Hi everybody - I'm not sure if we're supposed to have a blog entry up this weekend, but just in case, I'm writing mine. Hope everything's going well for you and the baby, Jeremiah :)
Since there are no questions on this week's reading that I can find, I'm going to write my own on Youth Culture and Digital Media: New Literacies for New Times, by Hull.
My question - this week's readings were all really centered on the establishing literacy as something malleable and powerful. We saw how Freire deemed it a tool for overcoming oppression, and how Scribner saw it as a tool for self improvement [among other things]. Yet, we have yet to see this type of thinking, and these kinds of programs that Hull writes about trickle down to America as a whole. I think this is a phenomenon that's worth exploring - why this type of thinking isn't more widespread? Why haven't these ideas and programs become more popular, considering how empowering they seem to be for young students [and especially students of color]?
Response: While it is quite clear that technology has created a new level of literacy and understanding within students, I think this lack of support really can be traced back to two factors: an inadequate level of funding to support them, and an educational force mostly ill equipped to teach that literacy. Many teachers [at least in my experience] recognize that every student has life experiences worth bringing to the classroom, but not all of them have the time or energy or expertise to utilize or take advantage of those experiences in more creative and untraditional ways. Many English teachers have their students talk about situations in their lives that respond to the text, but because of the age of constant stimulation students are growing up in, I think Hull's types of programs are becoming more and more important - students need to be challenged in ways beyond the traditional verbal or written areas, if education as a whole is to adapt. Their literacies [and yes, students have many of them] need to be engaged as well. Perhaps what this suggests is a need for an overhaul of educational training - making the next generation of teachers aware of how these pools of resources their students bring with them, just waiting to be tapped.
With the current political climate, it's easy to see that one of the reasons why this media-centered type of teaching hasn't caught on is because of funding. But speaking of funding, I interpreted Hull's piece as suggesting that there might not have to be more funding, just a reallocation of existing funds. She says that digital teaching offers “distinctive contrasts to the primarily alphabetic texts and the forms of textual reasoning that predominate in schools and universities.” It’s an alternative form of teaching that fits today’s culture, and it’s because of this reason that it should not necessarily replace, but supplement, traditional strategies that are increasingly losing their effect. Investing tons of money on standardized tests and teaching strategies has the effect of attempting to quantify students’ learning experiences, whereas digital teaching highlights the students’ individuality. Standardized testing is alluring because it gives quantifiable data, and I think this is another reason why Hull’s type of teaching has not caught on. It’s the opposite of traditional education, and its youth makes it risky to implement. If it caught on, I imagine it would require lots of trial and error, which might disillusion some of its advocates and prove to its opponents that it didn’t work all because it wasn’t perfect the first time.
ReplyDeleteIn response to Nam's post, I like how Hull explains his argument by stating that "digital stories and other kinds of signification that are mediated by new information technologies.. offer distinctive contrasts to the primarily alphabetic texts and the forms of textual reasoning that predominate in schools and universities" (230). Hull describes how a student can become more knowledgable with literacy through DUSTY (Digital Underground Storytelling for Youth) because it brings a different approach to teaching for kids. It is more likely that a student will better understand something when the material can make a direct connection to his/her life or an experience he/she had.
ReplyDeleteI know we are supposed to stay away from the reading we presented to the class, but I would just like to point out a very powerful connection between this reading and the reading by Jeffrey Duncan-Andrade, "Hope Required When Growing Roses in Concrete". He emphasizes the importance of effective teaching and critical hope, which he describes as "the enemy of hopelessness". In order for students growing up in the lower-class and urban schools to have access to greater opportunities, they need to be educated by teachers who are going to be effective. A very successful method is what Duncan-Andrade calls material hope. This is when a teacher can "connect the academic rigor of content areas with their students’ lives". Because teachers have to stick to the state-mandated content standards, they often do not have the time for students to talk about their lives and connect it to the material in class in order to increase their literate abilities. I think the DUSTY program gives these students an opportunity to explore their intelligence individually. DUSTY provides a different approach to learning, and I believe that students are more willing to learn if they are presented with a variety of teaching methods.
Hull writes about DUSTY as a afterschool/summer programs that is aimed for students to tell stories about self and community and to use those moments of narrative reconstruction to reflect on past events, present activities, and future goals. I believe DUSTY is an excellent idea for students to use language, media, and their voices to represent themselves and their communities, as a way of learning how to appreciate both. Students are drawn to composing with the ubiquity of digital technologies for writing. Students, who send text messages, write stories on blogs, etc. are drawn into writing with technology, even if they may not consider it as writing. These technologies engage students and help them develop many ways of representing themselves and their ideas in writing. As said in class, most good strategies to get students to learn in different ways are loss in schools because teachers have to teach in a standardized way, provided by the government, for standardized testing. If these strategies are not tested, they have to execute it.
ReplyDeleteIn response to Glynda Hull’s piece regarding digital media and it’s place in academia, I have conflicting views of what she is describing. While I do believe that teaching through this multimodal approach can be effective, it cannot stand alone as an approach towards literacy in the classroom. I think that digital media can be used effectively and appropriately, but it must not be the absolute towards teaching literacy to children. I do not think that relying on digital media alone would be an effective approach to education but I do think that it can be useful in supplementing preexisting methods.
ReplyDeleteOne concern that I have in a school that would rely too much on digital media is that they are not preparing students for higher levels of education. Certainly when these students would enter high school and university they would need to be exposed to more traditional types of literacy. Perhaps an approach that introduced students to literacy through these multimodal forms and supplemented traditional forms of teaching would be best. I believe that technology can definitely be used to enhance a student’s educational experience and potentially reach them in a new way but I am skeptical of a system that relies too heavily on this approach.