With the development of technology and society, students can now access information in various forms, such as video, animation, audio, text, and data. For example, they can easily be globally connected by a few clicks on electronic equipment. The reading of this week mainly talked about digital literacy, including the main characteristic of digital literacy, digital literacy pluralism, the new literacy classroom and so forth.
I was informed that digital literacy aims at providing resources for learners, teachers, and other stakeholders to become better equipped in today’s digital world. Manderino Castek (2016) suggested that, “Skilled Internet use and global networking unleash vast potential and a multitude of real-world contexts for learners to engage in the world as critical and agentive citizens”. Indeed, digital literacies are the capabilities that fit someone for their living, learning and working in a digital society. Learning in the 21st century marks an easier access to multiple forms of text, a rich variety of representations and knowledge structures, and various forms of online communication to organize, collaborate and express ideas.
In addition, I was deeply impressed by the example of Tanaka Nanako in Lankshear’s article. It shows how engaging in fanfiction writing among peers can contribute to young people becoming accomplished narrative writers and I also think this is a good example of digital literacy practice. There is no doubt that, participating in digital literacy practices provides opportunities for students gaining situated rather than merely verbal meanings for concepts, processes, and functions. Therefore, I think educators need to encourage students to do more digital literacy practices in order to build their capacity to access online resources, extract the information and in turn, synthesize what they gather, and communicate solutions.
In China, schools are continuously updating curricula to keep up with accelerating technological developments. This often includes the use of educational software of curricula teaching, the available online course materials and the smart-boards using in replacement of traditional chalkboards. Digital technology has impacted the way material is taught in the classroom and digital literacy also has a tremendous impact on the way of teaching. Digital is both a source of information and communication that has increased exponentially internationally. Subsequently, integrating digital into the classroom is a highly constructive way that could expose students to a range of literacy practices in order to broaden their outlook and widens vistas of information and knowledge. With the development of digital literacy, educators enhance traditional forms of learning with digital literacy through different platforms, and this helps shape students’ understanding of the social and intellectual practices used within different disciplines.
Nowadays, students have more ways of learning about the world and more ways of expressing themselves through technology. I would highly agree that digital literacy would occur in all subject areas. As educators, it is increasingly important for us to be able to create a new literacy classroom that is suited to our own disciplinary. Establishing the benefits of adopting an expansive view of digital literacies may have a significant impact on educational learning. Thus, I think the teacher for a new literacy would be one that honors all forms of representation rather than merely uses an unchanging method of teaching. We need to encourage students reading and writing in multiple media on a daily basis so that they will form the cognitive pluralism.
All in all, as a pedagogical approach in curriculum design, the implementation of digital literacy affords far-reaching advantages. Digital literacy believes in supporting instructional technologists in school to facilitate digital and media literacy instruction for students and all teachers. I think the reading of this week is quite enlightening for me as a teacher in the future.
Thank you for your post,
ReplyDeleteI agree that teaching digital literacy is important. Today, we live in an age of technology where the internet offers more information than anyone will ever be able to consume. This places an impetus upon teaching students how to interact with this new digital world. I think that, in the history discipline, this is where the skill of sourcing and corroboration becomes increasingly important. While the internet does provide a seemingly infinite amount of information, it also makes it easier for "fake news" to spread. Sourcing becomes important in identifying the author and the biases that they may have that can affect the information or account that they present, and corroboration is important in obtaining an objective and more meaningful account of what one learns about (an event presented by multiple news outlets, for example). I believe these are two skills that are very important in interacting with the Internet, and should definitely be taught to students in history classrooms. Other skills in terms of digital literacies should be taught in all other disciplines as well.
With a focus on teaching digital literacy, students are not truly on their own. It is essential that the teacher provides structure instruction to guide students. For research students are told use reliable and relevant resources. A great way to model this inquiry based learning is allow for mini-research opportunities with guided research resources provided. In my classroom I use the CRAP test (Currency, Reliability, Authority and Purpose/Point of View) to teacher students about reliable sources.
DeleteWith digital literacy, it is not simply having students aimlessly scour the internet, but scaffolding and model strategies for best practice.
Thank you for your reply. Your opinion reminds me that I think teachers should not only apply digital literacy to the classroom, but also should make effort to avoid students being influenced by "fake news".
DeletePatrick, it really resonated with me with you said that a teacher should embrace all forms of literacy and not stick to one way of teaching. We've been reading and learning about the benefits of digital literacy and in combination of a digital world where technology continues to grow, as teachers, I don't think we can refuse to learn how to incorporate it into the classroom. So many of these students are growing up using computers and technology and so we need to keep up with it and find out how we can best utilize it in our classrooms. I think a teacher who doesn't want to expand their teaching to incorporate new digital methods and literacies is one who is not only limiting themselves, but also their students.
ReplyDeleteI really appreciated that you said, "digital is both a source of information and communication that has increased exponentially internationally". It makes me think back to the years when I was in high school without any digital equipment, teachers tried to do everything by handwriting. You could imagine how much the teachers could teach and how far the students could go at that time. Since digital literacy was introduced, it opens the door to digital learning and teaching without national boundary.
ReplyDeleteYes,I agree. Decades ago teachers had limited means of teaching and students had limited resources, but nowadays digital literacy enables students to learn in a more efficient way.
DeleteThanks for your post, Wangeng. I totally agree with you that teachers should create a digital classroom based on our own discipline. I think that the traditional way to teach in China is time to have some changes. I prefer that we can do something in the future in our classrooms as English teachers. I think that whatever we plan to teach and show in the classroom should consider the discipline of student first. Your post help me thought about things that I never thought before.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your reply, Na. I agree with you that the Chinese tradition education should change to some extent. As teachers, we should make effective use of digital literacy to enrich our classroom content, instead of teaching knowledge in a boring way.
DeleteHi thank you for posting this week. I think the use of digital literacy in classrooms is important. This is for a handful of reasons. First, digital literacy is of immensely growing importance in the working world. As much as teachers would like to stick to more traditional ways of educating, the influence of modern technology is unavoidable and it is responsible for educators to better prepare students for that reality. Furthermore, technology provides students with a significant handful of resources that would not exist. The inclusion of digital literacy is important because it does connect students with a handful of helpful alternatives.
ReplyDeleteHi,
ReplyDeleteI believe that the use of digital literacy in the classroom has many benefits. As you mention in your post, it is important to create new literacy that is suited to our own disciplinary. Many science disciplines have been positively impacted by the advancement of technology. As a future science teacher, it would be hard for me not to include this type of literacy in my classroom.
Patrick,
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree with your post. With the current technological advancements, we are able to portray concepts through multiple representations with technology. In the class that I am currently observing, students are given a math assignment that it completed on chrome books (in which the school gave to them). They work on Pearson, khan academy, and many different sites that are available. It’s really beneficial for teachers because there is multiple representations: graphing tools, additional examples, videos, etc. There is also another teacher that focuses on email etiquette (mind you, these students are in 7th and 8th grade, I sure don’t remember using emails at that age). By incorporating this in the classroom at an early age, it prepares students for their future classrooms and their future careers!
Thank you for your reply. I agree that the multiple representations are vitally important to students' current study and future career.
DeleteThank you for the thoughtful post. I also was impressed with fanfiction writers going on to be professional writers. It is important for people to see all the alternative ways that people learn and grow so that we don't discourage something that otherwise would have been beneficial. I got into reading books because of a card game, Magic The Gathering. They had created novels in the world of the game and were offering free cards along with the book! A silly thing in retrospect, but it had a huge positive impact on me.
ReplyDeleteYes, in general, students will do better in disciplinary or field which they are interested in. I think interest is the best teacher, and as educators, we should encourage students do more digital literacy according to their interests.
DeleteI agree with what you say. We have so many ways to take technology and create multiple representations and texts that our students would explore and learn from. Not just through the normal sites that schools use like Pearson's Mastering websites, but also through teacher created websites and documents that could take information that is universal and available to all teachers and making it our own. We have the opportunity to take lectures and personalize them in ways that no one else has done because of the freedom we get from having readily available materials to teach at a moments notice. It allows our teaching to be dynamic and always adjusting to the needs of the students and it also gives the teachers access to different ways of reaching the students that have distanced themselves or feel like they have low efficacy.
ReplyDeleteI would like to try and find some argument regarding the idea of online interaction to this good read but I would be a hypocrite to that subject because here you see me making a comment online to your post regarding a reading that we all had to read online from either our on laptop or a computer that we may have convenient access. I have seen students use laptops as a means to work on an in-class assignment and I have also seen some students with disabilities use laptops but for a longer period of time than those in regular ed. because they had a difficulty with learning in the classroom.
ReplyDeleteHi, Wangeng. I think that fanfiction writing is interesting because this original fiction set an example for students and the fanfiction writing trigger their creativity. Science the advent of technology we have to not only apply digital literacy into our discipline. More importantly, we teacher have to make sure the accuracy of the information from the internet.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely. As teachers, we should apply digital literacy into our own discipline. We should encourage students to do more practices, as well as to make sure the accuracy of the information from the internet, so that students could get positive development.
DeleteWhen I was first reading these articles, I didn't really think that computer science would fall under a digital literacy category. However, often in high school computer science classes, students are asked to design their own website. More than that, there are basic understandings about computers and digital media, that is needed to be able to create programs. As it is slowly becoming a graduation requirement, students must understand and be able to manipulate their computer in many ways. Furthermore, this form of digital literacy, teaches students a new logic and is even seen as its own language entirely. Your writings have made me see that teaching programming is an important part to digital literacy. Understanding how and why websites (among many other things in computers) work the way they do is important to understanding how to navigate and interpret them, allowing them to be used the way these readings all hope for. -Kiley
ReplyDelete