“The
distinctive contribution of the approach to literacy as social practice lies in
the ways in which it involves careful and sensitive attention to what people do
with texts, how they make sense of them and use them to further their own
purposes in their own learning lives” (Gillen and Barton, 2010, p. 9).
My
very first blog post started out with this quote featured above, and
consequently it is the first and last thing I will take away from this course.
Above all, I see New Media and New Literacies as more or less useless unless
one can take the information and skills embedded within it and apply it to
their own life to derive true meaning from it.
Throughout
this course, whether we were learning about Henry Jenkin’s core media literacy
skills of the 21st century, participatory culture, digital
natives/digital immigrants, transliteracy or information literacy, we had opportunities
to apply this information to our every-day life in an effort to make the most
sense of it. In doing so, I have learned a great deal. For example, I learned
that “play” is one of the 21st century core media literacy skills
and is of the utmost important. I then was able to make better sense of it as I
made the connection to my personal life- in college I had one professor who
before every new math lesson would empty out a bunch of math manipulatives on
the table and give us college students the chance to actually PLAY with the
blocks etc. What did it teach me? It taught me that this skill gets all
individuals interested in what is going to be taught and that once our initial
curiosities are catered to, my attention span is longer. How did I make the
connection to my work life? Well, as a teacher I now ALWAYS give my students
the opportunity to play and test out any new materials I am introducing, that
way they are engaged and excited but then ready to focus when the lecture
begins.
I
also gained understanding on the concept of participatory culture. I learned participatory
culture is a media driven culture in which people are constantly consumers and
producers, shifting away from individual work into a community of expression- a
community that shares and explores others expression. How did I apply this to
my life to make it meaningful? One word- Instagram. Instagram is an example of
something I use in my everyday life that falls under this category of
participatory culture. Instagram is a way for you, your friends, your
relatives, celebrities, and people all over the whole to look at and share
pictures they have taken/that have been taken. The pictures take on all kinds
of creative forms- no picture is exactly alike because every person has the
option to edit his/her image taken.
In
addition, I learned about everything that falls under the category of growing
up digital. I learned about digital natives and digital immigrants- making the
connection by identifying myself as a digital native, however, taking into
account that my audience/learners cannot simply be classified under this
measure thanks to Bennett and Maton’s 2010 article entitled “ Beyond the
digital natives debate: Towards a more nuanced understanding of students’
technology experiences” I was able to make connections to another course in
MALET program where I learned the definitions of a digital native and digital
immigrant and apply it to this article that taught me although these terms will
always be an important general measure of classifying people in terms of
technology expertise, I now understand and see how qualitative methods are
truly critical to acquire in depth
insights into our individual learners.
Can
you see where I’m going with this?! Every topic learned in this course deepened
my understanding of new media and new literacy because right from the start I
was exposed to and reminded of the importance of taking information and making
it real-world applicable- making the information meaningful to YOU through
generating those crucial connections.
New Media and New Literacies is a course that has truly broadened and
deepened my understanding when it comes to how I now see and define emerging
literacy and media, especially in terms of technology. This course has already
impacted me in terms of my education and my personal life (I.e., work life.)
This course will go on to impact the work I intend to accomplish throughout
this MALET program as I have not only gained a plethora of resources to
reference in future papers and exposure to specific tools/software/programs to
use in future projects but because I have gained a solid foundational
understanding of what counts as emerging technologies and what makes up new
media and new literacies. I am educated and will continued to be educated on
both the positive and negative effects of learning and emerging technologies,
which will make me one well-rounded socially aware lifelong learner!
