To be social or not to be social? That is the question!

This week has been both enlightening and rather frightening (must be in rapper mode this week!). Firstly the web programs out there really provided me with some food for thought in terms of how I could use it to benefit the students and make their school work more accessible for their parents. The social sharing programs and the interactive websites were the most engaging.

There is a saying that springs to mind when I think of social sharing "why have a dog and bark yourself".

These services provide unending resources for teachers to use in their classrooms to stimulate thought and discussion and all at the click of a button. Therefore the time saved on creating the resource for the lesson allows the teacher additional time to develop a more stimulating lesson. In addition, students are provided the opportunity to see whether the quality of what is out there from text, image, audio, video is valuable or not. This can then be extended to allow for guidance of the students to create their own product which they may share within a suitable forum. It is great to know that the students could write their own script to a story or poem and play around with audio/visuals to create their own online play. Once again here, I hop on my privacy horse and would reiterate the importance of the student sharing being done on restricted or private channels.

However, I am aware that feedback from a wider audience is important in certain instances. This is where the teaching opportunities on internet usage and safety must come into play. Following a Cybersmart information session with ACMA last week which I attended, our responsibility in helping students understand safe internet usage has only become more apparent. Thankfully, ACMA have a large amount of resources to help us with this. I particularly enjoyed this animation. ACMA also have a good series of cartoons called Hectors Cartoons

Online Chitter Chatter

In terms of print literacy within a digital era, I think it is a matter of adapting the way we would have tackled this area 10-15 years ago versus the way kids interpret print literacy now. Just look at the number of books that are now sold with CDs/DVDs telling and illustrating the story. The position of print literacy within the classroom has not changed, what has changed is how we use it and ask the students to relate to it. We still have to teach the principles of it in terms of text structure, grammar, skills, etc., but now we need to adapt the way we were taught to the way students now interact print literacy. When I read that in 2004, Google stated that "it would digitally scan the books of five major research libraries to make their contents searchable" , we need to come to terms with the fact that this is the way of the future. To be honest, I believe it is the way of now, considering I do most of my article searches from the comfort of my own desk in my own house.


However, I believe books will exist in classrooms for another few years so students will be fortunate enough to hold and savour a book as we did when we were younger.

I found it very interesting to hear that research now indicates that text speak benefits literacy, particular when one considers the "poor" spelling element that seems to permeate the phenomenon. However, the point with regard to a person needing to know how to spell the word in order to play around with it sufficiently so that is understood makes logical sense. In essence the literate classroom is benefitting from the practice of sending texts, therefore why disparage it? It is also one of the main modes of communication for all ages so we need to incorporate it and ensure that students are fully aware of it's position in their lives i.e. whether it is appropriate speak for the classroom. We also need to ensure that we understand the abbreviated versions even for the purpose of duty of care.

Hypertext literacy wasn't even something I was aware of until our lecture today. Now however, I can see the importance of how we look at pages that contain a number of hyperlinks and the credibility of same. It is a little concerning how ignorant we can be of a large element of these online services/features especially when we have a lot of responsibility in informing the students how to use them responsibly while gaining the most advantage.

The term collective intelligence was another new term to add to my vocabulary this week. Initially I thought it sounded like something that exists in outer space but who knew that it was right here in front of me as part of the main medium of communication I use every day. One of the advantages would be the sharing of ideas and knowledge to produce a common product. The more one learns then the more others may be encouraged to find out. Once again, though, critical literacy becomes a major component of learning that students need to have in order to determine the value of this form of intelligence gathering.

With regard to wikipedia. I think it is a fantastic resource to use as a base for obtaining information, particularly within a classroom. However, it needs to kept in mind that in an educational context, it is not the only or definitive source of information and further research on a topic needs to be carried out. Wikipedia, a vast source of wide ranging information, does not have the edited feel to it that would occur with a published text due to the number and purpose of the contributors. Another point to consider in terms of critical literacy and teaching of text formation.

I am still trying to grasp the concept of wikis and I would have to have a lot more experience with them before I could use them in the classroom but I can certainly see how the collarborative and collective nature would be advantageous. In particular, I loved the example illustrated in class whereby the sample demonstrated how a particular teacher provided the students with the topics under discussion and as the students learned about the topic and posted their findings, the collaboration and path of learning that emerged was very encouraging.

This week I have endeavoured to try and embed something onto my blog. To date I have been unsuccessful but it is one of my aims this week that I will know by the Tuesday pm, who knows maybe I might find out yet today!