Thursday, October 18, 2007
Herny Jenkins's New Media Literacies Framework
As you read Jenkins's article, think about how you might incorporate New Media Literacies into your teaching and/or learning. Specifically, look at Jenkins's framework and provide some examples of how you can relate to these individual elements to your teaching and/or learning.
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As I read Jenkins article I found the eleven core skills described to be very interesting. I saw some examples of New Media Literacies that I could or do already incorporate into my 3rd grade classroom. First, in science when I teach my students through the use of science kits they are learning through inquiry, hands-on projects which enables them to become better problem solvers by giving them a learning experience they can take away with them and relate it to future problems, experiments, etc… Another way mentioned in the article is through the use of games, logic puzzles, equations, and diagrams. One of my classroom centers is full of Suduko puzzles, brain teasers, problem solving games, etc… that challenge the students to be better problem solvers. This is one of their favorite centers. Every year I also have the students participate in a “class play.” This gives them the opportunity to work together to act out a specific concept/idea that we are learning in class. Last year we did a play called The Garden Show, and the students got so much out of it. We did it while learning about plants, pollination, and what helps plants grow. It was great!
Some things I would like to incorporate into my classroom to include the New Media Literacies would be videoconferencing, wiki’s, and the voice thread activity that we did a couple weeks ago in class. Videoconferencing would be great when we are studying soil, plants, the skeletal system, and much more. We could collaborate with a scientist and the students could work together with the scientist to get questions answered, learn new concepts, etc… I think a wiki would be a great way to get the students and teacher to work together as a team and collaborate about a specific topic. You could even assign students jobs, such as, the poster (student who is responsible for posting comments), an editor (student who is responsible for editing the poster’s job), a website person (someone who posts links to the wiki that relates to our topic of study, etc… The voicethread activity would be awesome to use when we are studying plants. I could partner students up and assign each pair a specific plant. They would then have to research the plant and take a photo of the plant. Once all their research is complete they would download the photo onto voice thread and record what they researched onto voice thread so the whole class could see their research.
In reading the article it is apparent that as educators it is not only important to incorporate technology into our curriculum but also the social skills and problem solving skills that go along with this 21st century skill.
Collaboration (collective intelligence) was one of the greatest themes I found as I was reading the Jenkins' article. This got me thinking about how I incorporate collaboration into curriculum areas. While I have students use cooperative learning for math problem solving, and cooperation is necessary for group work, this is an area where I can start to incorporate more. The biggest hurdle I need to get over in this area is that if a group of students knows the content, how do I hold individuals accountable for that same information? If students are collaborating, how do we make sure each student is sharing the load? Our classroom wiki project has already got students thinking about how collaboration works. Students have asked, "What happens if someone erases all of my information," or "What if someone changes my content but wrote incorrect information?" This gave me the opportunity to talk about wikipedia and how the "reading" community works together to negotiate content. I especially like Sara's idea of giving students various roles when working on the wiki. This would give students the opportunity to see how different backgrounds/personalities bring different ideas to a collaborative effort.
Friday, we had an early release day, which requires lots of focused, short, and engaging activities to get anything done in the 3 hours the kids are at school. I had them start the morning accessing our class website to practice keyboarding skills and simplifying fractions. As I was searching for websites to add to our collection, I found myself looking for websites that were more "gaming" like than I usually would choose. I know this is an example of my evolving thoughts toward education and technology due to exposure from this class. I am now seeing the value of more engaging websites that not only practice important skills, but incorporate gaming features. This relates to Jenkins' and Pink's concepts of play.
I also appreciate Jenkin's call to afterschool programs to attempt to decrease the "digital divide" that exists between groups of students. Thinking about my students who go to afterschool programs, I know that school and afterschool is where they spend most of their time, leaving a few hours at home and bedtime. So, not having computer access and relavant activities during this vast chunk of time puts them behind students who may go home and have computer access readily available and who may spend a block of time engaged in technological activities.
Thinking about how to incorporate new media literacies into my classroom, specifically at the early childhood age, I continue to return to Performance, and the ease and willingness younger students (especially) assume the roles of different characters. I think about how closely my students watch me, their family members, and other students and how skillfully they mimic behavior. I also think about the books we read and return to, and how students are transfixed by the characters and so completely caught up in the plots. When we venture onto the playground they assume new roles instantaneously, and are fully capable of assuming new characters or extending past play.
Of course I incoporate these skills and interests into my teaching activities, but I would like to take further advantage of them. I would like to increase my use of organized drama and role-playing to encourage students to further develop their abilities to see, speak, and act from other perspectives.
Thinking about transmedia navigation, I would like to take their favorite characters and stories and study how the events would change in other contexts. I would also like to provide my students with opportunities to retell the plot in various formats (oral, writing, graphic, and video.)
Lastly, though pre-K and K curriculum is largely hands on, I would like to increase the opportunities I provide for exploration and discovery. In my class, we try to use materials that others have overlooked or discarded. Usually we incorporate the materials into art projects, models, and collages, but I think it would be possible to study how they could be used to solve problems or create something new as was discussed under Play.
When I read the Jenkins article, I was really struck by "play". One reason is that so many people have taken on the view that learning is not supposed to be fun, that students should be learning because it is what their job is. My response is that although this is true, what is the harm in letting them enjoy what they are doing?
With that thought, I was reminded of a phenomenal program I did when I taught outside of Richmond, Virginia. The program is Odyssey of the Mind. For those of you that are unaware of this program, it is a program where students are presented with a problem and they must solve them problem in a creative way. In addition to solving a problem, they must also compete in a second aspect, which is mind games. The kids can compete regionally, state, nationally, and internationally. The program was so hands-on, but really created high level thinking. I was amazed what a group of seven students could accomplish by working together to solve a problem. The key is to think outside of the box because the more creative, the more likely you are to do better.
This weekend I also heard a commercial in which the father had his child home from school because he needed help doing a post to the internet and then programming his cell phone. The kid was in first grade. It really showed the reversal of roles - and how much the younger generation knows about technology. We really need to enable these students to apply this knowledge that they have.
Although I am not currently in the classroom, I plan to incorporate voicethread and blogs into my classroom immediately. There are so many ways this can benefit my language arts students. I also think these two tools can really help bridge the different subject areas and help students make the connection to real life.
As I read Jenkins’s article I thought about his comments about the shift in focus from the digital divide to what kind of access students have to technology and whether or not students are developing the cultural competencies and social skills they need. Some problems Jenkins pointed out were the participation gap, a transparency problem, and the ethics challenge. The participation gap concerns students having access to technology, but it may be outdated and not high speed Internet access. I thought about students I teach from poverty who may have access to computers and the Internet, but their access is not equal to students from middle class or higher income families. Older computers with dial up Internet connections will not provide the same opportunities and exposures that their peers experience. As their teacher, I need to make sure all students, but students from poverty especially, get to use technology and Internet resources as much as possible at school in order to level the playing field and help make these students competitive. I also see the effects of the transparency problem in my classroom. Students read text on the Internet or other sources and assume it is true because it is in print. They aren’t sure how to be critical readers yet and how to determine if a text is worthwhile. They need more opportunities to evaluate text and to practice determining its validity. I liked the framework for media literacy that provided 5 questions for students to answer when viewing a message. The framework requires students to think about who created the message; what creative techniques were used to attract their attention; how many people understand the message differently than them; what lifestyles, values, and points of view are represented or omitted from the message; and why is the message being sent? Questions such as these are a good starting point for students to become more critical viewers of media. I would like to incorporate more judgment activities in my classroom such as having students ask questions similar to the five previously mentioned when viewing websites. I also liked Jenkins’s suggestion of having students read the same story from multiple news sources and finding words or phrases that may spin the story differently. This would help students look for things such as bias in news stories and to become more critical consumers of text. Helping students see differences among trusted news sources may help open their eyes to the need to evaluate and judge all sources.
I am trying to help students develop new media literacies while learning our required content. For example, I have had students participate in online discussions of texts using websites such as nicenet.org. Once I set up the class site, it provides students a safe place to communicate with their peers about the books they are reading. As the teacher, I can also participate in the discussions and help challenge students to think on higher levels about their texts. I have also used GPSs to help students understand the themes of geography. Students had to collaborate and work together while using the technology and completing the tasks located at each cache. I am working with students now to create voice threads. Students have almost taken their memoirs through the writing process. They will publish their work by creating a voice thread that integrates them reading their final draft and displaying pictures or images to visually represent their story.
While reading Jenkins’ article, I felt a bit envious of the teenagers mentioned who had developed innovative projects and designs at such a young age. After contemplating though, I realized that all of our students have the capabilities mentioned by Jenkins—we just have to facilitate that learning. I agree with Jenkins when he described a core flaw of the new media literacies—the transparency problem. I currently strive to have my students reflect on their work on a regular basis, but after reading his article, I realize the downfall of not branching meaningful connections between what appear to be games and factual information presented through games. Even though I teach first grade, I think it would be an optimal opportunity for me to teach mini-lessons on reflection.
Another interesting factor that Jenkins mentioned was the need for long distance collaboration among learning communities. Although blogging is a start to this communication, I feel there is a need to establish quality connections throughout the world. Instituting partnerships between schools through sites like Epals or through visits from a representative of an organization seem to be the most natural ways to connect with global partners. Are there other ways to connect securely?
Jenkins’ description of play as “fierce, intense attention” exemplifies to me how important it is to incorporate it into my school day. To be able to channel that attention into learning is incredibly valuable. I currently allow my students to explore (play) with different objects during science inquiry. Shortly afterwards, we chart our observations that we had during play. It is amazing the insight and discoveries that occur during this time—meaning happens.
As I was reading Henry Jenkins article, Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century, I began to think about different ways that I could incorporate some of his ideas into my own classroom and learning. Since I teach Kindergarten I have to stick to very basic tasks with my students, however this doesn’t mean I can’t incorporate technology and the skills that Jenkin’s described in his article, into my own classroom. There are many ways that I already incorporate some of Jenkin’s ideas into my classroom, however, there are many more ways that I could incorporate his findings in my classroom, as well as my learning. Since we live in the 21st century, we must prepare our students for a more technologically advanced world, which means we must begin integrating technology at very young age.
Play is one of the core media skills that Jenkins describes in his article and this is something that is incorporated into my classroom each day. The students have what I call “free centers,” which is where they are able to go to different centers to explore and learn together through hands on materials. We have a play dough center and moon sand center where students make creations out of the different materials. We have a housekeeping center, where students can pretend to cook, clean, dress up as different people in the community, etc. We have a puzzle center, where students have an opportunity to put together many different types of puzzles. We have a blocks center, where students can build creations out of giant wooden blocks. We have a computer center where students are able to manipulate different websites and games online. After reading Jenkin’s article, I would like to find some constructive games that are geared toward Kindergarteners that they can play online at this center. I want them to have experience problem solving at a very basic level, so I can begin to build this important skill with them at an early age through the use of games. As Jenkin’s stated, “through play, children try on roles, experiment with culturally central processes, manipulate core resources, and explore their immediate environments” (Jenkins 21). My children accomplish these goals during their free center time in our classroom.
Another way my students use the core literacy of play is during computer time. For example, they are able to play math problem solving games on Larsen’s math program. While these activities in the program are fun, they are also engaging to the students. My students are using problem solving as a way to move through the different activities in this program.
When Jenkin’s discussed the importance of Performance as one of the core media skills, he stated that, “role play in particular, should be seen as a fundamental skill used across multiple academic domains” (Jenkins 30). As a Kindergarten team, our students participate in a Thanksgiving play each year. This is a great way for them to role play different characters in a different type of setting. I feel that I could also incorporate role play into my classroom using familiar stories we read as a class. As Jenkin’s states, “this can help children learn to verbalize their experiences of reading through these performances, and in the process develop an analytic framework for thinking about literacy” (Jenkins 29). I feel that role play is a way to enhance my students comprehension of stories, through interaction and collaboration with other students.
I am integrating Voice Thread into my classroom, which I feel incorporates Jenkin’s idea of Distributed Cognition he discussed in his article. My students are interacting with technology in this activity, which is integrated into a reading and writing lesson. Their knowledge is being extended beyond a typical writing lesson to a writing lesson that uses technology to engage and motivate students. When Jenkin’s discussed the core literacy of Distributed Cognition, he talked about the possibility of using GPS systems within the classroom. Even though my students are too young to work with GPS systems on their own, it would be neat to pair up each one of my students with an older buddy in the school to do a scavenger hunt using the GPS systems. This would give the older students a chance to collaborate and work with a younger student in the school. My students would benefit greatly because they would get to experience a new type of technology and extend their knowledge technologically.
As teachers it is important for us to use the skill of networking when incorporating technology into our classrooms. I can relate to this idea because with a world that is constantly changing, it is important for us to keep up to date of the technologies that will make our students successful in the future. I feel that I must be constantly aware of different resources that are available to my classroom and I am constantly looking for new ways to integrate technology into my curriculum because the push for this is so great. In order to do this I must have good networking skills. Thus, I see the importance of this skill not only for our students, but also for me as a professional educator. Something I found helpful that I will use is the crispynews.com, which is an online database for teachers to use to share educational resources. As a teacher reading this article was extremely helpful, because it gave me a valuable framework to follow for 21st century skills.
As Amy mentioned, the Odyssey of the Mind (OM) program is an excellent way to promote collaborative and participatory skills among younger students. I actually participated in OM program when I was in the 5th and 6th grades, and still remember my experiences quite vividly. As knowledge has become ubiquitous and accessible by almost everyone, the emphasis on one person as the distributor of information has been almost entirely negated. We need to be teaching students how to work together, to share ideas, and to learn from one another in order to create a diverse, unified end product, in which everyone receives credit for their input.
I also believe that play and performance can be greatly enhanced among our students by allowing them to create their own characters and navigate through video or online games which promote learning. Granted, not all games cater to the education of a young mind, but many do...and do so quite well. I have a nephew who is not quite 5 years old, and already he is learning how to use a home computer in order to access a game in which he learns animals, counting, and social skills (sharing, remembering to say "please" and "thank you", etc.). He still likes reading books, but he is absolutely enthralled with the moving and talking pictures he sees on the computer. And since he's been learning how to play the game, his reading skills have also improved. Learning can certainly be fun...and while it may not always be, I think it should be taken advantage of when it CAN be made fun. I can only imagine that motivation, classroom attendance, ability to stay and task, and desire to do well will all be increased if we can incorporate play and performance into daily learning.
I do not currently teach, but am looking forward to being able to use VoiceThread and various simulations in my classrooms once I'm back in the teaching role.
When examining Jenkin’s New Media Literacy’s I was struck by the statement “ new digital cultures provide support systems to writers……through blogs, live journals, for young people to receive feedback on their writing, and to gain experience in communicating with a larger group.”
This comment made me realize that even though the technology does allow another form for students to interact with each other and give feedback, students still need to be taught how to give valuable feedback to each other when critiquing each other. Other wise students still end up giving feedback such as “I like your idea…..” One strategy I would like to bring into my classroom to address this better would be something called “The Author’s chair.” In this activity, the author reads their piece and the audience uses certain codes (straight line, squiggly lines, and asterisks) to give feedback immediately. A modified version of this could be done through a live journal or wikki, where certain codes are still used to represent feed back (highlighting text that captures the readers attention, changing font colors for things that the reader was unclear on), but the reader gives the feedback online.
Another area I strongly related to was the section concerning research skills. I have noticed that many of my students not only struggle to do basic research, but when doing research they have a difficult time distinguishing fact from fiction or opinion. I have struggled a great deal with how to teach this in a relevant fashion to this new age of learner. Just recently I learned of a approach called A Multi-Genre research project ( Blending Genre, Altering Styles: Writing Multigenre papers by Tom Romano chapter 1-3) that brings not only many genre’s into the topic being researched, but also brings in the intensity of “Play” that Jenkin’s discusses. In multi-genre research project the students researches the topic with as much scaffolding as needed by the teacher during the research process, and then uses many different genre’s ( poems, documents, narrative accounts, pictures with captions)to express what they discovered. This seems like such a perfect fit for bringing in technology as a tool to express their findings. Similar to The Author’s chair, I plan on brining this into the classroom next year.
In this article I have come away with an even greater awareness that I not only need to teach the students how to think independently, but how to socialize well and give useful feedback to the group in order to enrich the “whole”. Through The Author’s chair and Multigenre research papers I hope I can do a better job of meeting this challenge.
Henry Jenkin's article,
"Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century" allowed me to think about the many ways that I can use New Media Literacies in my classroom and well as in my own learning. Jenkin's article also made me realize that I already incorporate many new media literacies in my classroom. I encourage my students to be problem solvers through inquiry-based activities during science, as Sara mentioned. Several counties have adopted the FOSS science kits as well as other science kits that require teachers to let students take their learning into their own hands.
Jenkins also mentions that play is a core media skill. As mentioned in previous articles, play is important for students to learn how to apply life experiences and interact with others. I intend to allow my students to express themselves through dramas, class plays, skits, and role playing more often. I agree with Amy that a lot of the "fun" in school is limited. I believe that this is due to so much emphasis on assessments and scores. As teachers we get so caught up on how well our students will perform on tests, we forget that they are kids, and we can make learning fun and interesting!
Providing underprivilaged students with opportunities to explore and interact with digital devices, computers, and other technologies is a necessity to make sure that all students receive the 21st century skills they need to be successful in today's society. Afterschool programs are a great way to increase the amount of time students spend using these forms of technologies.
It is important for teachers to find the right balance for teaching technology skills, social skills, problem solving skills, and the academic skills that students need to be productive 21st century children, teenagers, and adults. Jenkins provides a framework for incorporating new media literacies into our classrooms.
I agreed with the basic premise of Jenkins’ article. Schools must promote media literacy if we are to prevent social exclusion and the rise of another hidden curriculum. It was interesting when Jenkins pointed out that we often assume certain middle class students are “naturally adept” at technology when in fact they have just had more of an opportunity learn at home with the help of parents while other students must often rely on the expertise of those they encounter at school.
Jenkins suggestions for utilizing play and performance were particularly interesting. I think students of all ages enjoy problem solving through games and simulations, particularly when they have to assume other identities. As Jenkins points out, such games are not just empty novelties, but can help students synthesize and internalize information that they may previously have just memorized from a text book. “Medieval Space” (“a great idea!) could be adapted to an English class for character and theme exploration. These techniques are especially helpful for students who resist traditional methods of instruction. Some of the other ideas Jenkins had in this area, like the online Huck Finn game, for instance, seemed fascinating, but most teachers I know lack the expertise to implement them. As we have discussed before, this is where purposeful choices about how to spend our time in terms of professional development and planning come in. However, what encouraged me from the article was that Jenkins was not focusing so much on hardware or software but on promoting a more developed kind of literacy.
As I have commented in other blogs, one element of literacy I have always been interested in is promoting in students the ability to look at any kind of media with a critical eye. Jenkins calls this a “healthy skepticism.” He brought in a piece which I had not thought of before—that of helping them differentiate between different kinds of media. I had not even considered this a need but understood more as he explained. Also, I particularly liked his suggestion of how to use news.google.com to compare how different media venues portray different stories. With all of the people competent for young people’s time, attention, and money critical is an important kill that, ask Jenkins points out, not all students learn at home.
While reading Jenkins’s article, I was really given the opportunity to think about my lessons and activities that already incorporate New Media Literacies. As a kindergarten teacher, Play “plays” a big part in our learning. Kindergarten is high energy and I try to incorporate as much fun as possible in my teaching so that the children will be excited about learning and still stay focused. We have a morning meeting every morning during circle time where the student shake hands with one another and greet each other. Two children are then chosen to share something, while one boy and one girl are then chosen for questions and comments. We then play a game that allows the children to practice some kind of math, reading, or writing skill. It’s an amazing way to start of every day and it gets us all off on the right foot.
Performance is also important in my classroom. We read many stories and really focus on the characters, setting, retelling, and personal connection. In the puppets and playdough center, I have my students create puppets out of the characters that we’ve discussed and re-enact the story in various ways. At first they retell the story with their partner as it happened, then they use their own creativity to change the plot or come up with different endings. It’s amazing how many children better understand the books that we’ve read and the roles that the characters play through improvisation and discovery.
Collective intelligence is something that we work on during read alouds. When we make predictions before the beginning of the story, students are given the opportunity to use their prior knowledge about a subject to predict what the story will be about. This gives other students the opportunity to become more familiar with something that we’re about to read. During our animals unit, I assign different animals to different groups of children. As a homework assignment, they list three things about the animal that they know or that they’ve learned. They then come back to school and we put them into their groups (with parent helpers) and they share the information that they know. Some of the information will be the same, but, they will also learn new information, therefore becoming more informed. Each child in the group then chooses one piece of information about their particular animal and shares it with the class. It really reinforces “Everyone knows something, nobody knows everything.”
A new media literacy that I would like to focus on is transmedia navigation. We use thinking maps in our school and create double bubble maps to compare and contrast various stories and books. It would be interesting to read, perhaps, The Three Little Pigs and then read a version online (Maybe on Wiggle Works) and then watch a short video or DVD. It would be interesting to then compare and contrast the various versions using the various sources.
It is so very important for us to integrate 21st Century Skills within our classroom, but it also just as important to develop social skills. Developing a classroom community is of the utmost importance in my school. Collaboration and networking are key!
When reading the article by Henry I saw that I already use some of the skills that he discusses. I use play in my kindergarten classroom. Children learn through play so it is important for them to have it in the classroom. I have games in my room that the children play with. They have games that involve them learning the letters, sounds, and math (numbers and patterns). I also have a memory game that the children interact with during center time. Not only do I use games, but the children seem to really like doing puzzles in my classroom. When they do puzzles they are trying to figure out where the pieces go. The children are always asking to do a puzzle with another child during center time. The children are involved in computer games as well. When they are on the games they are making decisions on what game they want to play and listening to the directions so they know what to do when they play.
In kindergarten we not only are using play, but performance and collective intelligence. I will have the children do a lot of predictions (making a guess) when we are reading stories, whether it is in whole group or small group. The students will tell me what they think the story will be about or what they think is going to happen. I will have them make predictions while reading the stories too. Next week in my classroom our focus is prediction. The students will draw/write what they think the story will be about before we read. Then after we are done reading the story I will have the students bring their paper and have them check their predictions. I like to hear what they think the story will be about because some of them have really good predictions. Sequence is another area we discuss during story time. I have the students put the events from the story in order. I also talk about the character and setting in a story like Andrea and Tina mentioned. When we read a book during whole group reading time we discuss who the character/charters are and the setting (where the story takes place). The students will do activities that involve them writing and drawing about the character or the setting. They will write about who their favorite character was, what the character was doing in the book, how did the character feel, or what they would do if they were that character. Not only do they do that, but they will draw/write about the setting in the story as well. We also talk about setting when we look at a picture or when we are going outside for a walk. I have also done role-play with a story that I read about dinosaurs. The children loved it and I saw how much more they remembered when they were able to do the role- play.
One thing that our school wants us to do is have our children ask questions. So I think that I would like to try more of that in my classroom. I would like my students to ask questions (judgment) during our reading time because I am usually the one that ask the questions and they answer. They need to know how to ask questions so I plan on doing more question activities with them, especial during reading time. The Henry Jenkins article gave good examples of how to use new media literacy in your classroom and the importance of it in our students learning. We need to prepare our students for the 21st century.
I found it interesting the way Henry Jenkins described new media literacies as 11 specific social skills and then explained how each could and should be interwoven into our current school curriculum. I feel that I already incorporate some of Henry Jenkins’ core media literacy skills into my teaching, specifically Performance and Collaboration. As a reading teacher, I feel it is important to get students as excited about reading as possible. This is not always an easy task, but one activity I have found to peak my students excitement and interest is Reader’s Theater. This is where students each have a different part of a play and act it out with their voice and sometimes body movements (when applicable). But it is mainly a way to get them involved in reading in a way that is expressive, interactive and social. They each have a part to read and act out with their voice, but they must collaborate together to make the play meaningful and successful.
As far an integrating technology into these media literacy skills, I have not tried any yet (but will be soon with my inquiry project) and will be interested to see how my students respond to implementing the webquest and voicethread activities (in the computer lab). Because of time constraints, I would need to find a fast way to integrate technology in order to do it on a regular basis. Currently, I do not have any student computers in my room, but should be getting 2 within the next month (yeah!). It will be exciting to begin incorporating technology with the new media literacy skills in my reading lessons and to observe how my students respond.
I agree with Jenkins that media literacy education must be incorporated into state and local curriculum standards from kindergarten through college. Educators need to bring up to date and alter their assumptions shaping many existing media literacy programs and activities. In my curriculum, interaction with media is limited to passive undertakings, rather than developing students’ understanding, creativity around, and awareness of needed skills for the new media age. I believe media literacy should include the full range of aptitudes students will need if they are going to be successful participants in a more interactive media culture.
I hope I am addressing some core skills within my practice. First, I let my students play with each other in a giant note passing game. Students are allowed to talk to each all they want for 10 to 15 minutes as long as they write it down. Of course, this requires them to write coherently enough for the receiver to be able to understand the message. I often see students passing back notes and shaking their head indicating, “I don’t understand”. This forces the original writer to problem solve their message to improve its meaning. A variation of this game is to have one student write one sentence and then pass it on, with the understanding that each student is to add another sentence to build a cohesive story. I believe this activity addresses performance and collective intelligence core skills.
One of my favorite activities is to have my students write a live news report about a familiar fairytale. This appropriation activity helps students deal with a piece of everyday media content that they encounter on their own environment.
We owe it to our students to present them with opportunities to explore popular culture within a traditional literacy curriculum.
I particularly enjoyed reading about Jenkin’s eleven core skills needed to be successful in the participatory culture. Many of these skills are not taught in today’s schools…a true disservice to the children. I feel that if we are truly preparing our students to be successful in life, then we need to make sure that we are teaching our students these eleven core skills.
Play is a prominent part of a kindergarten day. I try to provide my students will plenty of opportunities to play on a daily basis. The “home center” is a place in my classroom that enables my children to explore their sense of play. The home center is transformed frequently into a variety of things: a kitchen, a farmer’s market, a grocery store, a veterinarian’s office, a restaurant, etc. It provides the children with the opportunity to explore their creativity in a variety of settings…to be whatever they want to be that day. I appreciated Jenkin’s comment, “Play in the context argued here is a mode of active engagement, one that encourages experimentation and risk-taking, one that views the process of solving a problem as important as finding the answer, one that offers clearly defined goals and roles that encourage strong identifications and emotional investments.” Play is a vital part of a child’s development. It provides my children with a chance to experiment, solve problems, succeed, cooperate with their peers, to become leaders. Without this type of experience, will the children be able to succeed in the participatory culture? Many times, when I tell people I teach kindergarten they say “Oh, so you play all day.” After this article, I feel confident saying “Yes!”
I have introduced my children to the internet. We searched the internet for information on animals and what those animals do in the fall. I talked about how to navigate from one site to another, how to use both pictures and text for information, and how to tell good sites from bad sites. I have introduced my children to ‘judgement’ and ‘networking.’ While it was brief and simplistic, it was an introduction to a tool and to skills that they will need to succeed in school and in life.
I hope to continue to introduce the core skills to my students, and to introduce the eleven core skills to other teachers in my school. We are a technology school, so the use of the internet is very prevalent in all grade level classrooms. I want to make sure that the other teachers use their time wisely and introduce core skills, and embrace the online culture that our students hold in such high regard.
Teaching at the college level, I sometimes take for granted what my students already know and use when it comes to new media technologies. Given how much we hear about how much the younger generation is immersed in technology and is using it to constantly create content, I often assume they know more than they apparently do. I was given a wake-up call in regards to this last week teaching my class.
As is typically the case in my Small Group Communication class, my students were complaining to me that they were having difficulty finding time to meet with all of their group members to work on their projects. Hearing their complaints, I made the suggestion that they try and use some technological tools to alleviate this burden. Some of the collaborative tools I mentioned that they could use were blogs and wikis. When I mentioned wikis, however, I saw blank stares on most of my students’ faces. Seeing this, I asked how many of them had used or created a wiki before and no one raised there hand. I then asked how many of them had heard of a wiki before and only one person raised their hand. Needless to say, I was stunned.
I still haven’t figured out where this was an anomalous group of students or whether this is consistent across most people their age. Regardless, I felt the need to give my students a simple tutorial on wikis, so that they could use it to their advantage if they were so inclined. Fortunately, the university’s server provides students a way to create their own wikis. I showed them the basics of how they can post and edit content collaboratively in this online space. I doubt all of the groups will embrace this technology, but I know a couple of them have decided to explore it further.
If used properly, their wiki could help them in a number of the areas that Jenkins discusses; including collective intelligence, judgment, transmedia navigation, and networking. On the other hand, it could simply be used as a dumping ground for information that is not seen by other group members. While this is a worse case scenario, it is not unfathomable.
This brings me to my one contention with Jenkins work. I believe that Jenkins puts too much faith that we can simply transfer new media technologies into an educational setting and expect a positive result. Too many of these technologies have deep-seated connections within social contexts for students ignore. The social perceptions that students have about these technologies are likely going to affect how they view and use them in the classroom. More work should be done to create innovations that are exclusive to education that would help promote the areas that Jenkins talks about. And if new innovations are not likely, then we at least need to make more of an effort to create definitive boundaries between the usage of new media technologies in educational and social settings.
In the Jenkins article play is referred to as the capacity to experiment with one’s surroundings as a form of problem solving and simulation as the ability to interpret and construct dynamic models of real world processes. I find that I have used these techniques in the classroom when students are exploring and experimenting with science materials. For instance, when electricity and magnetism are introduced the students are given materials and an outcome goal, but no guidance beyond that. Together in small groups, they will construct a model that will solve the given problem and thereby have a have a chance explore these items.
The use of performance in the classroom comes about when students share information with their classmates. Often individuals or groups will be responsible for reading different material and presenting this to their peers. Each year guided reading groups will read a novel and rewrite the situation into the form of a play. Then they will perform the material for their classmates using self designed puppets or costumes. This type of learning makes the experience more authentic for the students as well as more interesting for their peers. If the material is presented in such a way that it is intriguing it has the tendency to inspire individuals that did not read the novel to make it a free choice book. This is an ideal and fun way for more students to become exposed to the literature than would generally be viable.
As I was reading Jenkins's article, I was thinking about the new skills that Jenkins talks about and how they are already implemented in my classroom. Play and performance are very prevalent in my classroom. As a kindergarten teacher they are essential. My students are given many opportunities to "play" in free choice centers. Just as Tara said, there are games and puzzles for the students to play with. They work together to fit the pieces together. They also have opportunities to play games on the computer. Many of the games are opportunities for them to learn how to use the computer.
Performance has also been implemented in my classroom. In one of the literacy centers, students are able to retell the stories using puppet characters or paper characters. The students also participate in interactive read-alouds in which they have to talk with their partners as though they are the character in the book. They say what they think the character might say or what the character would do next. This type of read-aloud has really enhanced their retelling skills.
As I think about what Jenkins said about Distributed Cognition, I think about how to incorporate my literacy activities using technology. I would like to incoporate VoiceThread into the writing program. I would like to use new ways for the students to be able to retell and sequence stories. We constantly talk about the stories we read, role play and act out. I think technology can also be used as another tool for the students to use.
After reading Jenkins’s article I found many ways that I can incorporate New Media Literacies into my future classroom. One way is through the use of wikis in my classroom. These wikis will allow students to collaborate and build onto each others ideas, which is a important idea that I found in his article. I believe students can learn a lot from each other when they work in groups and collaborate, analyze, and solve problems together. Wikis would allow student to voice their opinion about a certain topic and students can give feedback or build upon what other students have to say.
One New Media Literacy that I used during student teaching was voice thread, which is what we have talked about in resent classes. Students created their own weather poem and created a picture using water colors to depict the type of weather in their poem. We then created a poster as a class to be the title page of “our weather poems”. This was used as our first slide as we said in unison the class and the title of the project. Then each following slide was individuals’ pictures as that student read their poem into the voice thread. The students really loved it and it was a neat way to make their writing meaningful and fun.
Play is yet another main idea that Jenkins stresses in his article. This is something that I do not have a lot of experience incorporating into the classroom but understand its great need through this article and through Pink’s discussion on play. I think a play center that allows students to brainstorm, think, and have fun would be a great center to use in my classroom for when students have completed the required work. I also plan to search for information websites that allow for play and games on the topic we are studying to serve as a fun and helpful resource for students.
When reading the Jenkins article, I was encouraged to find that I incorporated many of the ideas into my current classroom. I incorporate play into my classroom with review games and acting out certain scenes from novels. I encourage higher-level thinking with group projects and writing assignments.
I was continually frustrated, however, when I began to think of ways to implement his several of his suggestions for incorporating media literacy. I have mentioned in class that I teach at a school with DIVERSE socioeconomic backgrounds. I teach the lowest of the low and the highest of the high. Yet, due to lack of financial resources, our school just does not afford students the opportunity to teach media literacy. I have one computer in my classroom, and our English department has one LCD projector shared among twelve teachers. There is a library with multiple computers and a computer lab that can be used during class time, but more often than not, these areas are occupied unless a teacher signs up for them three-four weeks in advance. It is a requirement that all students type their papers, and I frequently have intelligent students who do not turn in their papers simply because they do not have access to a computer. I feel like I am lying to them when I tell these students that they can go to the library before school (the library is only open for fifteen minutes, hardly enough time to work on a paper), during lunch (most of these students have free or reduced lunches, and food is not allowed out of the cafeteria), or after school (they have to ride the bus home to go to jobs or take care of younger siblings).
I have to find a way so that I do not become disillusioned and can embrace all of the changes that are a-coming. I really want to introduce some of these technologies to my students, and I welcome suggestions as to how I can do this.
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