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Most of the activities listed here previously for Week 1 are now summarized in a .pdf available in the Files area of our Yahoo Group page.
The page for providing personal information for our Yahoo Group databasehas been deleted. If you haven't yet supplied information for the database, post it directly into the database on our Yahoo Group page. You will see a message there about hos to do so.
You can still post responses, however, to the questions below for the primary Week 1 seminal reading (the New London Group's article) and the Week 1 seminal viewing (the Wesch video).
I believe the concept of multiliteracies as developed in the article can be linked to the conclusion of Wesch's video: making students knowledge-able, that is to say, able not only to "read" critically all the varied media available, be it visual, multimedia, electronic or any form yet to be developed, but also to be "active designers of social futures". Empowerment is a key word in both texts.
With regard to the article itself, I would like to share with you the following "Immigrants See Charter Schools as a Haven" http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/10/education/10charter.html?_r=2&pagewanted=1&th&emc=th (I've already tagged it on Delicious as" evo2009mlit")
It seems to suggest that since integration in a context of local diversity is hard to achieve, the answer of some immigrants to America is segregation. I take issue with such a view, and I would like to know what you think.
On the other hand, the article on multiliteracies focuses, I believe, on the skills required by the marketplace, and how schools should cater for it. I'm afraid I cannot fully agree. It is true that unless learning is democratised we cannot dream of effecting any kind of social change, but I also think that schools are becoming increasingly utilitarian, which is not positive. Where will our future philosophers and poets be educated, for example, if not at schools that teach them to create, regardless of the market value of their creation?
One final thought on the superb Wesch video. I must confess I feel overwhelmed by the expansion of the tools developed in the last 5 years, and I cannot help but thinking how many more will be created in the next 5, or 10? How with this rage shall we hold a plea? Plenty has already been written on m-learning, and Wesch hints at it. What are our chances - and our sts' - to cope and keep abreast?
I fully agree with Mariel's comment. She beautifully expressed my own thoughts and concerns.
I tremendously enjoyed the Wesch video. What he does and strives to achieve with his students is remarkable. In my own teaching context I've also tried to implement some online tools and I see similar benefits of using them: more motivation, more and better quality of students' work, more collaboration... All these advantages make me feel a better and more motivated teacher. However, there is just one drawback: huge amount of time spent on preparing online spaces, reading and responding to students' work, offering support... How do you cope with this?
Hi, it's so nice to see people commenting here. I myself am a little disoriented with the orientation here because we have empowered many moderators and as we are all volunteers busy with other things we are not as coordinated as we would be if we had a top-down directed team. Personally I prefer to see the group move in the direction of the most active member at a given time. I am happy to wander down the path of anyone's initiative.
The question echoed in both comments so far is how do we cope in times where, it has been quoted in the Shift Happens YouTube, we are training students for jobs that haven't been invented yet, and as is noted here, using tools that may not have been developed yet. The answer is that we cannot hope to cope in any predictable sense, but we CAN cope by developing networks that will inform us and alert us to useful tools as they come on line. What we are teaching, or modeling (another word for teaching) is a way of learning, a way of knowing, through connection through networks. Since we cannot know the future the only way to cope is to be ready with a knowledgeable network. This is what we hope to develop in this course: a means of all of us connecting with one another, and a means of PULLing knowledge into the network and tagging it and accessing it through its tags and other metadata which we need to learn to understand. In this way we all develop a heuristic for coping, and make good friends and helpful collaborators in the process.
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Comments (3)
Mariel Amez said
at 11:17 pm on Jan 12, 2009
I believe the concept of multiliteracies as developed in the article can be linked to the conclusion of Wesch's video: making students knowledge-able, that is to say, able not only to "read" critically all the varied media available, be it visual, multimedia, electronic or any form yet to be developed, but also to be "active designers of social futures". Empowerment is a key word in both texts.
With regard to the article itself, I would like to share with you the following "Immigrants See Charter Schools as a Haven" http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/10/education/10charter.html?_r=2&pagewanted=1&th&emc=th (I've already tagged it on Delicious as" evo2009mlit")
It seems to suggest that since integration in a context of local diversity is hard to achieve, the answer of some immigrants to America is segregation. I take issue with such a view, and I would like to know what you think.
On the other hand, the article on multiliteracies focuses, I believe, on the skills required by the marketplace, and how schools should cater for it. I'm afraid I cannot fully agree. It is true that unless learning is democratised we cannot dream of effecting any kind of social change, but I also think that schools are becoming increasingly utilitarian, which is not positive. Where will our future philosophers and poets be educated, for example, if not at schools that teach them to create, regardless of the market value of their creation?
One final thought on the superb Wesch video. I must confess I feel overwhelmed by the expansion of the tools developed in the last 5 years, and I cannot help but thinking how many more will be created in the next 5, or 10? How with this rage shall we hold a plea? Plenty has already been written on m-learning, and Wesch hints at it. What are our chances - and our sts' - to cope and keep abreast?
Looking forward to reading your views.
Mariel Amez
Vida said
at 9:51 pm on Jan 17, 2009
I fully agree with Mariel's comment. She beautifully expressed my own thoughts and concerns.
I tremendously enjoyed the Wesch video. What he does and strives to achieve with his students is remarkable. In my own teaching context I've also tried to implement some online tools and I see similar benefits of using them: more motivation, more and better quality of students' work, more collaboration... All these advantages make me feel a better and more motivated teacher. However, there is just one drawback: huge amount of time spent on preparing online spaces, reading and responding to students' work, offering support... How do you cope with this?
Vance Stevens said
at 10:53 pm on Jan 17, 2009
Hi, it's so nice to see people commenting here. I myself am a little disoriented with the orientation here because we have empowered many moderators and as we are all volunteers busy with other things we are not as coordinated as we would be if we had a top-down directed team. Personally I prefer to see the group move in the direction of the most active member at a given time. I am happy to wander down the path of anyone's initiative.
The question echoed in both comments so far is how do we cope in times where, it has been quoted in the Shift Happens YouTube, we are training students for jobs that haven't been invented yet, and as is noted here, using tools that may not have been developed yet. The answer is that we cannot hope to cope in any predictable sense, but we CAN cope by developing networks that will inform us and alert us to useful tools as they come on line. What we are teaching, or modeling (another word for teaching) is a way of learning, a way of knowing, through connection through networks. Since we cannot know the future the only way to cope is to be ready with a knowledgeable network. This is what we hope to develop in this course: a means of all of us connecting with one another, and a means of PULLing knowledge into the network and tagging it and accessing it through its tags and other metadata which we need to learn to understand. In this way we all develop a heuristic for coping, and make good friends and helpful collaborators in the process.
You don't have permission to comment on this page.