Week 3 reading

Chapter 1: Media Ecologies in Hanging Out, Messing Around and Geeking Out

1.      What findings in the Media Ecologies: Quantitative Perspectives surprised you the most? How does the finding change the way you think about young people, technology and learning?

What I found most surprising was the fact that according to the Kaiser report , media engagement did not crowd out time spent with family, hobbies and physical activity. I found this to be very interesting in light of the hype we see on TV about having 5 phones in a house hold and they text each other across tables. I’m from a time when color TV was invented and we still had rotary dial telephones and party lines. I remember when the calculator was invented, my parents then claimed it would turn our brains to mush. The family units started to become disjointed with the need for both parents working or divorcing and having no time together. So it seems to me that maybe media engagement is helping pull the family back together. I think that the more I learn about this, I don’t think it should be limited to just the young people. However, the world is their oyster and media has so much to offer them. I’m a little jealous that I didn’t have this access in my youth.

2.      What are the benefits to a genre-based approach to understanding youth engagement with digital media over a categorical-based approach?

As in all new technologies, the powers that be want cookie cutter answers. Like No Child Left Behind, the government tried to compartmentalize special needs students , only to find there are a stunning amount of special needs. I believe that this is a similar situation and the variables are staggering. Our text points out that the genre-based approach emphasizing modes of participation, not categories or individuals. They are looking at the variables that make the youth and the technology unique, and looking at the forest and not trying to identify the trees.

       3.      What aspects of Michelle's (Box 1.2) computer use at home have implications for computer  
            use at school?

I feel a showdown approaching between mother and daughter. Michelle is a 12 year old or tween in a strict home environment, where Mom does not want to let her go. The internet has opened a whole new world for her. She loves the creative media course in school because it gives her the freedom to express herself. Although I think she is in a similar socioeconomic situation as her friends, she has more access which can give her the edge in school.

4.      As you read about Clarissa (Box 1.3) consider the affordances of digital technologies that help Clarissa shape her identity and the role they play in literacy engagement. Do you think there are positive implications for these affordances in school-based literacy instruction? If so, what are they. If not, what are your concerns?

I feel that there could be positive implications for school-based literacy. Because story writing could   be beneficial in lieracy.  However, my concern is how do you control who they are talking to and writing and posting? To me the youth are not given enough guidelines to follow. Free expression should be a privilege and not a right.  In the day and age these young people don’t realize the implications of sharing passwords, and what they post. Facebook and myspace have taken on a whole new meaning. Like writing in a diary, when I was young, stories are made up or embellished. It was our world and we could be anything that we wanted. Clarissa does the same but she puts it out there for all to see in the program Faraway Lands. That to me is very bothersome.

5.      In the section titled Messing Around we read about the sophisticated and creative technology practices young people are developing on their own outside of school. Do you think it is important for teachers to know about and understand these practices. Why?

      I absolutely believe that it is important for teachers to understand these practices. It is important for them to keep up with the developing technology.  If we don’t understand how students are already using digital media, how can we effectively make assignments to enhance these skills? I learn a lot from my students. I find myself ‘messing around’ and this actually leads gathering a great deal of information without setting a specific goal.  I have my students write research papers and this leads to the students learning and not necessarily having prior knowledge of a topic and they don’t even realize it. A few of my students will be presenting their information at a conference in the fall. Part of our program is on-line and we have the students experiment and ‘mess around’ and this allows students to become real experts with new media and teach others. Especially me, I am roaming out of my comfort zone

6.      Should schools support students' in "geeking out"? What are the educational and ethical implications of "geeking out"?

When I hear a person called a ‘computer geek’ it makes me think of people that know how to break the rules necessary to get a job done and others want to learn.  I feel the schools should take advantage of their expertise and not negate their talents simply because that person does not necessarily fit into a preconceived notion of a ‘geek’. Educational implications would include learning how they find credible information, but they also know the shortcuts and illegal downloading could be a problem.

7.      The young people studied for this book lived in urban settings in California or New York City. Do you think young people in West Virginia behave in similar ways and develop the same kinds of digital literacies? Provide examples from your own experiences with young people in West Virginia.

  I believe the youth of the digital age are basically the same all over the states and even the world. They all want to be connected. The more money, the more toys. There are places in every state that has areas of such poverty that braodband has not been installed until very recently. I also believe that if the kids want it, they will figure out a way to get it. Determined is the child that wants something reeeeally reeeeally bad, life is not worth living without. The only experience I have with the youth of West Virginia ,are my students, all over the age of 21. They bring their iphones and ipads to class and listen to their ipods regularly. I had a contest to see who could last the longest without their phone. I had them put the phone in front of them and the first one to look at it had to leave the room. They didn’t last a minute.  For that reason iphones and all i technology is not allowed during class. They hate it.