Una’s Blog

I just read the article Let Them Blog: Using Weblogs to Advance Literacy in the K-12 Classroom by D. Huffaker (2005).

Huffaker makes the point that learning what types of activities and applications students are using on the Internet is only a superficial look, we need to understand how they are using these applications in order to come up with innovative strategies for new learning environments. Huffaker notes that blogs enable individual expression as well as aspects of community development, creating an online community of interdependent learners. The coexistence of these two ideas in one tool seems to be perfect for a primary classroom.

One point Huffaker raises that I found particularly interesting was the idea of digital literacy (p. 9). He states that educational technology advances all of the current essential 3 types of literacy (verbal, visual, and digital). Digital literacy is necessary for success in the technological world, just as reading and writing (the two foundations of education today) are necessary to success in society. The way that Huffaker puts digital literacy in the same league as reading and writing shows just how important it is considered. If we keep traveling in the same direction we have been for the last 20 years then, I have to agree. We will need to be ‘fluent’ in using technology to the point where it becomes innate. It will be a fundamental skill.

Image From: http://www.flickr.com/photos/aidanexpedition/378644476/

I just read the article Indigenous Students Connect with Blogs (Education Views, 16(11), June 6, 2007, p.17).

This article is about a teacher who used a blog to connect with her students doing a specific program while she was overseas. It says that it took her two weeks to teach the students how to use a weblog, but after that the students responded very enthusiastically to the project. She used it to give them information and photos from her trip to China, and in that way got the students interested in the places she was going and seeing. One example is when she went to visit the Great Wall of China, she got the students to do research on it, and discuss their impressions with the class online.

The most impressive thing about this article was that it described a legitimate reason for the students to start using a blog. I believe that once they had that experience it would be easier to use a blog again, and possibly in more complex and collaborative ways next time.

I have just read Prensky’s Listen to the Natives (2005).

The underlying theme that seems to be present in this article is that teachers need to learn from their students in the digital areas where they feel less at home, and need to include the students in decsions about their own learning. However, to me, this valid message gets lost in the other claims Prensky makes. To me, this article seems to be about a very narrow group of students on the whole. It is about the kids that can afford the money and the time spent gaming and using the internet excessively. What about those students who do not have a computer at home, or have internet access, or own a Wii? The inequality of access does not seem to be taken into account. To label a whole generation ‘digital natives’ and another ‘digital immigrants’ seems like an oversimplification.

I have one overriding question, am I a digital immigrant or native? What about the generation of teachers at I am a part of? Where do we stand in Prensky’s distinct, somewhat polarising division between the teacher-immigrant and student-native? I have grown up with the internet, with gaming, with computers and mobile phones, and yet I am also a teacher, am I therefore technologically disadvantaged?

Image From: http://www.clipartof.com/images/clipart/thumbnail2/5720_computer_illiterate_ woman_sitting_in_front_of_a_desktop_pc.jpg

I just read the article How to Bring Our Schools Out of the 20th Century, by Claudie Wallis and Sonja Steptoe (2006).

I found this article interesting because it discusses the use of the internet in creating the genereation of global citizens, that can work effectively in the global community and global economy.
One point made in this article that really struck me was that students learn how to ‘distinguish good information from bad’ on the internet. It seems so obvious I am wondering why I never thought of it. The internet is the ideal resource to use when teaching critical literacy, media studies, anything that involves analysing a text and determining whether it is reliable, biased, valid, ridiculous, or whatever. The internet has the whole range of types of texts. Books on the other hand, have all been published, and therefore editted and criticised before they are read publicly. It is the biggest differenence between the two (besides the ease of finding information of course).
I find I have to agree with Wallis and Steptoe, we do need to bring what we teach and how we teach into the 21st century.

Image From: http://img.timeinc.net/time/daily/2006/0612/soteach_1209.jpg

I just finished reading Soloway (et al.)’s article K-12 and the Internet (2000).

I completely agree with the opening statement of this article: that learning is enhanced when there is information and discussion about ideas that are available to students and teachers. I also like the idea that it is the internet that has taken the next step in connecting schools to the outside world, making students learning more relavent and applicable.
As to the comment by Gelertner about children already being overwhelmed with information without the internet… Since when do we simply ignore a vital and progressive instrument for learning because the students might not be able to cope with using the tool? Is it not our job as teachers to help students learn how to use all the tools they have access to?
I believe Soloway has it right. It is our job to create “thoughtful, informed, empowered learners” and the internet is our newsest resource. We must learn to use it to its fullest potential.
The internet uniquely supports learning, not only because of the abundance of information it supplies in a second, but also because it provides a diversity of opportunities for discourse between students and teachers.
The arguments against using the internet in K-12 classrooms seem outdated, and quite honestly ridiculous. — “we didn’t have the Internet to learn when we were in school, there’s pornography on the Web …”

Image from: http://bioliteracy.net/Graphics/my_brain_is_full.gif

I just read the article Wherefore art thou, telecollaboration? by J Harris (2002). One of the main ideas in this article is that research shows students are using the internet in classrooms primarily for exchanging information in different ways, not for projects that focus on discussion and communication. The latter of which has proven to develop students higher-level social learning and problem solving skills.
I found this article interesting because it talks about using the internet in another way, taking the next step almost, in the classroom. It outlines the benefits of devising programs that require students to use the internet in a telecollaborative way, interacting and communicating across and between classes, schools, and countries. This type of thinking and discussion would encourage a very global mindset from both the students and the teacher.
This idea is very exciting for me. It is exactly what I would like my students to one day think about. The problems with actually incorporating these types of computer skills and activities into a program have been pretty substantial so far, however. So obviously it is going to take some work and more trials and experiments to get it well intergrated into a curriculum.
I think this type of project would work well with topics like media studies. One good idea i found in the article is the Global Novel Project.

Image from: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d2/Internet_map_ 1024.jpg/300px-Internet_map_1024.jpg