The original image from task 1. The intention was to introduce myself using an image of what I carry with me.
The readings this week on how we think about literacy, literacy pedagogy, and how technologies impact what it means to be literate had me think a lot about my students. In education, I will often hear phrases that resemble “kids today are different than they were when I was younger”, or “kids these days!”, “back in the day when I was a kid, I had to…*insert invariably difficult thing here*”. My response is usually in the realm of “well of course they are different! Their upbringing is nothing like ours!”
Mabrito and Medley discuss this gap that many are intuitively aware of. They propose that we as educators not think of the places where our students create, consume, and reshape text not strictly as entertainment or just social gatherings but as alternate classrooms (2008, p.62). They also go on to say that in order for us to better understand our students we must go to those very places and experience what they experience.
I have only been teaching for seven years, but one commonality that transcends the majority of my students is their love for YouTube. Granted, I think much of their time is spent passively consuming, but there are those that spend time trying to build up a channel that has followers with creative and engaging content. Even just yesterday, my children built a space habitat out of cardboard, a small tent, and a bunch of blankets. Instead of asking me to come and see it, they grabbed a cellphone and proceeded to give a “tour” of the habitat in the exact same way a YouTuber might give a review. It had a lot of the key phrases you’d hear such as “but enough of that, let’s get right into it”, and “thanks for watching”. All it was missing was the “don’t forget to like and subscribe”.
A YouTube-style review is, at its core, a multimodal persuasion piece about something that cuts through what a traditional language text might not. The New London Group discusses the increasing multiplicity and integration of meaning-making where the textual is also related to the visual, the audio, the spatial…[and that]…new communications media are reshaping the way we use language (1996, p. 64).
As such, I decided to rework my first task into a review of this sort. Enjoy!
References
Mabrito, M. & Medley, R. (2008). Why professor johnny can’t read: Understanding the net generation’s texts. Innovate: Journal of Online Education: Vol. 4:6, Article 2.
The New London Group. (1996). A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social futures. Harvard Educational Review 66(1), 60-92.