The article focuses on the notion of tablet technologies as placed resources (Prinsloo, 2005; Prinsloo & Rowsell, 2012) by exploring how an international research project in Australia, Canada, and the United States forged community through online spaces. There is a tendency in media and in literature to romanticize technologies like iPads as a…

Communicative and expressive modalities, such as smart phones and video cameras, have become increasingly multifunctional and reflect an evolving digital landscape often referred to as Web 2.0. The "ethos" and "technical" affordances of Web 2.0 have the potential to catalyze the aesthetic creativity of youth. Following a discussion of aesthetics…

Presents a synthesis of the responses of 13 researchers in the field of language and literacy to the theme of this issue. Discusses the varying perspectives on literature-based instruction, the effect of language empowerment, language knowledge and reading/writing achievement, social context and cognition, and technology and education. Notes the…

Examines four different levels of development constituting writing as a technology for thinking. Discusses evolution (what speech affords thinkers), history (how text changed the collective construction of knowledge), ontogeny (how literacy affects the development of mind), and microgenesis (how writing facilitates thinking from moment to moment).…

This paper presents two nine-year-old children who used different oral, written, visual, and digital modes as resources to create meaning and to position themselves socially through multimodal stories. Their diverging experiences with technology as a resource for storytelling draw attention to the importance of studying "the ways that old and new…

Discusses computers and related technologies as a significant means for acquiring language arts skills. Samples a wide array of uses for educational computing in English and language arts classes. (SR)

Offers reviews of resource materials, software, and websites intended to help teachers make sense of integrating technology in the classroom. Presents reviews of five resource books; four instructional software programs that purport to teach phonics; three software programs of interactive literature on CD-ROM; an interactive, multimedia CD-ROM…

Discusses ways in which technology in the classroom is bound to affect both what and how language arts is taught, as well as the very culture of schooling. Places technological innovations within a historical context and provides a hopeful picture for the future. (RS)