Electronic Reading Workshop for preservice teachers

Larson, L. C. (2008). Electronic reading workshop: Beyond books with new literacies and instructional technologies. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 52 (2), 121-131.

Research has shown that embedding technology in literacy methods courses is an effective factor in preparing tomorrow's teachers to weave technology into their lesson plans and consequently, affect K-12 students during field experience and in future classrooms. Therefore, Larson decided to help her undergraduate students explore ways in which new literacies can be intertwined with the electronic reading workshop (ERW) that has four components: literature selection, literature response journals, literature conversations, and project response options, with technologies incorporated.


Literature Selection
Instead of print text, ebooks, online reading materials, and hypertexts were used. Larson stated that electronic reading experience was unique to individual readers, several trends emerged. One preservice teacher stated, "As I read, I would highlight passages that i thought to be important to the story and then use the text box tool to explain the significance of those passages....I personally used those tools as a reflective element on my own progress and thoughts throughout the story." In fact, in Larson's Language Arts Method course, 17 of the 22 assessed at least one editing tool. Moreover, while enjoying these features, the preservice teachers identified possible uses for such tools in their future elementary or middle-level classrooms, such as to attach a document with spelling words, definition, questions or prompts related to the text. Prior to engaging in this experience, 20 of the participants perceived the idea of an ebook as "daunting or unfavorable", however, at the end of the book, all participants rated the ebook reading experience as positive even though still favored traditional literature.

literature response journals
Larson introduced emails and blogs for the correspondences between teachers and students. In class, the preservice teachers were also introduced Rosenblatt's (1978) transactional theory or reader response and encouraged participants to write in a literature response journal to provide a continuing account of "thoughts, emotions, ideas, and textual transactions" using a word processing program, such as Microsoft Word.


literature conversations
This component allows students to discuss their reading experience with their peers through electronic forms of communication, including emails exchanges, message board threaded discussion groups, and real-time online chat. A quick overview of the message board and its functions along with a lesson in composing and assessing quality literature response prompts were provided for the preservice teacher before the first discussion prompts were posted. A list of ideas why traditional face-t0-face literature conversations may not meet the needs of all students were generated and advantages and disadvantages of online discussion were identified. .


project response option
The preservice teachers collaborated with their group members to generate a unique literature extension project that reflected their personal interests as well as their ideas for potential implementation in their future classrooms, of which a distinctive projects emerged, including an example of a virtual guide to the literature, which is a series of PowerPoint slides with internet links serving as a resource for children reading the book. The second example is a digital oral history, a multimedia presentation created with sounds, digital photography, scanned documents and a voice recording. This group also shared steps for creating this project. The other projects include a 1870 newspaper project, a live broadcast, and more.

Larson stated this ERW not only provides an accessible framework for teachers who wish to enhance their current literacy curriculum by integrating commonly available technologies but also helped prepared the preservice teachers for the upcoming challenge of integrating new literacies and differentiating instruction to meet the needs of their future students. I think it's critical for the preservice teachers to go through the actual learning process, which situates them better into the TPACK framework while preparing for their curriculum.