Week 3-

I did not have to get too far into the reading to start scratching my head.  I may had been reading with the wrong hat on.  I was reading with my mom hate on.  I spend most of my time as mom on the weekends cleaning cuts and chasing around my kids.  I have mentioned before we are technology people and I am tied to my phone... maybe a little bit too much but my kids.  I encourage books and imagination and being outside.  There is plenty of time to "play" on the internet but that can be "tomorrow".  I guess I am allowing my kids to use the technology too much in the fun ways.  The reading really opened my eyes to my lack of encouragement in this area.

First what stuck out on page 3 (Jenkins, 2006) was that about 50% of students use the internet and my feeling is that number is much higher today from 2006.  With my mom hat on all I could think of is cyber-bullying, something in its infancy if at all an issue in 2006.  While this is not literacy it impedes it. Bullying at school makes kids withdraw and not participate in school.  Today we have things like facebook and instagram and twitter and myyearbook... Since most parents are not as tech savvy as their children, it is easy for things to get out of hand. It is why I feel teaching things like safety with the new literacy such as the internet need to be taught in school, as well as to the parents.  A child who shares too much can find themselves in trouble or being bullied by classmates.  This will greatly impact the student's ability to participate in learning as well as continue to be comfortable with the new media and literacy.

The problems with the internet were not something I was surprised by but I get students regularly telling me they are using a primary source in wikipedia but I really did enjoy reading all of the positive examples even if there were some hiccups with the way things were being done.  Such as the Hogwarts paper on page 5 (Jenkins, 2006).

I also feel the participation gap is less of an issue.  While there are still people without internet at home, there are many places you can get "free" internet.

Overall I enjoyed the reading and video.  I would also be interested to see some of the statistics to be updated from 2006 and see if as a nation we are still around the same as 2006 or it has grown.  My experience here in the Capital District of NY, the participation gap is not as big as it once was and more then 50% of teenagers are on media and sharing on sites.  The growth I believe is part of what we need to consider on how to take our next steps.  Ethically whose responsibility is it to help teach the children things like internet safety?  I take this as my responsibility as a tech savvy parent but I have friends who are not nearly as tech savvy.  If we do not work at this as a team I believe the participation gap will never get better.

Jenkins, H.J. (2006)., Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century. http://digitallearning.macfound.org/atf/cf/%7B7E45C7E0-A3E0-4B89-AC9C-E807E1B0AE4E%7D/JENKINS_WHITE_PAPER.PDF

Literacy Debate

I want to start this blog off saying I am for balance in all things, including reading and technology.  With that said, I found reading this article slightly ironic.  I mean I am taking an on-line course in what can be a fully on-line program and reading this article on my iPad.  In fact this will be my third on-line degree so maybe I am skewed on this and the fact that I work and teach at a fully on-line school adds to that bias but I found this article interesting.

First I want to look at the data, I am old enough (as many of us are) to remember when AOL and Prodigy were the first and only online options which were not available to everyone.  I remember quite clearly my 7th grade Spanish teacher being interviewed because she was an early internet adopter and that was in 1990 or 1991.  So I feel comparing internet use in 1999 when the technology was still emerging as a day to day use to 2004 when it had become fully integrated into homes and schools might be a poor comparison.  1999 was when high speed internet was first just starting come on the market and by 2004 many teachers were putting their homework and extra help online for students.  So I believe that increase in use would be expected.  I personally would be more interested to see what the changes of use was between 2004 and 2009.

Now onto the actual debate... Maybe I am looking at it differently because I am not teaching but guiding my children as students.  I absolutely think the US is behind on testing in the digital literacy area.  We test everything and are doing it younger and younger but feel there is no need to test digital literacy but then we expect our students to research topics on the internet and we are surprised they cannot tell the difference between a good source and a poor source well of course not.  We are expecting them to teach themselves and let's be honest us parents while have gotten on board have not had technology integrated in our education.  We are learning too!  Our children who will leave K-12 and go to college and be fully independent on their learning outside of the classroom will not have the skills they need.  I see a HUGE hole in this area!

Reading books, articles, fan fiction, no matter the source is reading but each one has a purpose.  My daughter as I have said already has learning disabilities which include dyslexia.  I cannot get her to read daily with a book because it is overwhelming.  Sometimes I will read with or to her so she can work on her comprehension but that is not how her testing will go.  She will need to develop the ability to decode on her own and I for one encourage using technology as do her teachers.  Because I for one know it is just a matter of finding the right topic to hook kids on reading books.  So if she can get a lot of bits of information on a lot of topics through the internet, I say go for it!  She will eventually find one that allows her imagination to go and she will look and crave more information and that will lead to books.  Not everyone wants to read the classics.  Not every kid will buy a Shakespeare collection like I did and that is completely okay as long as we encourage learning and help children learn to love learning.  The world today is very different when it comes to technology but it appears the education has not changed much.  We are doing the same things but will some times do it through technology.  Instead of flash cards for math facts we might use an app but we are still doing the same work.  When children graduate they need to know how to use a computer and how to find information online daily.

Literacy and learning

When I am reading, I find myself in a world other then my own.  I get so focused and forget where I am that it can sometimes be a bad thing.  My approach to literacy has been defined through my struggles in my academics.  It does not matter what I am reading, I am guaranteed to have to read everything a few times.  With light reading, usually I just start to lose my place on pages when I am tired but cannot put the book down.  When I am reading with more substance, I need to read and re-read.  I typically read with an internet connection just in case I cannot figure out what something is.  While this is not something I share very often, it has become a very important part of who I am.  As a good student, people assume I just get it and it does not take work but the truth is my grades are always from hard work.  As a mother with a child with learning disabilities (ADHD and Dyslexia) my struggles have become a way to help my daughter.  I am able to see better ways to do things and of course different ways to look at things.

I am a huge fan of technology in learning.  I am a kinesthetic learner and followed by audio.  So just reading print makes me struggle.  My daughter has the same issue and both of us find that using audio while reading it greatly increases our comprehension.  While reading, I actually start reading to myself.  Literacy is essential but I believe in classrooms the traditional eyes on paper will soon be no longer.  Not everyone learns that way and to allow students to be successful and become prepared for college, I believe flexibility and allow students to learn the way they need to will be imperative.  The unfortunate part of the common core, it appears to me the parent that we are removing that individualized learning that is really needed for success.  I believe in letting the teachers teach!

Introduction

I have always been interested in starting a blog.  This will be s great way to start! I am a tech nerd but am not quick to change what I know. I am very familiar with many social media sites and even for a research paper I once looked at the impact of technology in the classroom. However moodlerooms seems to be giving me a bit of a run for my money.

As a mom of two young kids, I figure I need to learn this stuff to keep ahead of them to keep an eye on their cyber foot print.

I am looking forward to this course and even more excited now that I know I can use my new iPad while I travel for work to keep up on school work!