1. Jill Castek
Digital/New Literacy
You will be able to:
explain the components of
Digital/New Literacy
give examples of how you can use
New Literacy strategies/activities
to enhance your reading
instruction

2. Dr. Jill Castek
• TITLE: Research Assistant Professor
AREA: Applied Linguistics — Literacy, Language, &Technology Research Group
Portland State College
WEBPAGE: https://sites.google.com/site/jillcastek/
• EDUCATION
Ph.D., Educational Psychology University of Connecticut
M.S., Reading Specialist California State University, East Bay
B.A., Liberal Studies University of Pittsburgh
• Jill’s work explores the instructional techniques and digital tools that can be used to
support reading, writing, and content learning. Her research examines the new
literacies of online reading comprehension and explores the challenges and
opportunities for reading, writing, and learning on the Internet. Jill has worked as a
classroom teacher, reading specialist, and curriculum leader where she has supported
the literacy development of striving readers and writers for more than a decade.

3. • Take 5 minutes and look at the
selected text. What reading
strategies/skills do students need to
successfully comprehend this offline
text? Discuss with your partner and
jot some notes
• Take 5 minutes and search
dinosaurs on the internet. As you
navigate the text, think about what
reading strategies/skills do students
need to successfully comprehend
this offline text? Discuss with your
partner and jot some notes

4. NewLiteracies
ResearchTeam
Donald Leu, directs the New Literacies Research Lab
in the Neag School of Education, University of
Connecticut
Julie Corio, PhD from University of Connecticut,
Assistant Professor at University of Rhode Island
Jill Castek, Ph.D., Educational Psychology
University of Connecticut , Research Assistant
Professor in Applied Linguistics — Literacy,
Language, &Technology Research at Portland State
College
http://www.newliteracies.uconn.edu/

5. What is Digital
Literacy?
• Wikipedia’s definition
Digital literacy is the ability to effectively and
critically navigate, evaluate and create
information using a range of digital
technologies. It requires one "to recognize
and use that power, to manipulate and
transform digital media, to distribute
pervasively, and to easily adapt them to
new forms".

6. Lowercase theory-
new literacies
• Collaborative approach taking in multiple
perspectives from collaborative groups that are
diverse with multiple perspectives
• Lowercase (new literacies) explore specific area of
new literacies/technology. They explore focused
disciplinary based/conceptual approaches, new
literacy studies

7. Uppercase- New
Literacy Theory
• Goal is to look at the total field (lowercase theories and studies) of
New Literacy and look for the common findings and patterns
Principles of Uppercase Theory of New Literacies
• The Internet is this generation’s defining technology for literacy and
learning within our global community.
• The Internet and related technologies require additional new
literacies to fully access their potential
• New Literacies are deictic (ever changing meaning)
• New Literacies are multiple, multimodal, and multifaceted
• Critical literacies are central to new literacies
• New forms of strategic knowledge are required with new literacies
• New social practices are a central element of New Literacies
• Teachers become more important, though their role changes, within
new literacy classrooms.

8. University of Connecticut's Neag School of
Education has received a $1.8 million 3-year
research grant from the U.S. Department of
Education's Institute of Education Sciences (IES) to
study the new literacies of reading comprehension
on the Internet
• The New Literacies Research Team, headed by Dr.
Donald Leu, with Dr. David Reinking collaborating
from Clemson University
– Among students in our target population, what is
the nature and frequency of reading on the
Internet inside and outside school?
– Among students in our target population, what
comprehension strategies, orientations, and
patterns of use are evident as they engage in
locating, evaluating, synthesizing, and
communicating information on the Internet?
– What type of instrument can reliably and validly
measure online reading comprehension?

9. Defining Online Reading
Comprehension:
Using Think Aloud Verbal
Protocols To Refine A
Preliminary Model of Internet
Reading Comprehension
Processes
Leu, Reinking, et al., 2005
•Used verbal protocols with think-alouds to gather
information about the reasoning that occurred as
students gathered information online to solve problems
•53 seventh-grade students selected from 1,100 students
•Students’ online reading actions were recorded using a
screen capture program-Camtasia
•Data from recordings, transcripts of reflections, and
follow-up interviews were coded and analyzed to search
for patterns

10. Major skill sets needed
for online reading comprehension
• Developing questions
• Locating information
• Evaluating information
• Synthesizing information
• Communicating information
• With additional online skills
• Along with offline reading strategies

11. Developing Questions
• Students need to understand
the question to research

12. Locating Information
Please type octopus into the search engine, is this efficient/effective?
Effective practices
• Turn questions into key word/phrases
• Strategic reading not ―click and look‖
• TICA (Teaching Internet Comprehension to Adolescents)
identified 3 search-and-locate tactics that use a higher level of
strategic thinking
1. Description reading- action based on specific reading of search
results
2. Touring results page, action based on scrolling through results
page prior to close reading /keywords
3. URL reading- action based on specific reading of URLs
.com/.edu/ .gov

13. Evaluating
• http://www.zapatopi.net/treeocto
pus/
• What skills do students need
when they read this page?
Determine accuracy- evaluating the extent to which information
contains factual and updated details that can be verified by
consulting alternative and primary sources
Determine bias- evaluating information in relation to the stance an
author takes
Determining relevancy- evaluating information in relation to its
utility or relevancy to the question or problem
Determine site reliability- evaluating the trustworthiness of a
website on the basis of its publisher and author information

14. Synthesizing
Information
• Can be challenging to
synthesize efficiently internet
text
• Vast amount of information
• Need to decide what is
relevant/how much is needed to
draw conclusions

15. Communicating
Information
• Online readers do NOT just
read, they communicate with
others continuously to help them
process what they are learning
• Involves a range of online tools
– Podcasts
– Blogs
– Instant message
– E-mails
– Wikis/Google docs

16. Developing an Online
community of readers
• Online book clubs
– ePals Book Club (Charron study)
– Planet Book Talk
•Online Pen Pals
•Collaborative Online Projects

17. Castek, How do 4th and 5th grade students
acquire the new literacies of online reading
comprehension? Doctoral dissertation,
University of Connecticut, 2008
• Found positive effects for 4th/5th
graders who were instructed
using IRT and laptops
• Experimental group showed
significantly greater gains in
online research and
comprehension
• Effect size 1.58

18. Internet Reciprocal
Teaching (IRT)
• basic strategies + internet strategies
Palinscar & Brown, 1984/ New
Literacies Research Team
– Predict -Use ? to locate
– Question -Evaluate
– Clarify -Synthesize
– Summarizing -Communicate

19. Internet Reciprocal
Teaching (IRT)
• Phase 1
– Provide whole-class instruction on
basic skills/strategies of Internet use
• Phase 2
– Provide individual inquiry units (can
have collaboration) and sharing
sessions
• Phase 3
– Provide group work/reciprocal
exchanges of online reading
strategies

20. IRT conclusions
• Students required different
levels of support at different
points during the implementation
• Developed a checklist
• http://mnli12.wikispaces.com/Int
ernet+Reciprocal+Teaching
• “Navigating the Cs of
Change”
– J. Gregory McVerry, Lisa Zawilinski and W. Ian
O'Byrne

21. Jill Castek, portfolio
• Castek website for IRT
• Castek handout on IRT
• Video clips
• Strategies for Critically Evaluating Websites

22. Castek’s current work
• The Literacybeat Collaborative
Formed a group with Dana Grisham, Jill Castek, Bernadette Dwyer,
Bridget Dalton, and Thomas DeVere Wolsey
• ―Using Multimedia to Support Generative
Vocabulary Learning‖
• ―Using Apps to Support Disciplinary
Literacy and Science Learning‖
• IRA’s Technology in Literacy Education
Special Interest Group (TILE-SIG)
• ―Using peer collaboration to support
online reading, writing, and
communication‖

23. Using Multimedia to
Support Generative
Vocabulary Learning
• Use digital media in vocabulary , not only receptive
but also generative (actively engages students in
using lang to express themselves/create products
that represent their new knowledge)
• Empowers students to be
agents of their own
learning, Authentic
reasons, links
reading, writing, and
communicating

24. Vocabulary cont
• Multimedia Learning Theory
(Mayer, 05) Multimodal word
learning, combining pictures and
words,
• Zhao and Lai (2008) technology can be used to facilitate
vocabulary acquisition through digital multimedia
(video/internet) provides meaning and authentic
communication opportunities

25. Vocabulary activities
• vocabulary videos (vocab vids)
• Show examples of 60 sec or less vocab vids
• Make video with guidance
• Divide into teams of three, 5 mins to plan
online thesaurus, visual dictionary
(visualdictionaryonline.com) for related words
and potential contexts, make sign of the word
at the end
• As alternative, can use xtranormal.com or
goanimate.com, vocabahead.com
• Can give additional time for an alternative
meaning of the same word
• Post on class blog, Powerpoint word glossary

26. Designing Multimedia
Hypertext Versions of Poems,
Quotes, or Short Text Excerpts
Unpack meaning of figurative language within
poems/passages, students in creating hypertext
versions of the text that include links to other media
• 1st layer-original text
• 2nd layer(hyperlinked)- students’ personal
connections and interpretations
• Works in partner groups/ discussion
• Powerpoint/ wordsift.com
• Example

27. • Teacher- Create a three-slide Power Point
template
– Slide 1 explains the task and how to make a
hyperlink within the slide show
– Slide 2 introduces example
– Slide 3 provides the actual text to be
expanded with vocabulary hyperlinks
• Student
– Save the template with their own file name
– delete the sample slide
– Add hyperlinks to represent personal thinking,
additional information, definitions, etc.

28. Using Apps to Support
Literacy
• Apps help literacy practices:
Collaboration, multimodality, and shared
productivity
• Collaboration- peers collaboratively sharing
competing claims and evidence
• Multimodality- the ability to carefully observe
and identify specific multimodal, visual
features of a phenomenon to explain it
• Shared productivity- ability to produce reports
or products to share publicly with others.

29. Collaboration:
• Screencasting apps, ShowMe, VoiceThread, Diigo,
Evernote,
Multimodal:
• Common Core- students develop the ability to
interpret and communicate information visually
through the use of images, photos, graphs, or
figures
• Students use both text and images to illustrate their
ideas. Fosters the transfer between visual modes
and students’ collaborative verbal and /or written
sharing of ideas
• iBooks Author app (create books for sharing), ePub,
screenchomp, educreations interactive whiteboard

30. Sharing of Productions:
• Students need to learn to convince their audience of
the validity of their arguments
• Move from context of interpreting to the context of
convincing others of the validity of those
interpretations.
• So when selecting images/videos, students need to
consider whether that image and their drawings will
provide evidence to help sell their claim to the
audience.