My Thoughts on How Technologies Are Changing Literacy

I have watched the YouTube video on Web 2.0 a few times. At first I was frightened about what it could mean about the machine being us, but now I have a new understanding of this video after participating in two online courses. We are the web because we are all communicating and collaborating on the internet. We are the machine because we are connected to each other, and it’s our way of communication.

These new ways to communicate are our new literacies. We can collaborate on topics in Wikipedia, IM our friends and get instant feedback while we are working on a paper, collaborate on documents in google, surf web 2.0, and watch YouTube or be on YouTube.

My sister-in-law emailed me a link to her daughter’s interview about the opening of Liberty Science Center that was broadcasted online. This was so much more informative than her explanation of the opening could have been; I received the news story and saw the science center on my home computer. Wow! I’m from the days when my mother and her sister wrote letters to each other to save money on their phone bills. We had such a time lag with information. Now I’m truly connected to my relatives in so many special ways. I receive home photo albums in emails with birth announcements. We share photos and information. I am more connected to them than just receiving a card or phone call even though I still enjoy both of those things. We can communicate in many new ways.

With these new forms of communications, we have created a new language and set of skills and strategies. In order to function in this new form, we need to be open to new and exciting ways to connect with our friends, families, colleagues, students, and others in the world community.

This article gave details on the history of literacy. Throughout history need dictated the next type of development in literacy. It became necessary to record business information and cuneiform was invented. Depressed groups needed to communicate and invented their own language, religious beliefs were written down by priests, and then came the printing press which opened the world of literacy to the masses. The article touched on the social forces that effect literacy such as our global economy, the internet, and competition for achievement. Government policy is attempting to prepare for the challenges that we are facing in the world community, and they are raising the literacy standards in order to compete in the world economy. With all of these changes, the definition of literacy needs to be changed to include technology.

Our schools have been affected by the changes in technology. The article mentioned how education has changed. The students who are graduating now are accustomed to using computer technology on a regular basis. The internet has entered our classrooms, various software programs are used, and new programs are being developed to utilize new technologies. This past year, I was able to incorporate new literacies into my fourth grade social studies curriculum. We have a classroom moodle site that is similar to MSU’s blackboard, and the students created podcasts or radio shows on New Jersey explorers that were posted to the website. This created a lot of excitement with the students, and they needed to learn how to communicate in another way. The community was then able to listen to their podcasts and be connected to our classroom in a special way.

I enjoyed the section that discussed the social learning aspects of new literacies. Students can draw on their strengths to help each other with technology to research and create their projects. This will have an impact on learning theories and classroom situations. The web is a collaborative entity, and education will need to be seen as a more collaborative in nature. I have taught a laptop class, and the students worked in cooperative groups to create projects. They were able to learn from each other and utilize the technology at the same time. This will impact the teacher’s role to being more of a facilitator. I was also no longer the authority in the classroom because most of my students were more computer literate than me. We need to be open to new ways of educating our students as technology changes and transforms the way we communicate in an ever changing world.