The Device in the Room: Technology's Role in Third-Grade Reading Instruction

• In Event: 31.030 - Digital Literacies and the New Face of Learning

Abstract

As part of a yearlong study examining instructional practices in reading, this research focuses on the roles and uses of technology to support learning in third grade classrooms. Having observed 19 classrooms in six geographically and socioeconomically different schools in the Southeastern United States, we analyzed technology use in the classroom as a microsystem of reading instruction. Our findings indicate little evidence of technology transforming learning experiences, suggesting that resources are not being strategically employed as desired. Furthermore, though technology has the potential to increase student engagement and target learning needs, our findings reveal the ways in which personal devices more often offered students a diversion from these instructional aims and contributed to a fragmentation of reading instruction.

Authors

• Laura Katherine Handler, University of North Carolina - Charlotte

• Bruce Taylor, University of North Carolina - Charlotte

• Erin R FitzPatrick, Georgia State University

• Colleen E. Whittingham, University of North Carolina - Charlotte