Quote: "A reconceptualized vision of new literacies education would include an explicit effort to enable students to acquire the ability to understand how visual media work to produce meanings. This effort would strive to develop literate people who are able to read, write, listen, talk, analyze, evaluate, and produce communications in a variety of media, including print, television, music, video, film, radio, hypertext, and the arts."
Response: New literacies are in demand in educational environments and the workplace environment. So when do we cease with the overload of content standards, and teaching to expose students to content because we must fulfill a monthly curriculum map and held accountable for test scores? Very little room is left in curriculum planning that allows the "human factor" to have a voice in designing instruction. Our focus is often narrow during the planning phases of instruction and we tend to leave out student engagement, authentic experiences and preparing our students to participate and have a voice in an ever-changing global society. Promoting and providing teachers the opportunities to participate in and understand new literacies has to take place before the gap between traditional literacies and media literacies can begin to close in the curriculum.
Additional Resource: I chose this as an additional resource since I've had the opportunity to converse and listen to R. Neil Shambaugh at a National Professional Development School Conference.
"The payoff to innovative change is student engagement with the learning activities and room for personal expression and responses to the assigned tasks."
Shambaugh, R.N. (2000, August). What does it mean to be x literate? Literacy definitions as tools for growth. Reading Online, 4(2). Available: http://www.readingonline.org/newliteracies/lit_index.asp?HREF=/newliteracies/shambaugh/index.html
Overloading content standards is/will be a huge problem. I think teachers need to understand the importance of media literacy, which will help begin to fill the gap between traditional literacies and media literacies.
ReplyDeleteGood post. It's ironic because it seems like the push is toward authentic experiences and discovery learning, but there are so many restrictions on the curriculum because of content standards and standardized testing.
ReplyDeleteI understan what you are saying and those that agree. Not being in the classroom may be a disadvantage, but I don't think anyone is saying that new literacies has to change the whole curriculum. If you are reading a story or play, what is the difference in lettig the students read and interpret a section in their own style instead of just sitting in a circle and reading it.
ReplyDeleteThis is so true. We are narrow minded in our planning of curriculum, which is why North Marion is trying to create more authentic applications for Freshmen. This is our pilot year and hopefully our test scores will improve as our attendance rates increase.
ReplyDeleteGreat discussion! I think new literacies do support the content standard. I think teachers need a better understanding of new literacies so they can see the connection. However I think the standardized test are not sensitive to new literacies. So Heather, I think attendance will improve but test scores not so much. We will see!
ReplyDelete