Weekly Reading #3

1.  W hat findings in the Media Ecologies: Quanitative Perspectives surprised you the most?  How does the finding change the way you think about young peope, technology and learning?  It was odd to me that the Kaiser report found “That media engagement does not crowd out time spent with parents, pursuing hobbies, or doing physical activity.”  It seems to me that more people complain that families don’t spend time together any more due to kids constantly on their cell phones and computers.  They stay in their bedrooms and isolate themselves. 

2.  What are the benefits to a genre-based approach to understanding youth engagement with digital media over a categorical-based approach?  They feel that the Genre-based approach is more of a whole picture look into things.  It shows how people use a variety of digital media at the same time and moves away from doing things one at a time.  Things like watching tv or using a computer separately.

3.  What aspects of Michelle’s (Box 1.2) computer use at hime have implications for computer use at school?  Michelle has the opportunity to use a computer at home.  This gives her an advantage when she is at school.  She wont have to be instructed on simple computer skills like the other students will need.  This will help her to have more time to work on higher level thinking skills as well as increase her confidence level.

4.  As you read about Clarissa (Box 1.3) consider the affordances of digital technologies that help Clarissa shape her identity and the role they play in literacy engagement.  Do you think there are positive implications for these affordance in school-based literacy instruction?  If so, what are they.  If not, what are your concerns?  I believe that the digital technologies do have a positive implication on school-based literacy.  At our school our students have to write all their essays using the computers.  They are encouraged to use their creative writing skills.  Teachers use a variety of websites to enhance creative writing process.  I would like to see our teachers use blogs and wikis too.

5.  In the section titled Messing Around we read about the sophisticated and creative technology practices young people are developing on their own outside of school.  Do you think it is important for teachers to know about and understand these practices:  Why?  It is very important for classroom teachers to know about, understand and embrace the use of updated technologies.  Too many teachers are afraid to try things on computers.  They can be even completely resistant to learning new things.  I have heard a teacher this week in a training session say that she doesn’t have internet nad she has no plans to use it.  She even said that she doesn’t even hardly use her computer time that she is allotted in her school.  This is very sad to me.  There is no way students can advance in the necessary 21 century skills if they don’t have a teacher that embraces the idea of these skills herself.

6.  Should schools support students’ in “geeking out”?  What are the educational and ethical implications of “geeking out”?  I feel that if we are going to support students in learning about the most recent technology skills then we must allow them time to experiement.   Students would need to be monitored very closely of course.  Students need to be encouraged to learn these skills.  If we allow them access to programs and technology they will take ownership of them.    They will want to learn.  Too often studens are blocked from youtube, facebook, twitter and other social networking sites.  They need to be allowed to use these sites but with restrictions. 

7.  The young people studied for this book lived in urban settings in California or New York City.  Do you think young people in West Virginia behavior in similar ways and develop the same kinds of digital literacy’s?  Provide examples from your own experiences with young people in West Virginia.  I do think that students in West Virginia behave in similar ways compared to students from larger cities.  Students with internet are playing video games with students from other countries.  They are shopping online.  Several students use facebook and twitter.  Some even have blogs.  The disadvantage is internet access in our area.  Several students live in rural areas that don’t have internet and therefore they are shut out of a necessary form of communication.