New Literacies and Technology: Keeping Current in a Writing Methods Course

Understandings of reading and writing in digital environments have been referred to as new literacies. Digital technologies, as they pertain to writing, do not just support writing, but change what we write, the ways we write, and who we are writing to. These changes, and what they mean for effective P-12 teaching and learning, have important implications for literacy teacher educators and teacher education programs. With these issues in mind, we embarked on a collaborative self-study focused on examining what we were doing about technology in our K-8 writing methods courses. We were curious about how this had changed over the last 9 years. Findings from this inquiry revealed that some changes evolved over time, while others blossomed quickly. Changes clustered around two categories – written products and writing processes--and how these affected our knowledge and teaching practices. Additionally, our vulnerabilities as writing teacher educators in the face of rapidly changing technology came through in this inquiry. Implications for teacher educators are discussed