"The ways in which wikis are taken up and used in classrooms are also dependent on how teachers see interpret the world outside the classroom." (Carrington, 2009, Pg. 75)
In my county a wiki space is provided within the LMS we started using last school year. To my knowledge none of the teachers used it. I didn't get any questions about it. The tech savvy teachers probably wouldn't have asked before using it. I didn't hear any students talking about it, but I might have just not been in the correct setting to learn about it. This is one of the places I will concentrate on this year while conducting training for our LMS.
Chapter 5 - Blogs:
"Both of these examples show how classroom projects can use the affordances of blogs to support learning. The second example also show how teachers could benefit from the experience as well. . . . Nevertheless the vignettes presented here show authentic blogging practices (that is to say, blogging that reflects everyday or 'real-world' uses of blogs) that are carefully interwoven with classroom learning." (Davies and Merchant, 2009, Pg. 90-91)
This is the connection students and teachers need to effectively use technology in their classrooms. Blogging is easily done. It does have to be monitored by the teacher, though. I have had teachers create a form with appropriate dos and don'ts of blogging to help with this. It is very real world. In the Prologue of this chapter we read how Julie uses critical literacy strategies to verify authenticity. This is very important to teach to students who are using blogs (and wikis).
This is the one I would most likely use in class. I think it can be used in student learning, student research and teaching students to determine whether it is valid information. I think all three would address the CCS by using critical thinking skills in all subjects, not just ELA and Math. After seeing the students struggle with performance tasks in the WV General Summative Assessment, I think this is a good place to concentrate.
Chapter 6 - Virtual Worlds:
"At the same time, we recognized that many of the students would draw on their experiences of video-gaming when interacting with the virtual world."(Merchant, 2009, Pg. 104)
This quote jumped out at me because of the Curriculum in the New Media Age class I'm taking this summer also. I can see this might cause a problem with a gaming type environment, but couldn't we also use simulators and games already designed for learning? Perhaps our CTE teachers would be able to suggest current ones. I used a driving simulator when I took Driver's Ed in high school. I've used games such as SimCity, Oregon Trail, Lemonade Stand, etc. to help students think critically. Connecting this idea of bringing in prior knowledge would be a the paragraph on Pg. 107 in our text that talks about students bringing in their prior literacy practices during the virtual world game play.
I found the "Challenges for Teachers" section very worthy of thought and discussion in the chapter.
Carrington, V., & Robinson, M. (2009). Digital literacies: Social learning and classroom practices. Los Angeles: SAGE Publications.
Illuminated text:
Kelly Ann, I like the way you developed you illuminated text, Especially the use of the word interpret because the way teachers view or interpret what students are presenting can be a big difference. I too, agree with the quote you chose for Chapter 6, students do use the skills they gain gaming in many different ways! That after all should be recognized as learning or a least acknowledged as a literacy skill.
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