My Speak & Read

 ***NOTE: I've realized that my entry for Feb. 22 never got published on here. I'll be writing another entry early this week as a result but I don't expect you to read/comment for both instead of just one***

A recurring theme I like to add this blog is that developing literacy through reading books is only one particular method of literacy. I myself was a late bloomer for both reading and speaking, and I did not understand how to write connect words with letters until I was four years old: a notably old age to understand how to read and to speak. The device for which my parents attribute my ability to read was a learning product from the 1980s called “Speak & Read.” It was a device that, among other features, had a mechanical voice that would say words and children would type out the words (which would say aloud the letters as they were written) that were being said by the machine.

You can find a limited simulation version of this device by following this link: http://www.speaknspell.co.uk/speaknspell.html

After using this device every day as a toddler, I began speaking and reading so much that I more than made up for the years that I didn’t speak nor read. My parents have said that everything just “clicked” once I was able master that device.

Students cannot be expected to all achieve at their highest abilities by only asking them to develop literacy in one style. Teaching exclusively with lectures helps many students, but not all will absorb the material equally. The same will be true with book discussion. Even in the digital world, teaching only with Powerpoint slides would capture the attention of a good portion of students, but not all. Variety in your teaching style will always be the best method of capturing the attention of the majority of students. Separate ways of approaching literacy will help to push them all to understanding more about a text.

In the spirit of discussing the use of digital information as a separate entity from books to develop literacy, I would like to focus an article called “The Educational Uses of Digital Storytelling” by Bernard R. Robin that can be found here: http://digitalliteracyintheclassroom.pbworks.com/f/Educ-Uses-DS.pdf . In this article, Robin discusses how digital storytelling has “rules” not too unlike how book storytelling has “rules.”

As an introduction to his article, have you ever had to endure a painfully-presented Powerpoint presentation? There are “rules” to what makes a Powerpoint work and what makes them not work. In college I saw many Powerpoints that had the entire script of what the student or teacher wanted to say and then they would read off of the slides, leaving the audience to have to read along on the small text of the Powerpoint. Other Powerpoints I endured had scarcely any content and so the student did not recall the main points in which s/he intended to make in the Powerpoint; these particular Powerpoints were filled with ramblings that did not show insights that the student intended to show. Then there the Powerpoints that were aesthetically good but took so much time that the student did not have the audience in mind and added so many points that it became impossible to sort them in the brain.

When Robin discusses the educational uses of digital storytelling, I believe that he would agree to those “rules” of Powerpoint that I mention. In his Table 1, he lists seven elements of digital storytelling which include several applications to Powerpoints (I use Powerpoint as an example in this article because I believe that we all have watched or presented them before). One of his elements is the “Gift of your Voice.” One of the reasons that Powerpoints that only include text that the presenter reads off the slides are weak is because the speaker’s voice is not involved in the presentation. A speaker can provide a voice that transcends the presentation. The speaker’s voice can strengthen when discussing the main points. The speaker’s voice can help to relate the content of an educational Powerpoint to a personal anecdote to provide a stronger effect of the narrative. The speaker can even weave a joke into the presentation to help brighten the mood of the audience and to ease boredom or tension. “Pacing” is also one of the elements of digital storytelling that Robin writes in his article. The reason we give a time limit to presentations (or are provided them as presenters) is that—just like a book—a presentation must pace itself to be both informative and accessible. The presentation must provide the necessary content that it deserves, but the presentation cannot “overstay its welcome” either, so to speak. A presentation that is too long will have its audience mostly shut its brains downs waiting for the presentation to end rather and absorb the information that could have been useful.

I understand Robin’s article in the sense that teaching literacy through books and reading has rules and that teaching literacy through digital technology also has rules. My Speak & Read was not a book, but it had an electronic interface that made me understand how to read and write for the future. When we use technology in our classes, we should understand what sorts of teaching technologies work and question why they do work.