Digital Literacies: Social Learning and Classroom Practices Chapters 6-9

Chapter 6

“ The educational value of game-playing comes not from the game itself, but from the creative coupling of educational media with effective pedagogy to engage students in meaningful practices.” – Squires

The way that game playing is viewed by educators needs to be changed. There are a lot of aspects of playing video games that can be incorporated into teaching practices. The way that students learn to play video games through trial and error can be brought into teaching practices onto schools. More hands on and interactive activities with other students, less pencil/paper individual assignments would be one example.

Chapter 7

“It is not technology itself that creates the opportunites for transformation, but the way it is inflected by and related to other practices that happen within the environment.”- Cathy Burnett

Just because you have a mimio board in your room, does not mean you will use it. Technology can be a scary thing especially for senior teachers. If teachers have the chance to receive training on how to use technology properly and feel comfortable with it, I think they are more likely to use it. 

Chapter 8

“ The advent of digital technologies has also precipitated a move from consumer to producer dispositions with recognition of the participatory potential of new technologies.”- Buckingham, 2003.

I love this quote, and I feel it sums up how students learn and grow. Digital natives are interested in being creators of technologies not just participating in it.

Chapter 9

“In literacy education, we find ourselves in a strange time period in which movements pull us in disparate directions.”- Kevin Leander

I think this is true, teachers are at a cross roads from more traditional teaching practices and contemporary activities. Although this is true for today’s classroom, this can be said for any time period there is always going to be those who are more comfortable with traditional or new teaching practices.

One way in which I may use a technology traditionally used outside of school in a lesson would be to start a class blog. I’ve enjoyed using this class blog, and feel it is great to have collaborative learning because of the blog. Two heads are better than one, you can learn more together than separately. After taking this class I do feel much more prepared and comfortable to incorporate digital text or literacy into my lesson plans for my students. I would feel more prepared if I continued to have exposure to web 2.0 tools. I am very likely to use some of the technology that I have learned about in this class, especially like I had mentioned earlier, a blog. 

Illuminated Text 3

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