"edutainment" and other absurdities

As I read through Marc Prensky’s articles on digital literacies, I couldn’t help but try to categorize myself. Prensky terms “digital immigrants” and “digital natives” so diametrically, and I found myself fitting into the “digital natives” category throughout much of his writing. As a digital native that intends to teach, I felt that much of his wrathful tirade seemed directed at a category of teachers that I don’t fit into. I fit his laundry list of qualifications for a digital native, to the point that I frequently watch hit television shows via the internet, and often have arcade games going at the same time. This constant activity that my brain likes to remain constantly spinning in reflects in my teaching style, which is often very fast-paced, energetic, and multi-faceted. I love keeping my students constantly and ceaselessly busy either physically or mentally from the moment that they walk in the door until the moment they leave.

Prensky’s ideas of learning through gaming are intriguing and off-putting. I like the idea of exploratory (or “random access” as Prensky says), instead of linear learning- of allowing students to access learning in a way that seems most logical to them instead of what the Georgia Frameworks or the textbook dictate is “logical.” I recall the first few weeks after receiving Adobe PhotoShop CS5 for my laptop; I had no manual or guidelines, and began teaching myself how to use the software through a series of projects, in which I would choose a picture, decide how I wanted to alter it, and then through a trial-and-error (and many Google searches for assistance) I would figure out how to make that work. This “random access,” task-based learning system reminds me of the game-based learning that Prensky discusses.

Several aspects of Prensky’s game-based learning theory made me very uncomfortable, however; though some students may thrive off of the frenzied urgency of learning in a video game, many may be overwhelmed and under-informed by this pacing. Dictating a quick pace may be as detrimental to some students as the slow pace was to others. Also uncomfortable was Prensky’s term “edutainment.” Though I agree we should meet students on their own learning terms, this is a pretty radical view. By striving for “edutainment,” we entirely skip over one of the most vital lessons our students need to learn- how to work hard. Not to say that learning shouldn’t be engaging and interesting, but there will come a point in students’ lives when they’ll have to struggle through something difficult in order to reach an end. One day virtually all of these students will need to hold down a job, and an incredibly small percentage of those jobs are going to involve the bright lights of a first-person shooter game. Another complaint I had with the idea of game-based learning is its impracticality. As a future teacher, where am I supposed to find the games to teach my students the concepts I want them to learn? I certainly can’t create them, and I certainly can’t afford them.

The ideas asserted in the Chase and Laufenberg article “Embracing the squishiness of digital literacy” and the Knobel and Lankshear article “Wikis, Digital Literacies, and Professional Growth” were more immediately applicable than those in the Prensky article. I feel that frequently the methods for “using technology in the classroom” are often just attempts to use technology for the sake of technology; students see through these attempts and are not any more engaged by these weak attempts to snare their attention than by any of the others. Chase and Laufenberg suggest more natural and authentic integrations of technology into the classroom. The use of wikis in order to compile information puts the pace and direction of learning into the hands of students. For our students to be successful in their new digital world, they must learn to navigate the flood of information that they live in, and how to read it critically. A wiki is a valuable tool in regulating and promoting this sifting through and sharing of information.

The idea that stood out to me in the Knobel and Lankshear article was using audio recordings to promote reading fluency and as a way to promote the critical usage of audio files. Integrating podcasts, interviews, and read-alouds into students’ skill sets expands their understanding of “digital literacy” and teaches them to use critically another form of information sharing.

References

Chase, Z., & Laufenberg, D. (2011). Embracing the squishiness of digital literacy. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy , 7(54), 535-537. Retrieved from https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=ZGVmYXVsdGRvbWFpbnxsbGVkMzUzMHxneDoyOTYxYzQyNDM2MmEwYTI3

Knobel, M., & Lankshear, C. (2009). Wikis, digital literacies, and professional growth. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy , 7(52), 631-634. Retrieved from https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=ZGVmYXVsdGRvbWFpbnxsbGVkMzUzMHxneDo2ZDg0MTU1NzM3Yzg5NzA5

Prensky, M. (2001). Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants . On the Horizon, 9(5). Retrieved from https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=ZGVmYXVsdGRvbWFpbnxsbGVkMzUzMHxneDo1ZWQ5YTllNmVkMjZmMmZl&pli=1

Prensky, M. (2001). Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants Part II. On the Horizon, 9(6). Retrieved from https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=ZGVmYXVsdGRvbWFpbnxsbGVkMzUzMHxneDo0OTQ5OGIyYjg1MzdmYjA5

Bringing Pop culture into the classroom

I identified with Leigh Hall’s article “How popular culture texts inform and shape students’ discussions of social studies texts.” She discussed how multiple ways in which non-traditional literacy (or “popular culture” as she calls it) can be used in the classroom to bridge the gap between students’ previously held knowledge and the curriculum that we’re attempting to teach. As Hall says, “Youths, however, often see knowledge from different parts of their lives as distinct from school knowledge. As a result, they don’t always see their existing skills and knowledge as legitimate for academic learning” (Hall, 2011.) This discrepancy in the minds of our students between “home knowledge” and “school knowledge” prevents students from making valuable connections and stretching their knowledge. While some students may come to class as History Channel fans and having scoured Wikipedia for every mention of the American Revolution, most students are coming to class with a very different body of popular culture knowledge. Nonetheless, every student comes to class with knowledge, and all of it is accessible and useable for social studies classes.

I would like to take the concepts of the article a step further (reminiscent of the SLS idea from the Shah article) and purposefully include popular culture in my social studies classroom, including “systematic instruction that allows them (students) to identify and deconstruct messages found in both types of texts (popular culture and social studies texts)” (Hall, 2011.) By including popular culture references and texts in conjunction with traditional or scholastic social studies texts, we teach students how to critically digest the popular culture that they’ll be faced with all their lives. Hall says that in the classrooms observed, “No questions were raised about the reliability of pop culture texts that were fictional or were not intended to communicate historical information” (Hall, 2011.) This lack of connection and questioning passes up an opportunity to teach students to be critical consumers of information, which is one of the main goals of a social studies classroom. As one of the students in the study said, “I learned a lot about video games and cartoons and how some of them have pieces of history in them. So now when I’m watching TV or something, I pay closer attention to see if I can learn something about history” (Hall, 2011.) Students will “learn to question and examine the ideas put before them” instead of being “passive recipients of information” (Hall, 2011.)

By extending the bounds of a social studies classroom beyond the typical social studies texts and into the realms of both popular culture text and “real world” texts such as news reports, we can expose our students to the skills necessary to be critical consumers of information beyond the walls of the school. The evidence that students already engage prior-held information from popular culture is proof that students are willing and capable of making this leap, connecting their knowledge basis from home to school. Leigh Hall’s study reinforces the value of this connection in the social studies classroom.

Bringing literacy home

A topic that has long fascinated me is that of the expansion of the definition of "literacy." As an active member of the technological generation, I am interested and participatory in technological literacy. I connected with Dr. Alvermann's assertion of the importance of including multiple genres and mediums in the modern definition of "literacy." As students develop, they begin to either identify themselves as "readers" or "non-readers." Once students have convinced themselves- or been convinced by outside influences- that they're "non-readers," the negative emotional reaction that they have to everything termed "literature" will stick with them for the rest of their life. Broadening the definition of literacy to encompass all of the technological mediums and genres that are such a huge part of their lives prevents this emotional shutdown to reading as well as giving students more opportunity to tap into and increase their literacy skills.

The applications in the "Learning from our mistakes" article were helpful, concrete, in depth, and backed up by research. They also backed up the assertions made in Dr. Alvermann's interview which reinforced the importance of using technology in the classroom. Nice!