Resurrection

All right, well time to resurrect this blog. Its previous use was a wonderful class I took last spring on multi-cultural literature.  I will admit I am a little late getting around to this. I’ve got a lot to synthesize now though so prepare for a long winded and blown out post. I think I can start by asking myself a question; putting myself on the spot so to speak.

“What does digital literacy mean to you?”

Pretty basic I suppose, but it really spreads its fibers through just about every aspect of my teaching. Digital Literacy, and digital anything really, is about one thing to me. Evolution.

Animals evolve. People evolve. The world evolves. The way we write has evolved as illustrated, comically, above. Even the way we read has evolved. Think about it, the first method people heard and understood literature was orally. Storytellers would wander the land having committed mass tales like “The Iliad” and “The Odyssey” to memory. Even before that however, Hieroglyphics spoke a language that has taken generations to decode. As the march of time went on more people began to read, more mediums began to evolve. I find it somewhat ironic that audio books, arguably the current peak of reading, technologically speaking,  are eerily similar to the storytellers of old. Full circle?

The point is when everything evolves even down to the basics of reading and writing why wouldn’t the methods and skills we use to teach those basics evolve with them? It astonishes me every time I observe a classroom via my clinical requirements or substitute teaching that does little more then put chalk to a black board. Maybe an overhead projector. I understand some schools have limitations with budget, but more often than not I have seen this in schools with the technology literally sitting right there! I walked into a classroom to substitute teach once and saw in the back of the room with a sheet over top of it what appeared to be a rolling white board. Upon further inspection I found out it was a 4,000 dollar Prometheus board. I asked  a student if it had been that way all year, it was mid march at this point, he said “yes, we’ve never used it.” One more example to hammer home my disbelief.

I observed a 7^th grade teacher for one of my pre-clinical observations. She spent an entire week teaching the students how to write a personal letter. Before you get ahead of me, there is nothing wrong with students being taught something like writing a letter. While it is a dying tradition, writing a letter facilitates many basic writing and communication skills that students need. My problem came with this conversation at the end of the week. I asked the teacher if she had intentions on taking the students to the computer lab and then teaching them to write an email.  She said to me, and I remember it clearly because I was stunned by her, for lack of a better word negligence, “Email is an informal method of communication that has no place in education.” It is this kind of resistance to technology that blows my mind.

I suppose I have been panning out and away from the question at hand however. What does digital literacy mean to me? (Zoom in to see text)

In a nutshell that is a perfect example of digital literacy. The technology of today meeting the literature of yesterday. Digital literacy is a tactic, a tool to get students engaged and involved in literature they have traditionally found unappealing. One of the interviews within the McVee text stated that technology is a motivator and I think that is right on the money. At the moment digital literacy to me is a way to help the evolution of teaching catch up to the rest of the world.