new literacy individual posts
TRANSCRIPT
Cycle D - Final Reflection Post Length: <~ 1000 Words Due: Monday, May 4th (In the spirit of embracing new literacies, and showing that I’m capable of change, I’ll create/edit my document from start to finish here. :))
New Literacies: Briefly
In my individual post I defined New Literacies simply as ‘technologies that enable people
to consume and create information.’ I hadn’t considered the idea of UpperCase and lowercase
literacies prior and certainly never took the time out to think the foundational skills such as
locating, evaluting, (organizing), synthesizing and communicating information. I’ve found that
the concepts in the course have provided me with a framework and language that I didn’t have
before, and has already allowed me to construct conversations at work differently than I would
have considered 3 months ago. For example, my presentations regarding the recent Office 365
rollout have focused more on high level New Literacies modalities rather than describing
specific features. I’ve placed my efforts into trying to describe the transformative properties of
the suite, of the associated New Literacies, and into emphasizing how the suite will influence
institutional information accessibility, communication flows and information organization.
New Literacies: What works
The New Literacies concept of social construction of information is, in my opinion, the
most significant impact of online technologies. Our learning theory course introduced the
concepts of limited peripheral participation, situated cognition and communities of practice.
While they all mean something distinct they are rooted in the idea that people learn from other
people, in social situations and through active participation. The Internet and its associated
N(n)ew L(l)iteracies improve upon that model by enabling the information flow and creativity to
occur whenever and wherever there is a need or desire. The technologies have evolved such that
they now effectively allow for both long term and micro social interactions to occur. Consider
this:
Crystal Brooks Mar 23, 2015 Cycle C BackChannel Will the Google Doc commenting feature take the place of a Face 2 Face writing/reading conference.
My answer to that is ‘yes, if there is an established relationship.’ Google Docs on it’s
own cannot replace face to face, however, I believe that a video hangout conference while also
working in a document can replace a face to face meeting. The medium offers time and location
flexibility while still permitting the interpersonal interaction to occur. These technologies also
create an opportunity and space for a sustained, centralized academic dialog to occur, where
information flows organically from varieties of sources. Information can be made more
accessible and is more easily referenced that in the past.
New Literacies: What Limits Adoption
Lack of Standards
As companies race to create the next great ‘app’ to satisfy specific new literacies needs
the whole New Literacies space suffers. The lack of interoperability between application
vendors hampers the adoption of these tools. I stand by statements my first individual post that
choice overload, individual preference and the application features arms race are as limiting as
they are can be empowering.
Technology Comfort and Training
N(n)ew L(l)iteracies require an increased amount of personal responsibility. There is an
increasing expectation that people can teach themselves, that they are willing to explore, that
they can selfsupport. There are skills and conceptual gaps that exist that limit adoption and
(what I consider most critical) the willingness to experiment. Many of these tools require that
people are creative in how they use them.
I’ve now stated a few times that O(o)rganizational skills must be improved and was
gratified to see this line in my first post. I strongly believe that online information organization
will only become a more critical skill (integrated with the ORCA model) as data becomes more
disparate. I haven’t fully reconciled my thoughts around information flow, but am convinced
that we need to develop skills related to the this flow of data: pulling, pushing and waiting.
Evolving Social Constructs
Collaborative and Online engagement, especially outside of a known peer group, carry
social expectations that may not be comfortable for most people. I’ve wrestled in the last year
with the idea of how to leverage a social network and only recently considered that social
networks are only a small piece of this. Online collaboration, such as document creation and
writing, carry their own social standards. Do you correct the text of others, how comfortable are
you making the creation process public to collaborating editors?
The second of these two challenges listed could be improved through community
support; by IRT and by recognizing that our understanding of new literacies ‘benefits from
multiple points of view’
New Literacies: Mindset Changes Required
KariLyn Osborn
Mar 23, 2015
Cycle C BackChannel
One of my problems with online research projects when I was in school was that we always research things that had
already been answered to death. I never understood why I'd go through these huge research processes to find
answers that someone else had already put together. I wanted to research something that was still a question without
a solid answer.
I agree that it’s imperative to permit children to research and engage in authentic
learning. I would add to KariLyn’s thought that students also need to be able to produce work
that doesn’t fit into a predetermined mold. A new scholastic mindset needs to emerge that
permits teachers and students to explore the resources at their disposal and to create work that
demonstrates understanding. CCSS may be an effective way to establish certain fundamental
skills but seems mired in a linear approach that is potentially in direct conflict with developing
the online reading and learning skills we have been been discussing.
Knowledge is not an object and memory is not a location. Instead, knowing, learning and cognition are social
constructions expressed in actions of people interacting within communities. Through these actions cognition is
enacted, or unfolded, or constructed; without the action, there is no knowing, no cognition.
I’ve kept track of that quote since I read it sometime last year. It continues to resonate
with me and strikes me that power of New Literacies is their ability to create, strengthen and
broaden communities through the widespread dissemination of information. New Literacies of
the 21st century have the power to bring people together in much the same way the New
Literacies of the 15th century did. The more I learn the more I believe that it is the shrinking of
geographic boundaries where New Literacies are so impactful.
Cycle D Individual Post Prompt Length: 1 – 2 pages. Due: Monday, April 20th, by Noon
For this cycle I audited 2.1 different MOOC’s: Introduction to Learning Technologies and
Statistics in Education. the .1 is because I signed up for a class while I was trying to make my initial
decision and ended up participating in 1 specific assignment on a whim that I found (and will discuss
below) to be very interesting.
I initially chose the Introduction to Learning Technologies MOOC because I felt it would be a
useful supplemental course given the focus of our 2 Summers program. I audited the Statistics in
Education MOOC on a whim once our Research Methods class started to take a little more of a math
related focus. Candidly, I did very little with the second class, but did spend sufficient time to get a sense
of similarities and differences. I’ll include information about the Statistics in Education MOOC primarily
anecdotally here.
The goals for the Introduction to Learning Technologies were to twofold. It provided a broad
brush overview of technologies (primarily web specific technologies) and associated use cases for
common tools in the social, collaborative, archival and presentation spaces. The course was a little more
tool centric, than concept centric and certainly spent considerable time describing in detail features of
specific tools and how to use them. Secondarily (but more interesting to me) there was a some conceptual
content unrelated to technology. An early course module focused on the concepts of digital
copyright/literacy and content sharing that I felt was an excellent addition and a latter module focused
more on the conceptual use of the technologies that were outlined throughout the course.
The Statistics in Education course had a standout component, which was data collection for a
research project for the instructor. I am not suggesting that the course was better or worse than the
former, only that I had an ‘ahha’ moment when I recognized that there was an opportunity for students to
participate in the instructors research. The course content was thorough and had a more linear
progression to the materials than the learning technologies course, but that probably suited the course
well.
The Introduction to Learning Technologies course provided utilized, generally effectively, a
variety of mechanisms to deliver content. Frankly I have never participated in a MOOC that I felt took
advantage of such a wide variety of tools and resources to involve and engage the participants.
The course heavily utilized Google Apps suites, specifically using Google OnAir, Google
Hangouts and (of course) YouTube. The OnAir sessions were always 1way as would be expected for
large courses.
The course also used guest lecturers extensively and many of the modules had a component that
included information provided by by an ‘expert’. These individuals typically focused on very specific
components of the technologies and provided real world style information.
The course utilized multiple choice and project based assessments. The multiple choice
assessments were electronically graded and the project assessments were peergraded.
The Statistics in Education MOOC lacked the visual presentation that the Learning Technologies
MOOC had. A lot of materials were made available in a traditional format (pdf. xls) and I found the
format less compelling because locating and using the data was more cumbersome. The data was
scattered around a bit and required more mouseclicks to access than I generally wanted to make. The
course did offer similar assessments to the learning technologies course.
I did want to comment on the .1 MOOC (The ISTE Online Learning Network MOOC). I only
participated in this MOOC for a single event because the format was of interest and it occurred during a
time of convenience. The course leveraged Twitter for online discussions. I was intrigued by this
because I don’t post a lot on Twitter (although I use Twitter extensively as a consumer) and wanted to see
how a traditional course discussion concept translated to to that space. I made a specific point to
participate in the conversation but did find that the public nature of the format certainly hampered my
participation somewhat. I will say, candidly, that I was surprisingly satisfied when I received responses to
my Tweets and a ‘Favorite.’ The participant group was pretty small and there seemed to be a familiarity
among participants. The conversation occurred over an hour timeframe and ended abruptly. I thought the
hard stop, and subsequent complete lack of conversation, to be very odd. I saw no reason why there had
to be actual time limits to it and felt it made the use of Twitter for the discussion feel contrived.
The courses required the following technology skills to participate:
Proficient to Expert web technologies skills
Google Hangouts
Google Docs
Social Media (Twitter/Google+)
Conceptual experience with collaborative writing (Wiki’s, Google Docs)
Conceptual experience with personal broadcasting technologies (podcasts, YouTube)
Conceptual experience with online organization requirements (Evernote, social bookmarking,
data sharing)
Online Social Etiquette
Expertise with Twitter
Familiarity with Office products, mainly Excel\
Both of my chosen MOOC’s were hosted on the same platform, Canvas.net. Upon reflection I
think there would have been more experiential value in selecting courses on different platforms, as it is
clear there is a framework/formula that instructors are provided. One consistent experience I’ve had in
the MOOC’s I used here, as well as MOOC’s I’ve engaged with in the past is the varying levels of
professionalism and polish across courses. For example, one of the guest lecturers for the New Literacies
course (who was clearly proficient with the subject matter) used an iPad with the standard earbuds to
record the lecture. I think I would have tolerated that if he also didn’t wear an old sweatshirt and place
the iPad 2 feet below his face. The whole experience not only felt amateurish, there was an aspect of
sloppiness/adhoc that really detracted from the experience and reduce confidence in the lecturer.
The tools themselves are still not really ready to be used as core components of a course. We
should specifically discuss Google Hangouts. We’ve experienced consistency and use challenges running
live hangouts in our UConn NewLit course which have impacted start times and engagement. These
same challenges were present for the Learning Technologies class, essentially because the class stressed
using these technologies as core components of the curriculum. There was one lecture where a pair of
lecturers, in remote locations, described the features (and use cases) of Google Hangouts. The approach
was innovative, and fairly effective, but suffered from the same video flipflop issues based on
background noises we have all experienced. While not catastrophic it is distracting and reinforces my
perceptions of MOOC professionalism.
One question I’ve asked myself regarding instructing MOOC’s is ‘why do the instructors do
them?’ Unlike many courses on edX for example, where much of the curriculum is culled from existing
materials prepared for onpremise classes both of the courses on Canvas were clearly created specifically
for Canvas. When the statistics course started with a request to participate in the instructors research
project I had a dawning of understanding where some of that personal value (beyond possible intrinsic
value) could come from. Both courses had information regarding the fact that Canvas would utilize initial
survey data to better craft content to suit student motivations, but the statistics class was largely created as
a research tool for the instructor. There was a thorough research description and consent form.
Personally, I found this work to be interesting for two reasons (both are professional).. First, I am
genuinely interested in watching the development of the online tools associated with distance education
and information distribution. These have real impacts on privacy, security and infrastructure that I am
fortunate to be able to think through every day. Second, I believe that undergraduate education, in
particular, is going to be significantly changed as a result of the massive online courses (I omitted ‘open’
intentionally). I do believe that as credentialing matures there may be value in the openness aspect, but in
the short term I expect these styles of courses to disrupt undergraduate foundation courses over the next
10 years.
Cycle C Individual Post Prompt Length: 1 – 2 pages. Due: Monday, March 30th, by 5pm
Since the ORCA concept was introduced I’ve given considerable thought to the framework, most
specifically the critical skills of (LESC) Locating, Evaluating, Synthesizing and Communicating (less so the
idea of assessment) and have had an elusive concept in the back of my mind that there is a critical
component missing. Anderson and Krathwohl describe the similar critical higher level thinking skills as
“evaluation, synthesis, analysis, interpretation and application” (Leu, Everett-Cacopardo, Zawilinski J,
Mcverry, & O’Byrne, 2012, p. 222), and still something seems missing. My thoughts finally took more
formal shape when I read the statement “Brianna asks students to summarize (synthesize)…” (Leu et al.,
2012, p. 230), which suggests that the critical aspect of summarizing is the ability synthesize information
gathered from a variety of sources. However, I believe that both frameworks aren’t sufficiently
addressing the New Literacy skills necessary for electronic information Organization. I would argue that
the ability to organize information is an underdeveloped skill that should be added (or at least be given
greater emphasis) in the ORCA framework and that neither Synthesis nor Communicate can occur until
information is Organized. So, I propose (perhaps a bit presumptuously) that consideration be given to
adding ‘Organize’ to the existing framework such that it reads Locate, Evaluate, Organize, Synthesize and
Communicate.
I believe Organization is a skill that becomes especially important in an increasingly digital world.
Leu et all say that “additional skills are required to effectively use new technologies such as browsers,
search engines, wikis, blogs”, however a key component of using these resources is being able to
efficiently utilize the information collected prior to entering the Synthesis phase. I believe the reason
this hasn’t been emphasized yet is twofold. First, there has not (yet) been a full transition into a paperless
workflow therefore many people can still rely on more traditional methods of printing and organizing in a
physical space. Second, reliable and citable information is still largely text based. Once there is a more
complete movement into collecting, maintaining, reviewing and editing all data electronically, in modes
that are much more abstract than current physical methods, I believe the deficient skills related to
Organization will become apparent
“The CCSS say that “To be ready for college, workforce training, and life in a technological society,
students need the ability to gather, comprehend, evaluate, synthesize, and report on information
and ideas, to conduct original research in order to answer questions or solve problems, and to
analyze and create a high volume and extensive range of print and nonprint texts in media forms
old and new. (NGA & CCSSO, 2010, p. 4)” (Drew, 2012, p. 323)
I believe the CCSS is missing the critical need of Organization. The challenge is not simply locating
and evaluating information, the challenge is efficiently collecting, collating, archiving and retrieving the
data when it is necessary. In fact, much of the data we would need to organize is thrust upon us and we
are bombarded by incoming electronic information that we need to organize. This information is received
in multiple ways:
Pull
Information is ‘pulled’ when the individual has an active role in the process. Examples include web
searching and checking social media. The distinctive quality of pulled information that it is received by
the individual at a time of convenience and has the greatest chance of being organized.
Push
Information is ‘pushed’ when the individual has a passive role in the process. Examples include
email, mobile device notifications (App notifications, banners) and text messages. Pushed information is
likely to be received at times of inconvenience and has a low chance of being organized effectively.
Waiting
I think there may be role of ‘waiting’ for data such as information in a learning management
system (LMS), which is routinely created and updated and sits until the consumer has a need to interact
with it. While I am considering a differentiation between data that is pulled versus data that is accessed
routinely I haven’t fully rationalized the distinction yet.
I made a brief effort to describe the data inputs because I don’t believe it is possible to
adequately synthesize or communicate until the information inputs have been organized and I believe
that skills needed to organize the inputs will have to evolve as New Literacies continue to develop.
Consider the following Organization challenges we, as students, have each week.
We need to check HuskyCT and Google Sites for updated content
We may receive email from these systems indicating new content
We receive Google community announcements for a variety of classes
We are provided course content (reading/videos/websites) electronically
We likely have reading in an assigned textbook (that we may or may not have electronically)
We get regular updates (if we are lucky) indicating that our group members are working on a
collaborative document stored (potentially) in Google Docs
We store notes, journal articles and working documents electronically in some location
We (may) store notes in paper form in some location
We collect data from websites and journals for inclusion into coursework.
We collect and manage sources for reference
All of this information needs to be organized in a way that enables the student to make it useful
and available when needed. It’s unlikely this information is stored unmodified, as many articles require
markup or documents require editing, which means that it’s likely there are at least two versions to
manage.
I realize that the idea of adding Organization to the ORCA framework cannot be sufficiently
developed in a short post like this. I have made no effort to discuss any tools/skills to address the little ‘o’
of Organization and have focused solely on the big ‘O’ requirement to improve Organization. I also
assume that the concept of Organization has been discussed at some point by members of the New
Literacies team. However, I firmly believe that the organizational skills required to organize data in an
online electronic format are significantly different than the skills that were necessary in the more
traditional offline (paper based) format and that an instructional focus should be given to ensuring that
skills is developed. It is for that reason I am proposing the idea of the LEOSC model. I would also
welcome the opportunity to discuss this idea in more detail and am very interested in SAM’s thoughts
regarding this.
Drew, S. V. (2012). Open Up the Ceiling on the Common Core State Standards: Preparing Students for 21st-Century Literacy—Now. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 56(4), 321–330. Leu, D. J., Everett-Cacopardo, H., Zawilinski J, L., Mcverry, G., & O’Byrne, W. I. (2012). New Literacies of Online Reading Comprehension. In The Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics. Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Retrieved from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9781405198431.wbeal0865/abstract
Cycle B Individual Post Prompt Length: 1 – 2 pages. Due: Monday, March 2nd, by 5pm Identify some of the challenges that you face when using various instructional models of online comprehension in your school setting, and then suggest some ways that you could support both your students and other teachers to overcome these challenges. If applicable, please comment on changes that may be needed at your school or district level in regards to policy and procedures.
I’ll admit to this being one of the more challenging questions for me so far, across all of the courses. In fact it prompted me to reach out to SAM (turned out to be Clint) ensuring that my efforts to intersect the educational challenges of the classroom with the productivity challenges of the workplace were appropriate. Frankly, I have a lot of notes and I’ll be interested to see how this post develops :)
I recognize that there is real difficulty teaching children/adolescents how to locate, evaluate,
synthesize and communicate and that difficulty is likely compounded by certain teaching methods or
requirements that haven’t evolved to include teaching online reading comprehension skills. However, I
don’t believe that the issue is isolated only to school aged people and I see many of similar LESC
deficiencies (as identified in the ORCA research) in the adults I work with. As I consider the
under-developed online LESC skills in many of my staff (many of whom are not familiar or comfortable
with new literacies) I find myself wondering if a longitudinal study that compares the LESC skills that
these digital native children have now with the LESC skills they develop into adulthood would be useful.
For this post I will discuss the online research, comprehension and collaboration challenges I have
in the workplace and ways I’ve sought to address them. As I’ve considered this I was a surprised (and
slightly pleased) to see certain similarities between our readings suggestions and the approaches I’ve
used.
Challenges:
In I.T. there is often the need to establish a shared, actionable vision, out of an opaque concept or
poorly defined problem. It’s my responsibility to permit staff to develop their ideas in ways they are
comfortable with while also ensuring that the ideas are sufficiently researched and vetted. These two
ideas are often in conflict and to ensure the latter I regularly convene staff into collaborative think-tank
style meetings designed to promote open dialog and and permit a broader sharing of ideas. The structure
of these engagements, as outlined below, is especially important if input is being solicited from a broad
spectrum of staff.
Step 1: Provide a concept
This provides the question people need to research. The concept is usually general, and should
permit people to explore creative ways to solve it. An example of a question would be “How can we
better support the academic mission by providing platform and location independent access to key
academic software applications?”
Step 2: Allow time for Independent Research
It is important to allow staff time to develop their thinking around a topic independently and
using research tools they are comfortable with. There is a clear divide in the ways older staff approach
this than the younger staff. Older staff most often will reach out to vendors or trusted 3rd parties to
discuss what options may exist while younger staff tend to turn to discussion boards or web surfing. I
expect part of this is due to the fact that many younger staff do not have well developed professional
networks, but I am also certain that they also just have greater comfort level in locating and evaluating
the information that exists electronically.
Allowing time for staff to establish topic familiarity, especially with problems that have various
possible solutions, is important if there is to be any expectation of success in the upcoming collaboration
phase.
Step3: Provide a forum for collaborative discussion
This is the most important part of the process, and the most relevant for the question asked in
this discussion post. It is also where most staff are working out of their comfort zone. Step three
provides the opportunity for staff to come together and synthesize the information they have
independently collected. While not exactly in ‘pairs’, these sessions allow ‘new opportunities to
co-construct meaning’ and ‘foster more efficient and productive comprehension of online informational
texts’ (Castek, Coiro, Guzniczak, & Bradshaw, 2012, p. 482). It’s important to provide ample time for these
conversations to develop and to manage these discussions so that they all staff can contribute equally. I
require that all participants come to the meetings with a laptop/iPad. These provide a variety of
functions:
Allows for the real time searching and validation of information presented at during the
discussion.
Allows staff to quickly reference something that is unfamiliar to them. This increases the
safety of the meeting as it reduces the need to ask questions that people may perceive as
basic.
Allows for side channel conversations to occur. All staff have access to, and are
encouraged to use, Microsoft Lync/Google Hangouts during the meetings. This tool
allows for people to discuss ideas with their more trusted peers, vet them in smaller
virtual groups and identify the potential idea support so that they feel more comfortable
presenting them.
Allows for ideas to be contributed/edited in real time and visibly for all participants using
Google Docs. This permits staff to access information visually by reviewing the
document, which supplements in person discussion. It also ensures that information that
may not be familiar to all staff (such as acronyms or vendor names) are memorialized on
screen and can be easily referenced if necessary.
I think it’s important to point out that these devices play a much greater role than ensuring
access to information and the ability to collaborate; they provide a sense of safety which often (not
always) produces greater participation.
While the goal of these meetings is ultimately to identify a solution to a problem they also
provide a variety of other benefits such as promoting a sense of inclusion and allowing higher performing
staff to model behavior and skills to lower performing staff.
Step4: Provide output for public comment
Finally, the output from step 3 is made available for public review and comment. It’s important
for this step to take place because it reinforces to participants that they need to participate sufficiently to
ensure a product they can justify and be proud of.
Conclusion
While most of the reading has been focused on how to develop LESC skills in children/adolescents
I believe it is important to also recognize that many of these same deficiencies exist in adults and that
many of the same strategies will work across both demographics. Establishing opportunities for staff to
develop some base knowledge on their own with the expectation that they will then need to synthesize
that information with their peers has been a successful strategy. However, that strategy has required
considerable effort to ensure that we leverage new literacies effectively and consistently and that we
foster an environment that promotes trust and collegiality to ensure maximum participation.
Jason, you raise a great point that adults, as well as children, may not be skilled in online
reading and research skills. You also provide a very clear outline to begin to address this problem. I
wonder how you might apply some of these ideas to your own work? Very thoughtful and detailed
post that addresses education and the workplace. Nicely done!
Cycle A Individual Post Prompt Length: 1 – 2 pages. Due: Monday, February 9th, by 5pm From our readings and discussions in the launch week the following challenges and opportunities for educators were raised: ‘The regular appearance of new literacies requires additional roles for students and teachers.’
Leu, et. al, 2013 ‘… the word Internet is never used in the Common Core Reading Standards of the US…Because of this, many will ignore instruction in online reading…’
Leu, et. al, 2013 ‘There is a universal understanding that when using computers students are perfectly happy to let someone else help them, or offer to help others, whereas in other learning situations these same students may reject offers to receive or give help.’
EPSY5198 Google Hangout comment 2/3/14 ‘Teachers who are ‘tech savvy’ or see the value of this work right now may bring the work into the classroom where others may not.’
EPSY5198 Google+ comment 2/3/14 Select one (or more) of these statements and explain how it resonates with you as an educator. In your reflection you should refer to the readings and discussions that have formed the launch week of Cycle A. Optional inclusion: You may also like to reflect on your experience of taking an ORCA and the opportunities or challenges such performance-based assessments provide for classroom teachers. Cycle A Post
As I looked at the discussion prompts, and considered which ones I wanted to respond to,
I kept being drawn back to the ORCA and how it reinforced my concerns around technology
integration and its dependence on ‘tech savvy’ teachers. As someone in IT I see, on a daily
basis, the challenges people have levering the technology tools that are available to them. Often
these difficulties are a result of simply not completely understanding the capabilities of a tool
and therefore being unable to reconcile how a technology solves a problem. This results in
frustrations with technology and potentially dampens enthusiasm and adoption. As an example I
would like to mention a recent issue with the 2 summer’s students using SkyBox
(http://skybox.uconn.edu/). The teacher of our research class suggested using skybox for access
to the library. Skybox was presented as a tool that would make access to library resources easier
and so there was an expectation that simply downloading the tool and accessing the desktop
would position them to be able to do the assignment and people were frustrated to discover that it
simply loaded a desktop. Students were unable to map the benefits of the tool to the problem
they had.
I use the skybox example for a reason, I believe it describes an issue identified in Dr.
Leu’s upcoming article (Best Practices in New Literacies and the New Literacies of Online
Research and Comprehension) that even though students are ‘digital natives’ they still lack some
fundamental understandings that will better enable them to leverage technology appropriately,
effectively and efficiently. Making technology, like Skybox, available is only the first step to
making the technology useful and there needs to be a secondary step to show how technology
solves a problem. The 2 summer’s students have the technical expertise to access the
technology, but a lack of understanding of what the technology could be used for resulted in a
high abandon rate.
So, is this a problem the student needs to solve, the teacher or IT? Should IT be expected
to anticipate every use case SkyBox could solve and provide training for it? Should the teacher
be expected to provide details of how SkyBox could assist in the problem assigned? Should the
students simply be expected to understand it because they are ‘digital natives?” Obviously there
is no single correct answer here and I think that each identified role contributes to the successful
adoption of technology. Dr Leu states ‘The regular appearance of new literacies requires
additional roles for students and teachers.’ (Leu, et. al, 2013). When I first read this I interpreted
‘roles’ as ‘responsibilities’ but as I read and thought about this more I began to realize there is
now a shift that requires greater symbiosis between students and teachers. Teachers are expected
to bring technology into the classroom and there is the belief that current students expect
technology to be present and learn more effectively because of it. For this to play out
successfully I think the teachers role will need to allow their students to drive technology choices
and be open to identifying ways to integrate these technologies into the educational experience.
A teacher should use a structured tool like ORCA to provide a core critical skills such as reading
comprehension, source quality and writing while also being open to leveraging more loosely
structured tools like Twitter or Google Apps.
Ultimately I believe there is a shift happening that places greater expectation on students
to be responsible for their own learning because the Internet and its related technologies provide
capabilities to support that now. A teacher needs to be a guide and is responsible for ensuring
the baseline skills related to social behavior, online risks and information synthesis exist while
permitting exploration and learning. Reciprocally students will be required to explore these new
literacies and will need to spend the necessary time to truly understand them, which require a
greater level of personal responsibility.
JASON, THIS IS AN IMPORTANT INSIGHT AND INTERPRETATION. NICE WORK! WHAT YOU DESCRIBE, IS AN ISSUE THAT WE SEE IN MANY CLASSROOMS AROUND THE NATION AS WELL AS IN OTHER COUNTRIES, TOO. VERY PERCEPTIVE! IT WILL CALL FOR NEW ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES. KEEP ON KEEPING ON, BRINGING CHANGE TO CLASSROOM AND TEACHERS! SAM
Introductory Post: Length: 1 – 2 pages double spaced. Due: Monday 2nd February by 5pm Answer before completing the reading: Briefly explain your understanding of ‘new literacies’ and their place in the current educational climate and/or your classroom.
I work in information technology, and can speak to the integration and adoption of new
literacy technologies in that space. I consider new literacies technology updates that enable
people to consume and create information. They can enable the widespread dissemination of
information and allow for large communities of people to come together and collaborate around
ideas.
However, from a work and productivity standpoint I believe that there are challenges in
leveraging these new technologies. Choice overload is one issue we are faced with. The
University offers Google apps for education, will soon offer Microsoft Office 365 and is
unrestrictive regarding other 3rd party communication offerings such as personal G+, Facebook
messaging etc. Users individually have preferences for communicating, writing and posting
which makes it challenging for users to keep in sync and to keep up with all of the places where
they potentially need to get information. Another issue regarding these technologies is feature
changes. Application developers now rely on iterative changes that, hopefully, result in
functionality or usability improvements for their products. Many users, however, value
consistency of experience over features. I’ve experienced resistance to collaborative writing on
Google Apps because people aren’t familiar with the layout, or how to share, or are frustrated by
formatting challenges and resort to sharing a Word document over email. I live in fear, for
example, that Evernote will change their .pdf and Skitch integration (which I find invaluable for
.pdf reading and markup).
A third issue I see is the expectation that information can be made available and that
more of the responsibility to see the information is placed on the receiver.
Finally, there is a new social etiquette surrounding these tools. Lync and Hangouts
provide instant access to people, which can help and hinder productivity. People do not fully
understand the need to clearly communicate their availability and set expectations for
responses.
I think I’ve painted a bleak picture of the new literacies tools while in truth I believe they
represent a positive shift in how we will work, it’s just not how we are working now. While
innovation is great I believe that standardization on a platform is key to increasing adoption and
expertise across the enterprise. At this point many of the people I most regularly work with, on
these platforms, are technology enthusiasts who are willing to spend the time to learn a platform
and experiment with the features that make many of these tools powerful.
Answer after completing the reading: (Leu, Kinzer, Coiro, Castrek, Henry, 2013) Reflect on any ‘takeaway’ messages you have about the changing nature of literacy, instruction, and assessment from your reading of this article and the introductory video.
After reading the “New Literacies: A duallevel theory of the changing nature of literacy,
instruction and Assessment” I found myself thinking about the expectation we place on our
teachers to engage kids within these New Literacies. Teachers will have no choice but to be
open to learning from their students while at the same time scaffolding them in appropriate
usage. There also has to be an expectation that teachers are provided adequate professional
development opportunities (and adequate technology support) to effectively integrate these
tools into the classroom. The language in the Common Core Standards describing the needs
for better integrating technology and research place a responsibility on teachers that I don’t
think we are adequately preparing them for.
It’s easy to assume that young people, because they are growing up with these Net
Literacies, have a grasp on how to appropriately use them. We cannot confuse application
proficiency with social maturity. The technology changes so quickly it’s not an issue of teaching
kids how to use the tools and applications, they will learn that on their own and I think the
teachers will need to become comfortable with the idea that they will need to try and keep up
with their students in this regard. The teacher’s responsibility will lie in teaching their students
the value of thinking before they post, of understanding the different qualities of information they
find on the Internet, the rules around positive interpersonal interactions, risks to privacy.
You will be an important agent for the changes that we all hope to see happen. You have
provided a thoughtful set of responses for the beginning of this journey.
SAM