photo credit: Denny Atkinson Literacy_OED
While reading some of the introductory materials I am thinking about the historical perspective of writing. The invention of writing changed the way we thought. Our course overview describes writing as the most radical of any new communication technology. Even Socrates worried about the impact of writing as a new way of communication. He worried that writing things down would inhibit people from thinking for themselves when they had someone else’s thoughts in front of them. He felt that oral communication and discourse was key to making discoveries and to realizing errors. With the advent of digital media, opportunities for interaction and discourse go far beyond text. Digitally written responses can occur at the same speed as oral communication. It is not only the speed of delivery, it is the new forms of delivery available. According to Wikipedia, “text is not the only and main way to communicate. Text is being combined with sounds, and images and being incorporated into movies, billboards, almost any site on the internet, and television. All these ways of communication require the ability to understand a multimedia world.”
I went into MET with an intuitive understanding of my responsibility as a teacher to become more literate with this multi media world; at least to the best of my abilities. I chose this image because I believe literacy must be redefined and as a result, we as teachers must teach beyond the reading and writing process. Not to say we have to become experts in all forms of digital media but we have to allow for these multi-modal expressions of learning in our students. In these, my 8th, 9th and 10th MET courses I am trying to assimilate these understandings of new literacies and their impact on my teaching.
Best,
Justine
Multiliteracy. (n.d.). In Wikipedia. Retrieved September 6, 2014, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiliteracy
