Monday, June 4, 2012
New Literacies
While reading this chapter, there were a few things that really stuck out to me. Lankshear and Knobel state that, "If we see literacy as “simply reading and writing”—whether in the sense of encoding and decoding print, as a tool, a set of skills, or a technology, or as some kind of psychological process—we cannot make sense of our literacy experience" (2). They could not be more right. The ultimate goal of reading is comprehension. We need to allow students to make sense of what they are reading by giving them the correct strategies and tools to help them succeed in this. They state that literacies call us to share and communicate meanings and to also allow others to share in that experience with us. I absolutely loved this. The chapter discuss "new technology stuff" and "new ethos stuff," which help us to understand what exactly new literacies are and how we got here. What I particularly found interesting was the difference between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0. We have changed so much since I was younger! I remember very well Web 1.0 and I am currently living in and experiencing the change to Web 2.0. I love how the web has become so interactive! In terms of teaching students, credibility is something that needs to be heavily discussed when researching on the web. However, I think it is great that the internet is becoming collaborative. This chapter can absolutely be applied in elementary education because this is the direction that the world is headed in. I love that I can "take" students across the globe via google earth and they can really feel like they are there. We get to use technology to help our students learn in new ways that no students have ever learned before!
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Erin I love that you are already using the new literacies in the classroom. It is so important for teachers to find way to incorporate these because we want the students to be able to share the technological experience with us and we know that all students do not have access to technology.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you. Reading comprehension is very important and we as teavchrrs need to model correctly and give the students tools they can use. Because reading fluency is great but what good is it if they don't truly understand what they are reading.
DeleteI would also argue that fluency is something students have to have technologically and in terms of print reading. Today's world has so many systems to navigate that we should be preparing children to tackle them all to some degree. Literacy definitions have always been changing. In fact, about 150 years in the US being literate meant in some places just being able to sign one's name. (http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0260137870060302) Our ideas of reading and writing ability equaling literate has only been around since the 1940s, coming from military testing. What counts as literacy now? Way more than that, I'd argue...
ReplyDeleteMy new measure of literacy is going to be correctly identifying these verification prompts. Some of them I honest;y cannot read. Am I a robot? :p
ReplyDeleteMy students are getting bogged down with logins and passwords, which is a kind of literacy. I think logging more time on computers is beneficial because it helps students become more fluent with their web processes. And yes, Google Earth is awesome, especially if you're teaching British Lit!
ReplyDeleteOne way I combat students' issues with logins and passwords, is I make them keep the same login and password for EVERYTHING. They have log-ins and passwords assigned to them as freshman that allow them to use school computers. Every time we use a site online, they login using that same information. I tried it the other way once...letting them chose their own login and password, but I learned my lesson! It was absolutely ridiculous trying to help them keep up with that information! This way is MUCH easier.
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