EDUC 6816 Week 6 Reading: The Participatory Classroom

How can schools meaningfully support the development of all students' new literacies; particularly those literacies engendered by Web 2.0 that foregrounds interactivity and collaboration around shared content?  To begin with, while reading this article I was reminded of the fact of students being part of a participatory divide.  As educators, it’s important to understand all students do not participate in higher order and reflective literacy practices.  Also, I believe to support the development of new literacies in schools, then teachers and administrators need an in depth training of why and how new literacies should be implemented across the curriculum. As of now, it’s an option to use Web 2.0 in classrooms.  Mindset one dominates the curriculum and “minds” of many educators.  Besides providing professional development training, schools need to have equal access to the resources, up-to-date technology/equipment, and the support from administration. Personally, from experience, it’s difficult to find a person, or group of presenters to come into the schools, and share their expertise in regards to using Web 2.0.  If you do find this person(s), then how do you open the minds of the participants? Educators are bogged down with mandated programs. These mandated programs are not often programs that have been researched by individual classroom teachers, but decided upon by the “powers that be”.  So, I believe Web 2.0 needs to be pervasive, transparent, classroom teachers as decision makers, in depth training with evidence and research, and a change of mindset.  Finally, I sincerely hope that we are training future teachers to use their voice!  I’ve had several conversations with “new” teachers, and impress upon them to being willing to use your voice and knowledge for your students.

Why should schools engage students in the new literacies engendered by Web 2.0?

Gee (2010) argues, 'It is the study of new digital tools and new forms of convergent media, production and participation, as well as powerful forms of social organization and complexity in popular culture, that can teach us how to enhance learning in- and out-of-school and how to transform society and the global world as well' (p. 14).  Schools should engage in new literacies to prepare students for the 21^st century workplace and culture.  It’s suggested that our students will participate in new literacies with or without the support from schools.  So, if it is our goal as educators to prepare our students to be participants in society, then how do we do this effectively if do not use new literacies and provide equal opportunities for all?

What are the differences between new literacies and conventional literacies?

New literacies must be thought of as a new mindset about knowledge.  New literacies involve participation, collective knowledge, collaboration, sharing of ownership, innovation, and the role of a teacher as facilitator.  I believe the concept of a teacher being a facilitator and not “the sage on the stage” or the keeper and disseminator of knowledge is very hard for some educators to accept.   Conventional literacies are characteristic of students publishing work in isolation, “mindset number one”, teachers delivering information and students being the receivers, and maybe a confined structure of the curriculum.

 Provide your own example of a classroom use of Web 2.0 that promotes a "Mindset One" approach and a classroom example that promotes a "Mindset 2" approach (the examples do not need to be from your own teaching or learning experiences; you can make them up).

Mindset One:  Teacher:  “Today we are going to research Volcanoes. Everyone login to your computer, find some articles and images about volcanoes.  Insert the text and images into a powerpoint presentation.  We will work on this for two days, and on the third day you will present your powerpoint to the class, save your work on a flash drive.”  (Students begin copying and pasting information into powerpoint and add some animation.) Third day arrives:  Teacher sits in back of classroom, rest of the students are quiet and teacher grades each presentation. Students: (Some did not cite sources, some couldn’t pronounce or understand the text they copied and pasted, and some material is out-dated).

Mindset Two:  Teacher: “Today we are going to collaborate and use our collective knowledge to learn about various volcanoes. Login to our course blog and view the resource links that I have provided, leave comments about each link, and work with your group to find two more resources (after evaluating the website, etc…) and link to our course blog.  As a group, decide how you want to share your findings about volcanoes all work must include a credits or reference page. Some options include: photostories, podcasts, videos (your group will be the “actors”), a wiki or google site.  I’m open to new ideas that you might have to share your findings.  Here is a rubric that defines how you will be evaluated. In addition to my evaluation, your peers will receive an evaluation form to make comments about your presentation.

(Of course for this assignment to be realistic, students have already learned how to use the mentioned tools, and cooperative learning strategies).

EDUC 6816 Activity 4 Diigo

1. Do other people's annotations add to your understanding of content or hinder it?  Reading another person’s annotations allows for confirmation of my own perspective, and provides a perspective that is opposite of mine and requires analysis to process this new idea.  Annotations are similar to taking notes and the benefits allow the reader to quickly review the main concepts of the resource. In regards to understanding content or hindering it, I believe that it depends on the format for the annotation.  If the annotation is made using a specific tool, like Diigo, then collaboration is possible, and communicating with others allows for a clearer picture to be presented.

2. Provide an example of a Diigo annotation that in your view is useful rather than spamish. The following annotation by Hilary is a great example presenting an alternative perspective of using Diigo.  It provides the reader with other learning management systems that could be useful, or possibly intriguing enough  to search for more information. The components of a brief description, an alternate idea, and a conclusion are all present in this annotation.  “A teacher created this video to show his students how to use Diigo and explain how they will be using it in their English class.  Basically, this teacher is having students create a Blog post and then use the class Diigo group to share that week's assignment (found in their blog).  I think there are better ways to do this same assignment using learning management systems such as Schoology, Edmodo, EngradePro.  The blog, the comments, the social bookmarking can all happen in one location with these systems.”  

3. How did you use tags to make searching more efficient and beneficial? Tags are beneficial in organizing information, flexibility in rearranging the information, and allowing the reader to locate content related to a given tag.  The Diigo  library allows the user to choose the tag for each category to be added and provides the feature “top tags” and “my tags”.  Our 6816 Diigo group shows the top 10 tags on the right-side of the group page. Once you click on a top ten tag, then a list of related tags, selected tags, and related searches appear.  These tags allow you to navigate more efficiently in our Diigo group. 

4.In your opinion what is the potential of social bookmarking to promote content area learning and/or information literacy.  Social bookmarking allows the vast amount of information accessible to the user to be electronically organized and accessed from a device with internet capability.  Information literacy encompasses being able to organize the information around us. Using social bookmarking in content area learning has numerous possibilities.  For example, Diigo provides educator accounts with clear directions for using the site with students.  Diigo is a Web 2.0 tool allowing for group collaboration in and out of the classroom. Educators can present information within the Diigo group, leave sticky notes, highlight, and moderate the online conversations between students, and also share Diigo lessons with other educators. Imagine the learning that would take place if students could actually be part of creating the content, and having the support of peers/teacher in learning the content. Diigo would be a perfect platform to use for Project-Based Learning.   As we are learning about the 21^st Century workforce in this course in relation to information literacy, the belief is, our future students will need the skills of using Web 2.0 to organize, analyze, synthesize and communicate information. 

EDUC 6809 Google Form for Technology Access Outside of School

Technology Access Outside of School Google Form

EDUC 6809 Media Ecology Case Study Rough Draft

Here is the link to my case study.

EDUC 6809 Media Ecology Case Study Rough Draft

EDUC 6809 Weekly Reading # 6 Chapter 4 Families

                       

            

Two of the most surprising concepts I read in Chapter 4 are: (1) parents and adults’ attitudes in relation to new media is a reflection of their own personal interests, motivation, and beliefs about parenting (2) class dynamics, working class parents use more of a hands-off approach than their middle class counterparts. In reference to concept one, personally I believe my husband I exposed our son to our media interests, and what we thought would be of educational benefit beginning at a very early age.  As he grew older, the separation began and we continued to push. But he pushed back to take ownership of his preferences. In relation to concept two, my parenting falls into both categories. However, I lean more to the hands off approach.   I find it intriguing how parents decide where to place technology, and the decision is usually based on socioeconomic class, geographic location, and even religious background. This chapter really makes you think about your students’ homes and how they fit into the categories of access to technology, and house rules for technology.  As an educator and parent, it’s enlightening to think about the dynamics that structure the regulation, restriction, and encouragement of new media with families. 

During my childhood, media devices were small in number.  I grew up in a large family and during my teens, (1970’s) we had two televisions. The t.v. is where we congregated in the evenings for family time.  We weren’t allowed to have the t.v. on during dinner, and when mom got fed up listening to the t.v., she sent us out to play.  However, we usually were outside, instead of in. I do remember getting an Atari and playing pong for the first time, whew, we were something!  The Atari was set up in a common room for all to use.  As an adult, and mom to one son, we are very open with media devices and their uses.  Our first computer was set up in our family room, and there is still a computer there.  My son carries a laptop to different areas of the house. His game stations are in the family room, and his bedroom.  We have never really set limits to his time spent using media, but we encourage physical activity and conversation during meals. I was able to make a correlation between the reading and fathers playing video games.  Even though I enjoy some video games, my husband and son spent numerous hours playing games together.  It is funny how they still talk about specific games and the time spent trying to master a game.
I believe to help close the gap between parents and children we need to provide opportunities for formal and informal engagement with media.  Maybe we should be designing community activities that involve parents in particular lessons, activities and projects?  The collaborative activities might help parents and children understand each other in terms of today's teens and adults use of media in the context of their culture. "However, we also chronicled many instances of parents and kids coming together around new new media, even for media production." (pg. 192, chapter 4)

             

EDUC 6816 Final Track Star and Reflection

My TrackStar: "Walls or No Walls" in the Classroom

I believe the strengths of my TrackStar are the multiple perspectives presented, and the requirement for students to synthesize, defend, analyze, and judge the different perspectives.  Hopefully, this TrackStar will inspire students to continue researching the different views of using technology in the classroom, and develop an awareness of deconstructing websites.  As students evaluate websites the process of making sense of what they are reading/viewing is taking place, and then communicating the findings is an end result.  Also, when thinking about information literacy, we are including problem-solving skills.  Problem-solving is not unique to one particular subject area, problem-solving extends across all subjects, and every day issues. In conclusion, teaching students research skills with the purpose of locating, applying and distinguishing between relevant and not-relevant are valuable skills for life-long learning.

EDUC 6816 Trapped between a Rock and Hard Place

What does the term "discursive practices" mean? Discursive practice addresses the processes by which cultural meanings are produced and understood.

What does "discourse" mean? I believe the term discourse in this article refers to the “ formal treatment of the subject (information literacy) in speech or writing.

What is the "rock" and what is the "hard place"? “The rock is the current conceptions of information literacy that represent information literacy as a skill or competency that is confined to information access and use, and associated with tools such as text or technology. The hard place refers to attempts to translate this conception from the formal learning regimes of education and academic libraries to other sectors where learning is less structured or systematized, but is just as important (i.e., workplaces).” (Lloyd, 2011)

What are the differences between the skills prescribed for information searching in academic and workplace settings?  In academic settings, “The skills prescribed in searching for information, accessing and using it are formalized by particular rules, regulations, and curriculum that are underpinned by an instrumental rationality. This allows the acquisition of knowledge and ways of knowing to be measured against formalized sets of criteria. In this setting, primacy is awarded to knowledge that is canonical, objective, and explicit, and there is a focus on individual performance and the development of self-sufficiency through independent learning.” (Lloyd, 2011)  In workplace settings, “Workplaces offer another type of social setting, where the information landscape is often described as messy, complex, and distributed through a range of practices that entwine to contribute to the collective performance of work.” (Lloyd, 2011)

How do academic notions of information literacy undermine workplace notions information literacy? “This approach to explaining and describing workplace information literacy appears to undermine important workplace concepts of teamwork and group problem solving aimed at building collective knowledge, where information skills are spread across a team rather than being centered on an individual.”  (Lloyd, 2011)

How are information needs identified in work place setting like nursing and emergency workers?

Emergency workers, problems are solved through collaborative efforts that rely on the expertise and experiences of those involved.  Nursing –“ A tension exists, as nurses must reconcile their own informed understanding of patient care with the dominant and codified knowledge of the medical profession, which acts as the knowledge authority in relation to medical need, practice, and procedure.” (Lloyd, 2011)  

Why do issues of plagiarism not resonate in workplace settings? In a workplace setting, information becomes a collective possession.  Due to working in groups to solve problems, and designing plans of performance (for what works best), the origin of the information becomes lost and becomes a collective wisdom and dialogue.  (Lloyd, 2011)

 Are information literacy skills transferable across contexts and settings? Why or Why not?  “However, evidence from Hartmann (2001), Ellis and Salisbury (2004), and Herring (2010) indicate that information literacy skills do not appear to successfully transfer, either within a school-based setting (e.g., from classroom to classroom), across education settings (from school to university), or into the workplace (Lloyd-Zantiotis, 2004).”  Informational literacy skills do not seem to be a specific set of skills that can be taught in isolation and transfer to all situations.  Informational literacy is specific to each situation, and these skills are unique to the setting.

What is "practice theory"? “Practice theories emphasize the analysis of ways of engaging with the world. These social theories are concerned with exploring human activity, subjectivity, intersubjectivity, embodiment, language, and power in relation to the "organization, reproduction and transformation of social life" (Schatzki, 2001, p. 1).

How does the author of this article define information literacy? Lloyd (2011) states, “An array of information related activities and skills, constituted, justified and organized through the arrangements of a social site, and mediated socially and materially with the aim of producing shared understanding and mutual agreement about ways of knowing and recognizing how performance is enacted, enabled and constrained in collective situated action. As a central information practice, information literacy practice is defined as: Knowledge of information sources within an environment and an understanding of how these sources and the activities used to access them are constructed through discourse. Information literacy is constituted through the connections that exist between people, artifacts, texts and bodily experiences that enable individuals to develop both subjective and intersubjective positions. Information literacy is a way of knowing the many environments that constitute an individual being in the world.”

How do educators need to change their understanding of information literacy in order to prepare student for the information literacy practices they will encounter in workplace settings?

Educators need to prepare students for workplace settings by understanding information literacy as a concept of working in social settings, not as individuals, developing an identity,  providing practice with multimodal opportunities, and understanding that informational literacy is not a skill taught in isolation of context, but skills taught in specific context.

What do the terms "ontological" and "epistemological" mean? Ontological – concepts, relationships, commitment to a particular vocabulary   Epistemological- the creation and dissemination of knowledge in a particular setting

After reading this article, how useful is the traditional research paper we expect students to produce in school in preparing them for workplace settings? What are traditional research papers useful for? Should we still assign traditional research papers? Speaking from a mom’s perspective first, my son just completed a Junior Research paper as part of a 21^st Century passport program, required at his high school.  His paper was completed in isolation, as an individual, with academic rules and regulations, and did not in any way promote collaboration, creating information using different modalities, and in short, it held no value to him. I don’t believe learning to complete a traditional research paper holds any value in a workplace setting because the manner in which it is approached.  The paper was completed in a traditional manner of using index cards without reflection, no peer feedback, and the topic had to be an occupation that he might be interested in- for the future.  Traditional research papers might be useful for citing references, and finding research-based articles, but, if students aren’t taught how to deconstruct articles, journals, etc… and understand where the information comes from, and who published it, and synthesize the information, etc.., then it can’t be very useful. No, we should not assign traditional research papers. Students should learn to conduct research in a collaborative, reflective, engaging manner.

What is one of the biggest challenges to changing the way information literacy is conceptualized in school settings? Administrators, teachers, and some parents are the challenge.  It’s like the “Research Paper” is the almighty esteemed project, holding some academic value, and is a rite of passage if you complete the project with a passing grade.  I believe some school systems are afraid to take away the traditional research paper out of fear of not meeting expectations.

What attributes of the 21st century make it essential that educators change their approaches toward information literacy? Our students are already participating in their specific informational literacy settings. Students exist in a social culture, and to prepare for the workplace setting students need to analyze and synthesize the abundance of information made available to them on a daily basis and become informed decision makers.  I believe we fail our students if we continue to focus on traditional informational literacies.

What changes can teachers make to their classroom activities to engage students in the  information literacy practices they will encounter in 21st century workplace settings? Offer the affordances to students that are meaningful, socially or collaboratively based, and provide opportunities for reflection and responses.

Lloyd, A. (2011). Trapped between a rock and a hard place: What counts as information 

literacy in the workplace and how is it conceptualized?  Library Trends, 60 (2) pp. 277-296.

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EDUC 6809 Chapters 2 and 3 Friendship and Intimacy

Popular media accounts tend to portray young people’s interactions with social media as anti-social and detrimental to their abilities to communicate effectively in face-to-face settings. Additionally, many adults tend to view adolescents interactions with social media as delinquent or frivolous. In a blog posting answer the following questions:

How do these chapters support or counter adult views of adolescent use of social media as destructive or frivolous?  How did this chapter change or confirm your understanding of adolescent use of social media? What connections, if any, can you make between this chapter and learning in school?

 It was a surprise to find out, “Despite the perception that online media are enabling teens to reach out to a new set of social relations online, we found that for the vast majority of teens, the relations fostered in school are by far the most dominant in how they define their peers and friendships” (pg. 82) Honestly, (today)  I would have thought that social networks played a more dominant role in defining friendships and relationships. So, I found this chapter interesting due to the overwhelming comparisons between the core practices of friendships that have remained the same throughout history,  and “the changes we see are only variants of these core practices, inflected in distinctive ways”. (pg. 80)  So how do we get parents, teachers, etc… to understand new media practices, and not immediately respond to situations without understanding the culture and literacies of social media?   I do agree what takes place online is reproduced and discussed offline.  As a parent, and teacher you just have to listen to conversations.  Online and offline are just different settings, however the online setting provides a powerful setting to allow “always on, or always accessible”.  “Always on or, always accessible” can be positive or negative.  Positive in that teens are able to express themselves, maintain and create friendships, understand cultures different from their own, and learn to mediate or negotiate situations.   However, I never really thought about “some of the monitoring that happens during teens’ relationships veers eerily close to serious and emotional control or abuse.” (pg. 141)  I suppose if teens feel vulnerable or anxiety ridden about their intimate relationships, then “always accessible” provides the opportunity to continuously monitor or check on the other person.  I have to admit though, when it comes to “bullying”  I thought social networks  made it a little easier to “bully” others.  “Technology provides more channels through which youth can potentially bully one another”. (pg. 108)  But, according to (pg. 107) “Measuring cyberbullying or internet harassment , is difficult, in part  because both scholars and teens struggle to define it.”  I truly struggle with the concept of bullying, mainly because as educators we sit through seminars, confiscate cell phones, denied access to sites at school, listen to local law enforcement narrate stories with tragic outcomes, and listen to other parents talk about specific situations.  I’m not making light of the situations that have occurred, but I do want to garner a better understanding of this explosive, pervasive topic.   To personally make connections between these two chapters and school is based on the premise that we don’t actually understand the new literacies our students are negotiating, learning, and seamlessly interacting with on a daily basis.  How do we harness these truly amazing skills and processes and integrate into educational environments?   I believe we begin with erasing the negative mindsets, attitudes, the thought “what was good enough for me, is good enough for them”, and genuinely focus on being co-participants and leaders in new media literacies. 

EDUC 6809 Media Ecology Interview Hilights

Media Ecology Interview Highlights

Austin is 17 years old, an only child, and lives with his parents in a rural area.  He doesn’t have any neighbors his age.  He will be entering his senior year of high school in August.  His parents are college graduates with degrees in Education and Mechanical/Civil Engineering.  Austin isn’t quite sure about what he wants to study after high school.  He expresses some interest in the health/medical field. 

During the interview, Austin was texting his friends to agree on a meeting time to play golf, texting his dad to tell him happy birthday, calling his grandma, and playing a golf game on his phone.  It took me some time (over the past few years) to understand this type of multi-tasking, and it doesn’t bother me any longer.  If he is able to complete and understand whatever it is he is working on, then so be it.

Excerpt #1: Q:  What is your favorite activity on the computer?  A: Playing online chess and interacting with people from all over the world.  I like my chess skills to be tested.  Q: Why do you play online and not in a club at school?  A:  No way, I’m not joining a club. I don’t want to be told when and where I have to meet, I want to play on my own time.  Q: Do you have online rules to follow from your parents?  No, not really.  They talked to me a lot when I was much younger about giving out personal information, and told me talk to them if I had questions.  I knew they would be “in the know”, so I didn’t try to hide a lot.

Excerpt #2:  Q:  Do you feel as if your mom and dad understand today’s youth and new media?  A:  Well, my mom and dad both use technology such as cell phones, computers, ipads, and ipods.  They use the technology for many things, but do they understand youth, probably not.  Mom just doesn’t get the fact that when a friend sends a text, I don’t have to immediately respond!  Q:  So, you don’t feel as if you have” rules” to follow with your friends?  A:  What? No, we don’t have rules about how fast we answer text messages.  We just text when we feel like it.  Q:  What would you do if you didn’t have a cell phone? If I didn’t have my cell phone, I would feel a lot less social! How would I keep up with my friends?

Excerpt #3:  Q:  Since you don’t have a Facebook account, do you feel left out of the loop?  A:  I was never told that I couldn’t have a myspace or facebook account, my parents actually encouraged me to get one.  Honestly, I just didn’t want to set up an account, and keep up with everything going on.  Sometimes my friends talk about FB in our conversations, but I don’t feel like I’m missing anything.  I do have a Twitter account, it’s easy to use, and I like it.

EDUC 6816 TrackStar Activities

Activity # 1 - Review of TrackStar Examples

The TrackStar examples are excellent choices for each indicated grade level and focus on real world or engaging issues.  First, students are required to view and read different perspectives on the same topic which encourages comparing and contrasting information.  Also, these instructional TrackStar activities promote informational literacy skills based on higher order thinking skills.  Each example uses  “language” that requires the student to synthesize, defend, judge, analyze, and create and communicate information.  How many activities do we actually use in our classrooms that require our students to perform the aforesaid?   In addition to the TrackStars teaching our students to develop and implement informational literacy skills, teachers planning and constructing these activities are learning to recognize students as multimodal learners.    Lastly, each TrackStar example requires students to use critical media skills to locate, evaluate, and communicate information in an ethical manner and through a transparent process.  

Activity # 2 - My TrackStar Rough Draft
TrackStar: What is the best structure for a classroom: "Walls" or No "Walls"?
This TrackStar requires Pre-Service Teachers to explore the use of Web 2.0 tools in the classroom. Should educators "open" their classrooms to a Global Society?

EDUC 6809 Reading #4 A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

How does creating an Illuminated Text project relate to this article? “For readers who struggle, pictures operate beyond the decoration function (Levin, Anglin, & Carney, 1987), serving as a tool to create or confirm understanding.” (Hibbing & Rankin-Erickson 2011).  The Illuminated Text activity would be a highly effective strategy to assist students in comprehending various forms of text.  For example, poetry can be difficult for students to interpret.  But, if poetry can be transformed to images by students or teachers, then students would be able to create the mental imagery or memory pegs that foster understanding. My belief is this: “If we truly want to reach learners, they must be involved in the process of gaining understanding.  We cannot expect our learners to be “little robots receiving information”.  As participants, and creators of products, our students are accepting the responsibility of learning ownership.”  While creating the Illuminated Text for this class, I was able to show my interpretation of friendship, based on Eleanor Roosevelt’s poem, not someone else’s idea of friendship.  Also, I had to examine each word independently, and apply my understanding of the word.

 The following concepts represent students as active participants in the learning process.

Hibbing & Rankin-Erickson (2011) suggest, “In our work with struggling readers we have found that the use of sketches, illustrations, picture books, and movies provides students with information on which to build their internal images. By supporting students with these tools, the teacher provides students with essential elements necessary for responding to the text.”  While reading this article, I consistently related the content to strategies I practice with students in the classroom.  Some strategies were very similar, and a few were new and thought provoking.  To begin with, I have found success in using before, during, and after comprehension strategies across the curriculum.  In relation to using images, I model the process and explicitly teach the process to students.  Before reading, during reading, and after reading, I choose vocabulary, and images for students to illustrate, analyze, make predictions, and compare and contrast.  Students keep journals of their illustrations, and notes.  Students are involved in the process, and feel as if there is a purpose set for reading.

The W-R-W-R cycle is interesting due to the possibilities of a deeper depth of knowledge.  According to Hibbing & Rankin-Erickson (2011), “The parallel visual representation of the text allows students to practice visualizing, summarizing, predicting, and confirming even if they struggle with reading the text.”  I have never used a video/movie parallel to reading a novel.  What a powerful technique to ensure students’ understanding of the text!  A few weeks ago, I observed a teacher reading the novel, Holes with her students. Several students commented about going home in the evenings and watching the movie as the class progressed through the book.  I believe some were excited to find out what happens next, based on their predictions, and some probably watched to gain a better understanding.

Anne, N. H., & Rankin-Erickson, J. (2003). A picture is worth a thousand words: Using visual   images to improve comprehension for middle school struggling readers. The Reading Teacher, 56(8) 758- 770.     

EDUC 6809 Media Ecology Case Study: Interview Questions

Identify a young person between the ages of 8-18 and schedule an interview. Post the name of your young person (use a pseudonym) and a brief description of your relationship to the person and any prior knowledge of them as an individual, student, and their use of digital media. Also post some of your ideas for interview questions. If you already know something about their use of digital media your questions may be specific to that use. Record the Interview or take extensive notes while you interview.

Media Ecology Case Study

Austin

Age 17

Relationship:  Son

Austin is a 17 year old boy, and just finished his junior year of high school.  He began playing video games and using software for games on the computer around age 3.  His experience in creating digital media products is most often a result of classroom assignments.  He enjoys listening to music on his ipod and downloading music to his phone.  His phone provides the necessary features for his preferred types of communication.  Surprisingly, he has never expressed an interest in belonging to Facebook.  Austin’s interactions are mostly between a small group of friends.  He is enrolled in an AP Literature course and (I’m) really excited about his summer assignments.  The course requires participation in a Course Blog over the summer, and creating a “news notebook” of current events.  Austin plans to learn how to use Google Sites to create his “news notebook”. 

Questions for an Interview:

What devices/media technologies have you owned, and what are your present devices/media technologies?

If you had to rank your devices/media technologies in order of use, what would the list “look” like?

If you could purchase 3 new devices/media technolgies, what would they be?

If you had to choose only 1 device, what would it be, and why?

What kinds of thing do you use the computer for?

Do you do this at home or school?

What is your favorite thing to do on the computer?

What is your favorite game on the computer? Why?

What is your favorite xbox game? Why?

Do you discuss video games with your friends?

What type of learning do you think takes places while playing video games?

How do you use the computer at school?

How did you learn to do that?

Do you find yourself helping others with computer skills, or do you ask a lot of questions?

What is your favorite subject in school?  Could this subject be more engaging through the use of devices?

What are your school policies regarding devices? Do  you agree or disagree?

Do you feel that adequate access is provided at school for computer use?

If you could change something about computer use in school what would it be?

Do you have rules at home about device use?

If you could change something about your home use of devices what would it be?

Do you feel as if your parents are “old school” and don’t understand how young people use media?

Since you don’t participate in Facebook, do you often hear conversations about what is posted on Facebook?  Do you feel left out of the conversation?

What is your opinion of teachers having a Facebook account and students as friends on FB?

Why do you think friends at school want you to follow them on Twitter?

What is your favorite genre of music, and how do you acquire songs?

What are your favorite t.v. shows?  Do you discuss t.v. shows with your friends?

What do you know about copyright laws, downloading media for personal use, etc…?

Do you feel as if learning takes place when you are randomly searching on the computer?

I'm aware that you like to solve puzzles, or use problem solving skills. Do you feel that devices/media technologies provide opportunities for critical thinking?  If so, give some examples?

Also, I know you enjoy reading and writing.  What opportunities are provided that enhance your strengths through using media technologies?

What if you were told that your Senior year of high school would change, no face to face classes, all classes would be online?  How would you feel?