I am quite surprised at how much I’ve been exposed to in New
Medias and New Literacies. I’m not certain what I was expecting, but oftentimes
during the course I found myself realizing that I had vaguely heard some of the
buzz words, terminology and references we covered, but that I didn’t actually
understand their context, the meaning or the usage. The course feels like one
that is necessary to bring everyone using this environment up to speed. The
digital environment has emerged and is evolving so quickly. It is impacting our
lives as we participate as consumers and it affords the possibility to each of
us individually and collaboratively to impact our lives as creators and
participatory members.
I enjoyed reading the work of Jenkins. He has great faith in
the global community, particularly youth, to create social and political change
through participatory culture. I can recognize small niche subcultures in my
students and because I now have a bit of information, I can ask questions to
fill in the blanks through conversation and their shared experiences. The
framework he presents including mentoring, guidance and multi-generational connections,
shared expertise and group knowledge building toward creative innovation,
sounds like a fine place to start in building competencies in new literacies in education.
“The Digital Citizen” was an interesting tidbit. I didn’t
know anything about the structure or history of a civics class in high school.
When I asked a few students their impression of our schools program, I got a
huge earful of discontent, irrelevancy and anything BUT discourse or
discussion. Apparently this is true of several Global History classes as well.
There are SO many questions on the test….no time for bantering ladies and gentleman.
Sounds like we need some seeds for change.
Until “Networked Public”s I didn’t really ever think much
about broadband access. Who controls flow of information, who does or does not
have access. And it never crossed my mind the political and economic
implications of infrastructure. Honestly, I don’t think I could have had an
intelligent/informed conversation about Net Neutrality, yes or no, before this
class…I mean with any real information. All the tech geeks in my life were saying…”OMG, Net Neutrality,
open source and creative commons”. I understood the basic concepts, but it
certainly feels like the right thing to more fully understand at this point in
history. When I listen to the radio I can actually tune-in to those conversations
about infrastructure, ubiquitous WiFi in transportation communities and other assorted
contemporary technology and Internet related issues.
I appreciated being introduced to the wide range of video
chats, lectures etc. Ted Talks are awesome, and somehow because they are
TedTalks, they seem pre-approved as far as reliability goes. Maybe not .
While doing research I did find it cumbersome to have to
check resources…and by the way, is there a way to check accuracy and reliability
of resources? There is so much information that supports any side of the fence.
Evidence, research and studies are at an infant stage. Studies, like data are
relative to the lens they are looking through.
Marshall McLuhan was an amazing dude. There is occasionally
in history, someone who sees so clearly that they can imagine the future. It’s
almost as if an intellectual renaissance was in the works at that time. .A
window, and many people peering through.(
It makes me think of the late 1800’s, Emily Dickenson and the Enlightenment)
Timothy Leary, Allen Ginsberg, Thomas Merton,Popism..attention economy, Carl
Jung, TV and advertising, and Marshall McLuhan to name a few…a very few. “The
Medium is the Message”….so on the mark.
So what this class has been about. This is what Green’s diagram is
depicting.
Kress and van Leeuwen
was a tedious read, but I think it is good information to have, particularly if
you are teaching media literacy. Between that text and creating my literacy
guide, I have decided to incorporate a straight up deconstructing media unit
into my visual arts classes. There a number of artists who engage media from a
critical perspective. Several are quite humorous…Ji Lee has thrown thousands of
blank voice bubbles over print ads throughout several cities. His expectation
is that people will participate by, “talking back”: by writing dialog…and they
have.
Crystal’s “Language and the Internet” was a
lengthy read, mostly read on a
plane coming and going to visit family. Every day it seems new words arrive for
expression, description and labeling or categorizing. Today I learned that collecting digits means getting phone
numbers…and maybe there’s a cute babes
reference in there too..hmmm.Ode to nuance.
The one thing that
was surprising to me in retrospect was, how hands on this digital learning environment
was. I created a blog, a literacy guide, I did not, but should have and will
created a video. I participated in discussion forums, downloaded, and uploaded.
We looked at advertisements, video, spoken word art and shared links. We explored
traditional literacies and had an opportunity to think about trans literacy. …the
past, present and future of literacies… various ways of communicating and
sharing knowledge…experiences and personal histories .I liked the group effort
created through asking and answering questions, it created a digital community
of shared student concern. I learned a lot from my classmates through their sharing
of experiences and insights, and through the research and individual interests they
shared through their videos.
I am surprised at how frequently the content and relevancy
of this course has entered my everyday thinking. I have had several
conversations with colleagues about the effects of social media interference in
the classroom, and today I did a tuning protocol with a colleague suggesting
use of social media to create an art event where students are empowered by experiencing
the effect of organizing a collaborate “statement”. ( For example; What if 500
students added a piece of everyday trash to a pile throughout the day , and
someone documented the accumulation?)
I am thankful to
everyone for their contributions, shared thoughts and openness in responding to
the exploration and content of the course material. I think it is interesting
how I feel as if I know some of my classmates through their writing. Their
voices on their videos were not so surprising to me.
Good luck to everyone on their journey to creating and participating
in supporting/ guiding and innovating change in this beautiful world.
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