ERIC Number: EJ1304543
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2020
Pages: 6
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0425-0508
EISSN: N/A
What's in Your Feed?: Navigating the Digital Divide to Advocate for Diverse Texts
Revelle, Carol; Wilson-Youngblood, Audrey; Schneider, Christine
English in Texas, v50 n1 p14-19 Spr-Sum 2020
Teaching with digital resources can seem overwhelming. Teachers and students sometimes struggle to use online materials, but potential solutions can be found in federated databases and curated eBook collections specially chosen for Texas teachers and students. This article assists educators as they locate and use TEKS-aligned digital resources and facilitate access to diverse texts including databases that support social-emotional learning (SEL), include differentiated texts, and provide extensive language support. Teachers should increase the volume and authenticity of the texts available to students by engaging students with high-quality online texts that include multimedia sources that students will recognize from their out-of-class text experiences. Gale digital resources are highlighted in this article due to their prevalence in Texas public schools, and TexQuest provides many of these and other digital resources to Texas K-12 public schools and open enrollment charter schools (TexQuest, 2020). Additionally, this article stands as a digital response to We Need Diverse Books, a nonprofit organization committed to promoting literature that represents the diversity found in American classrooms; the organization asks us to "imagine a world in which all children can see themselves in the pages of a book" (weneeddiversebooks.org, homepage). Access to diverse texts, as is the mission of We Need Diverse Books, means that students can access reading materials that are interesting, are current, are relevant, and are a match to their reading ability and support their linguistic development.
Descriptors: Access to Computers, Educational Technology, Technology Uses in Education, Technology Integration, Teaching Methods, Social Emotional Learning, Instructional Materials, Multimedia Materials, Electronic Publishing, Public Schools, Elementary Secondary Education, Reading Materials
Texas Council of Teachers of English Language Arts. 919 Congress Avenue Suite 1400, Austin, TX 78701. Tel: 512-617-3200; Web site: http://www.tctela.org
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Descriptive
Education Level: Elementary Secondary Education
Audience: Teachers
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Texas
Identifiers - Assessments and Surveys: Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A