From Chromebook Carts to Video Remix: Critical and Creative Digital Practices

by Johnny Allred, Ph.D.

In my third year as a high school English teacher, my school purchased a few carts of Chromebooks to be shared across the school. If any teachers wanted to use them, we had to reserve the Chromebooks in advance, track down the cart from the teacher who most recently used it, and truck it over to our classrooms—hoping they would be fully functional, charged and ready to go. As inconvenient as the process seemed to bring technology into my room, I was excited to provide a different tool for students to write papers, conduct research, and organize their learning in my class. I saw these Chromebooks as a convenience so students could compose using Google Docs and access course materials through Canvas or Google Classroom, but I believed we could do more. I wanted—but didn’t know how—to tap into the potential I believed they had to transform student learning in my classroom.

 The following year, I got more serious about trying out some new digital tools and practices with my students. Throughout a unit where they were reading a self-selected YA novel, students spent time designing and presenting remixed digital book covers, based on their interpretations of themes and their analysis of characters in the story. In the following unit, we listened to Season 1 of the Serial podcast, which describes the criminal investigation, conviction, and life sentence of Adnan Syed in Baltimore in 1999, following the murder of Hae Min Lee, his ex-girlfriend. While I didn’t at the time have the foresight to save these students’ products to share with other teachers, I was amazed at the excitement and creative energy I observed from my students as we engaged in traditional literacy practices (e.g., rhetorical analysis, inference, citing evidence to support claims) using digital tools and texts. Students were hooked, and I was motivated to more fully explore strategies for digital literacy and technology in my classroom.

Fast-forward to today, and technology has certainly become more mainstream in our English classes: many schools and districts are 1:1, providing each student with access to a Chromebook or tablet; many English teachers use a learning management system (e.g., Canvas, Google Classroom, Blackboard) to organize their curriculum, resources, and learning activities. National leaders in our field have recognized the need for technology in English language arts: in 2018, NCTE published a statement about technology integration to help English teachers, teacher educators, and literacy specialists consider purposeful technology use in their educational spaces; then, in 2019, NCTE also published a “Definition of Literacy in a Digital Age,” which describes the ever-changing nature of literacy and articulates questions we and our students can ask ourselves regarding our digital literacy practices, both within and outside of our classrooms. And, of course, the most dramatic changes with technology have come since the onset of COVID-19, forcing most—if not all—of us to teach in online or blended environments and rely more upon digital technology in our classrooms.

Because of my early teaching experiences and the increasing need in our modern world, I have spent much of my energy researching and observing how English teachers can use technology to transform the things their students do and the ways they learn. In this post, I want to highlight a few examples I’ve seen of how secondary English teachers have used technology to facilitate digital literacy practices, especially in dialogic, critical, and creative ways. These stellar English teachers have happily shared their ideas and the tools they’ve used as examples of purposeful technology integration and digital literacies in English classrooms.

Writing for a Public Audience

 Blake Bockholt, a high school English teacher, uses “The Learning Network” from The New York Times to help his students learn about the world around them and to share their voices with others around the country. For those not familiar with this resource, it houses articles, essays, podcasts, graphics, videos, and more—all specifically targeted to teachers and students. Blake’s students consistently read and respond to articles and multimedia on the site, and they often participate in the “Lesson of the Day” feature (see a recent example). In addition, “The Learning Network” holds student writing contests, which Blake encourages his students to enter—and several have been mentioned or featured by The New York Times for their creative writing or responses to articles. The following links are examples of how student voices are honored and shared through this network:

• Coming of Age Multimedia contest
• Civil Discourse Challenge
• “What Students Are Saying About Race and Racism in America”
• Personal Narrative Contest

Since Blake has started implementing these activities in his teaching, several students have run into his classroom, holding their phones in the air, and saying something like, “Mr. Bockholt, check it out—my name is in the New York Times!” This is an example of a free, easily-accessible method for students to use the internet to share their voices and their creative writing in meaningful ways.

Reading & Discussing Texts through Social Annotation

Earlier this year, Remi Kalir and Antero Garcia published a book (and an open web version) about the importance and value of annotation. In recent years, digital annotation tools have become increasingly popular with teachers and students, especially using Hypothesis. Often labeled as social annotation, these tools allow students to comment in the margins of digital texts and then read and respond to each other’s annotations. I’ve observed how two secondary English teachers, Jami Reed and Erin Jones, organized reading and social annotation activities using Hypothesis to facilitate textual analysis and student discussion (screenshot examples of student annotations from both Jami’s and Erin’s classes are below). They both considered first the standards and learning targets that drove these annotation activities, and they often provided prompts that invited students to talk about rhetorical strategies, literary devices, and personal connections in their annotations. For more ideas on how to implement social annotation in your classroom, see Dr. Sheri Vasinda’s Ethical ELA blog post from earlier this year.

Example social annotations with Hypothesis from Erin Jones’ 12th grade class.

Example social annotations with Hypothesis from Jami Reed’s 9th grade class.

Video Arguments & Critical Media Literacy

 Thanks (or no thanks?) to social media, our students are swimming in a constant deluge of digital information and online voices—and I’d argue there’s no better place to learn how to be mindful, critical consumers of all this stuff than in their English class. My good friend and colleague, Seth French, teaches high school courses in English and media literacy. As part of his classes, students create a video détournement—a French word (pronounced day-tour-nuh-mah) that means “a turning around; a rerouting; a hijacking.” Students research a current social issue that they want to raise awareness about, crafting an argument about the topic and trying to effect change in the way their audience thinks about it. Throughout the process, they compile video clips, ultimately splicing them together and weaving together their research to present their argument in an audiovisual format.

Most recently, his students read Just Mercy, by Bryan Stevenson and created video détournements on topics related to mass incarceration and racial inequities in our law enforcement and prison systems. Here are some of his student examples:

• The Death Penalty
• Discriminatory Law Enforcement & the Need for Reform
• Juvenile Death/Life Sentences
• Overrepresentation of Minorities in Prisons
• Rehabilitation of Ex-Convicts

If you are interested in trying video détournement with your students, Seth has graciously created several helpful resources for you and your students:

• Additional student examples
• Step-by-step guide for creating détournement
• Additional détournement resources
• WeVideo demo of video uploading, editing, and sharing

Focusing on Learning, Not on Technology

I share these examples because they result in student work being honored and publicly shared, but I also share them because they illustrate the key idea behind technology integration: student learning and sound pedagogy is the focus, and digital tools can help us achieve those goals. A common pitfall with educational technology is that the tool becomes the focus, decentering the teacher and the learning goals for that lesson or unit. If we explore technology tools and digital literacies through the lens of our specific learning targets, we will find more meaningful uses and see more transformative student work. It will require brainstorming, asking colleagues, trying new things, and at least occasionally scrapping something that didn’t work at all. As a starting point, I have crowdsourced a list of digital tools English teachers use in their classrooms, with a brief description of each tool and its potential affordances and constraints. Feel free to browse this list-in-progress for sites or apps that might be beneficial in your context, and please add your own ideas!

As we English teachers and teacher educators work to expand our students’ (and our own) digital literacy practices—especially focused on dialogic, critical, and creative goals—we will be teaching our students how to participate and engage in their modern, digital world. What’s more, we can help other teachers—those who, like me, may get frustrated fumbling around with Chromebook carts and charging cables—to see broader, more meaningful applications for technology in English classrooms.

Johnny Allred taught high school English in northern Utah before completing a Ph.D. at the University of Arkansas. He is currently Visiting Assistant Professor of English Education at Brigham Young University, where he teaches English methods and first-year writing, and he supervises student teachers. Johnny’s research centers on digital literacies and dialogic pedagogy, and he’s especially excited about a course in digital literacies that is currently under review to be added to the English Teaching program at BYU.