This week I read an article titled, “A Planning Framework for Integrating Digital Literacies for Disciplinary Learning,” which took a slight spin on what I have been previously been learning about disciplinary literacy. This article is focused on the notion that digital literacies and disciplinary literacies should be integrated together within the disciplines. It goes on to argue that, “When technologies are used to explore ideas, disciplinary thinking shapes the selection and the use of the digital tool. Likewise, the use of the digital tool shapes disciplinary thinking. Instructional planning requires careful reflection on both the selection of the tool and its use in disciplinary context” (Castek & Manderino, 2017, p.697). In other words, this article is arguing that disciplinary teaching and learning becomes great when teachers are able to carefully interweave technology and literacy.
Later on, in the article, the authors provide an example as to what this form of disciplinary teaching can look like in a Social Studies class. This example was a teacher created an activity where the students had to create a personalized Facebook account for a person in the decade of the 1960s. Assumingly, the students were learning about the time-period of the 1960s; therefore, this activity granted them the opportunity to connect what they were learning in class to an open-ended, flexible, engaging, technological activity (Castek & Manderino, 2017, p.699). I especially appreciated this example because I was assigned a very similar assignment in my 8th grade US History class. For mine, I had to create a Facebook profile for one the US Presidents. I personally enjoyed this assignment because it allowed me to get really creative with what I was learning about the Presidents in the course to modern-day likes. By this I mean choosing what that specific President’s “favorite song” would be based on what I knew about the President back in his day.
While this is just one example among an infinite amount of how a teacher can connect digital literacy to disciplinary literacy, I found this example to be superb. As I have mentioned in previous blogs, I find it extremely important that students in middle-school are given a purpose and something to relate to within the content, and I think this social media activity is a great way to achieve that purpose as well as incorporating disciplinary literacy. It can be extremely boring to sit in a class and learn through a lecture what the 1960s were all about. Therefore, by providing this creative outlook where students can use something that they use on a daily basis and are extremely familiar with (Facebook), the students are granted an opportunity to apply what they learned about the 1960s by putting themselves in the mind of an individual during this decade to create an authentic Facebook page. Even though Facebook is not as common today for students in middle-school as it was when I was in school, I still think teachers can extend similar activities to other social media platforms that the students are more familiar with such as Instagram or Twitter.
All-in-all, I found this article to be extremely interesting. I learned the best ways to connect digital literacies with disciplinary literacies. All of this information will help shape the future teacher that I will one day be.
Reference:
Castek, J., & Manderino, M. (2017). A planning framework for integrating digital literacies for disciplinary learning. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 60(6), 697-700.
Happiest Teacher on Earth 
Technology is such an important topic when discussing education. There is so much you can do in the classroom with technology, however, it has to be crafted correctly or else it can be overwhelming to the students. I think the example you brought up about Facebook is the perfect blend of technology and learning. It is a platform that the students are comfortable with and can get creative. The students can take time to think about what they are learning and display it in a way that shows. Since this example works great for social studies, I encourage you to think about how it could work for other content areas. How could you do something like this for Math? English? Also, I also want to see how examples like these could be adapted for any grade level. Fourth graders might not quite know Facebook (well I guess in today’s society they might), but for this argument, what could you do instead of social media? However, the concept of using technology is a huge topic now in education and I think it is super important that future teachers are diving into the topic. We need to be prepared of what the classroom and the world has to offer us and our students.
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