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Jung, Eva

The topic of this capstone graduating project is building digital literacy between families and school in order to support children’s literacy skills. The connections between digital literacy practices amongst families and school will be based on Bronfenbrenner and Ceci’s (1994) bioecological model of human development, as well as on Moll, Amanti, Neff, and Gonzalez’s (1992) concept of Funds of Knowledge. The three guiding questions are: What does the literature say about how parents use technology with their children to enhance their children’s literacy skills? How do teachers use technology in their primary classrooms to support children’s literacy skills? How might families and teachers share technology practices between families and school in order to support children’s literacy skills? The literature review revealed that various technologies were used within the family and school environments for educational purposes. Yet, there has not been consistent effort to connect families and school digital literacies practices. This capstone suggests that through professional development, collaboration, and mentoring, educators can broaden their practices with digital literacies and engage students in creative, multimodal technologies (e.g. creating e-books) that can be shared with families. Schools can share digital literacy practices with families through face-to-face conferences, print or DVD multilingual newsletters, teacher blogs, digital portfolios (e.g. Fresh Grade) and parent training. By inviting parents to classrooms or school wide events, such as Family Digital Literacy Night, parents can also share with teachers their Funds of Knowledge including their family digital literacy practices. The capstone concludes with recommendations for practice, research, and policy.

Text

University of British Columbia. ECED 590

Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library

10.14288/1.0368876

Education, Faculty of

Reviewed

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/