New Literacy and the Future of Pedagogy…
…or jobs, DIY and video games.
The London Group states that literacy pedagogy has to change if it wants to remain relevant to the working lives that our education system is ostensibly preparing students for (p 66). This goal is becoming ever harder to achieve in a world where the demands of the workplace are changing faster than a single generation of students. Although educators should not simply think in economic terms, students do “need to develop the capacity to speak up, to negotiate, and to be able to engage critically with the conditions of their working lives (p 67).” What will their working lives look like? We have this predictive problem where we want education to be relevant to students in a workforce that is difficult to foresee.
Bolter has expressed that traditional forms of literacy have not been augmented, not supplanted by new forms, and are not likely to be in the foreseeable future. New definitions of multi-literacies like those expounded by the New London Group still require some important reading skills which are effectively taught in the traditional classroom. The place where the brick and mortar school is falling short is in the realm of digital literacies. How are we, digital foreigners, to teach these new literacies to digital natives?
I have come across a couple of readings in another course that give interesting suggestions. The article by Kafia and Peppler (2011) focuses on DIY and what they term ‘participatory culture.’ Basically they say that kids are putting massive amounts of time into projects that they are interested in and are learning 21st century skills in the process. Students are accessing complex information to further their hobbies. They are setting up forums to share information and ideas with other aficionados from around the world whom they have never met. They are posting How-To videos to help others on a variety of platforms. The problem is not every child is doing this and so some are being left behind. As educators, our goal should not be learning to do all these new-fangled things with technology but, instead, to be designing spaces that ensure all students have the tools, both physical and mental, to contribute in the participatory culture.
The second source is James Paul Gee who promotes the benefits inherent in certain video games. He has written a number of articles but this video sums up some of his ideas nicely. At around 2:20 he gives a thought experiment that is apropos to my topic. After thirty hours of Algebra we are accustomed to giving a test to see what has been learned. It is how we all remember school and in my experience it is still conducted in this manner. On the other hand, when someone finishes a game after thirty hours of invested time, we know they are able to solve all those problems without giving a test. The learning experience is inherent in the nature of the game. Gamers are forced to solve increasingly complex problems by obtaining and refining certain skills. They must master those skills before moving on to higher levels. Gee believes the ‘skill and drill’ paradigm of traditional school will give way to something more like the ‘imbedded and embodied’ learning represented by some video games. I look forward to the day when I can tell my mother that all those hours of my childhood were not wasted, but rather invested in my future.
Bolter, J.D. (2001). Writing space: Computers, hypertext, and the remediation of print. Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Gee, James Paul. “Learning and Games.” The Ecology of Games: Connecting Youth, Games, and Learning. Edited by Katie Salen. The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Series on Digital Media and Learning. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2008. 21–40. doi:10.1162/dmal.9780262693646.021
Kafai, Y.B., and Peppler, K.A. (2011). Youth, technology, and DIY: developing participatory competencies in creative media production. Review of Research in Education. (2011) 35:89. DOI: 10.3102/0091732X10383211
The New London Group. (1996). A Pedagogy of Multiliteracies: Designing Social Futures. Harvard Educational Review 66(1), pp. 60-92. Retrieved from http://wwwstatic.kern.org/filer/blogWrite44ManilaWebsite/paul/articles/A_Pedagogy_of_Multiliteracies_Designing_Social_Futures.html
It is very important for the teacher to focus on the skills and environment surrounding the students rather than focusing on the technology by itself. Yet technology can be the solution to reach children who are left behind. Technology can offer access of interactive and engaging content in 3rd world countries. It can connect teachers and students on a global scale. Teachers can learn from each other through social networks. I participate in twitter live chats such as #aussieED and it is amazing how much teachers learn from each other. Many companies that are working through international funds are making learning possible through elearning solutions. An example is a recent project titled “Lights to Learn” that impacted 23469 students and 1073 teachers “Wise Qatar / Lights to Learn Spain”. Lights to learn used technology in order to make this project possible with joint effort from private, public, and ICT sector.
New literacy and the face of pedagogy, workspace, DIY communities, etc are all changing drastically with the advancements of ICT. The largest misconception is that, as teachers must teach content such as, memorizing facts, and delivering lectures in order to be successful in our position. If we view the role of education from the position of a primary teacher, I believe that our point of view changes significantly. In this respect, one is not teaching facts so much as to teach skills such as how to decode, how to build healthy relationship and how to access resources. From this point of view, teaching with the incorporation of ICT is much the same. It is, in this instance, the role of the teacher to facilitate learning.
I too have read Kafia and Peppler (2011) and Gee. I believe that their focus on developing a participatory culture and an environment where students feel engaged is instrumental in the field of education. Participatory cultures, as you mention, are so important as students learn to explore and pursue their own inquiry on a variety of mediums. In some classes I’ve taken in the MET program, I have had teachers who understand that not all class members’ participation will look the same as each individual has a different level of comfort. I thought that this was an interesting comment when starting a course focused on technology. What I saw over the following weeks is that although we all started at a different level of comfort, not being pushed and being told to take our own time actually encouraged students to participate more. By the mid point in the class, most students had posted equal amounts of posts.
I think that our role as teacher is to help facilitate learning and hopefully to give experience and exposure to different skills.