As for using new technology, I totally agree that I will NEVER be as adept as my students at any of it. I honestly don't have the time or interest to personally involve myself - immerse myself - in it. BUT I really do want to use it - to learn about it - not master it - and to create ways that it's use can be celebrated in my classrooms to teach to a valuable objective for my content. That may sound like BS - but I do mean it. I have learned so much over the last couple years. And I'm excited to learn more - to try more - and to ask questions of anyone - including students - who can answer them.
As for cell phones, I recently turned down the opportunity to pay extra for internet access for my cell phone. Because of the extra expense, and because I knew I could do without it, I didn't get it. But I really thought seriously about attending a seminar on Oct 15 based on how to help students use their cell phones in the classroom - to use them as a teaching tool. It's sounds so cool. On the other hand, I gave two infractions in two days for kids having their cell phones out...BUT...what can I say...they weren't using them for classroom purposes - they weren't engaged in the lesson - they were texting or receiving texts - it's hard not to be annoyed...makes me wonder how using them would NOT open up the ease of abusing them.
I'm most curious about podcasts...are the video and audio or just audio? And I'm curious how to use my blog for my students, with my students, so that it has a purpose.
I love what Prensky suggests about using Wikipedia as a tool to teach effective writing, purposeful communication, good journalism - to demonstrate the difference between "search versus research."
As for the second article, "Why Bother Theorizing Adolescents' Online Literacies.." I enjoyed it, but found it a little harder to sink my teeth into. I think of literacy as reading and writing with a pencil and using words - to tell a story, write a poem, write a song, write reflection, evaluate a show, etc. I believe the author thinks that today's teachers undervalue their students' "online" literacy abilities because perhaps we teachers don't understand or acknowledge them in anyway. Interestingly, I had a student just last week tell me she writes "fanfiction" and I had no idea what she was talking about. Now I totally want to go on line and read it and see what it looks like. I got lost in the article when Alvermann was talking about avitars and second life - because I didn't understand what the player has to do to use "literacy" to move in that virtual world. Is online literacy a series of action steps? Or actual writing of text?
I feel a little slow on the draw here. The articles seem to be saying that we need to pay more attention to on line internet technology - to support and encourage the use and creativity needed to perform in multimodal ways with our students. But they seemed to be talking about totally different perspectives - to me. The four examples from Prensky - how and why to have students use Wikipedia, podcasting, instant messaging and phone-based cameras, seemed to me to be saying something different from the advancements of technology than the Alvermann article discussed brings up - the need for us to take seriously the implications of communicating through images, sounds and digital media as specifically a literacy tool with our students.
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