Monthly Archive for May, 2011

From the Huffington Post

In this digital world, opportunities for education are available like never before. Though teachers using online tools are empowering students take part in their education, they may also expose them to inappropriate material, sexual predators, and bullying and harassment by peers.

Teachers who are not careful with their use of the sites can fall into inappropriate relationships with students or publicize photos and information they believed were kept private. For these reasons, critics are calling for regulation and for removing social networking from classrooms — despite the positive affects they have on students and the essential tools they provide for education in today’s digital climate.

The positive effects of social networking sites in education are profound. According to a study conducted by the University of Minnesota on student use of social media, students who are already engaging in social networking could benefit from incorporating it into curriculum.

To Read More…

By James Gee, The Huffington Post

There is a lot of talk today about “digital natives” and “digital brains.” Some people use the phrase “digital literacy” for skills with digital tools. The word may be more appropriate than many people know.

Traditional literacy (reading and writing) has and still does come in two grades. One grade leads to working class jobs, once a good thing when there were unions and benefits, but now not such a good thing when it means low pay and no benefits, usually in service work. The other grade leads to more meaningful work and more financial success. What distinguishes these grades of literacy? The premium grade involves mastery of so-called “academic language,” the forms of language used in research, empirical reasoning and logical argumentation. Now, I am well aware that nearly everyone hates “academic language” (things like “Hornworms exhibit a significant amount of variation,” rather than “Hornworms sure vary a lot in how well they grow”), but when they are in good jobs, they are there because they got through their high school chemistry book and argued and debated their way out of a good college.

Does digital literacy come in two grades, as well? Are there ways with digital media (as there are ways with words) that lead to quite different results, despite the fact that everyone is participating and using digital media? I believe there are. Further, I believe that the premium grade involves mastery of “specialist/technical language,” the forms of language used in specialist communities devoted to technological skills and reasoning. Such language is linguistically fully akin to “academic language”; indeed, it’s a variety of it. Two kids may participate in playing World of Warcraft, but the one who can read and write such things as the following has the premium grade digital literacy: “Mitigation from armor class is the only non-linearly scaling stat (that is, each percent of mitigation granted by Armor Class requires more than the point before it),” which is a sentence from a “theory crafting” site, where World of Warcraft players analyze the underlying statistics and rules of the game.

To Read More…