... digital literacies, quite simply, involve the use of digital technologies for encoding and accessing texts by which we generate, communicate and negotiate meanings in socially recognisable ways. (Lankshear & Knobel 2oo8: 258)
References
Lankshear, C. & Knobel, M. (2008). Digital Literacies: Concepts, Policies and Practices. New York: Peter Lang.
Saturday, 25 April 2009
Thursday, 23 April 2009
Twitter workshop ideas
These are my rough notes from Matt Lingard's workshop
Section 1: face the front bit with Matt talking
Starts with personal use of Twitter for professional purposes. Also brings in a few strong quotes about the importance of Twitter culturally and economically.
Twitter practicalities
Matt showed a video (Martin Weller: Twitter Love Song) that explained what it was and how it might be used.
Types of tweet:
Section 2: hands on session
Matt gave a useful handout.
Matt got us to write on a postit our usernames then put then up on a PowerPoint slide. We were then asked to follow fellow participants and interact via tweets.
Section 1: face the front bit with Matt talking
Starts with personal use of Twitter for professional purposes. Also brings in a few strong quotes about the importance of Twitter culturally and economically.
Those who criticise use of Twitter at work haven't seen the tectonic plates moving. Social networks such as these are the way businesses will be run in the future.
Victor Keegan Technology Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/jan/29/twitter
Twitter practicalities
- create an account
- you'll need a username - this can be anything you like but you should also add your own details as this will help people follow you.
- The home page - this displays the tweets of those that you are following. The core of Twitter is to follow people.
Matt showed a video (Martin Weller: Twitter Love Song) that explained what it was and how it might be used.
Types of tweet:
- @ replies
- direct messages
- retweets
- embedding links
- uploading photos
- hashtags
- Twitter searches
Section 2: hands on session
Matt gave a useful handout.
Matt got us to write on a postit our usernames then put then up on a PowerPoint slide. We were then asked to follow fellow participants and interact via tweets.
- uploading pictures (Mobypicture)
- adding feeds (Twitterfeed)
- hashtags
- Twitter searches
Presentation available online at: http://www.slideshare.net/madrattling
Wednesday, 15 April 2009
pelc09: Facebook for Film Studies
Facebook for Film Studies
Facebook For Film Studies April 2009
View more presentations from Tony Mcneill.
- Slideshare: http://www.slideshare.net/amcneill
- Twitter: anthonymcneill
- Delicious: http://delicious.com/edtechglossary/Facebook
- Scribd: http://www.scribd.com/doc/2587613/Face-work-on-Facebook
- Conference hashtag: #pelc09
Wednesday, 8 April 2009
Twitter and passing notes in class
One of the things I noticed at the Shock of the Old 2009 conference ('official' and 'unofficial' hashtags) was the largish number of participants sending tweets during presentations. The "backchannel" has found, or so it seems, a new technology.
Idea for paper: More than just passing notes in class?: tweets as new literacy practice. (my online survey)
My initial suspicion was that sending tweets 'remediates' the analogue textual practice of passing notes in class. However, I think there's more to it than that.
My hunch is that it's being used as a space to quibble, query and demur, to have off-stage dialogues with like-minded colleagues or contacts either present in the lecture theatre or elsewhere. So Twitter is a another means, potentially, of breaking the broadcast/monologic format of the conference paper and providing additional opportunities for comment and dialogue.
I think it's also - and some of the comments on the LDHEN JISC mailing list almost confirm this hunch - a space for the performance of identities at odds with those expected of colleages at a conference (e.g. for flippant, dismissive or bitchy commentaries that can't easily be made public via a comment or question to the speaker).
I’m coming from a position that views literacy practices as complex social acts that can be inclusive or exclusive. Web 2.0 doesn’t automatically = inclusive/democratic.
On the one hand I can see how the use of Twitter exemplifies one form of ‘networked participatory culture’ (Jenkins) by enabling new forms of conversation; on the other hand I can see how the technology provides a platform for opportunistic gossiping which can shut out other participants (e.g. those who are not Twitter users).
Idea for paper: More than just passing notes in class?: tweets as new literacy practice. (my online survey)
My initial suspicion was that sending tweets 'remediates' the analogue textual practice of passing notes in class. However, I think there's more to it than that.
My hunch is that it's being used as a space to quibble, query and demur, to have off-stage dialogues with like-minded colleagues or contacts either present in the lecture theatre or elsewhere. So Twitter is a another means, potentially, of breaking the broadcast/monologic format of the conference paper and providing additional opportunities for comment and dialogue.
I think it's also - and some of the comments on the LDHEN JISC mailing list almost confirm this hunch - a space for the performance of identities at odds with those expected of colleages at a conference (e.g. for flippant, dismissive or bitchy commentaries that can't easily be made public via a comment or question to the speaker).
I’m coming from a position that views literacy practices as complex social acts that can be inclusive or exclusive. Web 2.0 doesn’t automatically = inclusive/democratic.
On the one hand I can see how the use of Twitter exemplifies one form of ‘networked participatory culture’ (Jenkins) by enabling new forms of conversation; on the other hand I can see how the technology provides a platform for opportunistic gossiping which can shut out other participants (e.g. those who are not Twitter users).
Monday, 6 April 2009
First quick thought on digital literacy conference
At the end of last week's conference on digital literacy, there was some (Prenskyite?) discussion about young people's technology-mediated multi-tasking and the effects on their brains.
It struck me as yet another example of (parental, teacherly etc.) anxieties about the effects of technology on young people's behaviour and intellectual development.
A couple of days later, my nine-year old son spent most of the weekend playing football in the park with other boys. He's at an age where I'm not sure if I should let him play in the park unsupervised (it's only 5-6 doors from our house) or if I should be there. Anyway, I let him play unsupervised, occasionally wandering down to check things were ok. Finally, as afternoon turned to early evening, I had to drag him back home: That's enough fresh air and physical exercise young man, don't you think you should be playing some video games.
My point is, I guess, that those making statements about the harmful effects of technology on children's cognitive development probably need to take a chill pill. Most of the nine-year olds I know are as busy playing football or collecting Match Attax cards as they are glued to the PSPs or XBoxes (i.e. not very different to what I got up to as a nine-year old).
It struck me as yet another example of (parental, teacherly etc.) anxieties about the effects of technology on young people's behaviour and intellectual development.
A couple of days later, my nine-year old son spent most of the weekend playing football in the park with other boys. He's at an age where I'm not sure if I should let him play in the park unsupervised (it's only 5-6 doors from our house) or if I should be there. Anyway, I let him play unsupervised, occasionally wandering down to check things were ok. Finally, as afternoon turned to early evening, I had to drag him back home: That's enough fresh air and physical exercise young man, don't you think you should be playing some video games.
My point is, I guess, that those making statements about the harmful effects of technology on children's cognitive development probably need to take a chill pill. Most of the nine-year olds I know are as busy playing football or collecting Match Attax cards as they are glued to the PSPs or XBoxes (i.e. not very different to what I got up to as a nine-year old).
Wednesday, 1 April 2009
Wednesday, 25 March 2009
Kress on 'communicational landscapes'
The communicational landscapes of today, their relation to current forms of work and to current forms of pleasure, demand a recasting of our thinking about representation in the most far-reaching form. The world, now, is no longer a world in which the written language is dominant.
(Kress 1997 :5)The landscapes of communication are changing, are being changed in the most fundamental ways; and it is happening now. (Kress 1997 :5)
References
Kress, G. (1997). Before Writing: Rethinking the paths to literacy. London: Routledge.
Literacy definitions
A literacy is a stable coherent, identifiable configuration of practices such as legal literacy, or the literacy of specific workplaces. (Barton 2007:38)
Looking at different literacy events it is clear that literacy is not the same in all contexts: rather, there are different literacies…within a given culture, there are different literacies associated with different domains of life. Contemporary life can be analysed in a simple way into domains of activity such as home, school, work-place. (Barton and Hamilton 1998: 9)
Some of these literacies have become powerful and dominant, while others have been constrained and devalued. The problem is not so much a lack of literacy, but a lack of social justice. Local knowledge is not always appreciated and local literacies are not always recognised. (Taylor 1997: 4)
... the traditional view of literacy as the ability to read and write rips literacy out of its sociocultural contexts and treats it as an asocial cognitive skill with little or nothing to do with human relationships. It cloaks literacy's connections to power, to social identity, and to ideologies, often in the service of privileging certain types of literact and certain types of people (Gee 1996: 46)
Academic writing is one type of literacy. (Ivanic 1998: 75)
References
Barton, D. (2007 2nd ed.). Literacy. Oxford: Blackwell
Barton, D. and Hamilton, M. (1998). Local Literacies. London: Routledge.
Ivanic, R. (1998). Writing and Identity: The discoursal construction of identity in academic writing. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Lankshear, C. (1987). Literacy, Schooling and Revolution. London: Falmer Press
Digital literacy as mission civilisatrice
I'm a bit suspicious of attempts to fix digital literacy which I associate - fairly or unfairly - with the colonial concept of the mission civilisatrice, bringing enlightenment to the 'dark continent' of primitive youth practices.
I do think that any definition of digital literacy needs to start with an understanding of and respect for 'vernacular' digital literacies. I'm not always sure I see much understanding and respect about this from academics. I've compiled a sottisier of extracts although I'm sure they will be more.
No respect
When the dealers are selling drugs outside the school gates you know things in the educational system have gone bad. However, when the kids start using textspk in their exams and cite wikipedia in their essays it's time to get tough. Thankfully we have a Magnum Force of academics to clean up our hallowed halls. Here are my top three 'Dirty Harrys' targeting their .44 magnums at those punks using blogs, Wikipedia and other filth:
Paradoxically, the above extracts exemplify the very characteristics many tutors discourage in student writing: unsubstantiated generalisations, crude ad hominems, offensive language, a complete lack of understanding, intellectual curiosity and generosity etc. etc..
All extracts reveal the repellent aspects of some academics: a sense of intellectual superiority, for example, or a belief in their own fine wit (how I laughed at Cohen's sarcasm towards those nerds dissing professors and books).
Finally, their sounding off on topics they've very little expertise in embodies the imagined thing they dislike about the web: the no-nothing amateur usurping the expert. Yup, I certainly wouldn't talk to any of them at a party (let alone invite them into my home).
Wikipedians seem an unappealing bunch - computer fanatics, generally male, usually teenagers. They see the world only from a youthful cab driver's perspective. If anyone disagrees with the Wikipedian consensus, their edits are "reverted" and they can be banned - "indefinitely". And now it is these "editors" who are regularly trumping the fuddy-duddy professors in their ivory towers, plodding patiently through dusty books to produce yet more ... dusty books. Books!
Cohen, M. (28 August 2008). 'Encyclopaedia Idiotica'. Times Higher Education
http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=403327
As a dialect, text ("textese"?) is thin and - compared, say, with Californian personalised licence plates - unimaginative. It is bleak, bald, sad shorthand. Drab shrinktalk. [...] Texting is penmanship for illiterates.
Sutherland, J. (11 November 2002). 'Cn u txt?'. The Guardian.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2002/nov/11/mobilephones2
As blogs continue to fill the Web with bizarre daily rituals and opinions of people who we would never bother speaking to at a party, let alone invite into our own homes, there has never been a greater need to stress the importance of intelligence, education, credentials and credibility.
Brabazon, T. (2006). 'The Google Effect: Googling, Blogging, Wikis and the Flattening of Expertise'. Libri, 56: 157-167
Paradoxically, the above extracts exemplify the very characteristics many tutors discourage in student writing: unsubstantiated generalisations, crude ad hominems, offensive language, a complete lack of understanding, intellectual curiosity and generosity etc. etc..
All extracts reveal the repellent aspects of some academics: a sense of intellectual superiority, for example, or a belief in their own fine wit (how I laughed at Cohen's sarcasm towards those nerds dissing professors and books).
Finally, their sounding off on topics they've very little expertise in embodies the imagined thing they dislike about the web: the no-nothing amateur usurping the expert. Yup, I certainly wouldn't talk to any of them at a party (let alone invite them into my home).
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