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digital practices also provide an opportunity for reflexive thinking about the medias and technologies themselves. When a student is asked to complete a task on the Internet, it calls the student to think about the internet in a broader way than previously thought of before. The internet can become more than just a passive communication device; it can promote intellectual collaboration and differentiated reading methods. 

Why? 

 

Katherine Hayles writes in her book: How We Think: Digital Media and Contemporary Technogenesis, “…people in general, and young people in particular, are doing more screen reading of digital materials than ever before. Meanwhile, the reading of print books and of literary genres has been declining over the last twenty years” (55). For me, this quotation alone provides reason for digitally engaged reading development. If students spend most of their time on digital planes (i.e. Facebook, snapchat, twitter, etc.), why not support critical reading in these native grounds?  Henry Jenkins also supports this notion in his chapter Why Heather Can Write. The list of what makes a good beta reader is a list of what teachers want for their students in an English classroom (189). Digital technologies are not only an opportunity for students to show their knowledge, it helps teachers to discover their students’ knowledge.

furthermore, this digital engagement in classrooms is essential because it informs the development of a new digital ethics. an ethics that promotes truth and the common well-being.

Digitally engaged English courses not only meet students in a more relevant environment, they offer a more effiecient education as stated in a study conducted by stevem higgins, ZhiMin Xiao and Maria Katsipataki;

          

         Overall, the research evidence over the last forty years about the impact of                                   digital technologies on learning consistently identifies positive benefits. The increasing               variety of digital technologies and the diversity of contexts and settings in which the                   research has been conducted, combined with the challenges in synthesising evidence from             different methodologies, makes it difficult to identify clear and specific implications                     for educational practice in schools. (3)

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