Buckingham Post #2!

To be honest, prior to reading this article, thinking about digital literacy brought ideas such as Powerpoint, web browsing, or Smart Boards into my mind. I found this article as an eye-opener and a change of mind to me. According to Buckingham, digital literacy goes beyond using technology as an informative aide. Digital literacy means preparing your students to analyze this media and understand its purpose. In today's society, media reaches children in a broad amount or sources. Its a way of communicating and networking, a form of culture, a means of self-expression, and of course a way of entertainment which Buckingham states that teachers cannot avoid. Children (and adults!) rely on technology in so many ways that we, as teachers, need to provide students the know-how to understand it.
I was intrigued when he discussed the validity of websites. I remember using "the checklist" in high school to determine whether a website was valid. Buckingham argues that the bias that we look for will always be there, no matter how many 'checks' it passes. Instead, he promotes the idea that "political, economic, and social context shapes all texts, ..all texts can be adapted for different social purposes, and.. no text is neutral or necessarily of 'higher quality' than another". I like this thought because, as he also discusses later, different digital sources are aimed at different audiences and for different purposes. This encompasses the idea that in order for children to be digitally literate, they need to understand the purposes and meaning behind their sources.
While I read, I did come across confusion which I think incompletes my understanding of digital literacy, and that is what exactly is literacy defined? He did talk about the vagueness and multiples perceptions of this term in the article, and I feel like I have my own personal definition in mind, but I still feel like its difficult for me to discuss different kinds of literacy when I am second guessing what exactly literacy is itself.

Buckingham Article: Digital Literacy

Through out this article the author, Buckingham is arguing the legitimacy of the digital media as a form of literacy and how this new form of literacy should be taught in schools. Students in today's world are different from any other generation with the growth of the computer and the necessary skills that are needed by almost every citizen in every occupation. It is this author's goal to show that it is necessary for schools to "equip students to understand and critique media" and to "not use media as a form of delivering information". It is seen in too many classroom where teachers will take the easy and lazy way out and instead of making authentic lessons with meaningful connections to the real world, they will instead put on a movie to give new information to their students. This is the wrong way in which media can be used in classrooms, and frankly I believe these teachers ruin the reputation of media influence in the classroom for all other teachers, who are using the media and digital literacy to "develop connections with student's experiences of technology outside of school and experiences in the classroom" to form a deeper understanding of a certain content area.
By providing opportunities for students to engage in activities that foster digital literacy, especially but not limited to the computer, students are better able to succeed in other content areas. By being literate with the internet and computer, students are better apt to "search effectively, sort authentic documents from unauthentic documents, and also know which documents are relevant and irrelevant" to their research. Visuals and audios can also play as a spring board to further discussion and learning on a certain topic. These sources aid student's knowledge about the real world and connect their learning in the classroom to real people and real situations. This allows students to make meaningful connections to the material and is thus more likely to be interested in the material and be able to recall what they've learned in the future.
Andy Ley

Gibbons 1-2

Even students who may be considered fluent in English as a second language may struggle and feel uncomfortable communicating in an English speaking classroom. Chapter one opened up this idea and provided an overview about using scaffolding as a basis for building this confidence in language learning for ESL students. Scaffolding, in a sense, is using instruction and language to build knowledge and skill in a student until the skill is mastered without instuction. Scaffolding can be used as a basis for ESL students to build their confidence in the English language.

Gibbons discussed a scaffolding strategy, inner-speech, which i found particulary interesting. This is shown when the teacher talks out how to solve a problem; using cues and possible questions. Soon the student should be able to think these ideas out to solve the problem on their own. Gibbons used the example of putting together a puzzle. The teacher suggests putting similar patterns, sizes, and colors together; talking out the puzzle as they fit the pieces together. This allows the child to internalize these thoughts and learn how to use the language, not only to talk, but how to think. "The child's external dialogues with others later become an inner personal resource for the development of thinking and problem solving." The communication between the teacher and the student allows the student to understand how to talk the problem through until eventually the student can talk or think it through on their own. I thought about this today during field. I walked around the classroom and conferenced with students about their historical fiction stories and how to build their characters. We talked about things like, "How is your character feeling as this is happening? Why do you think your character made that decision?" I wondered if maybe that was the purpose my CT had of initiating these conferences, and I am curious to see how it impacts the characters that come out of their stories.

Gibbons also discussed the importance of communication through group discussion. Group discussion enhances language in a variety of ways. It provides students more time to listen and speak informally, allowing each other to support and help each other with the language. It also gives students opportunity to listen to each other and learn from their ideas. Learners can also contextualize what they hear from their peers and use it in other contexts correctly. Especially in classrooms where most time is spent listening, learners aren't given the opportunity as often to speak and discuss. It might be distressing for ESL students to speek in front of the entire class, and small groups give them the opportunity to practice conversing on an acedemic level with a limited amount of people. I know this is something I would like to use often in my classroom to accomodate ESL students and any student who might feel insecurities using language in front of a large group. Teacher's can give so much instruction, but I feel a lot of the internalization comes through discussion.

Chapters 1 and 2 Gibbons

The first chapter talked a lot about how talking in an educational setting is more difficult then when talking in out of class settings. It is the job of the teacher when an ESL student is put in a mainstream classroom to not only present new content material but integrated with in the content, there has to be opportunities for students to also learn new language material. The book states that teachers must "integrate language and content so that second language is developed hand in hand with new curriculum knowledge". From my experiences in class with ESL students it has been the opposite of this where the teacher only presents her ESL students with new content with out the second hand language. I believe that as a teacher with these students it's important pay just as much attention to your ESL students and their learning of English just as any other student's learning of the content material. Chapter one closes with the thought of teaching students through interrelations that the students make. "The goal is to go beyond simply learning items of knowledge to being able to use that knowledge in other contents". To me this can be true for every subject and I agree with this statement to the fullest and really want to make this a main goal of my teaching. Scaffolding is used to wain students off of the help given to them by the teacher to be able to complete the task themselves.
Chapter 2 talks about creating these opportunities to learn language and content. Group work is an excellent way to incorporate this. When students talk in a group they are hearing pretty much the same idea but in different ways, and they can better show their deeper understanding of the topic. Through high expectations by the teacher language learners are pushed to express their thoughts and will learn faster and better. In class I have seen this done poorly, where language learners are outcasts in the class and are not pushed at all. They are given little opportunity to interact with the teacher and other students to deeper their understanding of the content and make meaningful connections. As a teacher I want to incorporate group work with my language learners and have meaningful opportunities so that they can report what they know to other students and myself.