Our first chat will be June 7 @ 7:00 PM EST. Skip down below to read the post I wrote to introduce our first topic or  just head on over to the new home of our #literacies chat: http://literacieschat.wordpress.com/ 

The Birth of an Idea

If you know me as @writerswriting, my Twitter handle, chances are you know that this last semester I have been collaborating with Emily Pendergrass (@Dr_Pendergrass), a professor at Vanderbilt, who was teaching a course in New Literacies. I was teaching a course on Content Area Literacies and together we used the hashtag #literacies to engage the topic with our pre-service teachers and the wider world.

Phase One: Once the semester came to an end, we definitely wanted to take advantage of the momentum built by having so many of our colleagues think with us about the demands and dimensions of contemporary literacies. Monica Batac (@monicabatac) suggested make the hashtag a chat…and thus our new weekly #literacies chat idea was born.

First, we opened a GoogleDoc to brainstorm ideas and within a week and with over 50 contributors, the GDoc was packed with fascinating topics ranging from the seemingly wide gap between in-school and out-of-school literacies to the role of multimodality in the digital age.

Phase Two: Drawing heavily from Meenoo Rami (@mrami2) and the way she moderates #engchat, we made a website for the #literacies chat to call home. At that site we will post introductions to the weekly topic and archives of the chats.

Phase Three: This is where you come in!

Our first chat will be Thursday, June 7 @ 7:00 PM EST. Please join us to discuss, among other things:

1. What brings you “to the table,” to the #literacies chat?
2. What are you particularly committed to in regards to contemporary literacies?
3. What blogs, texts, links, quotes, i.e. persons, have pushed your thinking in regards to contemporary literacies?

Below is a description of our first official chat topic! It is a repost from http://literacieschat.wordpress.com/ where you can find a description of upcoming chat topics and archives of each chat. You can also find a description of how to join us on Twitter, if you are new to the idea. We hope you join us!

June 7, 2012 #literacies Chat Topic: We are Our Relationships

I find nothing more boring than the constant diatribes against everything and anything digital—in the ways they destroy our language, our relationships, our attention, our intelligence, our morals.

If you find yourself here, reading this, you’ve connected, you’ve attended, and I feel pretty confident in claiming that you must be a smart cookie. My experience in practicing my own contemporary literacies has been filled with such connections, articulated quite well by @MaryAnnReilly (who, by the way, I only know through and because of digital technologies and the literate practices that have followed):

The generosity of sharing on Twitter is pretty damn amazing. So honored 2 connect w/ you. #edchat #engchat #cpchat #leadfromwithin #ideachat

—
Mary Ann Reilly (@MaryAnnReilly) May 21, 2012

On Thursday, June 7, 2012 at 7:00 PM EST we will be hosting our first official #literacies chat. In the following Thursdays at 7:oo PM EST, we will host a series of topics brainstormed by 50+ contributors with whom we’ve crowdsourced and connected to through—again—digital means. For our first week, we’d like to know what brings each of us to the table, so to speak. How do our educational, research and personal interests in contemporary literacies connect and build on each other? We are bound to learn quite a bit from each other as we share insights, resources, interests and concerns, but before we dive in, let’s take a moment to get to know each other. In a blog post about what drove him to study social networks and write his book Social Network Theory and Educational Change, Alan J. Daly, an assistant professor of education at the University of California, San Diego, commented:

Relationships matter in a profound manner, and it seems the more focused we become on the technical elements of our work, the more distanced we become from the idea that the social connections are critical.

I’ve been thinking of the power of these connections for a while. Around the same time that we lost Steve Jobs, a man whose drive made many of my personal and professional connections possible, we also lost critical race theorist, Derrick Bell. It was fitting that at that time I came across a quote of his that captured exactly what I was feeling:

However self-sufficient we may fancy ourselves, we exist only in relation—to our friends, family, and life partners; to those we teach and mentor; to our co-workers, neighbors, strangers; and even to forces we cannot fully conceive of, let alone define. In many ways, we are our relationships. ― Derrick Bell, Ethical Ambition: Living a Life of Meaning and Worth (emphasis added)

Join us on Thursday, June 7, 2012 @ 7:00 PM EST to discuss, among other things:

1. What brings you “to the table,” to the #literacies chat?
2. What are you particularly committed to in regards to contemporary literacies?
3. What blogs, texts, links, quotes, i.e. persons, have pushed your thinking in regards to contemporary literacies?

Writing in the Digital Age from Joel Malley on Vimeo.

In an article in the Journal of Media Literacy, Richard Beach described a course similar to the one seen in this video in which he attempts to reach goals around print literacies (such as text interpretation, argumentative/creative writing, verbal communication) and digital literacies (such as interactivity, connectivity/linking, multimodality, and social networking). He borrows from Kevin Leander‘s notion of “parallel pedagogies” to explain his “both/and” approach:

Kevin Leander (2009) has identified four stances teachers adopt related to using [digital] tools: 1) «resistance» to using digital literacies, 2) «replacement» of old literacies with new, 3) using new literacies to validate or «return» to older print literacies, and 4) «remediation» in which students use digital literacies to “re-mediate” or transform print literacies. Adopting a “re-mediation” approach involves use of what Leander describes as a “parallel pedagogy” approach, in which neither print or digital literacies are considered as exceptional.

And herein lies my question for you the viewers, (and I’d love to hear from Joel Malley as well!):

Which of these four stances does this video exhibit?

I think I see a “re-mediation” approach; however, the language used to describe the activities sounds like a “replacement” or “return” approach. Malley says that “even though” digital tools are a part of the course, writing (in print) “still” holds a place. “Storytelling” is used as synonymous to “writing” throughout. The “first step” is described as always being to “write extensively,” which in my opinion, especially given the image on the screen at the time, gives premium to writing long-form by hand. Finally, digital writing explained to have “more purpose” and to be “more collaborative.” Both of these attributes may be true in some projects, but I am wary of saying they hold true for the nature of digital literacies as opposed to traditional print literacies. The audience for whom Malley was composing this video obviously influenced the ways each of these statements was phrased. I wonder what the voice-over track would sounds like, however, if the parallel pedagogical approach was able to take the front seat.

How might we imagine the possibilities of social networking sites as learning spaces in which youth not just ‘come to know,’ but make, relate and do?

Current studies in social networking sites (SNS) focus on how youth use SNS (e.g., boyd, 2008) or on questions around teen privacy online (e.g., Livingstone, 2008). There remains, however, limited data examining the impact of SNS in identity work. We are working to address this research gap by focusing one educational SNS project, Space2Cre8.com, with many complexities—including partnerships across six countries; program sites within school and out-of-school settings; and curriculum iteratively developed by teachers and adapted to address diverse cultural and technological needs of participants. We discussed youths’ creative and literate practices, and how learning across modes, media, and semiotic tools provides students with opportunities to challenge traditional performance of identities as agentive participants in a global world.

Dee Anne Anderson and I presented about our work with youth in the EXCEL Academy @ NYU, which engaged questions on this slide:

Recently, a friend on Facebook posted a question asking what age it is appropriate for a child to have an email account. About 29  comments later, it had became apparent that in the 3rd and 4th grades in this school district, teachers were setting up email accounts with students. Many of these comments were ones of frustration over the lack of parental notification and participation in this activity, but one in particular stood out for me. One person asked: “What possible reasons could there be for a 4th grade child to have an email account?” I don’t typically engage in Facebook conversations, especially emotionally-charged ones, but I felt that I could contribute a few “possible reasons why” youth should be participating in digital communication in thoughtful, guided ways.

Even with the digital divide present and growing, the nature of composition has changed in the digital and networked age in such a way that the capability to be producers and critical consumers of knowledge is now more widely available. Take social media outlets: More people of all ages, nationalities, genders, and socio-economic positions produce news, comment on social issues, and even stage revolutions. These possibilities disrupt our existing societal power dynamics, and in turn, necessitate a new ethic of exchange with distant, unknown, imagined others. Critical reader-writers must take into consideration not just the interpretations they have intended as authors, but also the possible interpretations of audiences previously unimagined and out of reach.

In a chapter I just finished writing with Glynda Hull at UC Berkeley for the forthcoming book Critical Digital Literacies as Social Praxis in Knobel and Lankshear’s series on New Literacies, we explore the new ethics of digital composition that we saw at play in an alternative college prep program called EXCEL Academy @ NYU, in which youth participated in Space2Cre8, a closed, social network with participating youth from around the world.

The new ethic of digital literacy we interrogate is cosmopolitan practice—reflexive and hospitable habits of mind during the several decisions made while composing. Such an ethic includes, importantly, a sensitivity to the range of possible interpretations and responses to their own and others’ postings.  This obligation to listen implies a thoughtful openness to possible meanings in a pluralist sense and an acknowledgement that we can’t assume what to expect in terms of others’ reactions and intentions.

• Self-reflexive Composition. As youth revise profile pages, create movies, post links to share, they must imagine others’ possible interpretations of their work. We acknowledge that we may not be cognizant of our own intentions and reactions, and thus must be open to critical reflection not only about others’ meanings, but also of our own actions and motives as well. Compositional decisions are not isolated to the page or screen, but are decisions of social positioning and engaging with others.
• Hospitable Stances. We work with and are ourselves audiences in a sense that is new to the human experience—audience as distant and local, intended and possible, particular and en masse. We constantly contextualize and re-contextualize text and visuals we experience digitally in order to understand. This can be done in autonomous one-word-has-one-meaning ways or in ways authentic to our human experience that acknowledges that reading is interpreting whole world views that have been infused into the words we use. Being hospitable readers, writers, and viewers includes tolerating the discomfort that comes with honestly engaging with another around the uncertainties of attempting to understand meanings as interpreted—as intended and unintended.

Email addresses do not grant access into the Web 2.0 activity that I have been describing. So, to some extent I agree with this concerned parent who wonders why 4th-graders need email addresses. But I want to argue for the other extreme, our 4th graders need thoughtful, guided experience in this new type of exchange. Youth develop self-reflexive, hospitable stances in their reading of distant others’ work and composing for not just one intended audience, but ever-shifting potential audiences. How do we learn and develop such ethical dispositions without engaging in them?

• When is the last time you read something that you realized could be interpreted in more than one way? How did you notice that? What was that reading experience like? How did you make sense of multiple possible meanings?
• When have you revised something you’ve written based on who might potentially read it? What did you take into consideration? How did you finally decide to compose the piece?
• Have you ever seen something you’ve composed remixed, revised, quoted, paraphrased, distributed by others? What was this experience like? What did you like/dislike about what was done to your composition?
• From these kinds of experiences, what practice could we provide for youth in our school and non-school places of learning to engage in ethical ways?

This semester we have read several articles and chapters that discuss the selection of texts. Though they each have varied foci, one thing cuts across all these articles: The metaphor used to describe the relationship between “the classics” and other texts, particularly young adult literature.

Here’s the metaphor: “A Bridge to the Classics”
Just as all roads lead to Rome, apparently, all texts used in the ELA classrooms are supposed to lead to classics. YA literature, in particular, is positioned as the way to get kids on the reading path. And once we get ‘em reading, we clasp their hands and start toward the classics, trying to convince them along the way that there’s a connection between the contemporary story they just read and the further removed story they’re about to read. (This sounds less like a bridge and more like a “bait and switch.”)

We do not have a problem with the ‘classics’ or pieces in the literary canon (although we’re nearly unanimous in feeling the ‘canon’ is problematic at best considering that it is created from and sustained by institutionalized privilege, and should be far more inclusive), but rather, it’s the metaphor that’s problematic. The “bridge” metaphor implies a hierarchy of value to texts; classics are the end-goal and thus, the text of value. As other texts—contemporary, young adult, small independent press, community-based—are only used in service of understanding the classics, there is a residual devaluing of those texts.

If we continue to talk about texts in just this one way, we are likely to miss the myriad of other relationships texts have with each other and with individual readers.

With that in mind, we propose a few new metaphors for how texts should/could/will be used in our classrooms. We’d love to hear your thoughts!

• Which of these metaphors help reframe the relationship between texts the most?
• Which of these metaphors resonate with your reading experiences?
• What revisions would you suggest?

Music/Fashion

For the canon metaphor, we discussed using music or fashion. With this in mind, we wanted to pointed out how one time period always influences another and that whenever a new song or style comes out, it is a product of whatever came before it. For instance, when Kanye West samples, he takes part of another song and implements it into his own. As a teacher, we can imagine it would make sense to take Kanye West song, play it, then play the song to which the beat originated. We would then link this to the book we are reading. I would let the youth watch a movie influenced by the book or read a short story with a similar theme as an interpretive entry point (not a bridge!) to the novel.

The Generations of American Immigrants

Texts in our classrooms are like the generations that follow the arrival of our first ancestors to America. We continuously create new experiences and establish new identities through our current popular culture and community—but always in relation and reflection of the practices of our heritage. Our inherited culture informs our present culture and vice versa.

Spiderweb

We imagined reading texts as a spiderweb. The spaces in between = unconscious learning. The intersections = visible connections. There is no hierarchy. Texts are contextualized by other texts in a dialogic relationship: The taking up of perspectives from other books contributes to knowledge/learning. The use of texts in the classroom is an issue of agency and what we choose to emphasize. And in these ways we can rationalize an emphasis in student choice.

Monkey Bars

We were discussing how most of the books in the ‘canon’ deal with timeless themes which have their basis in mythology, the bible, or epic poetry…and how all of literature is basically rewriting something that has come before it. We came up with monkey bars because hopefully we can teach books in the canon as having predecessors and as something that our students can work upon and rewrite themselves, rather than this idea of climbing up the ladder of literature, this views literature more as a level playing field.

Road Map

The canon (or really, literature, in general) as a roadmap (through The Waste Land, if you will) that brings us to a place where we are able to communicate clearly, and to understand one another’s experiences in a meaningful way. Studying a common body of literature gives us a frame of reference to understand one another. Just like “the map is not the territory,” the map or catalog of books we’ve read does not equate to the actual experience of reading. It does, however, give us that point of reference to understand our world and each other.

In this conception of literature, there isn’t really a significant difference between canonical and non-canonical literature. YA is in some ways preferable because it is more accessible for students who may not be technically advanced readers, and the canon is in some ways preferable because it’s a more widespread frame of reference, allowing the potential for understanding to extend beyond the context of the classroom.

This post is response to Mark Lewis and Robert Petrone‘s article “Although Adolescence Need Not Be Violent,” published in the Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy. In this article, the authors talk about the “invented adolescent,” or the image of the teen teachers have in our minds as a product of the assumptions often made of adolescent students.  These students are unfairly categorized as being in a tumultuous, hormone-fired transitional stage, one that is accompanied by poor decisions, angst, and a pervasive exposure to dangerous influences.

School curricula is often designed to reflect this imposed state of being; books rife with risky adolescent behavior are assigned and students are urged to construct parallels between “unruly” characters and their own selves. It is also assumed that adolescents are unfinished adults, searching desperately for their own identities. By homogenizing adolescents in this way, teachers are denying students of their own varied personal histories.

The Young Adult genre of literature is replete with young characters who struggle through adolescence. They are faced with difficult, enormously stressful circumstances and cry out to be heard, loved, or valued by the people around them. This bleak state of existence is conceived as the norm for all adolescents, including the students who read these novels.

Stephen Chbosky’s The Perks of Being a Wallflower, which follows a high school freshman named Charlie, covers an enormous range of issues often labeled as common adolescent problems. In just one year, Charlie confronts suicide, the fear of high school, a budding sexuality, smoking, bullying, physical abuse, marijuana, alcohol, LSD, homosexuality, jealousy, love, sexual abuse, and depression. This novel fits very nicely into the Young Adult genre, where the main character struggles through this “in-between” stage of adolescent, thriving on moments where he is appreciated or feels “infinite.”

@Flowerperks I felt like we were everywhere at the same time. I felt young and alive and like nothing was going to stop us. #teachread

—
Love always, Charlie (@WallflowerBoy) November 16, 2011

Giving students exposure to Chbosky’s book is not necessarily a bad thing. After all, it is a highly enjoyable novel with moments that are quite poignant and beautiful. The problem comes with how we integrate it into the curriculum and what types of assignments we give as accompaniment to reading. If we assume that students will relate to Charlie and ask them to “step inside his shoes” or form parallels, we neglect the actual experiences and personalities of our students. It is important to draw attention to who our students actually are, not who we think they are or who they should become.

I am personally working toward a concept of adolescence in which there is no particular norm for how adolescents act or what they have been through. Several may have had awful experiences and wonderful, inspiring ones. Some may feel lost or empty but others may be bold and confident, knowing exactly what they want in life. Adolescents should not be grouped together as a homogenous unit; it is important not to impose a particular “standard” on our students, thinking that certain traits or experiences are universal. Instead, we should provide them with the skills and tools to express themselves as they are. We must give them the opportunities to make their own decisions and form individualized concepts of self, thought, and creativity.

This stance on adolescence can be reflected in a variety of classroom activities.

• In the before-reading activity Probable Passage, groups of 3-4 students must make predictions of what will occur in the story using only a selection of words from its text.  They sort these words into the categories Characters, Setting, Problems, Outcomes, and Unknown Words, and create a GIST Statement in which they predict the action of the story.
• There may often be disagreements about where to categorize a word, provoking conversation and debate. In a group Think-Aloud, students voice their thoughts and questions as they read, creating a constant dialogue with the text. Other students in the group are encouraged to add to their peers’ comments or offer answers to their questions. As they read and break apart the text, they are creating their own literary analysis. These kinds of collaborative exercises keep the responsibility and charge over ideas in students’ hands.
• Another useful activity is Text Reformulation, a process of re-telling the stories in rather personal and expressive ways. Students are able to make their own choices and imaginative decisions as they write, reflecting their varied creativities and ideas. Work is centered on the student, particularly on his or her critical thinking process and personal discoveries.

In each of these activities, the teacher serves as a moderator and supporter while the teens are the true creating force, upholding my earlier notion that teachers must see the value in teens’ own opinions and histories, rather than labeled them as faulty “sketches” of what they will become.

@Flowerperks #teachread does infinite perhaps resonate w all of us differently? Do we have our own infinity we are all searching for?

—
Holly Stanford (@absolutelyholls) November 08, 2011

For a similar conversation about how reading and childhood is being constructed through reading programs and leveled libraries in elementary schools, see Vicki Venton’s blog To Make a Praire. 

Lewis, M. A. and Petrone, R. (2010), “Although Adolescence Need Not Be Violent…”: Preservice Teachers’ Connections Between “Adolescence” and Literacy Curriculum. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 53: 398–407. doi: 10.1598/JAAL.53.5.5

Here’s a few thoughts, and below, the infographic that spawned them…

Reading the World Wide Web circa 1996 was much like reading pieces of paper—the 8×11 kind—on a screen. Not many people were writing the web, really only those with programming knowledge and server access. The GoDaddy.com site displays this well: In 1996, the site was basically it’s catalog on the screen.

In 2011, not only has the interactivity of the Internet changed (summarized last week in the Guest Post), but the logic of the screenshots has also changed.  Check out MapQuest.com 1996: The design uses the logic of the page and word—a linear top/down, left/right logic. Emphasis is communicated through color and effects to the words—font, bolding and italics. Of course, these elements are not purely linguistic, but are already multimodal. However, next to Mapquest.com 2011, we can see that not only have the modes changed, but the dominance of logic of the word and page (or piece of paper) has all but left us. We read in all directions not just top/down. Signifiers include image not just word—check out the list (going left to right) of icons at the top of the map. Emphasis and relationship is visually indicated by the placement of images not just color and word effects. (You can tell I am starting to geek out here, which if this is your thing, check out Bezermer and Kress’s work.)

What does this mean for education?

I remember using the 6 Traits approach to writing evaluation and instruction. Suddenly one year there was a change to 6+1 and the 1 was “formatting.” I felt at that time that “formatting” was fluff. Color, borders, font, and the such were decoration—not inherent to the meaning being communicated! That was Me circa 1999-ish. Me circa 2011 has evolved much like the Internet. Never has the five-paragraph essay been sufficient for preparing students for life outside of school, but like never before, designing is becoming tantamount to writing. (Disagree? I’d love to hear what I’m missing here!) I explored the necessity of understanding design for myself in an earlier post about my experience in the #teachread project.

So what do students need to know about design in the 21st Century? In an alternative college prep program I run called EXCEL Academy @ NYU, I teach an alternative Freshman Composition course, which includes instruction in the traditional essay form, but also instruction in composing for the 21st Century. Below are snapshots of some of the concepts we discuss, put into practice, and critique. What other design elements do you think should be on our list? 

organizational options for screen or page

a students' ongoing list of elements discussed

* * *

One of the first things I noticed about this infographic was that it doesn’t look like most of the infographics I see out there (such as those posted on the Infographic Archive—check out this one on the benefits of napping!). Ironically, the makers of this one, Online University, used the visual design elements of Internet 1996 to create an infographic—a text type surging in popularity in Internet 2011. This clashing of timescale points out perfectly how the changes of the Internet have been far more than technological.

A group of us trying the "Getting to the Heart of the Matter" activity.

This is a Guest Post from class members of Language Acquisition and Literacy Education in Multilingual and Multicultural Contexts, who are all content area pre-service teachers in math, social studies, music, Chinese language, and sociology at New York University.

This week we discussed the characteristics of communicating in the digital age and how shifts in online communication impact teaching and learning, as well as what it means to knowledge creation and sharing in our content areas.

*     *    *

Class member, and tweet-extraordinaire, @DGalpert, over-viewed the changes of online communication in this way:

Past Web 1.0 – Information on the Internet was organized as a repository.

• People conducted searches for this information and downloaded or copied and pasted existing information.

Current Web 2.0 — Information is produced in interactive ways that results in constantly reformed information.

• People compose and share information in small chunks (not just large chunks like a web page)
• Interacting with people internationally is possible
• More non-spoken, visual and multi-modal idea composition and communication
• New variations of standard English based on differing limitations and affordances of social media
• New roles for people to play (followers, Facebook friends, etc.) and relationships with others

Possible Web 3.0 — Curation of the constant new knowledge via socially-organized and algorithmic means

• We’ll just have to see!

*   *   *

Although most of us are new to using many of the social media venues available, especially in the classroom setting, we can see possibilities for how several social media venues can promote learning, including: Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, YouTube, Google+ Hangouts with Extras, Blogs, Diigo, Wikis, Scoop.it.Specifically, we can see these benefits across our content areas for teaching and learning: 1) Online digital communication can be used to have conversations distantly, asynchronously and with access to experts. There is an authentic audience of known and unknown players who will respond in authentic ways. 2) Students may be more comfortable commenting or participating through the Internet, because other people feel more like peers. The distance can allow those who feel pressure speaking in class to participate.

Here are some of the digital tools we have used in our own learning:

A screenshot of our Scoop.it page

Scoop.it 

Scoop.it is a website that enables people to collect articles and media on topics and share them for others to see and reference. We particularly like the newspaper-type display of the resources that other bookmarking tools do not have. Students can submit articles they find interesting and relevant to the classroom topic and it allows students to explore different viewpoints. Teachers can also curate a list of resources that students can use for inquiry projects. Here is a link to our class Scoop.it site: http://www.scoop.it/t/21st-century-disciplinary-literacy

There are many ways in which Twitter is beneficial both inside and outside of the classroom. Twitter allows the conversation to continue even after class has concluded. It allows conversations to occur outside of the classroom by collecting all of the different thoughts, comments, and questions by using hashtags as backchannels. Inside the classroom, Twitter allows multiple students to voice their opinions. It also allows the less vocal students to participate. Twitter is also a great place to share resources, interesting articles, websites, and videos.

Wikis
Classes can create Wikis to create content collaboratively, post class information, facilitate homework help, share content related topics. Wikis can be public or private and they can be accessed when needed outside of the classroom.

The group of us collaborating on this blog post

Google Docs
We created this post as a GoogleDoc, which is an online word processor (you can also create spreadsheets, drawings or presentations). Students are collaborators for each document, on which each can synchronously edit, comment, and post comments.  We can see GoogleDocs being used for peer review, collaborating on one document outside the classroom, ways students and teachers can provide comments or feedback.

Facebook
Social Networks are already set up to connect people and their ideas via text, photos and links. We can use those same means to facilitate learning. Students can create groups for specific classes or different interests. In these groups, students can share knowledge, ask questions, discuss topics, share common angst about an assignment through status updates, try out role plays using profiles to discuss content from various perspectives.

We’d love to hear of the many other ways you’ve used digital tools for specific content areas in the comment section.

*   *   *

Obviously each of these venues has disadvantages and challenges that need to be addressed. Here are some we discussed (with links to articles on our Scoop.it):

• Many have talked about the distracting nature of Web 2.0 (e.g. Louder Libraries or Values not Just Facts)
• Some of us also feel disconnected from others and ideas when composing and communicating through digital means. Discussed in the slideshow: Deep Learning in the Age of Distraction
• Social media includes personal profiles, and not all students will want to have digital profiles in particular networks.
• In addition, we are were new to these tools when introduced to us in our undergraduate studies. We can’t assume students have similar technological access and experience. See: The App Gap
• Because knowledge creation and sharing has become more democratized, so has the relationship between knowledge, teachers and students. These changes can mean a diminishing need for the traditional teacher, and an increased need for teachers to learn new roles for facilitating learning.
• There is a huge disconnect between academic online assignment and typical discourses of online communication.

What issues do you see in using digital tools in the classroom?

Through this we are studying what it means to read in the 21st Century: What do we read? How do we make sense of it? When do we read it? What do we do with what we read? 

My first lesson in using Tumblr in my inquiry into reading in the 21st Century was not the one I was expecting. I quickly learned that reading in the digital age not only means equal amounts of writing, but making my writing ‘readable.’ I put ‘readable’ in quotes because I don’t mean ‘legible.’ Rather I mean making the writing palatable to a wide range of potential readers. Here are some of the keys I’ve learned. How to execute them on different platforms, I am still figuring out.

What is a Readable Blog?

• Easy interaction:Tumblr comes set up for reblogging, but not for interaction. I, and many others I’ve spoken with, want to interact with ideas, not just read them and repeat them. Dan Pontefract in a recent blog post, defined social media as a connector—of people, ideas, and content—rather than a source of those things. Reblogging allows ideas to move, but not for ideas, people and content to meet.

• Bite-size pieces of information: Reading on the web is as much a visual as a linguistic activity. I often read about the vapidity of social media, implying that because information comes in snippets, lists and/or limited characters that the ideas across social media are light in terms of content. Rather, they can be incredibly complex ideas skillfully written in concise and dense packages.

• Trans-friendly: I need readers and I need to people whose work I can read. We find each other not just through searches within Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook, etc. in which we are composing, but rather through other interconnected social media. My titles need #hashtags for Twitter. It needs a Google+ +1 button and a Facebook Like button. And then I need to make sure my posts roll out to those venues.

• Here’s where you come in… What else makes a blog ‘readable’? 

Define urban, please.—
Emily Pendergrass (@Dr_Pendergrass) October 14, 2011

‘Urban’ has been on my mind for a while—most recently on my trip to Peru where I took this picture. And sure, I have opinions based on my work and research in large cities and small—even areas that actually look quite a bit like this Peruvian Zona Urbana—but I want to keep my mind open and engaged in this issue. I don’t like to take things for granted. I‘d love to hear your definitions. I promise to comment with my working definitions, but you first. And yes, I promise to pass them on to @Dr_Pendergrass.

• What is ‘urban’ in the educational context?

• How do you see ‘urban’ playing out in the lives of learners?

• What are the boundaries of ‘zona urbana’?