Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Learning to Read by Playing Club Penguin?

Children use keypads and touchscreens on a broad range of technological devices to browse, view, interpret, navigate, interact, and produce original texts. Guy Merchant suggests that reading online texts requires a knowledge of concepts specific to screen-based text (e.g., keyboard use, the mouse–cursor relationship, screen navigation) and new understandings about the organization of space and image on screens that extend Marie Clay's concepts about print.

In our chapter on children's screen literacies published in Anne Burke and Jackie Marsh's new book, Children's Virtual Play Worlds, Tolga Kargin and I documented children's cursor moves, finger jabs, and other ways of reading computer screens as they played side-by-side and navigated in and out of snowy locations in Club Penguin. And we found that there's a lot of reading and writing going on!
Computer Handling in Physical Space
Digital Literacy Practices in Screen Space
Mouse-handling
Double-Clicking (to select options)
Reading
Searching/Scanning: Clicking to open a pop-up or drop-down menu

Clicking (to open or confirm options)
Independent Reading: Gazing or pointing at screen with words or phrases or images

Hovering (to see drop-down menu)
Partner Reading: Reading words aloud while gazing or pointing at screen
Keyboarding
Tapping (e.g., finding and pressing one key)
Reading Aloud to Self (inner speech): Reading words aloud softly while gazing at screen

Toggling (e.g., between keys on numeric pad, arrow keys)
Messaging
Selecting & Combining Pre-set Words or Phrases to Send Messages


Rereading Own Message/Confirming Action

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