The Impact of Newer Literacy Skills and Use | Origin: ED134
This is a general discussion forum for the following learning topic:
Literacy is Not an Option --> The Impact of Newer Literacy Skills and Use
Post what you've learned about this topic and how you intend to apply it. Feel free to post questions and comments too.
students are not content with only a few sources but enjoy finding as many links as they can on a specific subject. This is critical to learning, and when focused and developed, a higher level of literacy is required to modify and use relevant searches.
New technology has sped the learning process up and provides students with more opportunities to learn.
It is interesting that the cost of connectivity - noise - is not discussed.
Newer literacy includes: mobility, social media, and formed information.
The Socratic method is more important than ever in assessing understanding. Mobile literacy has brought an inundation of information. In order to comprehend information, students must vet their sources, distill information from content that may contain non sequiturs, and navigate social media.
The Socratic Method is a very powerful way to refine an argument. It works well in an electronic course too, by changing the circuit and discussing what would happen to the response.
Mobile literacy is ever evolving. We all want instant information. In some cases this is very helpful. If you are working on a vehicle and are struggling with it, you tube videos can often help. It is important to teach our students to look for multiple sources and determine what aspects of the information is relevant and if it is accurate and true
Technology, use of latest media, and visuals all represent a methods to engage our students, thus increasing literacy across several student populations. These, along with lecture and homework assignments have a much better result with students staying engaged in both the classroom and at home. Their individual COMMUNICATION increases!
Like it or not social media will have a place in the classroom.
In my situation, teaching in a prison, the students do not have access to technology. I could try to provide more paper resources for them to look up when they are able.
We need to help our students think critically about the information they encounter through the internet. That said, the benefits of increased interconnection and the changes in the ways that learners are becoming enamored of the process of learning itself are also valuable, so navigating it effectively is key to learning!
A couple of notes on this section of the course. When I was in High School, many of my classes implemented the Socratic method for promoting engagement in my education, a practice that certainly should be woven into post-secondary education, and yet has not. I believe my continuing to engage my students with questions, and developing answers as a whole, we are not only able to educate our students but better incorporate the 'self' as mentioned earlier.
We also can not reject the importance of social media in the use of education. Most of our students are learning not through traditional texts but through shortened, bits of information propagated through Twitter, Facebook (now Meta) and TikTok. While this has certainly heightened an individual's tendency toward reading it has simultaneously limited the amount of information that can be retained to shorter bytes (generated by the word limits). This is why I have continued to use shorter notation in class, as a way for students to still actively engage with content in the present then engaging with longer content in the future (textbook reading assignments).
Getting students to evaluate their sources' quality and validity has been my biggest struggle, as many younger generations give too much credit to all online resources. I will focus on developing ways to have my students demonstrate an understanding of the three methods of who benefits from a statement, question the statement, and look for obvious statements. I feel this is most important with the implementation of a writing component in my culinary classes.
More schools are using the Socratic method (such as our kid's elementary school) to foster communication and learning, and I think it's an amazing way for students to be engaged. Teachers must be aware, however, of different learning styles (visual vs. auditory, which might make this method harder for some students), and mental health issues (anxiety, trauma, and abuse) that may trigger some students when they are put on the spot.
It is amazing in this day and age that I can make a video of a demonstration in my drawing class and upload it to a platform like moodle and the student can watch this at 3 am on they're phone and get help.
With technology and social media, students have more access to information, which is very benefical for them.
Technology allows us to access a variety of media which in turn allows for a wide view of ht chosen material.
Reply to Mary Ibe's post:
Yes. It's very easy to get distracted when reaserching via www.
It's good to hear a collection of supporting information is more valuable than just finding one source of information.
In the past module I wanted to discuss the need to filter information along with being literate in online media. This progression totally makes sense.
I'm very impressed with how quickly the newest generation of students can find and recognize their target information.
