In 2006, there were two internet cafés, or cybér cafés as they were locally known in Nouadhibou, Mauritania, a West African port largely unknown to Americans. For 200 ougyia an hour (roughly one dollar US), Mauritanians whose only previous window into a world outside of the Saharan landscape they lived in was through stolen satellite signals and aging television sets. It was in this landscape that I found myself running a technology center for girls. At the time, I was working in the Peace Corps, fresh out of the University of Washington College of Education. The ideas about literacy and multiculturalism that I had first encountered at the UW were made visible in the Islamic Republic of Mauritania. My classes centered around student production;
At what point do our working definitions of literacy need to progress as the technologies we use progress? Is access to technology a human right? As immersive technologies make concrete the once abstract, will we change the ways we assess? Technologies like Google Cardboard are putting virtual reality (VR) into the hands of anyone with a smartphone — the pedagogical and ethical implications of this transition have yet to be written. I am fortunate to be married to one of the core developers of Google Cardboard, as well as friends with many of the major players in virtual reality as Seattle becomes central to the development of VR. Google is steadily working toward DIY VR for everyone and I plan to be at the forefront of this pedagogical exploration. The next few years are going to see fundamental changes in the way we interact and learn with the world and I want to be in a position to drive
Built into IWitness is a tool for students and teachers to compile and edit video, a teacher activity builder, and a virtual environment to share student projects. The evolution of this approach can further be seen in the many of the courses I have developed with University faculty. At the Center for Digital Learning and Innovation at Seattle University, I work with faculty to identify evidence of learning that students are motivated to contribute. Borrowing from Daniel Pink’s Drive, I work with faculty to brainstorm assessments that are autonomous, require mastery, and have a greater purpose. This intersection of motivation, contribution and creation to drive curriculum content is a key research area of mine. Ideally I would like to build research-backed learning environments, research its efficacy through students and teachers, and build upon the design to establish best practices in blended, traditional, and immersive learning environments. Ultimately I would like to establish the social and cultural elements critical to effective, authentic learning in the 21st
In “Modern Romance,” Celeste Biever describes romantic relationships in the Internet community. She describes how people can romantically be involved on the Internet and how the Internet teaches one to learn about a person from the inside out.In “Cyberspace and Identity,” Sherry Turkle also expresses her interest in the Internet and how it allows for the act of self-exploration. Even though their focus on what the Internet is used for are different from the perspective of one another, Biever and Turkle both see the Internet as a place for exploration in a general sense.
In his memoir revolution 2.0 the young Google marketing executive Wael Ghonim emerged as an internet activists’. His advocacy for freedom of the suppressed ordinary people initiated
Jones-Kavalier, B. R., & Flannigan, S. I. (2008). Connecting the digital dots: Literacy of the 21st
In earlier times, the acquisition and spreading of knowledge was not used to improve society. Instead it was used to have control and to exclude certain groups. As one could imagine, there needed to be a change in the way that the education system was set up. In her essay, “Project Classroom Makeover”, Cathy Davidson discusses how the “one size fits all” model of learning hinders students from learning in a new and modernized way. She suggests the notion that using technology to teach and learn can be effective in many ways. Davidson shows that using technology presents the opportunity for a traditional classroom to become more inclusive and creative. The “democratization of knowledge” is the improvement and modernization of how information is taught and learned. Having a modernized and advanced learning system is a vital point for students because they gain insight and experience with what is considered a society dominated by advanced technology. Technology has become a dominant resource in the 21st century which makes it a relevant and essential factor needed to succeed in the world of education and
...ty. Age and mistrust of the internet, upon the behalf of the business people on City Road presented a disconnection. Eventually, the online community connected universally with visitors, particularly those from America and Turkey and is now proving popular. Both women exhibit that,
“What counts as literacy, how literacy changes in response to the new media landscape, and what value we should ascribe to the new forms of communication that continue to emerge and evolve online? (Jenkins, 2009)"
Technology would, not only transform the education system, but also equalize academic achievement (Pinker, 2014); the One Laptop Per Child project anticipated that in providing every child in a developing country with their own personal laptop, knowledge would spread and academic success would be easily cultivated (Pinker, 2014) - an undertaking that, when infiltrated in countries afflicted with civil wars and malaria, such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo, only led many to acknowledge the case
Children today are growing up in a digital world where their surrounding environments are rich with popular culture, leading teachers to reconsider and respond to new pedagogies for teaching literacy in the classroom (Beavis, 2012; Hall, 2011; Petrone, 2013; Walsh, 2010).
With an emphasis on STEM education, I am able to implement many forms of technology and new literacies into everyday lessons. Defining New literacies as “the skills, strategies, and insights necessary to successfully exploit the rapidly changing information and communication technologies that continually emerge in our world” (Reutzle & Cooter, 2015, p.21),lends to many of the programs I offer being highly effective in exposing students to such literacies. The use of computers is a way in which I connect students to 21st century technologies. Using software to create and play video games just seems like fun to students, when really they are learning about literacy and technology while engaging in fun
Digital Nation: Life on the Virtual Front. Dir. Rachel Dretzin. 2010. PBS. Web.
Teens and Technology. (2014). In Global Issues in Context Online Collection. Detroit: Gale. Retrieved from http://find.galegroup.com/gic/infomark.do?&source=gale&idigest=850304855f0d3cfe5cb77557610d7d23&prodId=GIC&userGroupName=dav_main&tabID=&docId=CP3208520278&type=retrieve&contentSet=GREF&version=1.0
Looking back over the course of the semester, I feel that I learned many new and interesting uses for technology within the classroom – both for classrooms that have a lot of technology and for classrooms that are limited with technology. For the majority of the class, we utilized William Kists’ book The Socially Networked Classroom: Teaching in the New Media Age (2010), which provided multiple modes of instruction that both utilized and/or created technology. One of the first things that I remember, and consequently that stuck with me through the course’s entirety, is that individuals must treat everything as a text. Even a garden is a text. The statement made me change the way that I traditionally viewed Language Arts both as a student and as a teacher, as I very narrowly saw literature and works of the like as texts only; however, by considering nearly anything as a text, one can analyze, study, and even expand his/her knowledge. Kist (2010) states that society is “experiencing a vast transformation of the way we “read” and “write,” and a broadening of the way we conceptualize “literacy” (p. 2). In order to begin to experience and learn with the modern classroom and technologically advanced students, individuals must begin to see new things as literature and analyze those things in a similar manner.
Technology provides a great resource for teachers and students in the ongoing effort to assess student learning. Mayen and Greer (2010) mention 9 ways technology helps in assessing student learning.” Technology provides the capacity to (a) provide immediate feedback to teachers on the performance of learners individually, and in aggregate, to facilitate databased instructional decisions; (b) provide feedback to students as they engage in Web-based instruction; (c) present skills and concepts in graphics and animation for clarity; (d) offer opportunities for students to interact with the delivery of instruction in a manner that is engaging; (e) deliver instruction aligned with standards and formative and summative assessments; (f) embed assessments in instructional applications; (g) provide instructional opportunities in nonschool settings; (h) employ features that enhance mo...
In online courses, technology can be used to involve learners and instructors in active learning asynchronously or synchronously. Harris and Park (2008) described how students can record audio or video files and post or share them through course management systems to increase levels of connectedness asynchronously in online learning environments. Therefore, Dale and Pymm (2009) added that through the inclusion of such digital media content, learning experiences can be transformed to be more personal and social. In a 2013 study, 61.9% of students surveyed agreed or strongly agreed that sharing files was an effective way to communicate with classmates (Bolliger and Armier, 2013, p. 206). Synchronously, one of the most common forms of active learning involves collaborative learning. Collaborative learning, a form of teamwork, represents a specific type of LLI in which students work together in teams to complete course assignments while simultaneously developing a deeper understanding of course content and engaging in critical thinking (Palloff & Pratt, 2001). Collaborative projects have been shown to reduce feelings of isolation and increase students’ sense of belonging to a community of learners (Thurmond & Wambach,
Technology have changed the way teachers are now accountable to teach, and the way students are learning. During this course I have learned key implications of new