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Digital Literacy

The civic and civil dialogue video was a deep and conversational analysis of an Obama campaign speech. I appreciate how the student defended her position and used the critique of others to further her description of the event instead of running off topic to discuss policy. Our politicians could learn from her analysis.

The Oakland State of Mind video was thought provoking for me. The widespread popularity of the Jay-Z and Alicia Key’s hit makes this not only applicable but also engaging for students. They learn from pop culture, so why shouldn’t we use that influence to show them the good in it and use pop songs to teach. The youth of Oakland will never forget producing this video. Assignments like that are what engages students today.

Likewise, simple things like the blog posts would be so easy to accomplish in a classroom. The classroom where I taught in NZ had a class blog. The students were a 5-6 year old combination class, so the blog was updated by the teacher. The students maintained choice about what was published and the captions/blurbs/etc. This scaffolded blog approach allowed the students to receive comments on their work even though they were mostly too young to independently type everything they wanted to say.

Digital literacy is such a fascinating topic of study because I see future classrooms heavily integrating technology into daily activities. I’m pumped and terrified to see this progress.