Digital Natives- Navigating Digital

"My interest is mainly in the role of education in creating the learning environments needed for providing all children and young people with the competencies needed to become literate in a digital culture and enhance their everyday knowledge, experiences, and skills."

  

I completely agree with this quote from chapter 7. It is one of my main goals as a future educator to allow students to use digital media to their full advantage in their education. They can have access to so much more learning and success, in my opinion, with digital media under their belt. They will be much more prepared for the work force as well. 

 

 

"It's use within the student community has reached  

such high levels that it at least matches and probably exceeds that of email (Judd, in press)".

   

This quote from chapter 8 amazed me. When I was younger, email was the only way to get a hold of someone other than phone or letter. Now that it's coming up as perhaps a second place to social media is astounding to me. I am not surprised though, because I Facebook message people all the time. It is almost faster to me- or I just think people will check their Facebook before their email.

 

 

 

"Montgomery has investigated the 'youth civic web'- platforms built for young people in order to invite them to participate. She concludes that interactive media is helping to provide young people with some of the essential skills for civic and political engagement by allowing them to learn about the critical issues of the day; insert their own voices into the public discourse; and actively participate in a rage of political issues (Montgomery, 2008)."

  

This excerpt from chapter 9 stuck out for a few reasons. Number one being that it relates so closely to this past week's political news- for gay marriage to be legal across the United States. I have seen just on my own Facebook the opinions of many, and the support, or disagreement on both sides. Seeing the freedom we all have to voice our own views about such policies or views is almost unheard of if we were to rewind just a few years. I think it's great that this participation is happening just because of the access we have to social media, or the internet in general. People can become educated on politics or policies and then actively participate in discussions with other people, without having to be part of a political office. Just us normal folks having the ability to learn, educate others, and collaborate together to expand our views and mind sets thanks to this digital age.

 

 

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When it comes to whether teachers should be responsible for developing digital literacies, I would say partially. I think courses should be offered at school specifically designated to focus on digital literacies, and I think teachers should be required to incorporate new uses in their lesson plans so children are exposed at least in that way. I don't think it should be SOLEY places on the teacher because socially children will learn new things on their own. Digital literacies can be focused on in the courses offered- much like gym, or music. Eventually it may take more of a hold on the educational scene and become a course like history or science.

I believe that the development of digital literacies can support the development of reading practices. Words are still words whether in print or on a computer screen. So children are still reading. Also, the learning process would most likely be more interactive from a digital standpoint, so children may actually have a better and more positive experience with digital literacy learning.

When it comes to academic writing practices, I am not quite sold that there is a substitute for physically writing. I think children should be able to read and write in cursive. I know that is leaving the learning community in some areas, but I personally disagree and think being able to write is part of being literate.

 

 

 

Bad Luck Brian

 

This meme about bad luck Brian may reflect with some recent (college) grads are feeling. I personally was  not this literate with the online world until college. I had to rely on my instructional technology course back in my freshman year to even begin to grasp what some concepts were. This course is helping immensely as well. There's just so much information and I wish I would've been more prepared, or at least more introduced, in my high school years.

The Civic, Social and Multi Modal Lives of Digital Natives

"The notion that all young people are free to "volunteer" their labor for the good of communities and civic organizations has become entrenched, alongside the notion that older adults have more responsibilities and less time, because young people "save time" multitasking digitally.

 

This quote from chapter 4 stood out tome because it's something I never really considered being an issue. I did not know that older generational people were being given less digital responsibilities because the younger, digitally native generation can "save time". This may not always be the case. Some adults are more fluent in media than younger people.We  should not assume/

 

 

"They share their private information and personal issues and upload their photos via mobile phones. However, sometimes others expose their friends' profiles from Prof to the major Internet sites based on the PC Internet with unpleased\ant comments, a practice that can be regarded as a form of cyber-bullying, known as sarasu.

 

This specific quote from chapter 5 stuck out to me because this is such a huge issue with online chatting, playing games, putting private information out there. There are so many risks that a person can encounter and those risks of violation grow the younger the person in, in my opinion. There are tons of people who prey on young people on the internet.

 

 

"Characterizing young learning as a homogeneous group through the use of terms such as "Digital Natives" is problematic for a number of reasons, but the main on is that through a broad generalization such terms gloss over the need to identify and recognize difference."

 

In chapter 6, this quote stuck out to me because it makes sense in a way. Not all young learners are going to be pros at digitally advanced things if they haven't been exposed to learning them yet. Some children are not in school, or do not have the financial means of owning new digital items.

 

 

 

"Digital Native"
This meme is expressing the relief that one might have knowing that they are privileged to be born in such an exciting time in the digital world. They will possess skills that some older generational individuals will never have. 

 

Digital Natives: Reflecting on the Myth

"The problem here is not with the natives themselves, but rather with the rest of us, the "Digital Immigrants" who remain obstinately toed to older media, and who are failing to catch up with the times."

 

This excerpt from the Forward stood out to me because I just had an image of young people using all sorts of new technologies and then an older generation giving them a strange look and complaining about it. I know that obviously not all young people embrace technology and not all older people exclude it. It was just an image that came to mind and the fact that this quote from the book is sadly true. Technology is becoming more and more prevalent and useful and I personally think it best to embrace as much as we can. I'm not opposed to traditional things, such as physical books, but I'm also not opposed to new and exciting change.

"...where technology evangelists have become particularly prominent in many areas of education, promising to 'transform' and 'revolutionize' pedagogy using a variety of devices, all the way from digital television to the Nintendo DS and the Apple iPad."

Chapter one presented a quote that I found exciting. New technologies in today's educational settings is a great way to prepare students for the world they will grow to be working adults. The more we can help prepare them, the better their chances are for success.

"As unenhanced humans, we are limited in our perceptions and constrained by the processing power and functioning of the human brain."

From chapter two, this quote stood out to me as just a simple fact about 21st century technology. Without the knowledge provided by digital media we are inhibiting out own minds from what they can be capable of with the assistance from new technologies. I never have really thought about but we would not know HALF of what we know without digital assistance (in my opinion).

"By shifting our attention to the ways in which technologies open up the potential for new kinds of social engagement, the argument moves towards choice and the ways in which technologies might allow for new kinds of educational engagement."

 

This quote from chapter 3 stood out to me because it just opens up thought to how we, as educators, can enhance and develop new ways to bring technology into the classroom to further the actual engagement of students.

 

 

 

'Don't worry, I got this.'

 

This image was really one of the few that I had pictures to create a mental picture of what digitally native means. Babies today are born as native to the digital media available and know how to use it very early in age.

 

Digital Media Effects on Conventional Reading and Writing Practices

"We type far more than we used to and are producing massive amounts of text compared to what we used to write,” Baron says. “And because of the amount of writing we are doing, we tend to devalue what we write. How much do we edit or care about what we post online to god knows whom? How much are we making sure to represent ourselves carefully?"

 

I cannot say how valid this segment from the text is-- we write so much in today's society, on the internet, at work, texting, etc.. do we really pay THAT much attention to what we are saying or how we may be coming across. Are we making sense?

 

I am 50/50 on the stance between web evangelist and traditionalist. I think that we need to embrace the new technology and the 'reading' that comes with it, however, my mom was a former English teacher and now editor of a newspaper has had me reading books since I can remember. I proof read text messages (that don't need to be) sometimes out of habit-- annoying!

In the article written by Karp, it was stated that writing cent be necessarily good or bad, but depends on 'an old concept; audience'. How we read of write depends on who we are reading or writing to. I think I can be as informal as I want when texting to a friend and then change it up for a teem paper.

On the more traditional side of things,  I believe in reading a nice printed book. I do agree with the Literacy Debate article which mentioned that there are many distractions on the internet that can take away from any reading students are doing.

 

 

 

This visual metaphor symbolizes my view of really not being able to 'pick' a side of web evangelism or traditionalist. I think both have positive things about them and also some draw backs when comparing them to each other.

Texting and Multi-Modal Texts

Here is my Blabberize I made from the information I learned from the TedTalk.

The important things I learned from this video are 
 

1. New words in texting such as "slash" to change the subject 

2. Texting allows us to write like we speak 

3. Texting is known as fingered speech 

But most important is 

4. Texting is an entirely new language among today's young people 

   


A way to use Blabberize in teaching context is to give instructions to students. Examples include what the homework is, what's on the agenda for the day, etc... It keeps it funny and the students will (hopefully) be paying attention to something like this!