New Literacies, New Technologies

Many classrooms today are filled with a variety of students from different backgrounds and cultures. As a teacher, it is important to be aware that not all your students share your same social or cultural background. Research shows that many students can be negatively affected by and disadvantaged by social interaction at school. One reason this occurs is due to the acculturating function of schooling. This means that schools are operating based on the majority of students’ social and cultural background. So, students who do not fit into this majority are often disadvantaged and even excluded from their peers, teachers, and the school community. These students might be unaware and uncomfortable with the practices of the majority group. They likely realize that their literacy practices at home are different from the ones expected of them at school which can lead to students appearing silent, uncomfortable, and unwilling to learn. Therefore, teachers need to be aware o...

Alright boys and girls – please open your iPad's to page 3. Wait... What? If you were born prior to the new millennium, this is not something you would have heard your teacher announce to the class. However, the increased use of technology in the classroom has become commonplace over the course of the past decade (Anstey & Bull, 2006). While students are still encouraged to read as often as possible, physical books are being considered an old literacy. Classroom book collections are dwindling, and school libraries as we once knew them are becoming obsolete. So, why is this happening? Within the past few years, technological learning programs have started to take the place of traditional literacy practices. Where students once turned the page of a book from the class collection, students are now reading hundreds of new books with the swipe of a finger. Not only are students improving their literacy skills, they are enhancing their comprehension as well.  ...

By Nikki Wocl The world has been enthralled by keeping up with all of the changes of the Kardashian-Jenner family. After fourteen seasons of family drama, break ups, make ups, kids, and everything in between, the world has continued to watch and follow the Kardashians. As the family has grown and changed, so, too, have the viewers. Just as people want to continue keeping up with the newest trends about the Kardashian family, people also want and need to keep up with the newest literacies. Think back on your childhood when you brought home your report card, listened to music, or wanted to plan a movie date with your best friend. What types of technologies did you use? Our report cards were brought home in envelopes with teachers' cursive comments in red pen. Music was played on using a tape recorder or CD player. Movie dates were planned calling on a house phone and checking the newspaper for the movie times. Many of these technologies used are irrelevant today. Today, studen...

By: Teressa Massedge  Student’s literacy is heavily influence by their own identity! How a student interrupts the literature is based on their own literate practices. This means that each student can hold their own meaning of literacy because of their social and cultural life and their individual life experiences. A student is able to be multiliterate because they connect their literate practices and their identity to literacy.    Students have the ability to use their experiences and resources through their identity to comprehend a text. Within a person’s identity they are able to pull from inside themselves in order to engage in literate practices and to make meaning.    Students are able to draw from their identity being the lifeworld (real world) and their school-based world. It is our job as educators to help our student to learn to use their own literacy identity. We must remember that each student does not have the same identity as a...

  By: Kristen Pandise As educators, we want to provide our students with the best possible learning experiences. It is our goal to have the lessons we teach extend beyond the classroom, prepare our students for the future, and have our students become literate and active members of society.   While this sounds like something that can be achieved in a short amount of time, it is something that takes time to cultivate and develop within our students. In our society today, there is a huge increase in technology being used in the classroom. While this is only going to aid our students in the future, solely focusing on using every aspect of technology may hinder the process of our students becoming multiliterate. A student that is multiliterate is someone who is socially and cognitively literate with live, electronic, and paper texts. Further, students that are multiliterate are tactical problem-solvers; they are able to evolve their knowledge based on a strategy that ...