New Literacies and Web 2.0: Where Do We Go from Here?

For our blog conversation this week, Alix, Joe, and I discussed some of the major points of Leu et al (2007) and also addressed some of Richardson’s (2010) points from chapter 10 via Skype. Disappointingly, our video chat on Skype would not work with the three of us on at once, so we decided to just do a conference call about the readings.

 After reading the Leu et al article, I noticed (as well as Alix and Joe) that the number of people who regularly use the internet is increasing rapidly across the globe and that it is even more useful in the workplace and at school now than ever before. The fact that the research on reading comprehension online is at such an early stage is a difficult pill to swallow because our own teaching hinges on our abilities to effectively integrate and demonstrate how new literacies can be used.

            We also discussed the four characteristics of a new literacies perspective, and how they each create both difficulties and opportunities in the classroom. I was very vocal about the second principle that new literacies are “central to full civic, economic, and personal participation in a global community,” (Leu et al, 2007, p. 7) because as a social studies teacher one of my most challenging yet rewarding tasks is preparing students to be future responsible citizens of  a democracy. Alix and Joe agreed that this in particular is quite difficult, and mentioned how much harder it can be while working in an urban environment, as Alix currently is, where a much higher percentage of students do not have the amount of access to the internet as students in suburban schools.

Another aspect of this article we discussed briefly was the five major functions of online reading comprehension and how they do cross over with ‘traditional literacy’. But the role that communication plays in new literacies is becoming ever more important and complex, as online communication, as we now know, takes many different forms that not all of us are familiar with. We agreed that as the years continue, our students will continue to gain new literacies literacy at a faster pace and will ultimately force us as teachers to integrate at a much higher level the online literacies that our students hold into our classrooms on a daily basis. As said in the Leu et al article, “In the past, instruction has been based on the assumption that teacher s were always more literate than students. This assumption is no longer true,” (p. 14).

In regard to the Richardson (2010) chapters, we found strong correlations between what the Leu et al (2007) article was discussing and Richardson’s “Big Shifts” in chapter 10. We discussed his words that, “For more than a hundred years we have defined being literate as being able to read and write. And although those core abilities are still central to learning, they are no longer enough to ensure understanding” (p. 148). We all agreed with this statement, and that change is more constant in our lives now than ever in terms of education and technology. Will the skills that we and our students possess with the Web 2.0 be relevant 20 or 30 years down the road? This is a question I thought of after our discussion so I pose it to anyone who reads this post.

Classroom Webpages: Creating "Wall-less" Classrooms

For this week's posting, I felt like just 'plain old' blogging. As much as I have enjoyed using our other Web 2.0 tools over the past couple of months (wikis, Prezi, Glogster, etc), I feel blogging is still my most effective way to communicate my thoughts regarding the readings and their implications for our own practice.  That being said, let's discuss the readings. Starting with Baker (2007) from the NERA Journal, I thought she brought up a lot of points regarding Internet use and literacy instruction that we have already discussed pretty extensively in class. For example, she writes about the ever increasing rate of childrens' uses of digital literacies in their 'peer cultures' and how our current educational system is hypocritical as it calls for an increase in teaching Web 2.0 literacies, but does not allow time to incorporate, nor do we have high-stakes assessment which attempts to gauge students' academic abilities with Web 2.0 tools. Districts across the state, and the country for that matter are sinking money into their schools for wireless Internet, laptops, and other multimedia so that students can be prepared to join the college and workplace networks that require proficiency in online literacy skills. Further, Baker discusses in this article the importance of teacher web pages and how they can be a valuable tool in helping students through the stages of the writing process, which are magnified when their work is to be published online. I really like Baker's ideas on "Unit-Based Approaches" to class web pages, and how they connect content knowledge, reading and writing skills, online literacy skills, and potential parental involvement. "Teachers can explain to parents how literacy skills are learned while students are reading and writing about units; include information about unit topics and inquires for the week, month, or year; provide suggestions for how parents can support and even participate in these units," (Baker, 2007, p 61). My last comment about this reading is how Baker includes resource after resource in her article. She clearly wrote this with a teacher audience in mind, and it impressed me with how many websites and applications there are that can help develop our students' digital literacies.

I believe that the article written by Barone and Wright (2008) is highly correlated to Baker's above mentioned article. Both articles stated within their first pages that teachers are reluctant to bring technology into the classroom for a number of reasons, and that many teachers feel that using Web 2.0 materials in class are too time consuming, especially when first integrating them into your classroom. As Wright laid out for us in his sections of the article, it is obvious that he is not dedicating all of his time to using computers. In fact, I like how he had his students Instant Messaging one another while reading a basal story. That is the integration of Web 2.0 literacy that will be key to teachers successfully using them in my opinion, especially for the reluctant teachers who are unsure of themselves with some of the newer programs. Instant Messenger is self explanatory and has been around for approximately a decade, making it a more simple way to integrate "class discussion" between partners, especially for the kids who do not like to talk. Further, Wright can give writing and typing instruction simultaneously, similar to Baker's ideas of writing instruction integrated into classroom web pages. A last important point that this article brings up that ties to Baker is the fact that assessments tied to digital literacies are still lacking. It is mentioned that there are still state standards to meet, which only deal with reading, writing, and content knowledge that are all difficult to directly connect to any assessments we could give for digital literacy skills.

Baker's research article (2007) on class web pages in elementary schools provides an even further look into how these Web 2.0 literacies, mainly Internet opportunities support children's literacy. I like how she makes distinctions between classroom and beyond the classroom Internet opportunities, because I believe that students use and interact with the Internet differently in those different settings. Her term "invisible classroom," one that she used in her above article as well, makes reference to the concept that the Internet is available 24/7/365, and she makes it clear that this "Wall-less" classroom arena "offer the opportunity to engage students in literacy during the school day, after the school day, and throughout holidays and summer vacations," (Baker, p 8). While I read her findings, I was not surprised by the uses (or lack thereof) of the class pages, but still found her results to be important indicators of how elementary teachers are preparing students to use the Internet.

This is my plea to elementary school teachers, as I plan to integrate multiple Web 2.0 materials into my discourse that is High School Social Studies: please find as many opportunities with your students as you can to use Web 2.0 materials with your students. It is a life skill now, not just a potentially beneficial tool for the future, to be able to be literate with digital technologies. As Baker, Barone, and Wright have all shown us, new literacies are changing rapidly and sometimes drastically, and it is our job as educators to facilitate these changes into our classrooms to continually allow our students to grow and keep up with the demands of an increasingly competitive world that now requires all people to be able to communicate through and possess Web 2.0 literacy.

Visual, Digital, and Critical Literacies: Let's Get Gloggin'!

Hey everyone, sorry my post is up a little late, I cannot begin to tell you how frustrated I was with getting my Glog to work the way I wanted it to! I wanted to add appropriate music through an upload, but the song wouldn't play, so I had to record it through the microphone (it took me forever to figure this part out). I hope you enjoy, be sure to click on the play button on the guitar, it takes a few seconds for the music to start playing, and also, watch the volume on your computer, it starts quiet and gets kind of loud. Thanks!

Frank's Glog!