Using the iPad as a tool to support literacy instruction

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Using the iPad as a tool to support literacy instruction a

b

Amy Hutchison & Beth Beschorner a

School of Education, Iowa State University, Ames, IA, USA

b

School of Education, Drake University, Des Moines, IA, USA Published online: 02 Jun 2014.

To cite this article: Amy Hutchison & Beth Beschorner (2014): Using the iPad as a tool to support literacy instruction, Technology, Pedagogy and Education, DOI: 10.1080/1475939X.2014.918561 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1475939X.2014.918561

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Technology, Pedagogy and Education, 2014 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1475939X.2014.918561

Using the iPad as a tool to support literacy instruction Amy Hutchisona* and Beth Beschornerb a

School of Education, Iowa State University, Ames, IA, USA; bSchool of Education, Drake University, Des Moines, IA, USA

Downloaded by [97.125.142.92] at 09:58 16 October 2014

(Received 9 July 2013; final version received 1 December 2013) The purpose of this case study was to examine how iPads could be integrated into literacy instruction in a fourth-grade classroom in ways consistent with new conceptions of literacy and in ways that transform traditional literacy instruction by supporting readers in creating multimodal responses to reading. Results indicate that several features of the iPad support literacy instruction, a context in which both traditional literacy skills and new literacies must be taught. Data analysis revealed the following four themes that characterise the ways in which classroom instruction was supported by integrating iPads: (1) choosing new ways to communicate a message; (2) detailed work and revision; (3) spontaneous collaboration and (4) student interest and attention to the tasks. Results indicate that features of the iPad may provide a simplified path to integrating technology into literacy instruction. Keywords: new literacies; iPad; literacy; digital technology; apps

Introduction Since the emergence of digital technology, much has been written about its implications for reading and writing and its potential to enhance and transform literacy instruction. Yet, there is both speculation and evidence that digital technology is not transforming literacy instruction in these ways and is most often utilised to maintain the status quo (Hutchison & Reinking, 2011; Mishra, Koehler, & Kereluik, 2009; Stolle, 2008). This failure to effectively utilise digital technology is a great concern, considering how digital forms of communication have entered the mainstream of everyday literacy (Hutchison & Reinking, 2011; Leu, Kinzer, Coiro, & Cammack, 2004), and how they have consequently altered what it means to be literate (Coiro, Knobel, Lankshear, & Leu, 2008; Kress, 2003; Lankshear & Knobel, 2003). Previous conceptions of literacy were often limited to reading printed text. However, new conceptions have emerged with the advent of ubiquitous digital technology in the home and workplace. Leu et al. (2004) described the need for a revised conception of literacy when they stated, ‘As the medium of the message changes, comprehension processes, decoding processes, and what “counts” as literacy activities must change to reflect readers’ and authors’ present-day strategies for comprehension and response’ (p. 1572). Similarly, conceptions of what counts as text have shifted to include multiple modes of representation, with combined elements of print, visual images and design (Hassett & Curwood, 2009; Kress, 2003). For example, online *Corresponding author. Email: [email protected] © 2014 Association for Information Technology in Teacher Education

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A. Hutchison and B. Beschorner


texts frequently involve images (still and moving) and sound that contribute to the meaning of a text in addition to the words on the screen (Bezemer & Kress, 2008). These new conceptions of literacy and text result in the need for students to not only understand the meanings inherent in these textual forms, but also to understand how to create meaning through a combination of images, words and sounds. Consequently, it is imperative that teachers are preparing students for these new literacy practices through meaningful integration of digital technologies into literacy instruction. Accordingly, the purpose of the study was to examine how iPads could be integrated into literacy instruction in ways consistent with new conceptions of literacy to support literacy instruction. iPads were selected because of the ease with which readers can use them to respond to texts through multiple modes, going beyond just written response. More explanation of the potential benefits of tablets such as the iPad for creating multimodal texts is provided in a subsequent section. Theoretical and empirical base Several perspectives inform the current study. At the forefront of our work is a new literacies perspective (Coiro et al., 2008; Lankshear & Knobel, 2007; Leu et al., 2004). Although the term new literacies has been defined in numerous ways, we position our work in the perspective offered by Coiro et al. (2008). They asserted that: (a) new digital technologies require a unique set of skills, strategies and dispositions; (b) as new technologies emerge, the literacy skills required to use them are transformed; (c) new literacy skills are necessary for success in daily life and in an increasingly global economy and (d) new literacies are multiple, multimodal and multifaceted. Although research is still emerging to define the aforementioned new skills and strategies, we have substantial knowledge about the nature of multimodal texts that can inform research and practice. For example, when it comes to digital texts, images often extend and replace the printed word as the primary carrier of meaning and thus fashion new roles for the reader/writer and the classroom teacher (Hassett & Curwood, 2009; Kress, 2003). Pahl and Roswell (2005) argued that, given the continual emergence of digital technology, ‘Language is not, and clearly will not be, printed texts with incidental images, but instead texts of all kinds with colour, different fonts, on monitors or mobile phones with sound, gesture and movement’ (p. 4). As such, it is important to consider how these new forms of text can be incorporated into literacy classrooms where students still need to be skilled at comprehending print-based texts, but also need to understand how to comprehend and create newer forms of multimodal texts. Leu et al. (2004), along with others (New London Group, 1996), have postulated that new literacies are built on a foundation of traditional literacies, but take on new forms that are made possible by digital technology as traditional texts are combined with other textual forms, such as image and sound. It is with these tenets in mind that we designed the classroom instruction employed in the current study. Our work is further grounded in Labbo and Reinking’s (1999) framework for guiding and interpreting research on literacy and technology. They argued that, rather than focusing on digital resources as devices, researchers should focus attention on what the digital resource ‘might do, to what activities and tasks it might be applied, and on what effects and implications it may have beyond the conventional goals of literacy instruction’ (p. 480). They further argued that research on the intersection of literacy and technology should, rather than focusing on the technology,

Technology, Pedagogy and Education

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focus on how ‘new digital technologies lead us to think in new ways about our interests in emergent literacy, in learning from texts, in positively transforming literacy instruction, in making an impact on classroom cultures, and so forth’ (p. 479). They constructed a framework consisting of the following potential goals relevant to integrating digital technology into literacy instruction:


(1) New digital technologies should be available for literacy instruction. (2) New digital technologies should be used to enhance the goals of conventional literacy instruction. (3) New technologies should be used to positively transform literacy instruction. (4) New technologies should be used to prepare students for the literacy of the future. (5) New technologies should be used to empower students. This framework represents a continuum moving from more passive goals that are ‘rooted in the status quo to goals that place technology in a more active, transforming role’ (Labbo & Reinking, 1999, p. 481). Of particular interest for purposes of the current study is understanding how digital resources might be integrated into literacy in a manner consistent with the latter three goals in Labbo and Reinking’s continuum. We believe that providing a case example of such integration will be valuable for several reasons. First, there is evidence that many schools have acquired digital technologies, but teachers have been unable to move beyond occasional, peripheral use of these resources in their literacy instruction (Hutchison & Reinking, 2011). Additionally, 57% of teachers in a recent study (Hutchison & Reinking, 2011) indicated that access to examples of how to integrate technology into literacy instruction would be beneficial to them. Thus providing a case example of technology integration that illustrates uses of technology that are consistent with the latter goals of Labbo and Reinking’s continuum may help teachers to understand how to align their instruction in such ways. Thus, Labbo and Reinking’s framework will be used to interpret and understand the instruction presented in the current study. Labbo and Reinking expanded on the latter three goals of their continuum, describing the goal of transforming literacy instruction as being characterised by use of digital resources to generate positive organisational and pedagogical changes in conventional schooling. Some examples of how digital technology might be used to transform can be seen by examining the 2007 technology standards presented by the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE). Labbo and Reinking (1999) pointed out that following those standards should result in shifting from ‘teacher- to student-centered instruction; from isolated to collaborative work; from passive, fact-based to active inquiry learning; from artificial to authentic, real-life contexts; and so forth’ (p. 484). Thus literacy instruction that is positively transformed through the use of digital technology should result in instructional activities that allow students to learn literacy skills in new ways. Labbo and Reinking described the goal of preparing students for the literacy of the future as one that is characterised by instruction that fosters acquisition of the changing literacy skills resulting from rapid technological change (see also Leu et al., 2004). In essence, instruction should provide students with opportunities to acquire skills for reading, writing and communicating in digital environments, though the digital environments they will need to navigate will continue to change.

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As it relates to the current study, the goal of empowering students with digital technology is characterised by instruction that empowers students to fulfil a different role or offer a critical viewpoint. Although Labbo and Reinking provided additional interpretations of this goal, those interpretations are not discussed here because they do not relate to the purpose of the current study.

The potential of touch-screen tablets for literacy instruction Touch-screen tablets, specifically the iPad, were employed in the current study because we believe that tablets such as these have features that make them a good fit for use in elementary classrooms. Specifically, in our previous work with iPads in literacy classrooms (Hutchison, Beschorner, & Schmidt-Crawford, 2012) we found the following aspects of iPads to be helpful to instruction: (1) students were able to apply prior knowledge of other digital resources to the iPad without requiring a lot of instruction from the teacher; (2) the abundant selection of apps made it simple to differentiate assignments for students; (3) iPads power on and off more quickly than computers and thus were not disruptive to the learning experience and (4) iPads can be easily stored in desks and thus more spontaneously integrated into instruction than digital devices that are stored elsewhere. We further speculate that the iPad’s simplistic design for accessing applications could potentially reduce the need for teachers to instruct students in the basic usage skills associated with desktop or laptop computers. This design element could be particularly beneficial in light of Hutchison and Reinking’s (2010) finding that 73% of teachers reported that a lack of time to teach students the basic computer skills needed for more complex tasks was a barrier to integrating technology into their literacy instruction. Beyond the aforementioned reasons, our primary reason for utilising iPads in this classroom study was the ease with which users can create and distribute multimodal texts. Apps that appear promising for creating and distributing multimodal texts are those that allow users to annotate text or other backgrounds to create new meanings, to audio-record responses and imbed them into documents and images as a way of reacting or responding to text, to add pictures from the photo library, to insert symbols and stamps, to graphically organise responses in virtually limitless ways and to easily save and export audio, video and text. As such, the purpose of the current study was to provide a case example of how iPads could be integrated into literacy instruction in a manner consistent with new conceptions of literacy, to enhance and transform literacy instruction, empower students and equip them for the literacy of the future. The study was guided by the following research question: How can iPads support literacy instruction?

Methods The current study was conducted using qualitative case study techniques (Yin, 2009). A case study approach was implemented in congruence with Yin’s suggestion that this approach can be used to describe an intervention in the real-life context in which it occurs, which is what we wished to do with one teacher’s experience with integrating iPads into literacy instruction. Sources of data included student interviews, teacher interviews, classroom observations, a teacher journal and student work samples.



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Participants The study took place in a fourth-grade classroom (students were ages 9–10) located in a K–12 Midwestern suburban school district in the United States. Ms West was identified by her school technology specialist as an exemplary technology-using teacher and was asked to participate in the study by integrating iPads into her instruction over a period of six weeks. Ms West had 23 students in her class. She described her class make-up as typical, stating that she had students of all ability levels and with varying levels of experience with technology. Of the students in her class, three qualified for free or reduced-price lunch, one qualified for special education services and had an aide with him in the classroom at all times and four students qualified for the gifted and talented programme. Some of her students had access to iPads at home, whereas others were introduced to iPads for the first time during the study. Ms West had no previous experience teaching iPads, but indicated a moderate to high comfort level with digital technology in general. She indicated that she was enthusiastic to try something new, and was particularly excited that her students would have the opportunity to gain some new skills with the iPads. The instruction Ms West agreed to integrate the iPads into the instruction every day for six weeks and the instruction was designed with the goal of the study in mind. She wished to integrate the iPads while continuing to teach the print-based literacy goals outlined in the grade-level reading curriculum. Thus, the instructional activities were designed according to Harris and Hofer’s (2009) recommendations for curriculumbased technology integration. Specifically, the learning goal was determined for each learning experience and the teacher determined what pedagogical approaches would best support the learning goal. The teacher then determined the nature of the activities that would comprise the learning experience. The researchers then worked with the teacher to select apps that could potentially transform the instruction by expanding it to include new literacies. Apps were selected based on the extent to which they provided multimodal response opportunities and the ease with which multimodal features could be utilised. Specifically, we searched for apps that provided the following multimodal options: (1) opportunities to use images in multiple ways, including drawing pictures, inserting photos taken with the iPad camera and inserting images from other sources that have been saved to the camera roll; (2) options to include images and alphabetic text together; (3) options for audio response and (4) the option to interface with other apps. For example, images drawn in Doodle Buddy can be saved to the camera roll and used with other apps. Over the course of the six weeks, the iPads were used in numerous ways for many aspects of the literacy instruction. For example, Ms West used them in wholeclass instruction and in small-group instruction, and the students used them for independent reading. During whole-class instruction, Ms West used the iPads to provide students with opportunities to independently practise the reading comprehension skills of sequencing, visualisation, retelling, determining cause and effect, and understanding main ideas and details through the creation of multimodal responses to the texts they read. A listing of the instructional goals, apps used and how they were applied in the instruction is provided in Table 1.

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Table 1. Description of instructional activities. Reading component addressed

App used

Sequencing

Popplet

Retelling

Strip Drew pictures of the Designer beginning, middle and end of a story using Doodle Buddy and used them to retell the story in Strip Designer.

Cause and effect

Sundry Notes

Description of use

Student example

Worked in small groups to order the events of a short story using words such as first, next and finally.

Drew pictures of a cause and effect from an instructional-level text and inserted an audio recording explaining the picture.

Visualisation Doodle Buddy

Small groups read a selection from a text they would be reading and created a picture to illustrate their text. The teacher then displayed all of the pictures together to show the complete story before reading.

Main idea & Doodle details Buddy

After reading an instructional-level book, students drew a picture to illustrate the main idea of a text.

(Continued)

Technology, Pedagogy and Education Table 1.

(Continued).

Reading component addressed Independent reading


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App used iBooks

Description of use

Student example

Accessed books from the bookshelf of iBooks. Dictionary and note-taking features were available.

Data collection During the six-week instructional period, the researchers acted as resources for the teacher but did not provide instruction to the students. The teacher electronically mailed her journal notes to the researchers each week. The researchers used the journal notes and their observation notes to initiate discussions with the teacher and determine how they could support her. In addition to these informative conversations, teacher interviews were conducted by the lead researcher at the mid-point and completion of the project using a semi-structured interview protocol. Teacher notes and interviews were collected as a means of understanding how the teacher perceived that her classroom instruction differed during the observed six-week period and how the iPads supported her instructional goals. Student interviews took place during or immediately following literacy activities involving the iPads throughout the entirety of the project. The researchers acted as informed observers and used a semi-structured interview protocol to inquire about the students’ use of the iPads and their literacy experiences with small groups and individual students. Student work samples were saved directly to the iPads. Student interviews and work samples were collected as a means of understanding students’ perceived and actual experiences with the iPads. Interviews included questions about students’ perceptions of using the resource and how the instructional activities differed from their usual instruction. The researchers took observation notes three times weekly during the six-week period and both researchers used the same observation form, which allowed them to specifically focus on observations about the physical use of the apps, the apps as response tools, students’ engagement with the digital resources and text, and the classroom environment. These notes were used to generate the interview questions for the teacher and students. Data analysis The researchers analysed and coded the data. Analysis began with the researchers reading through all of the observation notes, interviews and the teacher journals and


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reviewing the artefacts to familiarise themselves with the content. Initially, organisational categories for all of the data sources were created using Labbo and Reinking’s (1999) goals for digital technology integration into literacy instruction. All of the data were initially organised into those broad organisational categories. Both researchers worked collaboratively to organise the data into the organisational categories. During this process they discussed the distinctions among the organisational categories and clarified disagreements as needed. After organising the data into the organisational categories based on Labbo and Reinking’s (1999) framework, descriptive subcategories were developed for each organisational category using open coding (Maxwell, 2005). This was done by both researchers discussing the general trends in the data and then collaboratively coding a representative sample of the data, which included four observation records and four interview transcripts. During the initial coding, the researchers discussed the patterns developing in the data and the similarities and differences in the descriptive subcategories as they developed. This discussion resulted in refinement of the descriptions for many of the subcategories, deletion or combination of some of the descriptive subcategories and creation of additional categories. For example, two of the subcategories were collapsed into a single subcategory because of their similarity. Subsequently, the researchers randomly selected 25% of the data for independent coding. Both researchers coded the same data. After completing the coding process, the researchers met again to determine their level of agreement with the coding. This round of coding resulted in 97% agreement in applying the coding to the data. Consequently, the data were divided equally and the researchers independently coded the remaining data with the finalised coding scheme. The analysis resulted in four themes: (1) Choosing new ways to communicate a message; (2) Supporting the instruction through more detailed work, revision and comprehension; (3) Empowering students through spontaneous collaboration and (4) Student interest and attention to the tasks. The first theme, referring to new ways to communicate a message, was named to reflect the advantages of the open format within the apps on the iPad that encouraged students to design their responses to meet their needs rather than fitting their responses into a preconceived organisational scheme. The title of the second theme reflects how using the iPad apps encouraged students to provide unusually detailed work and to readily revise their work to accurately reflect their thinking. The third theme reflects the spontaneous instruction and cooperation that emerged among students when using iPads. Students naturally and readily assisted their peers who had difficulty using the iPad, which led to extended conversations about the assignments and the texts. The final theme reflects the high level of interest in the literacy activities conducted with the iPads. Additionally, the students were excited to explore and read with the iPads. Findings The findings suggest that the iPad was an effective resource for teaching many conventional literacy learning goals, but that the use of iPads shifted how the students learned those goals and the resulting classroom environment. Additionally, integration of the iPad helped teach new literacies required for reading, writing and communicating in digital contexts and through multimodal texts. A detailed description of ways that instruction was supported and students were empowered


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and equipped for the literacy of the future is now presented through the themes emerging from our data.


Choosing new ways to communicate a message The first way that literacy instruction was supported through the integration of the iPads was by enabling and encouraging students to create unique multimodal responses to stories they read and to design the appearance and organisation of their responses. For example, when students used the Popplet app to visually display the main ideas and details of a story they were reading, we observed that students presented their responses in numerous formats, and in many cases, in ways that were noticeably different from the print-based graphic organiser they usually used to write main ideas and details. Ms West noticed this shift and commented on it as one of the reasons she liked using the iPad, stating, The advantages, especially like with the Popplet application, were just for them to be able to create more boxes as they go along and they didn’t feel like there were any limits to them like a worksheet that I would have to give them. That way they could just add and they kept going and I thought that was really cool.

Although students could have designed their responses differently using pencil and paper, they had never done so prior to this because the teacher had always given them a preconceived graphic organiser. By using an app that required the user to create the design, the students approached the organisation of their ideas differently than they previously had with pencil and paper. See Figure 1 for an example of how students organised their ideas using the Popplet app.

Figure 1. Student example of using Popplet to represent the main ideas and details of a story.


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The students also commented on this capability at the conclusion of the main idea activity. When asked how she liked using Popplet for responding to reading, Sara, a student, responded, ‘You can do a lot more ’cause the paper only lets you have like three little supporting details. And on the Popplet you can do more if you want.’ Another student, Chris, stated that he liked using Popplet because ‘you didn’t have to like worry about how small the box is. So you could like make it like stretch it out and make it bigger.’ Again, although the students could create the same organisers or draw new boxes with pencil and paper, they had never chosen to do that before. Because the app was designed to allow the user to create their own format, students were able to consider new ways of organising their responses and felt that they could design their responses for their specific needs. Students recognised that their peers chose to organise their thoughts in different ways after Ms West displayed everyone’s graphic organisers to the class using a digital projector. When asked if seeing the other students’ responses was helpful, Kristen replied, ‘Yeah, some of them were different and some of them were really long, like that really, really long one that had a lot of boxes.’ In the continued conversation, Kristen seemed interested and surprised that other students’ Popplet responses looked so different from her own. In fact, when asked if she would do anything differently if she could revise her Popplet response, she stated, ‘I’d just make it longer?’ She then paused and seemed to change her mind, stating, ‘I’d read more of it and I’d break up that paragraph – that thing that Kasey [her partner] wrote really long.’ Kristen’s response seems, at first, to indicate that she would want to model her response after the long response that she observed. However, upon further reflection, she seems to recognise that she can design her response differently to make it more understandable for her audience of peers. Thus, Kristen recognised that she was empowered to design her response in a way that best represented her ideas. In this activity, integrating the iPad changed the literacy instruction because students were able to use their understanding of digital text to create their own ways to graphically organise their responses and display their understanding of the main ideas in the text. Students critically considered the best design for communicating their message. Supporting the instruction through more detailed work, revision and comprehension Another change that resulted by integrating the iPads to create multimodal texts was the extent to which students provided generous detail and revision to their work through the visual images they were able to create with the iPad. This result was often due to the ease of creating visual images and revising them with the iPad and was evident when observing students and during individual interviews. An example of one activity in which we observed students’ enhanced attention to detail was during a lesson on visualisation in which students collaboratively used Doodle Buddy on one iPad to draw an illustration to match the visual images they created in their minds when reading an assigned portion of text. As students finished their drawings they exported them to the teacher’s computer. The teacher created a visual presentation by displaying all of the drawings, using a projector, from the different portions of text that the students were about to read. The students were observed tapping the ‘undo’ button frequently to make small changes to their drawings. Students also referred back to the text numerous times and readily revised their drawings, or, in


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several cases, shook the iPad to delete the drawing entirely and start again. Students also added interesting visual effects that were possible through the app’s drawing tools. When asked about her use of the iPad to practise the visualisation strategy that she had learned, one student, Josie, responded, ‘I like it because then you don’t have to erase the whole thing. It erased like perfect. If you mess up, you won’t even see the lines that you erase.’ Another student, Chris, stated that his favourite thing about drawing with the iPad was ‘that it has glitter so the grass can actually look like grass’. Students in a group interview explained why they liked using the iPad in the following conversation: Interviewer:


Student 1: Student 2: Student 3: Student 1: Student 3:

How is it [using the iPad] different, or was it different, than just drawing on paper? Um, you get to type. And it is different, because there is glitter and an eraser and paint and chalk. Yeah, and you don’t have to pick up things. All you have to do is tap it and it will do it. Yeah, and if you do it, the chalk at the bottom of the line will show up and then colours will come on and you can pick different colours. I like where we could just tap it or we could just move that thing around.

Although students were not always able to eloquently explain why doing this activity was preferable, we observed the students attending carefully to their drawings and frequently referring back to their text. As we observed some of the students continually rereading their sections of text and readily revising their pictures, there was anecdotal evidence from our observations that they were comprehending the text. For example, we observed students discussing the details of the drawings and explaining to their partners why a particular portion of the drawing should be revised. Students also seemed to understand the value of the visualisation strategy they were using. For example, Kristen stated, ‘It was fun, because, like, we got to draw a picture of, to go along with what we [had] on a piece of paper … so the picture would also help this story, like instead of just drawing … or writing or something it would be easier to see a picture to understand what it is about.’ Another meaningful exchange occurred during a group interview when the interviewer asked students about the frequency of their revisions and the use of the app resources: Interviewer: Student 1: Student 2: Student 1:

So, with all of that experimenting that you were doing, do you think that it actually changed how you thought about the story? It changed it, because we could visualise it a lot better. ’Cause we actually got to see the pictures … of what we got. It changed it, because she put it on her computer and then we didn’t really have to look at our book. We looked at the pictures, and we could kinda tell, ’cause they drew it right there.

At the end of our time in the classroom, the teacher also pointed out how she had noticed the students creating more detailed drawings with the iPads: All the different resources, you know, like the different colours and thickness and erasers – all that stuff helped. Where like at the beginning of the year, it was all just like stick people and whatever. The fact that there were more things they could use on the

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A. Hutchison and B. Beschorner iPad definitely made their pictures more creative and I would always be saying, earlier in the year, you know, add more details and I felt like now they did a pretty good job with that.


Thus, in these ways, we observed the integration of iPads enhanced the interactions among students and the products that they produced. Empowering students through spontaneous collaboration Another way that the literacy instruction was supported as a result of using the iPad was the extent to which students spontaneously collaborated with each other to share and refine their digital literacy skills. Although many students had never interacted with an iPad, they were quickly able to figure out how to navigate it and readily offered information and advice to each other. The classroom teacher was only somewhat familiar with iPads and the researchers’ involvement was limited. Thus the students readily explored the iPad and quickly overcame barriers by spontaneously sharing their knowledge of its features and functions with each other as they worked. For example, students showed each other how to lock the orientation of the screen, change colours, how to add more text, how to correct mistakes and more. On many occasions when helping each other with the iPad, students’ conversations turned to the literacy task that was assigned and they began collaborating on the assignment. This collaboration was surprising to Ms West on the occasions when she had asked students to independently complete their assignments. Although she did not typically allow students to collaborate on reading assignments, Ms West saw the value in this teamwork when the students began spontaneously collaborating over the iPads. Thus, she allowed the collaborations to continue and, consequently, the way that students worked in the classroom was transformed. This collaboration is also important because collaboration is considered to be a key twenty-first-century learning skill, as collaboration is a part of the Framework for 21st Century Learning (Partnership for 21st Century Skills, 2006). The fact that students began spontaneously collaborating indicates that digital projects such as this one may be an effective way to facilitate collaboration in the classroom. In many cases, students were enabled to collaborate and share ideas because they were able to apply their prior knowledge about the operation of other forms of digital technology to this new domain to complete their assigned task. For example, when Jesse, a fourth-grader, was asked how she figured out how to use some of the resources on the iPad, she responded ‘Uh. Well. I’ve played this one video game, uh, where you draw, but it’s on TV. I guess it was kind of background knowledge.’ In another instance, when recording herself reading with one of the apps, a student made a connection to how she records herself at home with her iPod. On several occasions, students referred to tools such as the ‘paint bucket’ feature of another digital drawing program the students had used. The iPad app that the students were using did not have a paint bucket feature, but the students were able to find a similar resource on the iPad and compared it to that feature. Consequently, students had the opportunity to further their skills with digital resources and collaborate with others through the integration of the iPads in the literacy classroom. There were many occasions when the students said things such as ‘Watch! You can do this,’ followed by a demonstration of an iPad feature. On one occasion we also witnessed a student who was completely unsure of how to use one of the iPad apps move from uncertainty to helping other students manipulate their work within


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a single 40-minute class period. The student went from reporting that he felt helpless to being the student who helped others. In this way, the student was empowered to help his peers. Student interest and attention to the tasks A final way that the instruction was supported was through the high level of student interest in the response tasks completed with the iPads. We observed the students spending considerable time designing unique responses to text and discussing their work with their peers. Students seemed willing to put substantial effort into their work, with one student, Alyssa, stating that the response task ‘was harder, but I liked it’. The teacher and researchers observed the students remaining interested in the response tasks for the duration of the class periods without becoming distracted and, in some cases, going beyond the assigned task. For example, some students spontaneously made notes and looked up definitions of words as they read books on the iPad. Ms West noted an increased level of student interest and stated that she was ‘amazed at the duration of their attention and level of engagement with the task’. She also noted that she believed there was less off-task behaviour than usual. Through our observations, we recognised that the students were unlikely to get off task when using the iPads because they were usually working within a single app. Unlike many other digital resources, iPads and other similar tablets have applications that are made available on the touch screen. The user does not have to navigate a multilevel menu to find applications. Additionally, the applications we used were focused and inclusive so that students did not have to navigate away from the app to complete their response. For example, if students were asked to respond to the text with an image and describe it with an audio recording, they were able to do that within a single application. Thus there was less opportunity for students to get off task as they searched for the right resource or navigated among different resources. In this way, we believe that the iPad apps selected engaged the students and supported the instruction by making their work more efficient, focused and unique. Discussion An analysis of our findings indicates that there are several features in iPads that made it possible for the teacher in the study to integrate them into her instruction in meaningful, active ways that are consistent with the latter end of Labbo and Reinking’s (1999) continuum. The teacher was successful in enhancing her instruction as her students were given the freedom to design and revise their responses to text. Additionally, the iPads helped provide students with skills for creating multimodal responses and helped empower students to be more in charge of their own learning. Although not all of the goals on Labbo and Reinking’s continuum were achieved to a great extent, we believe that the current study provides a beginning point for achieving such instruction and understanding how iPads can support literacy. Further, this study reveals that student interest in digital resources, as seen in the current study, could be leveraged to support student learning in ways that are consistent with Labbo and Reinking’s continuum. Students were provided with opportunities to interact with and respond to text in different ways than they would without technology, and thus develop new literacies


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(Leu et al., 2004). For example, through this project, students learned how to visually represent their ideas, taking into account the size, colour and organisation of text. Additionally, students learned how to incorporate oral response with written text to express their comprehension of text and respond to what they read. Each of the activities they engaged in required them to interact with text and/or respond to text in ways not typically encountered with print-based activities. As such, students had the opportunity to develop new literacies related to using digital technologies. We found that a few specific features of the iPad supported meaningful instruction. First, the contained nature of the apps provided focus and efficiency. In turn, the focused nature of the apps (i.e. apps focused on limited number of functions and purposes) made it simple for students to complete the learning activities and, through the product created with the app, provide evidence of their learning. Another positive aspect of the contained, focused nature of apps is that it may help teachers in their instructional planning. Because many apps have a pre-determined purpose, they may provide teachers with ideas about how to integrate technology and provide a starting point for teachers desiring to transform their literacy instruction but unsure about where to start. Hutchison and Reinking (2011) found that 58% of teachers surveyed perceived their inability to integrate technology and still meet instructional goals as a barrier to using technology in their instruction. The simplified nature of the iPad and its apps may provide the scaffolding that is needed to begin integrating digital technology into literacy instruction. Another feature of the iPad that supported literacy instruction was the wide variety of intuitive apps available. For example, in planning the instruction, the teacher was able to select from a variety of graphic organiser apps and, from those, choose an app that enhanced instructional goals and would be easy and intuitive for students to use. Some of the features of the apps that were particularly useful to the teacher in the current study were: (1) the camera roll, which captured images and responses that students created and could be easily inserted into a product created with a different app; (2) the audio-recording feature available in many apps, which provided students with opportunities to respond to the text orally while still creating a product for the teacher to review at a later time; (3) the ability to design graphic organisers and add images and drawings to the organiser and (4) the ease with which products could be revised within the apps. Most apps have an obvious feature that allows the user to undo the previous action or select a portion of the product to erase. Additional features of the iPad that supported the classroom instruction were the intuitive nature and mobility of the device. In this case, the teacher was not an iPad expert, and thus was not able to answer every question about the functions of the apps. However, students were able to guide themselves and test functions of the apps in a low-risk environment (since it is difficult to ruin work created with an app). Additionally, the mobility of the iPads made it easy and natural for students to problem-solve together when they encountered a problem. In fact, Ms West described how, owing to the small size and mobility, she felt more comfortable with the students transporting the iPads around the room than she would with them carrying laptops to a classmate to ask a question. Conclusion Although the current study was focused on providing a case example of integrating iPads into literacy instruction, it also provides some considerations and possible



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constraints for literacy teachers and researchers to reflect upon. Although the iPads seemed easy to use and the navigation was intuitive, students encountered some difficulty in manipulating some of the apps since most apps have different features. For example, double-tapping the screen may enlarge the text in some apps, but have a different function in other apps. In the fourth-grade classroom, one group of students unintentionally deleted their work when activating the delete function of an app by shaking their iPad. Thus, the function and features of apps must be considered when determining whether to use an iPad. Another potential limitation for teachers wishing to integrate iPads into their instruction is the volume of apps available for the iPad. It could potentially be overwhelming for teachers to begin selecting apps to use in their instruction. However, there are many websites dedicated to highlighting useful apps for different subject areas as well as providing guidelines to guide app selection (see, for example, http:// www.schrockguide.net/bloomin-apps.html, https://sites.google.com/site/isuliteracy/ app-reviews). Future research might be aimed at investigating how teachers select the apps that they use for literacy instruction, with the eventual goal of providing teachers with a process and resources for selecting apps. Additionally, targeted professional development focused on effectively integrating iPads into instruction should be available to teachers in schools where iPads are available for classroom instruction. More research is needed to understand how to prepare and support teachers in integrating tablets such as the iPad into their literacy instruction. Further, more studies that demonstrate effective ways to integrate tablets into literacy instruction are needed. Because of the relative newness of these devices, there are few empirical examples of how to integrate them into the context of literacy instruction to teach traditional and new literacy skills. The current study only focused on two classrooms and two grade levels, and is therefore not representative of how teachers and students at other grade levels may interact with these devices. Finally, more studies are needed to explore the constraints of using such devices in literacy instruction. Although the appropriate use of digital technology can enhance instruction, it also has limitations and presents constraints that may inhibit the effectiveness of integration. More study is needed to better understand how and when the constraints of such devices might negate the benefits of integrating digital technology into literacy instruction.

Notes on contributors Amy Hutchison is an Assistant Professor of Literacy at Iowa State University, USA. Her research interests centre around helping teachers to effectively use digital technology in literacy instruction. Beth Beschorner is an Assistant Professor of Literacy at Drake University, USA. Her research interests include understanding how digital technology can support emergent literacy skills.

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