Status Report on Research: Digital Writing Technology Use in the Secondary English Classroom

Status Report on Research: Digital Writing Technology Use in the Secondary English Classroom

Reading the article from Kairos, “Writing/Teachers and Digital Technologies: Technology/Teacher Training” by Anthony Atkins who created a survey to explore writing teachers’ attitudes and opinions about technology training on the college level inspired the development of my survey instrument. Items such as assessing a teacher’s computer competency, level and nature of technology training offerings, what technology support is available, and what resources would teachers suggest. I also wanted to design most of the questions as multiple choice so it would be easy to analyze the data quantitatively, but I also wanted to include opportunities for respondents to describe their use of technology in the classroom and offer comments related to using digital technology in the classroom and district support of technology. This way I can develop additional interview questions based on issues that arise from the surveys.

In deciding whether to use an online survey instrument, I was reminded how a number of older teachers may be apprehensive and uncomfortable with completing a survey online—as Prensky called those folks digital immigrants who prefer “print literature instead of online material” (quoted in Salajan 1393). And part of me still distrusts the anonymity promise of online programs and engines as Hea cautions in “Riding the Wave” when she says that web researchers need to know that using web data-gathering engines can complicate anonymity, privacy, and security (282).
I asked our site network engineer for the name of the person whom I would interview about what technology capabilities NPS has for teachers to use. Andrea Sykora is the senior director of technology for NPS, and I will interview her once I analyze the results of the survey.

I originally planned to survey the English teachers in my department and another school in the same district with similar student demographics—an urban population drawn from predominantly low-socioeconomic neighborhoods; however, a teacher in my department who transferred this year from that school indicated how unlikely those teachers would return completed surveys in a timely manner. I then sent an email to a former colleague of mine who is now an assistant principal of a different high school in Norfolk to solicit her help in having the English department teachers respond to the survey. She has graciously accepted to help me and has distributed the survey this week.

I originally created the survey on November 13 weekend and had my sister review the instrument for possible biased language. I made a few revisions and had a former colleague, an English instructor currently at TCC, complete the survey to measure the length of time to complete it. She said it took approximately seven minutes or so. To be on the safe side, I indicated in my survey cover letter that it would take 15-20 minutes, which allows time for teachers to add comments under certain areas of survey. I distributed the survey with a cover letter, which explained the purpose of the survey and the protection of anonymity, to my department on Wednesday, November 17 and asked them to respond by Wednesday, November 24. I believed if I allowed a longer deadline, it would not get done. I sent a reminder email on Monday, November 22.

As an afterthought, I thought about surveying an English department in a suburban high school with a predominantly white, upper middle class population to compare the results. Although I am not at this point interested in researching the inequities of access to and the cultural aspects of technology and cyberspace. However, I am mostly interested in building a foundational knowledge of digital writing technologies, but I am curious as to whether a disparity will be revealed in the results. Therefore, I emailed a former colleague at a high school in Chesapeake on Monday. She has requested that I email the survey and she will check to see if I need permission from administration to distribute this survey. I would rather have asked a Virginia Beach high school to complete the survey since I have heard that teachers have more free reign and access to internet applications such as blogs and YouTube. However, I do not have any contacts in that district.

I wish to triangulate the results from the survey and interviews accompanied with one or two lesson plans provided by teachers that include the use of digital technology. I am still considering if this will be helpful in the long run.

References

Atkins, Anthony T. “Writing/Teachers and Digital Technologies: Technology/Teacher
Training.” Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy 10.2
(Spring 2005): n. pag. Web. 18 Oct. 2010.

Hea, Kimme. “Riding the Wave.” Digital Writing Research. Eds. Heidi A. McKee and
Danielle Nicole DeVoss. Cresskill, New Jersey: Hampton Press, Inc., 2007.
269-286. Print.

Salajan, Florin D. “Student and faculty inter-generational digital divide: Fact or
fiction?” Computers and Education 55 2010: 1393-1403. ScienceDirect. Web.
29 Oct. 2010.

T. Street 11/2010