So I was reading out the description for the New Literacies Project, and I noticed that we were suppose to have posted our personal definitions of how we see ourselves as technology learners. So, better late than never, here is my definition:
On January 7, 2008 I embarked on an eye opening trip of self-motivated learning and self-challenging exploration: I started CEP 416. CEP 416 is a class that has been designed for pre-service teachers to explore ways that readily and freely accessible technologies can be used as learning tools. The reason that I decided that I should take this elective course at Michigan State was because I knew that I knew very little about technology. Also, I attended the MSU Technology Conference and my eyes were opened to the learning possibilities that were offered by introducing students to technologies that could enhance education in a creative, fun and informative way. These two key events inspired me to immigrate towards the promise land that technology offers for the 21st Century student.
I have had the opportunity to look at statistics and here employers speak about the high demand for technologically advanced and challenging jobs and the need for today's educators to be able to give students the tools necessary for these positions. Because of the information that I have gathered concerning the need for technology integration, I have begun to take the steps necessary for becoming more versed in digital literacy. Currently I would consider myself to be in the emergent phase of my digital literacy development. However, I feel that one points on this road towards digital literacy is to remember that the definition for being a “literate” person is constantly changing and it is our job as “literate” people within this society to keep challenging ourselves and our abilities so that we never digress into an illiterate state. Emergent is just the first milestone on the road towards complete literacy and digital literacy is one of the destinations that must be reached during your travels.
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When I entered this class, I had a narrow definition of literacy. Never could I have imagined how encompassing literacy can be and is. I always took literacy for reading, writing and spelling. I think that this definition dates back to when I was in elementary school, even middle and high school. Literacy was very cut and dry from what I remember. We never used technology in our classes like we have talked about in our TE class. As the class has moved along, I see that literacy is not just one thing; nor does it have one solid definition. Literacy can be cultural capital, creating worldwide value and prestige, creativeness, imagination, social skills, and the list goes on and on. I like how all of these things and ideas can be taught through literacy in fun and creative ways. I am now at a stage in my thinking that I am trying to look for new creative ways to teach literacy to my future students. I think that these new ways will help children become more engaged in lessons and get more out of them, aka, more meaningful.
My definition of literacy has now expanded through many different mediums and after last week’s class, has spread throughout technology. I never thought that so many parts of literacy could be taught through technology. And the best part about the technology is that it is new, creative, exciting, and easy to use in your classroom given you have the resources. It is interesting to see how I can take a simple lesson plan I see online and turn it into a much more creative one just by using the technologies covered in last week’s class. I think that it will also help me as a teacher by making me excited to try out these new ideas for teaching and see how they work out. And, as I’ve said before, if the teacher is excited about the material being covered, it makes it that much easier to get your students excited. I always think how can I expect my students to get excited about something if I am not excited too?
The technology I used for my presentation was visual literacy using digital storytelling. The information in the lesson plan was about the Japanese culture. If I would have covered this when I was in elementary school, we may have read a short story about Japan and then done a worksheet about the story. That would have been the lesson, which is very cut and dry. By using this technology, it went about teaching Japanese culture a totally different way. I liked how it made the student use a lot of higher-order thinking and made the students think critically about the material at hand. I also noticed how almost anything could be taught using this strategy and how it can be modified for any grade level, not just upper elementary classrooms. This technology could be at the center of your lesson too, not just used as a backup to help support the learning. Thinking about an upper elementary classroom I may be teaching in one day, I think that it would be a great lesson to have the class work in small groups to create a digital story and share with the class. Not only would the students be learning new information on whatever they chose to tell a story about, but they would also be becoming more familiar with technology. And I think this is a very important idea in today’s ever increasing technological world.
I chose to use this technology because it was totally new for me. I consider myself decently versed in technology and decided I would try something totally new and abstract to me. I think that by doing this, it really helped me open up to technology that I am unfamiliar with. After working with the digital storytelling, I feel more comfortable and willing to try other new technologies that I have not used before. It also helped seeing others’ presentations and made me curious as to what I could do with them. And after I become familiar with a new technology, I can always model it for my classroom and then let them try it out and see what they can create and learn. I think using these new literacies projects can make learning most effective because it supports creativity and imagination, something every student has plenty of. And if the students are creating things like our projects, the learning will be tremendously meaningful.
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