Macarthur Foundation

JENKINS_WHITE_PAPER.PDF (application/pdf object) Retrieved 3/28/2010, 2010, from http://digitallearning.macfound.org/atf/cf/{7E45C7E0-A3E0-4B89-AC9C-E807E1B0AE4E}

“If it were possible to define generally the mission of education, it could be said that its fundamental purpose
is to ensure that all students benefit from learning in ways that allow them to participate fully in public,
community, [Creative] and economic life.”
— New London Group (2000, p. 9)

Participatory Culture
For the moment, let’s define participatory culture as one:
1.With relatively low barriers to artistic expression and civic engagement
2.With strong support for creating and sharing one’s creations with others
3.With some type of informal mentorship whereby what is known by the most experienced is
passed along to novices
4.Where members believe that their contributions matter
5.Where members feel some degree of social connection with one another (at the least they
care what other people think about what they have created)

Participatory culture shifts the focus of literacy from one of individual expression to
community involvement.

Rather than dealing with each technology in isolation, we would do better to take an ecological approach, thinking about the interrelationship among all of these different communication technologies, the cultural communities that grow up around them, and the activities they support

Forms of participatory culture include:
Affiliations — memberships, formal and informal, in online communities centered
around various forms of media, such as Friendster, Facebook, message boards,
metagaming, game clans, or MySpace).
Expressions — producing new creative forms, such as digital sampling, skinning and
modding, fan videomaking, fan fiction writing, zines, mash-ups).
Collaborative Problem-solving — working together in teams, formal and informal,
to complete tasks and develop new knowledge (such as through Wikipedia, alternative
reality gaming, spoiling).
Circulations — Shaping the flow of media (such as podcasting, blogging).

Access to this participatory culture functions as a new form of the hidden curriculum, shaping which youth will succeed and which will be left behind as they enter school and the workplace

Three concerns, however, suggest the need for policy
and pedagogical interventions:
The Participation Gap — the unequal access to the opportunities, experiences, skills, and
knowledge that will prepare youth for full participation in the world of tomorrow.
The Transparency Problem — The challenges young people face in learning to see
clearly the ways that media shape perceptions of the world.
The Ethics Challenge — The breakdown of traditional forms of professional training and
socialization that might prepare young people for their increasingly public roles as media
makers and community participants.

the new media literacies should be seen as social skills, as ways of interacting within a larger community, and not simply an individualized skill to be used for personal expression

Web 2.0 Literacy and Secondary Teacher Education

Herro_Web20_Literacy.pdf (application/pdf object) Retrieved 3/28/2010, 2010, from http://crste.org/images/Herro_Web20_Literacy.pdf

Danielle Fahser-Herro and Constance Steinkuehler

Literacy skills honed from reading books and writing papers has long been recognized as invaluable to building and sustaining intellect. Educators are charged with strengthening literacy programs, and they typically rely on conventional practices and increased time focusing on text-based media to do so, yet their efforts have not significantly increased test scores (Baer, Baldi, Ayotte, & Green, 2007; U.S. Department of Education, 2005).
At the same time, these traditional classrooms neglect the rich digital literacy opportunities Web 2.0 tools offer to improve literacy programs and meet individual needs. This paper explores issues surrounding definitions of “new literacy” practices as they relate to Web 2.0 tools while drawing on pertinent, emerging research to discuss the value of integrating digital literacy applications in K–12 and higher education classrooms. (Keywords:
digital literacy, Web 2.0, teacher education, new literacy practices)

-authors suggest a need exists to further examine the potential value of incorporating digital media to augment curricula while acknowledging current research offers no clear-cut method to determine best practices.

-Although many examples of Web 2.0 technologies’ use in educational settings are gaining
recognition, few are studied, signifying that its novelty precludes a firm solution providing researched, credible professional development models to emulate.

-In traditional K–12 classrooms, literacy practices and interactions primarily occur individually, face to face, or in small, predetermined social groups
-Although students may learn to decode in the early grades, this often fails to translate into reading for meaning. Without question, schools are concerned with improving literacy practices, yet increased time with texts and writing in schools has not consistently improved literacy rates.
-21st c skills movement literacy had moved beyond reading, writing, speaking, and listening to
expansive “information and communication technology” literacies including researching, evaluating, creating, collaborating, and integrating information “in order to function in a knowledge economy”
-Change increasingly defines the nature of literacy in an information age. Literacy is rapidly and continuously changing as new technologies for information and communication repeatedly
appears and new envisionments for exploiting these technologies are continuously crafted by users. (Leu, 2000, p. 743)
-New literacies can be defined as “the ability to solve genuine problems amidst a deluge of information and its transfer in the Digital Age” (Holum& Gahala, 2001, para. 3)
-Internet—real-time information, virtual environments, and wide-reaching exchanges of knowledge—can intensify communication and comprehensionand ultimately change literacy
-no firm definition of Web 2.0, a capacity for high user engagement, intellectual rigor, frequent updating, and collective knowledge sharing based on an underlying technological infrastructure of blogs, wikis, podcasts, photosharing, RSS feeds, social bookmarks, and the like (O’Reilly, 2005; Anderson, 2007)
-highly participatory culture with broad access to media production tools, meshed with ubiquitous, inexpensive, or free tools. Users capitalize less on consumption and retrieval and more on creating content
-Web 2.0 technologies relocate “expertise” by broadening the range of information sources available and encouraging collective intelligence through distributed practices of winnowing and
sifting rather than single sourcing
-Instead of standardized, individually focused, teacher-mediated curricula, literacy practices surrounding Web 2.0 technologies call for knowledge construction in a collaborative, production-oriented, somewhat nonlinear manner with access to knowledge mediated by its users.
-there is a lack of teacher pre-service that adequately deals with teaching how to integrate social media into learning, and this is also happening in the school system
-In terms of infrastructure, student-to-computer ratios as well as Internet access and
speed are greatly improving in school, yet they lag in their ability to keep pace with new digital affordances
-overall disconnect between readily available technology tools and in-school digital literacy practices remains discouraging
-The expansive influence Internet technologies have had on everyday users has outpaced education’s ability to sustain the Internet’s newly afforded literacies
-the contrast between use of the internet in the classroom and the internet at home is one of a text-privileged, teacher-guided, production as evidence of consumption vs collaborative, participative, production as genuine contribution.
-one-computer classroom controlled by the teacher, often used as a “center” for drill and practice, information retrieval, or finishing work started in a lab setting, continues to be the
prevailing reality in many new-millennium classrooms
-without a solid body of research augmenting instruction to incorporate digital literacy practices inK–12 classrooms, along with supportive teacher education and training programs, a large-scale shift in practice seems unlikely
-How do K–12 districts change practice to incorporate digital literacy skills? The answer may lie in a structure analogous to Web 2.0 itself. Grassroots efforts encapsulating collective intelligence may be teachers’ best bets
-The group decided to rework its technology program to infuse opportunities for Web 2.0 into a scope and sequence of student competencies that were not software or “tool” specific, but instead open ended and research and project oriented. They intended to thread ethics, safety, and responsible computing into the entire K–12 curriculum. When compared to district- and state-level library, media, and technology standards, the student competencies, if satisfied, exceeded standards expectations
-Jenkins et al. outline 11 new media literacies. Defined as “a set of cultural competencies and social skills that young people need in the new media landscape” (p. 4)
•Simulation: the ability to interpret and construct dynamic models
of real-world processes
• Appropriation: the ability to meaningfully sample and remix media content
• Judgment: the ability to evaluate the reliability and credibility of different information
• Transmedia navigation: the ability to follow the flow of stories and information across multiple modalities
•Negotiation: the ability to travel across diverse communities, discerning and respecting multiple perspectives, and grasping and following alternative norms (p. 4)
-District administrators have used concern over online safety and intellectual property rights/fair use, for example, to justify a surge in Internet filters, Internet safety, responsible-use education, and desktop “locks” on computers, creating apprehension in schools

A Shift in Teaching

http://weblogged.wikispaces.com/A+Shifting+Notion+of+What+it+Means+to+Teach
retrieved March 23, 2010.
Will Richardson

Will Richardson

Weblogg-ed.com
Powerful Learning Practice Network (Co-Founder)

http://tinyurl.com/djrjeg

Contact: weblogged@gmail.com
Author: Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms ( Corwin Press, 2nd Ed, July 2008)
Latest Articles:
"Footprints in a Digital Age" (Educational Leadership, November, 2008)
"World Without Walls: Learning Well With Others" (Edutopia, December 2008)

Teaching with these technologies challenges the traditional definition of teaching. Our main role in the midst of these networked learning environments is as a connector for our students, not simply content expert.

As teachers we must teach and model for our students the ability to create, grow and navigate personal learning networks in safe, ethical and effective ways.

What do these teachers have in common?

They are networked learners.
They share their practice.
The connect their students globally.
They give students voice.
They create opportunities for real work for real purposes for their students.
They learn with their students.

This is a period of Fluid Learning.

• Capture Everything
• Share Everything
• Open Everything
• Only Connect

And we are entering a period of "ubiquitous learning."

What do you think these shifts mean for your own teaching and learning?

Take this teacher's Tweet: "In Gr.8 - using Google Earth, Flickr, YouTube, bbcnews, to learn about the protests in Burma .. world at their fingertips, AS IT HAPPENS!"

Now we have the opportunity to be connectors, to bring our classrooms to the world in a variety of ways. We can find other teachers who may know more than we do. (Secret Life of Bees)

Here's another example of students learning from mentors. (Polar Science)

New Media Literacies

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEHcGAsnBZE

NMLstaff08
November 11, 2008
Members of the research team at Project New Media Literacies discuss the social skills and cultural competencies needed to fully engage with today's participatory culture. Featuring Henry Jenkins, and produced by Anna Van Someren at Project New Media Literacies. See more NML videos at http://techtv.mit.edu/collections/new

Comments on New Literacies:

An Introduction to New Internet Literacies for Educators: Blogs, Wikis, RSS, Online Bookmarking

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A number of new Internet technologies are changing the way we find, manage and distribute information. From Weblogs to Wikis to RSS to online bookmarking services, the possibilities for collaboration and sharing are almost limitless, as are the ways students and teachers can benefit in the classroom. Get an overview of the tools being used to foster this new literacy and a framework for integrating them into teaching practices.

The current educational system creates and nurtures dependent learners. Our students depend on us to:

• create the environment in which learning takes place
• tell them what they should know, when and why
• provide the context for knowing
• provide appropriate materials for learning
• assess what they know
• select appropriate ways to share what they have learned with others

The new world of learning is requires us to teach students to be independent learners, ones that are not dependent on teachers but are:

• Self-directing--we now have the ability to create our own, personal curriculum around the ideas or topics that we are most passionate about. We no longer require curriculum to be delivered to us. We need to help our students find their passions and pursue them in the context of online networks in ethical, effective, organized and safe ways. And finding a balance between the online and offline life is also a "literacy" in this age. There are so many ways to communicate these days (blogs, wikis, IM, text, etc.) that it's easy to get overwhelmed.
• Self-selecting--in this world, learning spaces are created, not provided. And teachers are not assigned, they are selected. The creation and nurturing of these highly collaborative spaces and communities is a new "literacy" that we need to help our students develop. How do we find the best teachers? How do we connect to them? How to we build communities with others that are supportive and effective?
• Self-editing--whereas most of us were educated in a world where the materials we worked with had been edited by someone else along the way, in today's world, less and less of what we read is now "edited" in the traditional sense. So, reading and writing is no longer enough; we need to develop people who are effective editors of information as well.
• Self-organizing--the Dewey Decimal system doesn't serve the online world well, so we have to organize our own stuff. To do that, we use tags and social bookmarking systems, building folksonomies where we organize the Web together.
• Self-reflecting--as we become more and more in charge of our own learning, we need to develop the ability to reflect upon and assess our own work. This "metacognitive" work can involve a number of different genres and tools.
• Self-publishing--our students will need to be literate at sharing out the work they produce because that increases the connections and conversations that can lead to further learning. Blogs, wikis, podcasts and video are among the publishing skills they will need to have.
• Self-connecting--in order to leverage the potentials of personal learning networks, our students must understand how to connect to others in safe, ethical, and effective ways.

COGNITIVE TOOLS AND MINDTOOLS FOR COLLABORATIVE LEARNING

J. EDUCATIONAL COMPUTING RESEARCH, Vol. 35(2) 199-209, 2006

COGNITIVE TOOLS AND MINDTOOLS FOR COLLABORATIVE LEARNING

PAUL A. KIRSCHNER and GIJSBERT ERKENS

Utrecht University

Highlight

Jonassen (2000) distinguishes five characteristics of mindtools. First, they are

cognitive amplification and reorganization tools, which exceed the limitations of

the human mind by doing things more accurately and at a higher speed, and extend

the use of other (mechanical) tools. Second, mindtools are generalizable tools,

which can be used from setting to setting and domain to domain for engaging and

facilitating cognitive processing. They are not specific to any one purpose nor do

they reduce information processing. They make better use of the user’s mental

efforts in a multitude of domains and situations. They do not make processing

easier, but afford it/allow it to occur. This also means that users have to think

harder since to think more deeply costs more effort.

Mindtools are also critical thinking devices which help learners think for

themselves, make connections between concepts, and create new knowledge. This

is similar to what Crombag et al. (1979) call operations on knowledge. They are

also intellectual partners. As a partner in the learning and working process, each

are responsible for what they can perform best. Computers should calculate and

store and retrieve information, while the user of the tool should be responsible for

recognizing and judging patterns of information and its organization. Finally,

a mindtool is a concept. It is a way of thinking about and using ICT, other

technology, the learning environment, or intentional and incidental learning

activity/opportunity (constructivist in nature) so that the users of these tools can

represent, manipulate, and reflect on what they know instead of reproducing what

others tell them.

Conclusion

The goal of education is not, or at least should not be, to give a new generation of

learners subject matter knowledge and task-specific skills. The primary goal of

education should be, at the least, the transmission of those competencies which

allow learners to become practitioners who are reflective of the decisions that they

make and who are able to interact with their ever changing environments in a

meaningful and responsive way. This means that they need to become competent

life long learners within their field(s) of expertise. They have and need to keep

current their knowledge and skills within their area of expertise. They must keep

abreast of the newest, or recurring, perspectives and techniques with respect to

their fields. They must also move with society with respect to the tools of their

trades. It is not possible for them to do this in traditional teaching and training

situations. Things are moving and changing too quickly, and life is becoming so

much more complex, that the courses cannot be made quick enough and in enough

numbers to meet the need and the teachers do not have the time or possibility to

follow all of these courses.

Beyond Technology for Technology’s Sake: Advancing Multiliteracies in the Twenty-First Century

Beyond Technology for Technology’s Sake: Advancing Multiliteracies in the Twenty-First

Century

CARLIN BORSHEIM, KELLY MERRITT, and DAWN REED

Abstract:

Teachers who apply these technologies in their classrooms do more than motivate students with the latest cool tool; they prepare students with multiliteracies and for the realities of the technological world. Therefore, teachers must go beyond implementing technology for

technology’s sake to consider the evolving nature of texts and the literacy skills associated with consuming and producing those texts. In this article, the authors share specific technologies they have used in English and English education classrooms and offer examples for adapting teaching to the impact of technology, rather than adapting technology to teaching.

multiliteracies, a term that originated with the New London Group (Cope and Kalantzis

2000), is based on the well-established assumption that technologies (including computers, cell phones, PDAs, the Internet, and Web 2.0 applications such as wikis, blogs, and other social networking sites) have impacted the nature of texts, as well as the ways people use and interact with texts.

Anstey and Bull’s definition (2006) of a multiliterate person as one who “is flexible and strategic and can understand and use literacy and literate practices with a range of texts and technologies; in socially responsible ways; in a socially, culturally, and linguistically diverse world; and to fully participate in life as an active and informed citizen” (55).

First, a multiliteracies pedagogy facilitates a constructivist model of learning in which students can make meaning through authentic experiences. Second, a multiliteracies pedagogy can support traditional curriculum objectives, like reading challenging texts or engaging in various aspects of the writing process.

The proliferation of online resources meant that students needed new and explicit strategies for locating, sorting, gathering, evaluating, and reading articles from online databases and Web sites. As students began to identify and gather credible sources, we put away the 3 × 5 note cards and

experimented with using Word documents, wikis, andsocial bookmarking sites to organize information and take notes.

In the next phase, students used traditional wordprocessing applications to compose and revise their formal research papers, and I found the comment feature in Word to be an invaluable tool for commenting on students’ rough drafts, as well as for persuading students to be specific in their feedback on one another’s work. In a final and important step, I asked students to adapt their traditional research paper into a media genre appropriate for reaching an audience outside the classroom.

The multiliteracies approach helps students learn to be savvier users and organizers of online resources, use technologies to facilitate revision and collaboration throughout the writing process, and use technologies to achieve authentic goals and reach real audiences for

their research.

When I keep the objectives in the forefront, my students do as well; therefore, they do not get carried away with the technology we use to compliment the writing.

A Five Dimensional Model for Educating the Net Generation

A Five Dimensional Model for Educating the Net Generation

Ronald Noel Beyers

Young Engineers and Scientists of Africa Programme, Meraka Institute, Pretoria, South Africa // ron@yesa.org.za

Beyers, R. N. (2009). A Five Dimensional Model for Educating the Net Generation. Educational Technology & Society, 12 (4), 218–227.

This paper proposes a multi-dimensional concept model of an ICT enabled classroom to highlight potential similarities and differences between where teachers perceive themselves relative to their learners.

This is a generation that expects to actively participate in and through their media, hence the decrease in time spent by teens in viewing television and the corresponding increase in time spent on computers, gaming, and the Internet. Our children now have at their fingertips a virtual world – with all its promises and pitfalls (Lemke, 2003:5).

One of the problems that many societies are facing especially where there is a transition from an

industrial and manufacturing based economy to a knowledge society, is the rate of change. The world that they were prepared for may no longer exist.

On the other hand ‘wiring the schools and populating them with computers is necessary but insufficient to ensure equal opportunity to share in the digital revolution’ (Tapscott, 1988:262). They need a redesigned education system and teachers who have been retrained and reoriented. Innovative technologies cannot make up for educational professionals who lack innovative methods and merely replicate learning models that don't work (Hooper, 2002).

Individuals raised with the computer deal with information differently compared to

previous cohorts: they develop hypertext minds, they leap around (Prensky, 2001).

Jean Piaget’s constructivism is an epistemological view of knowledge acquisition emphasizing knowledge construction rather than knowledge transmission and the recording of information conveyed by others. The role of the learner is conceived as one of building and transforming knowledge (James, Applefield, & Mahnaz, 2001).

Constructionists believe that knowledge is constructed and learning occurs when children create products or artefacts. They assert that learners are more likely to be engaged in learning when these artefacts are personally relevant and meaningful (Bhattacharya & Han, 2001).

Imagine classrooms that incorporate more videos and video games, classes that meet electronically to fit students' schedules, students who choose to learn from each other rather than a professor, and courseware, search engines, and library databases that are animated, image-based, and interactive (Carlson, 2005).

A Proposed Conceptual Model

It is envisaged that the model could provide educators with the means to comprehend the ‘differentness’ and ‘complexity’ of the net generation. A tool to graphically plot individuals within this 5D model is being developed which will serve to highlight similarities and differences between teachers and pupils especially where ICTs are deployed in the classroom. The intention is sensitize teachers to this information so that they are encouraged to grapple with these issues to better understand them for the benefit of their learners.

1. The First Dimension – X Axis (Survival Strategies)
2. The Second Dimension –Y Axis ( Knowledge and Comprehension): knowledge is not scarce, but meaning-making is
3. The Third Dimension –Z Axis (Spatial Orientation): the ability to fly, not just drive. The principal goal of education is to create men who are capable of doing new things, not simply of repeating what other generations have done (Burkhalter, McLean, & Jones, 2004:50). Attempting to discover what students think in relation to the problems on hand, discussing their misconceptions sensitively, and giving them situations to go on thinking about which will enable them to readjust their ideas (Bell, Diagnosing students' misconceptions, 1982:6-10). Creative thinking, group problem solving and decision making, as well as the capacity to learn more and more efficiently and effectively which is inherent in 21st century skills. This means that a more sophisticated view of knowledge and learning is required than the one held in the previous industrial era because the economy is now based on selecting, processing and applying information and creating new knowledge and applications (Miller, 2000a).
4. The Fourth Dimension – Time: Extending the learning process beyond the confines of the core curriculum and the walls of the classroom should be the goal of all educators to overcome the time constraints imposed by traditional classes and restrictive timetables. Emphasis is on communications including both synchronous and asynchronous methods. Students are able to access the wisdom of experts around the world and receive an answer in a relatively short period of time.
5. The Fifth Dimension – Global vision: Teachers acting as gatekeepers of knowledge are threatened by the perception that learners may know more than them. Educators on the other hand strive to release these learners to construct their own knowledge so that the educator can focus on those individuals who really need their attention. Adaptability is a key facet of this stage for without it teachers are doomed to remain in a two-dimensional text-book bound world A key characteristic of the fifth dimension also involves group work and a division of labour where learners are challenged to explore lateral thinking, creativity, problem solving and innovative types of challenges. It is essential that learners are provided with real-world tools and real-world scenarios.

Implications for Teaching & Policy-Making

It is recommended that policy makers acknowledge that the vast majority of teachers are becoming burdened with administrative matters and are unable to find the necessary quality time for personal professional growth. If they are not exposed to the benefits of new approaches to education, they will continue to practice teaching in the tried and trusted armchair approach and not actively encourage learners to develop essential 21st century skills.

Learning Communities are not simply another educational fad or a modest type of school reform but an attempt to rebuild society's educational system on a post-modern cultural foundation that is democratic and person-centered rather than mechanical, as well as ecological and life-centered rather than driven exclusively by economic forces.

Implications for the Learner

learners can and must take greater responsibility for their own learning. Leaving learners to their own devices is not being advocated. On the contrary. The educator must still be in control of the process, but their role is more a facilitator rather than physically dictating what happens

at the learning interface where there is greater emphasis on self-discovery after the basic skills have been acquired.