Why Language Arts Education?
The new face of reading
Technology is an important aspect of any content area's curriculum and pedagogy, but it is especially crucial for usage in Language Arts classrooms. The Language Arts are divided into six categories as determined by the National Council of Teachers of English: Listening, Speaking, Reading, Writing, Viewing, and Visually Representing. Technology can aid both students and teachers in all of these areas. As the picture above illustrates, technology is creating a brand new way for us to embrace even the most archaic forms of the language arts, including basic ink on paper texts. In today's world, thousands of books can be carried around in one singular e-reader, providing for both convenience and usability. The Language Arts foster skills of production and communication, two skills that can be tremendously aided through use of programs such as the Internet, word processing and blogging platforms, social media websites, and research databases. It is the responsibility of the English teacher to ensure students know not only how to read books and write papers, but how to effectively communicate thoughts and ideas, and how to make those thoughts and ideas count toward the overall body of work in a particular subject. The Internet and technology in general provides the English teacher with a vast amount of ways to accomplish this goal. For these reasons, as well as because I believe the English Language Arts Standards (specifically in Indiana) need work when it comes to technology, I have decided to focus the majority of my efforts to making technology appealing and attractive for English teachers to use and implement in their classrooms.