Hanging Out: My young person uses her devices to keep connected with her friends via Facebook and Instagram. She mentioned that numerous times during our interview and she uses Facebook frequently (as we are Facebook friends). She also uses FaceTime to communicate with some of her closest friends from school. She will take screenshots of her FaceTime chats with her good friend and posts them on Facebook and Instagram. My young person is very technology driven and enjoys using the different modes of technology.
Messing Around: The fact that my young person is technology literate gives her the upper hand when it comes to completing classwork on the iPads. She can easily navigate her way around an app and knows how to access her online classwork without any instruction. When she comes over to visit, she easily connects our Wii to the television without any assistance (which she has been doing for many years) and can easily work on an iPad. She said that her favorite computer game is called Crossyroad because it is entertaining to her.
Geeking Out: I believe that my young person has a skill when it comes to navigating technology. As stated in the above category, she knows exactly where to go to locate her homework and how to turn it back in to the teacher. She does not need any assistance from her parents to access the apps or the sites on the Internet. She told me that she wants to be doctor one day and I believe that she will have the skills needed to achieve that dream.
Schooling: My young person did not mention the use of traditional literacy practices or any type of school-related activity.
Possible Quotes:
"One technological determinist view represents contemporary children as increasingly 'active' and 'worldly' because there are now technologies that enable and encourage this." (Carrington, p.66).
"This exposes the tension that exists between the idea of using an immersive and literacy-rich virtual world as a context for incidental but purposeful uses of digital literacy and the focus on teaching literacy, which was understandably foremost in some of the teachers' minds." (Merchant, p.101).
Because of the abilities of the young person you interviewed I thought this quote might relate. It may be the longest sentence ever!
ReplyDelete"Digital Literacy is the awareness, attitude, and ability of individuals to appropriately use digital tools and facilitates to identify, access, manage, integrate, evaluate, analyse and synthesize digital resources, construct new knowledge, create media expressions, and communicate with others, in the context of specific life situations, in order to enable constructive social action; and to reflect upon this process. (Martin, 2006) (Dowdall, p.50)
I think that it is interesting that most students note that they use technology to keep in contact with friends and do very little as far as school is concerned. I would think that with school systems focusing on the use of technology the teachers would focus more on assignments that would utilize this technology.
ReplyDelete"We argue that a well-informed and experienced literacy teacher is ideally placed to help all pupils read all texts in a critical way. Critical reading will help pupils to explore the meanings and nuances of online texts and it will also make them safer and more responsible participants in our networked society." (Davies and Merchant, 2009,p.82) It is important that we, as teachers, try our best to teach safe internet practices to our students no matter how much we use the available technology.
Your young person's usage of FaceTime reminded me of this quote, "While digital natives communicate with each other by text and voice using the Internet on PCs, neb-digital natives communicate with each other by video or movies using mobile phones." (Thomas, 2009, p.70)
ReplyDeleteI agree with Amber that many of the students mention not using a lot of technology at school but do at home to communicate or for entertainment. As she states that she plays the game for entertainment along with many of the other things she uses technology for in her spare time bring me to the quote "motivation plays a key role in sustaining engagement with digital technology" (Carrington & Robinson, 2009, p.20). I think it is important to emphasizes to educators that using the technology that they find entertaining at home can be used in the classroom as well.
ReplyDeleteCarrington, V., & Robinson, M. (2009). Digital literacies: Social learning and classroom practices. Los Angeles: SAGE Publications.