Week 2

“We gather at the communal watering hole as we always did; only now we don’t reach out to those around us. Instead, we communicate with far-flung souls using means that would be indistinguishable from magic for all but our most recent ancestors” (Varnelis, 2012, p.16).

As I read this portion of the chapter I was reminded of my son’s wedding. At the rehearsal all five of the would be bridesmaids sat on the front pew of the church, waiting for instructions. Interestingly enough each was texting her cell phone. Someone had the decided to take a picture of this crazy scene and the next day we all joked that they were actually all texting each other.  It seemed so strange to see five young women sitting together involved in conversation but not with each other. Each was so immersed in what was happening on their phone that they had in essence “left the building.”  “But they are not engaged in debate or dialogue with each other. If they come together, it is simply to establish an ambient visual experience of bodies I near proximity, which is as psychically necessary in this wired and wireless age as it was in the day of Australopithecus (p.17).   Have we become so connected to outside communities that we forget, ignore, or find less value in the ones that we physically move in and out of every day? Are we more connected to the communities that we are connected to via laptops, phones, tablets? How do we as educators help students to learn the value of both? I find that even when students are talking amongst themselves it is so often about what is happening on Facebook, twitter, Snapchat, or Instagram. Their conversations are dominated by who did what, where, when and how.  It seems as if they go through withdrawals if they can’t check their social media at least every five minutes, at times risking having their phones taken away or even suspension from school.  I worry about many of their futures as I see face-to-face social skills deteriorating as their online social presence grows.

Week One-Blogging

"The distinctive contribution of the approach to literacy as social practice lies in the ways in which it involves careful and sensitive attention to what people do with texts, how they make sense of them and use them to further their own purposes in their own learning lives"

(Gillen and Barton, 2010, p. 9)

The educational field has been always slow to adopt changes that challenge time honored methods. Today the integration of technology into classrooms and the notion that it can be integral to developing literacy is often resisted at all levels. Gillen and Barton (2010) state, "Education is of course a field of systematically shared priorities, polices and practices and so can be difficult to shift unless research-based evidence, top-down policy change and bottom-up creative shits instituted by teachers all combine to pressure for wholesale change" (p. 10). Yet, many within the educational community recognize that if digital literacy is not embraced, "there will be an increasingly vast gap of practice, understanding, and of disposition of knowledge" (p.7). The question then becomes how does the educational community fuse prior practices and methods with the new technologies.

One method is weblogs or blogging. Blogging joins together the practice of storytelling with technology. Storytelling has long been used in classrooms as a way to encourage students to read, write, as well as strengthen verbal literacy (Huffaker, 2005). Blogging, a chronological diary, allows learners to express feelings, interests, connect with other bloggers, be creative just to name a few. The benefit of blogging though is that students are no longer confined to walls of the classroom. Both Gillen and Barton (2010) and Huffaker (2005) point to the fact that students can now collaborate and build communities in ways that are not possible  in traditional learning environments. 

Recently I took a position as a long-term sub at an inner school as a tech ed teacher for seventh and eighth graders. The district has multiple tech ed vacancies and, as a result, the students have been without an instructor for some time. Needless to say I walked into a war zone. There is no formal curriculum available, little to no support from the BOE, and because I am not a certified tech ed teacher, the usual activities that the students would participate in such as using power tools was strictly off limits. But, what I did have was my own computer lab. I decided to introduce them to blogs. While a select few were familiar with blogging the majority were not. I met some resistance at first, but as soon as they realized that they could be creative with the blogs, use them to tell their stories, write about what interested them, and connect with each other they quickly bought in. I found that they were working on their blogs at home and on their down time. Those who did not have computers at home but did have smart phones were working from their handhelds. I see the benefits of blogging manifest in my classroom daily as I witness students who once felt that digital technology was out of their reach ask for the opportunity to work on their blogs. 

week 1

References:

Gillen, J., & Barton, D. (2010). Digital Literacies. Teaching and Learning Research Programme. 1-32.

Huffaker, D. (2005). The educated blogger: Using weblogs to promote literacy in the classroom. AACE Journal, 13(2). 91-98.