DOWNLOADED IMAGE
JOURNAL ENTRY 5: WEEK 9-10
Digital Literacy and Critical Literacy are two very important forms of literacy. The young generation of today should be exposed explicitly to these two forms of literacies. Modern school curricula should include these literacies in their school curriculum which are Digital Literacy and Critical Literacy.
Digital Literacy
The young generation of today is attracted to new technologies hence digital literacies. I observe at home and in neighbors a 3-year-old baby who has not been able to string together a proper sentence but can navigate through a smartphone to open YouTube to watch her favorite cartoons. She would stay with the phone until she fell asleep sometimes. I am always intrigued by the fact she can navigate on her own and here I am in my 40s, and I must seek assistance when navigating smartphones.
Teenagers are playing digital games with friends and even strangers from abroad. Gaming sessions go through late at night to early morning hours in some households that I’ve seen and continue to see. Certain teenagers are too busy with their phones and hardly enjoy human interactions and socialization or better they prefer to socialize with their phones instead of their human friends.
At schools, so many students prefer to take their phones to school for security purposes, yet they are not allowed to because they tend to use them to communicate with friends during classes or they are just too busy logging on to Facebook instead of doing their schoolwork.
Schools in Tonga have basic technology computer rooms/labs. Some schools have Overhead projectors and teachers use them as a teaching resource. Some schools have the luxury of owning big-screen TV (not many schools), and a digital whiteboard in only one or two schools. Not all students own a smartphone.
Social media plays a significant role in the daily life of the Tongan people. Communication within Tonga locally and to abroad is much faster and cheaper when using Facebook Messenger. Social media also contributes to spreading stories and rumors that have caused fights in households, between best friends, between church members, among youths and school students, between schools, between fathers and mothers, mothers, and own children. The fastest transmission is through social media such as Facebook. I am not blaming Facebook because it was not Facebook that wrote the messages. Messages were written by human beings and then sent through Facebook.
Critical Literacy
In its simplest terms, students should be taught to look at technologies with a critical lens. Teachers and parents should be included in this education.
Inclusive in digital literacy is the fact that technologies are fine on their own. Technologies and new technologies are only problematic when are misused and wrongly used. In a critical literacy approach, users can look at these technologies with careful consideration ensuring they are used for their intended purposes. Users must use these technologies for appropriate purposes and time. Users should look at messages written on social media with critical eyes and try to look at them from different angles. Users should not trust the face value of words and try to dig deep into other meanings and intentions before making decisions. Always give it a second thought before any actions. Please do not blame technologies and new technologies. It is you who is using technology.
MODULE 4: MOODLE QUESTIONS
Page 2 Questions.
- Will new digital literacies supersede old literacies? And do we still need to learn/teach old literacies?
-I feel that new digital literacies will not entirely supersede old literacies, but the younger generation will be attracted more to the new digital literacies than the old literacies. However, as they become more mature they realize the importance of the old literacy so therefore start considering it in their daily life.
- Without any strong mentorship by the teacher, technologies can reinforce the social divide. Do you agree?
-I agree with this. If there is no teacher to monitor the usage of the digital resources and tools, students will most likely to use the tool for other purposes such as socializing with their friends or peers out of the subject and topic. Some illustrations are given in the text, about the science projects, when giving students to much autonomy, they tend to neglect the subject matters and to their own.
Also, without a teacher to help students with low ability in the new digital literacies, privileged students will advance on their own thus further expanding the social divide.
- According to the author of the paper, what is therefore the role of the teacher? According to the author of the paper, the teacher should play the role of the mentorship.
Teachers are still much needed in order for the equation to be complete, if there is no mentorship, students will not achieve autonomy in the new digital literacy world.
Page 5
1.Why according to the author is there a need for thinking through and revising the set of skills that young people need to develop in this new century? (see pp.1-3;6)
-Technologies have been changing the way that people learn and interact in the world for thousands years. This trend of change is expected to continue. With the introduction of communication through YouTube and Facebook and many more digital tools, young people are needed to be equipped with the necessary skills to make just and fair decisions. This set of new skill includes Critical literacy skills. Young people in this new century needs this set of new skills so they are not easily influenced by bias information on these social media tools and others.
- In the list of ‘general capabilities’ given by the Australian Curriculum and Assessment Authority (p. 3), which of these capabilities are related or involved in developing a responsible use of ICT?
-All of them.
3.What are the skills we should learn (and therefore teach) in the 21st century Pacific? Compare your list with the ones presented in this article (pp. 3-5).
-I think critical skills, literacy skills, technology skills, personal and social competence, socialization skills, cultural skills, old literacy skills and many others.
4.How do the skills presented in these pages impact on the role of the English language teacher?
-These skills expand the role of the English teacher to mentorship too. English Language teachers do not only play the role of a teacher but also multiple tasks (teaching, mentoring, facilitating) ensuring the young people of this century are not experiencing a social divide in this age of new literacy of technologies. Integrated teaching is also an effecting method to use which involves all the roles mentioned above.
5.Being digitally fluent involves a set of skills going beyond digital literacy and include additional skills to reflect critically on the ICT tools and how to preserve each other’s privacy and safety. A list of suggested topics for digital fluency is presented in p.8, what are the values underpinning these topics? Do you agree with them?
-I think the values underpinning these topics are respect, consideration, critical thinking, cultural sensitive, keeping relationship and socialization. I believe these values pinned these topics for digital fluency giving space for old and new literacies to walk hand in hand.
- The author argues that the reason why it is important for us and our pupils to get familiar with technology in class is not because technology would be a magical tool thanks to which the learning happens: “No-one would argue that technology is the single most important factor in learning because the research is quite unequivocal that quality teachers and quality teaching have the most significant effect (Hattie, 2009).” (p.8). Reading this quote and knowing now more about digital literacy and fluency, reconsider what the role of the language teacher is in the 21st century, Pacific.
-Language teachers’ role in the 21st century, Pacific should be more of a facilitator (skillful in technologies)- to facilitate the use of technologies in the classrooms. In all, new innovative teaching pedagogies are necessary and required, to incorporate new skills of digital fluency.