students ’ motivation and engagement in literacy practices?

Using vignettes from a selected primary classroom, this paper describes preliminary findings from an ongoing study of literacy teaching and learning in classrooms where teachers and students have ready access to various digital technology devices. It identifies ways in which technology has led teachers to question traditional literacy pedagogy, rethink the literacies required to participate in the twenty first century, and to challenge the school computer cultures created by conditions that no longer exist. In these classes, students produce their own texts using multimodal and multimedia technologies in a context where they collaborate and share with a wide audience, including other classrooms, schools and communities. Access to various technologies enables students to demonstrate their thinking in many forms-visual, verbal, kinetic, auditory and combinations of each. It also involves students in the critical evaluation of texts used in their learning. The ability to share work on computer screens and other devices motivates students to create higher quality products. Teachers and students also gain expanded literacy understandings beyond traditional print based notions of audience, purpose, genre, form, and context. The technologies are change agents, not only ‘tools of learning ’ in literacy pedagogy. Data from teacher interviews indicate when technology tools are readily available, students ’ autonomy and self-efficacy increases. There are positive changes in students’ motivation and engagement. Specifically, students are motivated to remain on task for long periods, they make choices about their learning, set personal goals and maintain conscious control over their learning processes and strategies. Digital technologies are changing what is educationally possible