Three paragraphs in to Lankshear and Knobel’s book
introduction, I was struck by the idea of digital literacy vs. digital
literacies. Although I know that one is
singular and the other is plural, and I know that plural means more than one, I
was still somewhat baffled by the authors making a distinction between the
two. In my mind, I thought they were one
in the same. I didn’t know there was a
difference between the two. (Even Google has red-lined all the "literacies" I have typed in this post.) As I read
further, I saw how the contributors to the text approached digital literacies
with varying definitions, procedures, and practices. This reminded me of CI 450 when we talked
about the different concepts of literacies and how these practices and meanings
vary from person to person. My mind went
to the first weeks’ readings were we read and discussed Silvia Scribner’s metaphors
of literacies. The image below is an
example of the skills and practices involved in digital literacies.
Lankshear and Knobel believe that
in order to become well versed in digital literacies, students need to be immersed
in digital literacies practices. They
will acquire the necessary skills when involved in natural encounters that allow
them to authentically form their knowledge and create meaning. This is similar to how most people
effectively learn to read, write, and communicate. I think a big takeaway for me is that digital
literacies and the acquisition of digital literacies is essentially the same as
the acquisition of traditional literacies.
When looking through this lens, I see that, as a teacher, I need to step
my game up in regard to helping my students acquire and practice their digital
literacies skills. As said by Gee, “…[J]ust
giving young people access to technologies is not enough. They need—just as they do for books—adult mentoring
and rich learning systems built around the technologies, otherwise the potential
of these technologies is not realized for these children.” My school is very fortunate in that we have a
lot of technology available to students.
There are iPad or laptop carts in every classroom. Each room also has a Promethean Board that is
connected to a laptop, allowing teachers and students to incorporate more
digital texts and tasks into daily learning.
I have the resources available to effectively more digital texts into my
students’, but with the exception of a few BrainPop Jr. and Discovery Education
videos and iPad apps, I don’t think I am doing enough to prepare my students
for success in an ever advancing technological society.
As a teacher of mostly minority
students, I was left with the idea of digital literacies taking the same
trajectories as traditional literacies, with the rich getting richer and the
poor getting poorer. I definitely agree
with the authors (and Gee’s) stance that if we are not careful this can lead to
another equity gap in our society. I
would like to imagine the alternative. Last
week, I wrote about using students’ current knowledge and incorporating that
into class activities as a springboard for helping students gain academic
knowledge. I was reminded of last week’s
readings when the authors discuss Tanaka Nanako and her online fanfiction
stories. Her success as an online author
is an example of how teachers can begin to incorporate more digital literacies
practices into instruction and class activities, thus starting the process of
guiding our students to develop effective digital literacies and allowing them
to complete in a global world.
While doing research on how I can
meaningfully incorporate digital literacies in my classroom, I came across a teacher’s
post regarding digital literacies in the primary classroom. I have provided the link if interested in reading it :) I also came across an article
for teachers who want to improve their digital literacy skills.
Hello Tiffini,
ReplyDeleteI too considered that since a wide portion of digital literacy is accessed through technology, it could potentially be an oppressive form of literacy, which we do not want. I was wondering what technology your class has access to. The class I am doing observations in is a neighborhood school where each class has a cabinet of google chrome books that students use throughout lessons. So while in class, the school gives equal access to technology to all students. However, the students are not able to bring the Chromebooks home, which is where inequity could happen.
Also, up until now, much of students' experience with digital media is less of an upbringing and more of a self-raising. I bring this up because you quoted Gee's notion that kids need guidance to properly gain internet or digital literacy. The Internet has been a sort of free-for-all for so long that kids have probably reasoned a way to make sense of the internet. That being said, maybe it is not the most effective way or perhaps students' self-learned technological literacies have aspects that could be taught to teachers. Especially for teachers who are of an age that did not grow up with computers at their disposal, we may have much to learn from students in terms of how they make meaning of the internet.
Nice use of wingdings and good thinking--I have not seen those in years!
I enjoyed your post and it was very clear and fluid.
Max
Max,
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree with your comments about students' experiences with internet and digital literacies has largely been self-taught. In my experience, students are expected to be familiar and able in various programs and research methods since we live in the "technology era". But that is simply not the case and students often suffer in silence, or have to attempt to navigate through these technologies on their own with inconsistent information from non credible sources.
Even at the college-level, I was not literate in MS Office besides writing papers on Word and could only fake my way through Excel. There were no workshops offered for students to brush up on their skills or develop them and I was not allowed to take an MS Office 101 class because my advisor deemed it something I could learn "on my own time". We all know how well students do with work "on their own time"... of course I bought an online tutorial for mastering MS Office and of course I went through two sessions and let it expire. We are doing our students the same exact disservice with neglecting to teach them the skills necessary for handling digital literacies in the 21st century as we are when we write off literacy in our disciplines as sufficiently understood with a basic reading literacy education.
As digital literacy becomes more and more a basic requirement in the work force, the more we will see individuals capable of handling the jobs associated with those literacies being hired from other countries that are surpassing the US in digital literacy education.
As a math teaching major, I had to take an upper-level Stats class which made use of the program R. It is a computer program used in statistics. Except we were not really given training on it, and being a form of code, it is very finicky and requires perfection for it to work. I was awful at it and in the end learned nothing through R. Of course, this is an extreme case.
DeleteHi Tiffini,
ReplyDeleteI find it humbling in a sense to have you say that you do not feel like you are preparing your students enough for this very technology driven era. Hearing it from an already practicing teacher makes it seem more real in a sense. As teachers not only is one expected to teach students how to read in their discipline but even in digital literacies. The school that I observed provides students each with an ipad. Students do lab writeups on their ipads and even math worksheets. This seemed to be the commonality between most classrooms. Yet, as I got to see some of the more higher classes such as AP Stats I saw that students were brought back to using paper and pencil. The usage of technology in classrooms is very dependent upon the teacher and the way they were taught. In an ever changing world it seems difficult to ever fully prepare your students for the technology driven society we live in. I appreciated the articles that you added in and found them quite interesting!
Hi Tiffini,
ReplyDeleteI find it humbling in a sense to have you say that you do not feel like you are preparing your students enough for this very technology driven era. Hearing it from an already practicing teacher makes it seem more real in a sense. As teachers not only is one expected to teach students how to read in their discipline but even in digital literacies. The school that I observed provides students each with an ipad. Students do lab writeups on their ipads and even math worksheets. This seemed to be the commonality between most classrooms. Yet, as I got to see some of the more higher classes such as AP Stats I saw that students were brought back to using paper and pencil. The usage of technology in classrooms is very dependent upon the teacher and the way they were taught. In an ever changing world it seems difficult to ever fully prepare your students for the technology driven society we live in. I appreciated the articles that you added in and found them quite interesting!
As the subject of math and technology has been brought up, I feel as though it is important to touch on that and ow that will affect my class in the future. Being brought up with little to no use of technology in my math classes, I find it difficult to find a way to incorporate it into my future methods. Not only that, I don't want to incorporate into my plans of teaching, math, in my view, is something that must be done through hand, at the level I plan to teach. yeah there is the occasional use of calculators, but other than that I don't see its use in my class. maybe that's being stubborn into adapting new technology, but even so, the readings this week did open my mind into the idea of technology in education as a whole. as the time advances then so will the use of technology. that's a key aspect must keep in mind. so it does leave confusion on my part on how to adapt. so like you, I don't feel ive done enough to prepare for this technological world of education. and it really leaves me with doubt of my ability to teach to future generations, what happens if in 20 years technology advances to a point where it can replace teachers when presenting material to students? Would this be a direct cause from adapting technology into our teachings? While I do agree with the author in involving technology, as I see most kids are presented technology at such a young age, but my only concern is to what extent? I'm left more troubled than anything after the readings, but maybe that's just me overthinking such a scenario.
ReplyDeleteHey Tiffini,
ReplyDeleteOne of the challenges I think we all face as future educators is the immense increase and availability of digital literacies in the educational system. I've been observing classes at a CPS school and the fact that every room has a laptop cart and just the sheer mass of digital resources both teachers and students utilize is almost overwhelming. As a student who has always preferred a more traditional approach to literacy, effectively promoting digital literacies to my students will be challenging.
I appreciate how you emphasize the possibility of an equity gap when it comes to the availability of these digital literacies. The first thing I thought of when reading this week's articles was "How will all of my students be able to access these?"
Thank you all for your thoughtful feedback and responses to my post. For Max: the students at my school are also not allowed to take the iPads and laptops home with them. I know some of the students have access to tablets at home, but many do not. This, of course, creates another challenge for educators. I know the 5th and 6th grade teachers at my school are using Google Classroom with their students love it! I just worry about at what age is it too early to fully invest second graders into these technological resources. But then again, I guess, they are learning some from their own experiences. I just can't imagine my little ones typing to me on Google classroom. My principal is trying to push us towards taking our weekly reading tests on the iPads and it is a struggle for my students. Not only is the content demanding, the students struggle with basic things such as entering a username and password and typing their written responses. I guess the argument can be made that these are the things I should be really teaching towards at the earlier grades so when they advance in their schooling, they are prepared for when their middle and upper grade teachers.
ReplyDeleteJose, I also wonder about the future of actual teachers in our technological society. It's no secret that educators are not really appreciated or valued by the people who make the decisions regarding our profession. I can be a Debbie Downer, pessimistic, worrier at times and I can definitely see a future where teachers are slowly being replaced with technology. Or at least having a few teachers video record their lessons and having those video lessons being mass produced and viewed across same grade level classrooms everywhere. That's kind of one of my dystopian societal fears.
I agree with you that the acquisition of digital literacies is the same as the acquisition of traditional literacies. I’d like to share my experience in organic chemistry three years ago. In this class, the professor required the use of Chem-Wiki for lab reporting. Chem-Wiki is a website where students can write and edit their lab report online and collaboratively. At the beginning of the semester, most of the students were complaining about how difficult is it to use Chem-Wiki. Even though the professor devoted couple of sessions to explain and teach the students how to use Chem-Wiki, students were still complaining that they prefer the traditional way of writing lab report. Each week we were supposed to work in group of four students, and each student was supposed to write one section of the lab report unlike the traditional way where each student has to write the whole lab report individually every week. We were encouraged to use pictures, diagrams, and videos. Moreover, we had the whole semester to edit our lab report after receiving feedback. We also were supposed to write individual reflection and real life applications for each lab. However, with practice and good feedback from the professor, students were able to use Chem-Wiki more effectively, and they actually started to prefer it over the traditional lab reporting. Technology and digital literacy can be very beneficial in classrooms, but as the traditional literacy they require practice and monitoring. The use of Chem-Wiki enhanced collaboration that is time and location independent between group of students and the teacher and it extended lab interactions beyond the lab. As a future Chemistry teacher, the use of Chem-Wiki for lab reporting is one of my goals.
ReplyDelete