Cycle D - Final Reflection Post Length: <~ 1000 Words Due: Monday, May 4th (In the spirit of embracing new literacies, and showing that I’m capable of change, I’ll create/edit my document from start to finish here. :))

New Literacies: Briefly

In my individual post I defined New Literacies simply as ‘technologies that enable people

to consume and create information.’ I hadn’t considered the idea of UpperCase and lowercase

literacies prior and certainly never took the time out to think the foundational skills such as

locating, evaluting, (organizing), synthesizing and communicating information. I’ve found that

the concepts in the course have provided me with a framework and language that I didn’t have

before, and has already allowed me to construct conversations at work differently than I would

have considered 3 months ago. For example, my presentations regarding the recent Office 365

rollout have focused more on high level New Literacies modalities rather than describing

specific features. I’ve placed my efforts into trying to describe the transformative properties of

the suite, of the associated New Literacies, and into emphasizing how the suite will influence

institutional information accessibility, communication flows and information organization.

New Literacies: What works

The New Literacies concept of social construction of information is, in my opinion, the

most significant impact of online technologies. Our learning theory course introduced the

concepts of limited peripheral participation, situated cognition and communities of practice.

While they all mean something distinct they are rooted in the idea that people learn from other

people, in social situations and through active participation. The Internet and its associated

N(n)ew L(l)iteracies improve upon that model by enabling the information flow and creativity to

occur whenever and wherever there is a need or desire. The technologies have evolved such that

they now effectively allow for both long term and micro social interactions to occur. Consider

this:

Crystal Brooks Mar 23, 2015 Cycle C BackChannel Will the Google Doc commenting feature take the place of a Face 2 Face writing/reading conference.

My answer to that is ‘yes, if there is an established relationship.’ Google Docs on it’s

own cannot replace face to face, however, I believe that a video hangout conference while also

working in a document can replace a face to face meeting. The medium offers time and location

flexibility while still permitting the interpersonal interaction to occur. These technologies also

create an opportunity and space for a sustained, centralized academic dialog to occur, where

information flows organically from varieties of sources. Information can be made more

accessible and is more easily referenced that in the past.

New Literacies: What Limits Adoption

Lack of Standards

As companies race to create the next great ‘app’ to satisfy specific new literacies needs

the whole New Literacies space suffers. The lack of interoperability between application

vendors hampers the adoption of these tools. I stand by statements my first individual post that

choice overload, individual preference and the application features arms race are as limiting as

they are can be empowering.

Technology Comfort and Training

N(n)ew L(l)iteracies require an increased amount of personal responsibility. There is an

increasing expectation that people can teach themselves, that they are willing to explore, that

they can self­support. There are skills and conceptual gaps that exist that limit adoption and

(what I consider most critical) the willingness to experiment. Many of these tools require that

people are creative in how they use them.

I’ve now stated a few times that O(o)rganizational skills must be improved and was

gratified to see this line in my first post. I strongly believe that online information organization

will only become a more critical skill (integrated with the ORCA model) as data becomes more

disparate. I haven’t fully reconciled my thoughts around information flow, but am convinced

that we need to develop skills related to the this flow of data: pulling, pushing and waiting.

Evolving Social Constructs

Collaborative and Online engagement, especially outside of a known peer group, carry

social expectations that may not be comfortable for most people. I’ve wrestled in the last year

with the idea of how to leverage a social network and only recently considered that social

networks are only a small piece of this. Online collaboration, such as document creation and

writing, carry their own social standards. Do you correct the text of others, how comfortable are

you making the creation process public to collaborating editors?

The second of these two challenges listed could be improved through community

support; by IRT and by recognizing that our understanding of new literacies ‘benefits from

multiple points of view’

New Literacies: Mindset Changes Required

Kari­Lyn Osborn

Mar 23, 2015

Cycle C BackChannel

One of my problems with online research projects when I was in school was that we always research things that had

already been answered to death. I never understood why I'd go through these huge research processes to find

answers that someone else had already put together. I wanted to research something that was still a question without

a solid answer.

I agree that it’s imperative to permit children to research and engage in authentic

learning. I would add to Kari­Lyn’s thought that students also need to be able to produce work

that doesn’t fit into a predetermined mold. A new scholastic mindset needs to emerge that

permits teachers and students to explore the resources at their disposal and to create work that

demonstrates understanding. CCSS may be an effective way to establish certain fundamental

skills but seems mired in a linear approach that is potentially in direct conflict with developing

the online reading and learning skills we have been been discussing.

Knowledge is not an object and memory is not a location. Instead, knowing, learning and cognition are social

constructions expressed in actions of people interacting within communities. Through these actions cognition is

enacted, or unfolded, or constructed; without the action, there is no knowing, no cognition.

I’ve kept track of that quote since I read it sometime last year. It continues to resonate

with me and strikes me that power of New Literacies is their ability to create, strengthen and

broaden communities through the widespread dissemination of information. New Literacies of

the 21st century have the power to bring people together in much the same way the New

Literacies of the 15th century did. The more I learn the more I believe that it is the shrinking of

geographic boundaries where New Literacies are so impactful.

Cycle D Individual Post Prompt Length: 1 – 2 pages. Due: Monday, April 20th, by Noon

For this cycle I audited 2.1 different MOOC’s: Introduction to Learning Technologies and

Statistics in Education. the .1 is because I signed up for a class while I was trying to make my initial

decision and ended up participating in 1 specific assignment on a whim that I found (and will discuss

below) to be very interesting.

I initially chose the Introduction to Learning Technologies MOOC because I felt it would be a

useful supplemental course given the focus of our 2 Summers program. I audited the Statistics in

Education MOOC on a whim once our Research Methods class started to take a little more of a math

related focus. Candidly, I did very little with the second class, but did spend sufficient time to get a sense

of similarities and differences. I’ll include information about the Statistics in Education MOOC primarily

anecdotally here.

The goals for the Introduction to Learning Technologies were to twofold. It provided a broad

brush overview of technologies (primarily web specific technologies) and associated use cases for

common tools in the social, collaborative, archival and presentation spaces. The course was a little more

tool centric, than concept centric and certainly spent considerable time describing in detail features of

specific tools and how to use them. Secondarily (but more interesting to me) there was a some conceptual

content unrelated to technology. An early course module focused on the concepts of digital

copyright/literacy and content sharing that I felt was an excellent addition and a latter module focused

more on the conceptual use of the technologies that were outlined throughout the course.

The Statistics in Education course had a standout component, which was data collection for a

research project for the instructor. I am not suggesting that the course was better or worse than the

former, only that I had an ‘ah­ha’ moment when I recognized that there was an opportunity for students to

participate in the instructors research. The course content was thorough and had a more linear

progression to the materials than the learning technologies course, but that probably suited the course

well.

The Introduction to Learning Technologies course provided utilized, generally effectively, a

variety of mechanisms to deliver content. Frankly I have never participated in a MOOC that I felt took

advantage of such a wide variety of tools and resources to involve and engage the participants.

The course heavily utilized Google Apps suites, specifically using Google On­Air, Google

Hangouts and (of course) YouTube. The On­Air sessions were always 1­way as would be expected for

large courses.

The course also used guest lecturers extensively and many of the modules had a component that

included information provided by by an ‘expert’. These individuals typically focused on very specific

components of the technologies and provided real world style information.

The course utilized multiple choice and project based assessments. The multiple choice

assessments were electronically graded and the project assessments were peer­graded.

The Statistics in Education MOOC lacked the visual presentation that the Learning Technologies

MOOC had. A lot of materials were made available in a traditional format (pdf. xls) and I found the

format less compelling because locating and using the data was more cumbersome. The data was

scattered around a bit and required more mouse­clicks to access than I generally wanted to make. The

course did offer similar assessments to the learning technologies course.

I did want to comment on the .1 MOOC (The ISTE Online Learning Network MOOC). I only

participated in this MOOC for a single event because the format was of interest and it occurred during a

time of convenience. The course leveraged Twitter for online discussions. I was intrigued by this

because I don’t post a lot on Twitter (although I use Twitter extensively as a consumer) and wanted to see

how a traditional course discussion concept translated to to that space. I made a specific point to

participate in the conversation but did find that the public nature of the format certainly hampered my

participation somewhat. I will say, candidly, that I was surprisingly satisfied when I received responses to

my Tweets and a ‘Favorite.’ The participant group was pretty small and there seemed to be a familiarity

among participants. The conversation occurred over an hour timeframe and ended abruptly. I thought the

hard stop, and subsequent complete lack of conversation, to be very odd. I saw no reason why there had

to be actual time limits to it and felt it made the use of Twitter for the discussion feel contrived.

The courses required the following technology skills to participate:

Proficient to Expert web technologies skills

Google Hangouts

Google Docs

Social Media (Twitter/Google+)

Conceptual experience with collaborative writing (Wiki’s, Google Docs)

Conceptual experience with personal broadcasting technologies (podcasts, YouTube)

Conceptual experience with online organization requirements (Evernote, social bookmarking,

data sharing)

Online Social Etiquette

Expertise with Twitter

Familiarity with Office products, mainly Excel\

Both of my chosen MOOC’s were hosted on the same platform, Canvas.net. Upon reflection I

think there would have been more experiential value in selecting courses on different platforms, as it is

clear there is a framework/formula that instructors are provided. One consistent experience I’ve had in

the MOOC’s I used here, as well as MOOC’s I’ve engaged with in the past is the varying levels of

professionalism and polish across courses. For example, one of the guest lecturers for the New Literacies

course (who was clearly proficient with the subject matter) used an iPad with the standard earbuds to

record the lecture. I think I would have tolerated that if he also didn’t wear an old sweatshirt and place

the iPad 2 feet below his face. The whole experience not only felt amateurish, there was an aspect of

sloppiness/ad­hoc that really detracted from the experience and reduce confidence in the lecturer.

The tools themselves are still not really ready to be used as core components of a course. We

should specifically discuss Google Hangouts. We’ve experienced consistency and use challenges running

live hangouts in our UConn NewLit course which have impacted start times and engagement. These

same challenges were present for the Learning Technologies class, essentially because the class stressed

using these technologies as core components of the curriculum. There was one lecture where a pair of

lecturers, in remote locations, described the features (and use cases) of Google Hangouts. The approach

was innovative, and fairly effective, but suffered from the same video flip­flop issues based on

background noises we have all experienced. While not catastrophic it is distracting and reinforces my

perceptions of MOOC professionalism.

One question I’ve asked myself regarding instructing MOOC’s is ‘why do the instructors do

them?’ Unlike many courses on edX for example, where much of the curriculum is culled from existing

materials prepared for on­premise classes both of the courses on Canvas were clearly created specifically

for Canvas. When the statistics course started with a request to participate in the instructors research

project I had a dawning of understanding where some of that personal value (beyond possible intrinsic

value) could come from. Both courses had information regarding the fact that Canvas would utilize initial

survey data to better craft content to suit student motivations, but the statistics class was largely created as

a research tool for the instructor. There was a thorough research description and consent form.

Personally, I found this work to be interesting for two reasons (both are professional).. First, I am

genuinely interested in watching the development of the online tools associated with distance education

and information distribution. These have real impacts on privacy, security and infrastructure that I am

fortunate to be able to think through every day. Second, I believe that undergraduate education, in

particular, is going to be significantly changed as a result of the massive online courses (I omitted ‘open’

intentionally). I do believe that as credentialing matures there may be value in the openness aspect, but in

the short term I expect these styles of courses to disrupt undergraduate foundation courses over the next

10 years.

Cycle C Individual Post Prompt Length: 1 – 2 pages. Due: Monday, March 30th, by 5pm

Since the ORCA concept was introduced I’ve given considerable thought to the framework, most

specifically the critical skills of (LESC) Locating, Evaluating, Synthesizing and Communicating (less so the

idea of assessment) and have had an elusive concept in the back of my mind that there is a critical

component missing. Anderson and Krathwohl describe the similar critical higher level thinking skills as

“evaluation, synthesis, analysis, interpretation and application” (Leu, Everett-Cacopardo, Zawilinski J,

Mcverry, & O’Byrne, 2012, p. 222), and still something seems missing. My thoughts finally took more

formal shape when I read the statement “Brianna asks students to summarize (synthesize)…” (Leu et al.,

2012, p. 230), which suggests that the critical aspect of summarizing is the ability synthesize information

gathered from a variety of sources. However, I believe that both frameworks aren’t sufficiently

addressing the New Literacy skills necessary for electronic information Organization. I would argue that

the ability to organize information is an underdeveloped skill that should be added (or at least be given

greater emphasis) in the ORCA framework and that neither Synthesis nor Communicate can occur until

information is Organized. So, I propose (perhaps a bit presumptuously) that consideration be given to

adding ‘Organize’ to the existing framework such that it reads Locate, Evaluate, Organize, Synthesize and

Communicate.

I believe Organization is a skill that becomes especially important in an increasingly digital world.

Leu et all say that “additional skills are required to effectively use new technologies such as browsers,

search engines, wikis, blogs”, however a key component of using these resources is being able to

efficiently utilize the information collected prior to entering the Synthesis phase. I believe the reason

this hasn’t been emphasized yet is twofold. First, there has not (yet) been a full transition into a paperless

workflow therefore many people can still rely on more traditional methods of printing and organizing in a

physical space. Second, reliable and citable information is still largely text based. Once there is a more

complete movement into collecting, maintaining, reviewing and editing all data electronically, in modes

that are much more abstract than current physical methods, I believe the deficient skills related to

Organization will become apparent

“The CCSS say that “To be ready for college, workforce training, and life in a technological society,

students need the ability to gather, comprehend, evaluate, synthesize, and report on information

and ideas, to conduct original research in order to answer questions or solve problems, and to

analyze and create a high volume and extensive range of print and nonprint texts in media forms

old and new. (NGA & CCSSO, 2010, p. 4)” (Drew, 2012, p. 323)

I believe the CCSS is missing the critical need of Organization. The challenge is not simply locating

and evaluating information, the challenge is efficiently collecting, collating, archiving and retrieving the

data when it is necessary. In fact, much of the data we would need to organize is thrust upon us and we

are bombarded by incoming electronic information that we need to organize. This information is received

in multiple ways:

Pull

Information is ‘pulled’ when the individual has an active role in the process. Examples include web

searching and checking social media. The distinctive quality of pulled information that it is received by

the individual at a time of convenience and has the greatest chance of being organized.

Push

Information is ‘pushed’ when the individual has a passive role in the process. Examples include

email, mobile device notifications (App notifications, banners) and text messages. Pushed information is

likely to be received at times of inconvenience and has a low chance of being organized effectively.

Waiting

I think there may be role of ‘waiting’ for data such as information in a learning management

system (LMS), which is routinely created and updated and sits until the consumer has a need to interact

with it. While I am considering a differentiation between data that is pulled versus data that is accessed

routinely I haven’t fully rationalized the distinction yet.

I made a brief effort to describe the data inputs because I don’t believe it is possible to

adequately synthesize or communicate until the information inputs have been organized and I believe

that skills needed to organize the inputs will have to evolve as New Literacies continue to develop.

Consider the following Organization challenges we, as students, have each week.

We need to check HuskyCT and Google Sites for updated content

We may receive email from these systems indicating new content

We receive Google community announcements for a variety of classes

We are provided course content (reading/videos/websites) electronically

We likely have reading in an assigned textbook (that we may or may not have electronically)

We get regular updates (if we are lucky) indicating that our group members are working on a

collaborative document stored (potentially) in Google Docs

We store notes, journal articles and working documents electronically in some location

We (may) store notes in paper form in some location

We collect data from websites and journals for inclusion into coursework.

We collect and manage sources for reference

All of this information needs to be organized in a way that enables the student to make it useful

and available when needed. It’s unlikely this information is stored unmodified, as many articles require

markup or documents require editing, which means that it’s likely there are at least two versions to

manage.

I realize that the idea of adding Organization to the ORCA framework cannot be sufficiently

developed in a short post like this. I have made no effort to discuss any tools/skills to address the little ‘o’

of Organization and have focused solely on the big ‘O’ requirement to improve Organization. I also

assume that the concept of Organization has been discussed at some point by members of the New

Literacies team. However, I firmly believe that the organizational skills required to organize data in an

online electronic format are significantly different than the skills that were necessary in the more

traditional offline (paper based) format and that an instructional focus should be given to ensuring that

skills is developed. It is for that reason I am proposing the idea of the LEOSC model. I would also

welcome the opportunity to discuss this idea in more detail and am very interested in SAM’s thoughts

regarding this.

Drew, S. V. (2012). Open Up the Ceiling on the Common Core State Standards: Preparing Students for 21st-Century Literacy—Now. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 56(4), 321–330. Leu, D. J., Everett-Cacopardo, H., Zawilinski J, L., Mcverry, G., & O’Byrne, W. I. (2012). New Literacies of Online Reading Comprehension. In The Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics. Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Retrieved from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9781405198431.wbeal0865/abstract

Cycle B Individual Post Prompt Length: 1 – 2 pages. Due: Monday, March 2nd, by 5pm Identify some of the challenges that you face when using various instructional models of online comprehension in your school setting, and then suggest some ways that you could support both your students and other teachers to overcome these challenges. If applicable, please comment on changes that may be needed at your school or district level in regards to policy and procedures.

I’ll admit to this being one of the more challenging questions for me so far, across all of the courses. In fact it prompted me to reach out to SAM (turned out to be Clint) ensuring that my efforts to intersect the educational challenges of the classroom with the productivity challenges of the workplace were appropriate. Frankly, I have a lot of notes and I’ll be interested to see how this post develops :)

I recognize that there is real difficulty teaching children/adolescents how to locate, evaluate,

synthesize and communicate and that difficulty is likely compounded by certain teaching methods or

requirements that haven’t evolved to include teaching online reading comprehension skills. However, I

don’t believe that the issue is isolated only to school aged people and I see many of similar LESC

deficiencies (as identified in the ORCA research) in the adults I work with. As I consider the

under-developed online LESC skills in many of my staff (many of whom are not familiar or comfortable

with new literacies) I find myself wondering if a longitudinal study that compares the LESC skills that

these digital native children have now with the LESC skills they develop into adulthood would be useful.

For this post I will discuss the online research, comprehension and collaboration challenges I have

in the workplace and ways I’ve sought to address them. As I’ve considered this I was a surprised (and

slightly pleased) to see certain similarities between our readings suggestions and the approaches I’ve

used.

Challenges:

In I.T. there is often the need to establish a shared, actionable vision, out of an opaque concept or

poorly defined problem. It’s my responsibility to permit staff to develop their ideas in ways they are

comfortable with while also ensuring that the ideas are sufficiently researched and vetted. These two

ideas are often in conflict and to ensure the latter I regularly convene staff into collaborative think-tank

style meetings designed to promote open dialog and and permit a broader sharing of ideas. The structure

of these engagements, as outlined below, is especially important if input is being solicited from a broad

spectrum of staff.

Step 1: Provide a concept

This provides the question people need to research. The concept is usually general, and should

permit people to explore creative ways to solve it. An example of a question would be “How can we

better support the academic mission by providing platform and location independent access to key

academic software applications?”

Step 2: Allow time for Independent Research

It is important to allow staff time to develop their thinking around a topic independently and

using research tools they are comfortable with. There is a clear divide in the ways older staff approach

this than the younger staff. Older staff most often will reach out to vendors or trusted 3rd parties to

discuss what options may exist while younger staff tend to turn to discussion boards or web surfing. I

expect part of this is due to the fact that many younger staff do not have well developed professional

networks, but I am also certain that they also just have greater comfort level in locating and evaluating

the information that exists electronically.

Allowing time for staff to establish topic familiarity, especially with problems that have various

possible solutions, is important if there is to be any expectation of success in the upcoming collaboration

phase.

Step3: Provide a forum for collaborative discussion

This is the most important part of the process, and the most relevant for the question asked in

this discussion post. It is also where most staff are working out of their comfort zone. Step three

provides the opportunity for staff to come together and synthesize the information they have

independently collected. While not exactly in ‘pairs’, these sessions allow ‘new opportunities to

co-construct meaning’ and ‘foster more efficient and productive comprehension of online informational

texts’ (Castek, Coiro, Guzniczak, & Bradshaw, 2012, p. 482). It’s important to provide ample time for these

conversations to develop and to manage these discussions so that they all staff can contribute equally. I

require that all participants come to the meetings with a laptop/iPad. These provide a variety of

functions:

Allows for the real time searching and validation of information presented at during the

discussion.

Allows staff to quickly reference something that is unfamiliar to them. This increases the

safety of the meeting as it reduces the need to ask questions that people may perceive as

basic.

Allows for side channel conversations to occur. All staff have access to, and are

encouraged to use, Microsoft Lync/Google Hangouts during the meetings. This tool

allows for people to discuss ideas with their more trusted peers, vet them in smaller

virtual groups and identify the potential idea support so that they feel more comfortable

presenting them.

Allows for ideas to be contributed/edited in real time and visibly for all participants using

Google Docs. This permits staff to access information visually by reviewing the

document, which supplements in person discussion. It also ensures that information that

may not be familiar to all staff (such as acronyms or vendor names) are memorialized on

screen and can be easily referenced if necessary.

I think it’s important to point out that these devices play a much greater role than ensuring

access to information and the ability to collaborate; they provide a sense of safety which often (not

always) produces greater participation.

While the goal of these meetings is ultimately to identify a solution to a problem they also

provide a variety of other benefits such as promoting a sense of inclusion and allowing higher performing

staff to model behavior and skills to lower performing staff.

Step4: Provide output for public comment

Finally, the output from step 3 is made available for public review and comment. It’s important

for this step to take place because it reinforces to participants that they need to participate sufficiently to

ensure a product they can justify and be proud of.

Conclusion

While most of the reading has been focused on how to develop LESC skills in children/adolescents

I believe it is important to also recognize that many of these same deficiencies exist in adults and that

many of the same strategies will work across both demographics. Establishing opportunities for staff to

develop some base knowledge on their own with the expectation that they will then need to synthesize

that information with their peers has been a successful strategy. However, that strategy has required

considerable effort to ensure that we leverage new literacies effectively and consistently and that we

foster an environment that promotes trust and collegiality to ensure maximum participation.

Jason, you raise a great point that adults, as well as children, may not be skilled in online

reading and research skills. You also provide a very clear outline to begin to address this problem. I

wonder how you might apply some of these ideas to your own work? Very thoughtful and detailed

post that addresses education and the workplace. Nicely done!

Cycle A Individual Post Prompt Length: 1 – 2 pages. Due: Monday, February 9th, by 5pm From our readings and discussions in the launch week the following challenges and opportunities for educators were raised: ‘The regular appearance of new literacies requires additional roles for students and teachers.’

Leu, et. al, 2013 ‘… the word Internet is never used in the Common Core Reading Standards of the US…Because of this, many will ignore instruction in online reading…’

Leu, et. al, 2013 ‘There is a universal understanding that when using computers students are perfectly happy to let someone else help them, or offer to help others, whereas in other learning situations these same students may reject offers to receive or give help.’

EPSY5198 Google Hangout comment 2/3/14 ‘Teachers who are ‘tech savvy’ or see the value of this work right now may bring the work into the classroom where others may not.’

EPSY5198 Google+ comment 2/3/14 Select one (or more) of these statements and explain how it resonates with you as an educator. In your reflection you should refer to the readings and discussions that have formed the launch week of Cycle A. Optional inclusion: You may also like to reflect on your experience of taking an ORCA and the opportunities or challenges such performance-based assessments provide for classroom teachers. Cycle A Post

As I looked at the discussion prompts, and considered which ones I wanted to respond to,

I kept being drawn back to the ORCA and how it reinforced my concerns around technology

integration and its dependence on ‘tech savvy’ teachers. As someone in IT I see, on a daily

basis, the challenges people have levering the technology tools that are available to them. Often

these difficulties are a result of simply not completely understanding the capabilities of a tool

and therefore being unable to reconcile how a technology solves a problem. This results in

frustrations with technology and potentially dampens enthusiasm and adoption. As an example I

would like to mention a recent issue with the 2 summer’s students using SkyBox

(http://skybox.uconn.edu/). The teacher of our research class suggested using skybox for access

to the library. Skybox was presented as a tool that would make access to library resources easier

and so there was an expectation that simply downloading the tool and accessing the desktop

would position them to be able to do the assignment and people were frustrated to discover that it

simply loaded a desktop. Students were unable to map the benefits of the tool to the problem

they had.

I use the skybox example for a reason, I believe it describes an issue identified in Dr.

Leu’s upcoming article (Best Practices in New Literacies and the New Literacies of Online

Research and Comprehension) that even though students are ‘digital natives’ they still lack some

fundamental understandings that will better enable them to leverage technology appropriately,

effectively and efficiently. Making technology, like Skybox, available is only the first step to

making the technology useful and there needs to be a secondary step to show how technology

solves a problem. The 2 summer’s students have the technical expertise to access the

technology, but a lack of understanding of what the technology could be used for resulted in a

high abandon rate.

So, is this a problem the student needs to solve, the teacher or IT? Should IT be expected

to anticipate every use case SkyBox could solve and provide training for it? Should the teacher

be expected to provide details of how SkyBox could assist in the problem assigned? Should the

students simply be expected to understand it because they are ‘digital natives?” Obviously there

is no single correct answer here and I think that each identified role contributes to the successful

adoption of technology. Dr Leu states ‘The regular appearance of new literacies requires

additional roles for students and teachers.’ (Leu, et. al, 2013). When I first read this I interpreted

‘roles’ as ‘responsibilities’ but as I read and thought about this more I began to realize there is

now a shift that requires greater symbiosis between students and teachers. Teachers are expected

to bring technology into the classroom and there is the belief that current students expect

technology to be present and learn more effectively because of it. For this to play out

successfully I think the teachers role will need to allow their students to drive technology choices

and be open to identifying ways to integrate these technologies into the educational experience.

A teacher should use a structured tool like ORCA to provide a core critical skills such as reading

comprehension, source quality and writing while also being open to leveraging more loosely

structured tools like Twitter or Google Apps.

Ultimately I believe there is a shift happening that places greater expectation on students

to be responsible for their own learning because the Internet and its related technologies provide

capabilities to support that now. A teacher needs to be a guide and is responsible for ensuring

the baseline skills related to social behavior, online risks and information synthesis exist while

permitting exploration and learning. Reciprocally students will be required to explore these new

literacies and will need to spend the necessary time to truly understand them, which require a

greater level of personal responsibility.

JASON, THIS IS AN IMPORTANT INSIGHT AND INTERPRETATION. NICE WORK! WHAT YOU DESCRIBE, IS AN ISSUE THAT WE SEE IN MANY CLASSROOMS AROUND THE NATION AS WELL AS IN OTHER COUNTRIES, TOO. VERY PERCEPTIVE! IT WILL CALL FOR NEW ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES. KEEP ON KEEPING ON, BRINGING CHANGE TO CLASSROOM AND TEACHERS! SAM

Introductory Post: Length: 1 – 2 pages double spaced. Due: Monday 2nd February by 5pm Answer before completing the reading: Briefly explain your understanding of ‘new literacies’ and their place in the current educational climate and/or your classroom.

I work in information technology, and can speak to the integration and adoption of new

literacy technologies in that space. I consider new literacies technology updates that enable

people to consume and create information. They can enable the widespread dissemination of

information and allow for large communities of people to come together and collaborate around

ideas.

However, from a work and productivity standpoint I believe that there are challenges in

leveraging these new technologies. Choice overload is one issue we are faced with. The

University offers Google apps for education, will soon offer Microsoft Office 365 and is

unrestrictive regarding other 3rd party communication offerings such as personal G+, Facebook

messaging etc. Users individually have preferences for communicating, writing and posting

which makes it challenging for users to keep in sync and to keep up with all of the places where

they potentially need to get information. Another issue regarding these technologies is feature

changes. Application developers now rely on iterative changes that, hopefully, result in

functionality or usability improvements for their products. Many users, however, value

consistency of experience over features. I’ve experienced resistance to collaborative writing on

Google Apps because people aren’t familiar with the layout, or how to share, or are frustrated by

formatting challenges and resort to sharing a Word document over email. I live in fear, for

example, that Evernote will change their .pdf and Skitch integration (which I find invaluable for

.pdf reading and markup).

A third issue I see is the expectation that information can be made available and that

more of the responsibility to see the information is placed on the receiver.

Finally, there is a new social etiquette surrounding these tools. Lync and Hangouts

provide instant access to people, which can help and hinder productivity. People do not fully

understand the need to clearly communicate their availability and set expectations for

responses.

I think I’ve painted a bleak picture of the new literacies tools while in truth I believe they

represent a positive shift in how we will work, it’s just not how we are working now. While

innovation is great I believe that standardization on a platform is key to increasing adoption and

expertise across the enterprise. At this point many of the people I most regularly work with, on

these platforms, are technology enthusiasts who are willing to spend the time to learn a platform

and experiment with the features that make many of these tools powerful.

Answer after completing the reading: (Leu, Kinzer, Coiro, Castrek, Henry, 2013) Reflect on any ‘take­away’ messages you have about the changing nature of literacy, instruction, and assessment from your reading of this article and the introductory video.

After reading the “New Literacies: A dual­level theory of the changing nature of literacy,

instruction and Assessment” I found myself thinking about the expectation we place on our

teachers to engage kids within these New Literacies. Teachers will have no choice but to be

open to learning from their students while at the same time scaffolding them in appropriate

usage. There also has to be an expectation that teachers are provided adequate professional

development opportunities (and adequate technology support) to effectively integrate these

tools into the classroom. The language in the Common Core Standards describing the needs

for better integrating technology and research place a responsibility on teachers that I don’t

think we are adequately preparing them for.

It’s easy to assume that young people, because they are growing up with these Net

Literacies, have a grasp on how to appropriately use them. We cannot confuse application

proficiency with social maturity. The technology changes so quickly it’s not an issue of teaching

kids how to use the tools and applications, they will learn that on their own and I think the

teachers will need to become comfortable with the idea that they will need to try and keep up

with their students in this regard. The teacher’s responsibility will lie in teaching their students

the value of thinking before they post, of understanding the different qualities of information they

find on the Internet, the rules around positive interpersonal interactions, risks to privacy.

You will be an important agent for the changes that we all hope to see happen. You have

provided a thoughtful set of responses for the beginning of this journey.

SAM