This unit of work, Youth Popular Culture and Texts, has encouraged me to critically reflect upon my knowledge and skills in digital media and my understanding of youth today. It has encouraged me to consider new and more interesting ways to engage youth through their experiences of participatory culture. As my school moves towards 1:1 eLearning I am excited and informed about how to transform pedagogy through innovative practices, rather than be apprehensive and mystified. My students build their social identity through their online experiences and I see it as my responsibility to be familiar with this digital world and use it to engage my students in an educational setting. I see that there is an opportunity to create more innovative pedagogy that bridges the digital divide across in and out of school use of media.
As a literacy support teacher I am in a unique position to broaden the definition of literacy to a new form of literacy in the 21st century. This would include the ability to communicate effectively in social media, underpinned by an understanding of cultural identity. My students have already completed assessment that required them to blog their knowledge on certain topics. These blogs were in essence a mashup of existing knowledge on topics such as Gospel stories; or a personal reflection on the experience of reading fiction. These were solely written text blogs but could be taken further to include both audio and visual texts. Ito (2009, p.9) suggests that literacy and communication will rely more and more on audio and visual media, which could be incorporated more into the classroom to reduce the digital divide. By producing media for their peers, the students are not only focussing on the content but the social connections that can be created. As Ito mentions, "Young people today expect to be able to appropriate and circulate media for their own self-expression" (2009, p. 6). In another unit of work, I would also like my students to create book trailers to engage with wide reading using an audio-visual component.
I would like to increase opportunities to build a shared culture as part of the text production process. My English students are often asked to write creative short stories or narratives. However, the reader of these texts is most commonly a very small group made up of student, parent and teacher. There is an opportunity to publish these stories online on sites such as www.storywrite.comwww.storywrite.com to build a shared experience. Whilst the content and writing skills of the storywriter are crucial to a successful story, it is the sharing of the material and the peer response that can be just as important as what is being said. The connection and communication create a sense of belonging and identity. Many of the members of my school's Writer's Club who use this site to share their work attest to the sense of camaraderie and cultural identity that emerges from participating in this online forum.
A concept I would like to explore further is the use of a wiki to organise and enhance student tasks such as my current Year 12 English unit 'Reading across Cultures'. Not only would a wiki be useful in organising their reflective journals, plan, speech and multi-modal resources for their oral; but it would open up opportunities to link to other like-minded students and readers/authors of texts and make their work truly public rather than limited to an artificial classroom audience. I have created my own wiki for reflection on becoming a TL and found this medium flexible to meet the needs of the user and the audience. I have also created wikis for English units on our school's intranet which is accessed by both teachers and students. This has brought together a wide range of resources of different mediums. However, these wikis do not include any student production or publication. This current wiki type does not acknowledge that our students are happiest in a participatory culture. There is no consideration of the elements of a participatory culture, as outlined by Henry Jenkins in his white paper on media education for the 21st century (2006, p.7). This is one challenge I set for myself - to embrace a more interactive and socially connected curriculum that encourages production and sharing of my students' contributions.
In an IT professional development session held at my school last week (on the use of Microsoft OneNote and ways to link resources), one of the teachers commented that OneNote doesn't change what we do, but how we do it. There will be stages of acceptance, understanding and implementation as our school moves towards 1:1 computing. I think that this teacher's comment shows that 'how we do it' with technology requires new skills; however, it also shows that we require more consideration of 'what we do'. I think that teachers require more professional development on ICTs; media forms; youth practices and social identity in a participatory culture; and new media literacies to enable them to evaluate the ways technology can effectively transform pedagogy.
The way technology has emerged and transformed education in the past 10 years is outstanding. The possibilities seem endless but this is not something to be afraid of - instead something to get excited about. I know that my teaching has improved through the advancement of technology and the innovative pedagogical ideas that are beginning to emerge to utilise the tools available. The internet is a powerful resource that belongs in the classroom, and with sound pedagogical consideration, will empower our students and enhance their learning.
References
Ito, M. (2009). Media Literacy and Social Action in a Post-Pokeman World. NFAIS conference keynote address. Retrieved September 26, 2010, from Queensland University of Technology Course Materials Database.
Jenkins, H. (2006). Confronting the challenge of participatory culture: Media education for the 21st century. Chicago, Illinois: The MacArthur Foundation. Retrieved July 19, 2010, from Queensland University of Technology Course Materials Database.
