New Media and New Literacies Journal

 Journal Entry 2: Online: R U Really Reading I found the article, R U Really Reading, to be pretty interesting in how it discussed digital literacy-both the benefits and pitfalls. I kind of come down in the middle of the debate: digital literacy is important and teaching students to be critically literate in this medium is vital to their success in and out of school. But also, more traditional forms of literacy, like books, are also still quite vital to how well students learn and grow.  People are storytellers, we have been since we sat around fires way before books existed, but how we tell stories has evolved, and continues to evolve with the advent of the internet and how much our technology improves more and more.   We as educators need to adapt to what our students' needs will be, but also not forget what has worked in the past and is important for their overall growth as students and people.

  Journal 1:               In my art classroom I like to think that I provide a variety of opportunities for students to explore different types of literacies. I have a bookshelf that is alway open to every grade level as a choice when they are done early, along with finger puppets that "like to be read to." With several grade levels we write short stories that we then illustrate, or we write down our thoughts about artwork and share it verbally with one another. I am definitely aware that literacy doesn’t just mean reading and writing on paper anymore, Huffaker (2005) “Technology has added a new type of literacy to consider.” though I don’t believe that I provide as much opportunity for students to explore their digital fluency as I could.  Oftentimes with my younger students we will read a story out loud together, looking at the pictures and discussing the story. We then use this story as a starting point for an art project; focu...