Week 12 Journal Post

                        I found the game 3^rd World Farmer on the website, gamesforchange.org.  This game challenges you to head a farming family of four in an undisclosed third world nation.  In the game you have a minimal budget and must make tough decisions regarding family health, education, and spending money on crops and livestock to produce food / profit.

                        After playing the game for a few rounds you realize it’s hopeless to send your children to school, or to care for them or yourself and spouse when illness arises.  The only chance at survival in the game is to dedicate your finances to low-risk crops like corn and wheat, and then hope that environmental, economic, or political disaster doesn’t strike—and it almost always does.

                        When you run out of money—that’s a guarantee as well—you’re tempted with really tragic offers like sending your children to work in the city knowing that you’ll never see them again, accepting bribes from companies to dump hazardous chemicals on your property, and mocking your own culture for tourists.

                        Succeeding in this game is hopeless, and that’s the point.  After playing this game, it’s difficult to not think seriously about the lives lived by those residing in third world nations.  The website for the game offers links to organizations that assist those living the conditions represented in the simulation.

                        I think this is an incredible game.  In spite of its somber content, it’s fun, simple to play, and challenges the gamer to engage in social change.  The gamesforchange.org website has awesome socially conscious games that I look forward to incorporating into my classroom.  If you haven’t checked the site out yet, it’s worth a visit!

References

3rd World Farmer: A simulation to make you think. (n.d.). Retrieved December 3, 2015, from http://3rdworldfarmer.com/

Games for Change. (n.d.). Retrieved December 3, 2015, from http://www.gamesforchange.org/

Week 10 Journal Post

Interview Summary

For this assignment I interviewed my 11-year-old niece who has just entered the sixth grade, and lives in a middle class suburban town in Rhode Island.  Because I live in NYC, we conducted the interview over the phone.  We were actually going to use Skype, but I couldn’t get the software working on my computer.

            I began the interview by asking her to define technology.  She defined technology as,  "a way that people use things to keep in touch, or to keep yourself entertained.”  I then asked her about her internet use and she informed me that she uses the internet for about an hour a day on the weekends, and 10 minutes a day during the week.  At school she estimates that she uses computers for two hours a day.  She listed her favorite websites as Youtube.com to watch videos, and Hoodamath.com to help her with math, an area she struggles in.

            Regarding Facebook and Instagram, she said that she doesn’t use them because her mom doesn’t allow her to, mainly because she doesn’t like the negative things that people can say and show on social media.  She does, however, text her friends using her phone and iPad.  She says she’ll text them briefly to say goodnight, or to ask about homework assignments.

            She informed me that at home she uses a computer, cell phone, iPad, video camera, television, and shares an iPod with her brother, but doesn’t use it that much.  Her favorite electronic device is her video camera.  While in elementary school, the librarian taught her how to make and edit films, and she’s become quite passionate about this hobby.  She now produces her own videos, helps the librarian at her elementary school teach younger students how to make videos, and co-edited a film about bullying for the town that will be appearing online in the next few weeks.

            I asked her if she could remember the last time she went a day without using the internet and she said on the previous day she watched her brother’s hockey game, went shopping, played soccer, made one phone call, and watched a movie, but did not use the internet.

            She informed me that she reads 20 minutes a night, and the books must be print, and not digital because that hurts her eyes.  I also asked her preference between a day outside and a day online, and she chose a day outside.

            Finally I asked her how she might help a classmate who wanted to spend less time online.  She said she would advise her to find a hobby that would allow her to meet people in person in order to make friends that she could then spend time with.

Interview Reflection

            I had a great time interviewing my niece, and I this experience confirmed my belief that adolescents can and should be included in conversations regarding technology.  From this interview I would conclude that my niece is a young adult that has a healthy balance of both the digital and non-digital worlds in her life.  I would, however, argue that this balance is due to external factors of social class, parenting, and environment.  My niece is using technology to create (filmmaking), rather than consume.  This hobby developed because she was in a public school with the resources to teach that skill, and because her parents were able to afford the equipment that allowed the hobby to develop outside of school.  My niece also values playing outside, and that’s because she has parents that have engaged her in physical and social activities at a young age.  Her Internet usage is monitored at home, and once again, this is the result of parenting that has considered both the pros and cons of new technologies.

            This interview indicates efforts on behalf of the home, the community, and the school to ensure adolescents are navigating new technologies in a safe and beneficial way.

Week 8 Journal

            For my final paper I plan on using research to show how new media and new literacies can help to create a physical classroom space that discourages traditional banking pedagogy, and encourages problem-posing pedagogy. 

            I will frame this research around the philosophy of Paulo Freire.  According to Freire (2012):

Those truly committed to liberation must reject the banking concept [of education] in its entirety, adopting instead a concept of women and men as conscious beings, and consciousness as consciousness intent upon the world.  They must abandon the educational goal of deposit-making and replace it with the posing of the problems of human beings in their relations with the world. (p. 89)

A recurring theme in our discussions and readings for this course is the notion that if utilized correctly, new media and new literacies can be powerful and effective tools for students..  My goal as an educator is to equip students with the skills to recognize and alleviate the problems that exist in society.  I believe problem-posing education can only occur in non-traditional class settings.  Social media, Google Docs, Blogs, and other forms of technology require a student-centered classroom in which the teacher is no longer the expert, but instead a facilitator of discourse.  The goal of my research will be to find examples of technology use in the classroom that have empowered students to become active, rather than passive learners in confronting problems relevant to their lives.

Annotated Bibliography

Freire, P. (2012). The promise of cultural studies of education. In Noel, J. (Ed.) Multicultural education, Third Edition. (pp. 88-90). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

            Freire’s problem posing approach to education will serve as the theoretical framework for my essay.  Freire writes, “students, as they are increasingly posed with problems relating to themselves in the world and with the world, will feel increasingly challenged and obliged to respond to that challenge.”  The essay will provide examples of how technology can be used to empower students to actively confront problems relevant to their lives and their worlds.

Gustavson, L. (2013). Influencing Pedagogy through the Creative Practices of Youth. In Lankshear, C., & Knobel, M. (Eds.) A New Literacies Reader. (pp. 101-122). New York, NY: Peter Lang.

            This article has been my favorite reading assignment for class because I believe Gustavson demonstrates how students can thrive when not restricted by traditional classroom environments.  Reflecting on his observations of one urban youth, Gustavson proposes a classroom space that encourages varied performances, supports individual student work methods, and offers opportunities for side by side teacher and student creativity.  This type of classroom leaves no room for banking and empowers educators to, “transform the classroom into a space where the multisited nature of the ways in which everyone makes meaning is embraced and put to work” (p. 121).

Roberts, S. (2013). The “Chalk Talk” 2.0: Using Google Docs to Improve the Silent Discussion in Social Studies. The Social Studies, 104, 130-136.

            In this article, a social studies teacher uses Google Docs to replace a traditional “Silent Discussion” classroom activity.  A silent discussion is when students conduct a conversation solely on a space for writing (chalkboard, whiteboard, smartboard, or piece of paper passed around the room).  This is a great activity that I’ve used in class, and the primary limitation is wait time for students and space limitations for writing.  By using Google Docs as the space for the silent discussion, wait time and space issues were eliminated, however, new limitations did arise.  For example, Google Docs was unable to handle numerous students typing at once, and students were unsure of who was writing what.  I will use this article as an example of how Google Docs shifted the classroom space into the digital realm, and provide my own suggestions of how this activity could be enhanced.

Suwantarathip, 0., & Wichadee, S. (2014). The Effects of Collaborative Writing Activity Using Google Docs on Students’ Writing Abilities. The Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology, 13(2), 148-156.

           

This study was conducted with freshman students at a private university in Thailand.  In the study, the students were divided into two groups.  One group was given collaborative writing assignments to be completed together in class.  The other group was given collaborative writing assignments that were to be completed outside of class using Google Docs.  The study showed that the Google Docs group performed better than the in class group, and also had more positive experiences about the collaborative process.  I will use this article to demonstrate how Google Docs can enhance students’ collaboration and writing skills, and extend the classroom beyond the physical space.

Vasudevan, L., Dejaynes, T., & Schmier, S. (2013). Multimodal Pedagogies: Playing, Teaching and Learning with Adolescents’ Digital Literacies. In Lankshear, C., & Knobel, M. (Eds.) A New Literacies Reader. (pp. 23-37). New York, NY: Peter Lang.

           

We read this article for class and it actually initiated my thinking around technology altering the physical space of the classroom.  This article contains three case studies, but for the purposes of my research, I will focus on the first case study about a journalism class in an urban middle school.  In this study, the altered space of the classroom (computers circled around a conference desk) and communal work, rather than a top-down learning environment, empowered students to develop community and confront social justice issues relevant to their lives.

Week 3 Journal Post

            This week I read about multimodal pedagogies and remixing.  For this blog post, I’m going to discuss multimodal pedagogies.  According to Vasudevan, Dejaynes, and Schmier (2013), multimodal composing, “refers to more than bringing together separate modes of expression, such as sound or image, in the production of a text” (p. 24).  In addition to the juxtaposition of modes of expression, multimodal composing also includes the various tools required to merge those modes, as well as the physical spaces in which the composing occurs (pp. 24-25).

            My favorite example of multimodal composing appears in the description of Mr. Cardenas’ New Media Journalism classroom (Vasudevan, Dejaynes, & Schmier 2013, p. 26).  The class reconstructs the learning environment and turns it into a workspace consisting of a conference table and thirty-five Emac computers.  Working as reporters, the students utilize various forms of media (cameras, audio recording, .pdf files, podcasts) in order to bring their learning experiences into their own realities.  This environment allows the students to engage in and create community: “Rosy was one such student whose podcast documented the exceptional artwork of a student at the school” (p. 27).  It also allows the students to engage in forms of social action: “The space allowed her [a student] to critique the circumstances in her school, and design a multimodal text, which articulated what she saw as a grave injustice [referring to a lack of experienced teachers” (p. 28).

            From my experience with urban youth, many students still view the classroom as a boring space disconnected from their own worlds.  I do believe that utilizing media in the classroom, and reconstructing the space itself, are two ways to alter this perception.  The students described in this journalism class were genuinely engaged in learning, and were developing skills that will certainly be applicable to the 21^st century.

            The reading inspired me to rethink a project I’ll be implementing in my classroom.  This year I’m teaching a course for incoming students that allows them to engage with the mission of our school.  One aspect of the course involves having them investigate aspects of a culture that they identify with.  I’ve decided to have them create a cultural blog that utilizes multimodal composing and teaches some basic literacy skills (creating the blog, creating links, inserting images).  I’m looking forward to this, and I always try to incorporate technology (right now the students are editing personal narratives in Google docs), however, I know I will face serious obstacles in implementing the project.  Wi-Fi has been inconsistent throughout the school year, and my laptop cart has yet to have its software updated.  I also casually explained to a few students what we would be doing next, and many had no clue what a blog was.  Thus, I’ll face two realities that I know many teachers in urban settings can relate to: inconsistent—if not lack of—technology, and extremely low levels of digital literacy.  However, if the school Wi-Fi is down, it may be the perfect opportunity to have students get into their phones and bring their own technology across school borders. 

Works Cited

Vasudevan, L., Dejaynes, T., & Schmier, S. (2013). Multimodal Pedagogies: Playing, Teaching and Learning with Adolescents’ Digital Literacies. In Lankshear, C., & Knobel, M. (Eds.) A New Literacies Reader. (pp. 23-37). New York, NY: Peter Lang.

Week 2 Journal Post

            I had fun reading Rich’s article and writing this essay.  I start my essay by evaluating the traditional definition of literacy—“the ability to read and write,” and updating it to, “the ability to read and write in both digital and non-digital environments.”  I arrive at this definition by concluding that the major function of literacy is to provide individuals with the tools they need to be autonomous and fulfilled members of society.  Considering this, I propose the argument that one cannot survive in the modern Western world without digital skills, thus a digital component must be added to the standard definition of literacy.

            I also argue in my essay that that new media (and all technology in general) should not be debated in good / bad format, but rather analyzed in terms of its advantages and disadvantages for society.  Using Rich’s article I look at the positive and negative attributes of new media and how it affects learners.  As Rich indicates, there are certainly both good and bad qualities of new media.  One favorite benefit of new media that I discuss is the discourse it allows for on a global scale (students interacting with students from other parts of the world).  One negative consequence of new media that I address is the vast amounts of false historical, scientific, and logical information available to students, and how they have difficulty determining content validity. 

            I conclude the essay by arguing that new media is neither a curse, nor a cure, and should be considered as a tool that we must teach our students how to use, rather than be used by.  I write that we should apply as much weight to digital media as we do (or should) to reading, physical exercise, the arts, nature, social interaction, and sustained introspection.  I also argue that we should include our students in the very debate that Rich engages us in, because their opinions on this topic matter, and if we include them in this conversation, they be more likely to develop the critical awareness they need to navigate new media.

Week One Journal Post

When I read the following quote,

"The distinctive contribution of 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.” (Gillen and Barton, 2010, p. 9)

I immediately focus on the word “social” and think of my responsibility as an educator to equip my students with the skills necessary to become active participants in their local and global communities.  For the past five years, I’ve dedicated my professional life to teaching ELA to marginalized students in Brooklyn, NY, and my specific goal for those students has been to equip them with the literacy skills necessary to actively engage in and alter the social disparities that affect their daily lives.  There is no denying that for one to actively engage in society in the twenty-first century requires a myriad of competencies within the digital realm, and thus literacy for me has extended far beyond a student’s ability to read and write.

            According to Gillen and Barton, “digital literacies are firstly about critical thinking” (p. 24).  I agree, and believe that education in general is firstly about critical thinking.  I think that in order for students to engage in society they must think critically about it.  For me, this begins with a critical analysis of digital media itself.  For example, many of my students use social media, but few have engaged in critical thought about how it can be used to achieve negative (advertising to promote needless consumerism ) or positive (creating awareness around issues of social justice) results.

            Durrant and Green (2000) write, “preferably, ‘doing school’ is always linked to and in the service of ‘real-life’ and ‘life-like’ social practices” (p. 13).  I agree and again feel that it is impossible to deny a ‘real-life’ that does not involve digital literacies.  As the three articles I read all imply, digital literacies are important, but they all still rely heavily on an individual’s ability to read and write Standard Academic English.  For example, all of us in this course must know how to navigate blogs, modules, document attachments, etc., but if we posted grammatically incorrect sentences, or responded to each other with emoticons or “texting language,” we would fail the course.  This necessity to master traditional literacies and digital literacies adds to the disparity that exists within our current society, and adds to the already existing challenge that marginalized populations face in “keeping up” with the dominant culture.  If there is a belief that all youth are engaged in advanced digital literacies, then it is a false one.  For example, my niece is in fourth grade and is creating and editing her own films.  Conversely, while she’s producing short films, I’m teaching eighteen year old students how to attach files to their emails.

            I think digital literacies are crucial for educators in the twenty-first century and mastery of them is crucial for a student’s ability to participate in and challenge society.  Just as there is a disparity in our society regarding adolescent’s traditional literacies, I’ve observed that there is also one regarding digital literacies, and therefore look forward to learning strategies in this course that I can utilize to provide my students with the opportunities they need for success.

  

Works Cited

Durrant, C. & Green, B. (2000). Literacy and the new technologies in school education: Meeting the l(IT)eracy challenge? Australian Journal of Language and Literacy. Retrieved from http://www.thefreelibrary.com/literacy+and+the+new+technologies+in+school+education%3a+meeting+the...-a063132991

Gillen, J., & Barton, D. (2010) Digital literacies: A research briefing by the Technology Enhanced Learning phase of the Teaching and Learning Research Programme. Technology Enhanced Learning. Retrieved from http://www.tlrp.org/docs/DigitalLiteracies.pdf