Wicked Project Part A- Description of Need or Opportunity

            For my year of student teaching I was placed at Everett High School in Lansing, MI teaching history. This school serves a student population that comes from primarily minority and lower socio-economic backgrounds, as well as a large portion that are learning English as a second or third language. Not surprisingly, many of these students had difficulty with reading and other related literacy issues. As a social studies teacher, I encouraged my students interact with their textbooks, and I worked hard to bring in outside source material and primary documents. The knowledge from all these sources, as well as the insight gained from the lesson plans that I had developed was lost when students weren’t utilizing the text. Often times, students would simply let others, especially in group work, read the text and then fake or copy the answers. If we read aloud, often times I would find students ‘zoning out’, doing other things, or sleeping. These actions often time were used by students to mask a literacy issue of some sort.

            Asking students to read text outside the classroom was not a feasible option due solely to the fact that we were only allowed a classroom set, with a handful of CD-ROMs to give students to take home, or we were to print sections of the text from the CD if a student did not have access to the computer-which was common. Had we been able to assign each student a text, the weight of the book alone would have deterred some from taking it home, along with the fact that many did not have access to resources as simple as a dictionary to help them understand the text. Had I opted not to use the text, any outside reading I would have wanted my students to do would have meant making 130+ copies which is a lot of trees, ink, and time. Plus, it’s amazing how quickly a packet of papers gets misplaced or lost in the sheaf of all the other papers from school. I believe that had I been able to assign more reading outside of class that the time spent as a group in class would have been more productive and we would have been able to ‘cover’ more content and work on developing those skills necessary for the 21^st century.

I cannot imagine what it is like to be an English teacher.

Therefore, the problem I would like to solve is finding ways to help students access the text and print based materials that they utilize in/during class and give them the tool(s) needed to aid them in assigned reading outside of class. 

I believe that technology can help address these issues. A one-to-one solution seems optimal here, but I’m not sure that it needs to be laptops. Laptops are expensive not only in terms of hardware and software, but “help desk” personal as well. They provide opportunities for students to place programs, content, and viruses on the computer that is undesirable (no matter how many contracts they sign), and it is hard to monitor how ‘on-task’ a classroom of students is when they are on their laptops. Also, they are heavy.

Instead, I would implement the use of e-readers, such as the nook. These portable devices may prove to be the ‘just-right’ solution. Here’s how:  

•    I’m not saying that laptops for every student are a bad idea, but in terms of addressing this specific problem it provides too much opportunity for students to be doing something other than the task at hand. E-readers provide students with the text(s) they need, necessary tools (like dictionaries), and internet. The user interface of most readers combined with the relatively slower speed its processor means that gaming is not really a feasible option.

•  Cost.  E-readers are not cheap, but compared to the cost of outfitting every student with a laptop, software, etc., it can be less expensive. Beyond that, most textbooks are cheaper to purchase in an electronic form, not to mention exploring options of open/free content. Often times a text or book purchased online can be shared across multiple readers. E-readers can handle pdf files encouraging the use of outside materials and reducing the need for physical copies.

•  Students have options to aid them in understanding the text. Most models allow you to modify the text size, have text-to-speech options, include dictionaries, allow you to “clip” and/or highlight sections of text, keep your place, and allow you to take notes “in the margins”.

•     Students are able to more readily access their texts. Realizing at 9 p.m. that you left your novel in your locker is horrible, but if you have your Kindle, everything is in one place. Granted there is a problem if you leave the Kindle at school, but there are other accessibility options such as syncing to online accounts through computers or mobile devices. And while reading on a mobile device screen would not be my choice over an extended period of time, it would do in a pinch or if I found myself bored with only my phone.

•   It is much easier to carry around one e-reader than 5 huge textbooks. Granted there would be some investment cost in cases, but many students in a high school setting don’t want to be seen as the ‘nerd’ who lugs all their books home every day (especially in a rolling suitcase)-to the point that they don’t carry a bag or backpack. E-readers are easy to slip into purses etc. Beyond that, because these are personal reading devices, it is much harder for students to know whether another student is using an assistive tool or reading at slower pace. Essentially, e-readers help to minimize “ego damage”.

Given these benefits, I believe that assigning e-readers with their texts pre-loaded and allowing time for teachers and students to learn how to use them, will in the end prove to be more than worth the cost and teachers will be able to better utilize their class time. My initial research shows if nothing else, the “cool factor” of e-readers encourages more students to read and for longer periods of time, although much of this comes from English teachers and librarians utilizing stories and novels as opposed to a traditional “text” readings.  There are mixed results about students with literacy disorders and whether e-readers actually improve literacy or simply (again) encourage students to read. There was a 2,100 student high school in Clearwater, FL that was supposed to implement e-readers across the board in 2010, but I have not yet found a “follow-up” article that states the results of their project.

Reading the blogs of what others have done, I would probably look to first distribute the e-readers among those students who are officially labeled with reading difficulties and/or are receiving assistance with their schoolwork due to reading difficulties. I would choose this population for two reasons. The first is that this population is a smaller group within the school meaning that the initial investment would be smaller and if it was found that this program was not working, the bite would not hurt so much.

This small ‘set’ of readers could be transferred to the library where many schools have found success having them there. Secondly, these students are more likely to have someone specifically monitoring, tracking, and recording their academic progress. This means that we would have a more detailed understanding of if and how students are utilizing these devices and whether moving to a whole school system is best. I would monitor this first group of students for at least an entire academic school year. I would also distribute short periodic surveys to teachers utilizing the readers to find of the degree of use and any observations or issues that they might have.  Universities that have been “guinea pigging” the use of the large screen Kindle DX have found less than astounding results with Graduate students, but I must wonder how their experience compares to that of a special needs student. And also, given the rapid development of technology, I believe that this small investment is a worthy one to aid those students who most need help until an economic and student-friendly model of an e-reader is developed.

Although I have no classroom (or money, ha) to implement this idea there are several things that I would like to do during this course to ‘fill out’ my knowledge of this project. First, I would like to survey the high school students that I do have ‘access’ to regarding their thoughts and knowledge about e-readers. Using this knowledge, I hope to gain a better understanding of the issues (positive and negative) that I might encounter if I were to implement the project. I would also like to investigate further into tablet computers, and if they may be modified to isolate or “turn off” certain functions easily to provide an effective hybrid between the laptops and e-readers.