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.
I also enjoyed reading about the conflicting opinions and views on digital literacy. I always feel very happy when I see young people reading a paperback or hardcover book instead of on an iPad or tablet. I believe in the value of technology and I would be lost without it, but reading and writing are valuable communication skills that I personally learned through hands on text and face-to-face conversations with my peers and relatives. Literacy is going to look different as time changes and new opportunities emerge. As educators, we need to recognize the value of literacy in any form and help our students to become successful.
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing!
Sam Branion
I think that's one of the key points that I agreed with, to: "recognize the value of literacy in any form and help our students to become successful."
DeleteI agree with your reasoning, and also lie somewhere in the middle between old and new literacies. The internet is a great way to access stories and information, in many ways faster and easier than ever before. These days, you can simply pick up your phone and gain access to almost any work of literature in the world! Yet I believe that choosing the web over traditional print entirely is a mistake. Starting down that path could undermine or diminish a factor of learning that every student needs: an organic, personal, engaging interaction between teachers and pupils, between books and readers. As a teacher myself, I aim to use the internet as merely one tool in the bigger goal of furthering curriculum, opening students to the many opportunities available to gain real knowledge along with print and hands-on experience.
ReplyDeleteYes to using the internet as ONE tool in our bag of trick!
DeleteI found your response interesting. Literacy has changed over the years, moving from printing and publishing technologies to digital and new media. Your point about teaching students to be critically literate is important. Gillen and Barton (2010) write “The distinctive contribution to 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” (p. 9)
ReplyDeleteYour point is true that we need to adapt to our students’ needs. We need to evolve with the changes that are happening with technology and its contributions to literacy. But that does not mean we need to abandon using more traditional modes of literacy. We do not need to treat digital literacies and traditional literacies as separate entities from one another. When we view them as working in conjunction with one another, it places value on the contribution to each. Gillen and Barton (2010) claim that “digital literacies are not independent of other literacies, there is a relationship between traditional literacy.” (p.16)
Gillen, J. and Barton, D. (2010). Digital literacies: A research briefing by the Technology Enhanced Learning phase of the Teaching and Learning Research Program.