Technology in Literacy Instruction and Learning

What is the role of technology in literacy instruction and learning? 

Technology is a term used to mean different things to different people. Before I can make sense of this question for myself I think it useful to get some clarity on the terms involved. My working definition:

Technology is the machinery that humans make as a result of applied scientific knowledge. The cultural practice of using technology is inseparable from technology.

There are technologies that allow us to store, retrieve and analyze information. There are technologies that allow us to communicate. Each type serves the purpose in instruction and learning that they were designed for.

Technology augments the communication and information processing tasks inherent to teaching and learning. It can sometimes be difficult to tell when a technology is being used appropriately. When I am selecting, recommending or seeking a technology for learning here are some things I try to keep in mind.

Communication:

1. Distribution Model: one to one, one to many, one to few, one to self, one to public, peer to peer, teacher to student, collaborative (few to few)
2. Restriction: how is the distribution model maintained, trust? passwords? wishful thinking? 
3. Persistence: transient, temporary, lingering, semipermanent, self-replicating 
4. Ownership: what entity will own the product of the communication in the event that it is persistent
5. Temporal: How long does it take for the message to reach its audience, instant, seconds, minutes, hours
6. Directionality: Two-way or broadcast
7. Knowledge of Receipt: Does the sender know whether the message has been received?
8. Expectancy of Return Communication: Do you expect a reply? (in the overwhelming number of cases this is not dictated by the technology itself, but by the culture surrounding it's use)

I use these distinctions to understand the appropriateness of a particular communication channel for classroom usage. Current events for example can be looked at through Twitter because you can get live data from many people on the ground where the event is taking place. Contrast this with building a persistent, many-to-many wiki to synthesize a whole class's learning in preparation for exams. (Sweeten the pot by having an open-wiki test.) 

Information Storage, Retrieval, and Analysis:

My criteria for the information category is simpler. I see a role for analysis technology to whatever extent it's use does not interfere with learning. For example: calculators don't come into play until the arithmetic operations are well understood. Retrieval and storage are important but perhaps not really interesting to discuss in relation to their roles in learning*.

Technology as subject matter.

The history of the development of technology is pretty interesting. Doing a short research and reflection on the history of SGML and HTML is an example of a task you could do with a variety of ages. In the same way history of science helps to ground an understanding of the scientific method the occasional dose of history in recent technological advances can deepen and ground students' understanding of how to select and use technologies.

*One exception is the vetting of information during research, which is essentially a social process. There are some communication technologies that have come into their own recently that speed the social process of community knowledge building. Using psychology, game theory and good old fashioned community building there some unique sites where students can engage socially in knowledge production. They are becoming enormously relevant in instruction and literacy development but not at all in conjunction with schools. In fact, these self-regulating communities tend to have such a high premium on genuine interest that students of regular school classes tend to have their questions ignored. I'm fascinated by the thinking that goes into these sites. 

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