacked.
• “It would be good to be in touch
with the Japanese students before we
make our films so they know us and
we know them.”
• “We could talk on Skype, or email,

and have a special Facebook page
then they could see us and us could
see them.”
• “We could all text them 3 questions
and they can text us their 3 ques-
tions, then we’d have to do, you
know, research so as we and them
answer properly.”
• “We can look at Japanese films and
we can send them some Australian
films to see.”
• “That way we could all see [i.e., in
each other’s films] what things we
do different and what things we do
the same.”
We heard no racism or xenophobia
in their later comments. Rather, they
demonstrated a valuing of dialogue, of
civil conversation, and of sharing ideas
and images outside their immediate
community. Indeed, they suggested the
making of another, wider, community of
practice in which ideas are shared with
complete strangers. They expressed the
view that this community would be one
in which Australian students would be
equal partners with as yet unknown
Japanese students. What these students
were expressing, we realized, was a cos-
mopolitan form of cooperation.
Cosmopolitanism

There are numerous defnitions of
cosmopolitanism—many far from fa-
vorable—but in the context of this par-
ticular cohort, Ulrich Beck’s comment
in The Cosmopolitan Vision is apposite:
What is enlightenment? To have the
courage to make use of one’s cosmo-
politan vision and to acknowledge
one’s multiple identities—to combine
forms of life founded on language, skin
colours, nationality or religion with the
awareness that, in a radically insecure
world, all are equal and everyone is
different (ii).
Until relatively recently, discussion
of cosmopolitanism was trapped in a
binarism beween an idealized, border-
less globalization and fixed, bounded
notions of nationalism and parochial-
ism. Stephanie Donald, Eleanore Kof-
man, and Catherine Kevin suggest that
the present revival of interest in cosmo-
politanism derives from “debates about
mobility, belonging, and strangeness …
[from] a rethinking of the nature of a
global political community, and on the
ethical bonds of hospitality in a mo-
bile world which applies equally to the
parochial or local and the global” (5).
Closely aligned to globalization, cos-
mopolitanism involves the erosion of
distinct boundaries, and the emergence

What these students were expressing, we realized, was a
cosmopolitan form of cooperation.
of internal globalization or dissolution
of the nation-state in the “us” and the
“them” of social identities is constructed
less negatively. Thus cosmopolitan tol-
erance, as Mica Nava argues, involves
opening up to the “world of the other”
and the “allure of difference” (19).
Ulrich Beck and Natan Sznaider sug-
gest that it is only when cosmopolitan
ways of thinking and perceiving become
incorporated into people’s identities,
rituals, and dispositions that the former
can become an effective force in the
world (7–8). Szerszynski and Urry find
that this blending of universalistic dis-
positions and particularistic local cul-
tures does seem to be occurring among
certain social groups. But they also find
that the relationship between visuality,
mobility, and the cosmopolitan suggests
that this blending can radically trans-
form the very character of the particular
and the local in a way that is not neces-
sarily an unalloyed civilizational gain:
that humans are increasingly seeing and
experiencing the world from afar, “at
home” only within the multiple mobili-
ties of late modernity. In other words,

there is a possibility of going no further
than the limits of banal cosmopolitan-
ism. They do not suggest, however, that
there is an inevitable irreconcilability
between cosmopolitan openness on the
one hand and the local or parochial on
the other. Bruno Latour’s solution, they
point out (127), was to call for a form of
cosmopolitanism that does not require
us to leave our attachments at the door,
one in which people are not asked to
detach themselves from the particular—
from their particular local place—in
order to attain cosmopolitan emancipa-
tion. As Rizvi (2009: 257–58) argues:
A global imagination now plays a cru-
cial role in how people engage with
their everyday activities, consider their
options and make decisions within the
new configurations of social relations
that are no longer confined to local
communities but potentially span, ei-
ther directly or indirectly, across na-
tional boundaries.
How this is to be achieved is precisely
the challenge, particularly in the context
of education, and perhaps especially
with regard to rural–regional schooling,
as in the case discussed here.
Conclusion
The students’ comments support Ber-

tram C. Bruce’s observation (29) that
participation in the kinds of collabora-
tions that new communication technolo-
gies enable, demonstrate how consider-
ations of globalization lead us toward
understanding the perspective of others.
The project further points to the poten-
tial of popular film and television for
literacy learning that uses the fourth
screen to promote national cultural well-
being. As Martha Nussbaum argues,
this must draw on longstanding discus-
sion concerning cultural literacy learn-
ing as a necessary aspect of educating
for democratic and cosmopolitan world
citizenship.
By combining mobility, communica-
tion technology, visuality, and a desire
to get to know and relate to “other-
ness,” screen literacy learning organized
around the mobile phone camera offers
a concept and experience of cosmopoli-
tanism that, as Kwame Appiah argues
(155–74), calls for “a habit of co-exis-
tence” and “dialogue” with strangers.
This approach to literacy learning en-
abled our students to learn the value of
Appiah’s notion of “ethics in a world of
strangers” while they actually practiced
it. The students’ films and their reflec-
tions demonstrated Appiah’s notion of
the cosmopolitan that celebrates the
fact that there are different local human
ways of being. And, as Beck acknowl-

edges, “one of the most important pre-
suppositions and implications of the
cosmopolitanization thesis is the redis-
covery and redefinition of the local”
(88). Hence, the project outlined here
might appropriately be understood as
working toward what Rizvi (2009) calls
cosmopolitan learning, as “a new way
of learning about other cultures and in-
tercultural exchange” (266).
This raises for us the following ques-
tions: By ensuring that literacy learning
involves practicing such ethics locally
and globally, might we not begin to ad-
dress the uneven terrain that exists for
educationally disadvantaged students?
And might not this enable them to
participate in the wider community of
which, in fact, they are already a part,
even though not necessarily, or know-
ingly, participating in it? The students’
own practice and their reflections in this
trial project suggest that screen literacy
learning as cultural production using the
mobile phone camera could indeed em-
power currently disempowered students
to become proactive cultural partici-
pants and to take their place in society
as ethically aware global citizens.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We thank our colleagues at Charles Sturt
University, in particular the School of Com-
munication and Creative Industries, teachers

and students at Canobolas Technology High
School, colleagues at the NSW Department
of Education (Western Region), the NSW
English Teachers Association, the Japan
Academy of Moving Images, and the Austra-
lian Studies Association in Japan. For their
support and collaboration, we thank Heather
Grant, Chris Condliffe, Bec Wotzko, Phil
Glen, Kristina Gottschall, Eva Gold, Shigeki
Chiba,Yoshikazu Shiobara, and Jo-Anne
Reid. We also thank the anonymous peer re-
viewers for their helpful comments.
This approach to literacy learning enabled our students to learn
the value of Appiah’s notion of “ethics in a world of strangers”
while they actually practiced it.
WORKS CITED
Appiah, Kwame Anthony. “Education for
Global Citizenship.” Yearbook of the Na-
tional Society for the Study of Education
107.1 (2008): 83–89. Print.
——. Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of
Strangers. New York: W.W. Norton, 2008.
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Beck, Ulrich. Cosmopolitan Vision. Cam-
bridge: Polity Press, 2006. Print.
Bruce, Bertram C. “A Friendly, Welcoming

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Information Age: Inquiries into Meaning
Making with New Technologies. Ed. Ber-
trom C. Bruce. New York: International
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Finch, Brian. “Framing Children’s Viewing
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