Bringing the Real World into a textbook

My senior VCE ITA students are studying file security. As part of this topic, they look at cloud computing. Their textbook devotes several pages to the topic.

It is rather opportune that at this very time, many of my younger classes were taking part in a global project for International Dot Day. Chrissy Hellier of Bangkok organised a Dots Around the World project and invited interested teachers and classes to collaborate. Thirty three classes across the world enlisted. As Chrissy will produce a video collating all the dots, we had to be able to share them in an efficient manner. There were several choices given to us for sharing our class dots and they illustrated beautifully the notion of cloud computing:-

1. Dropbox – cloud storage for collaborative sharing
2. Flickr – online photo storage
3. email

For my students to fully understand the nature of the project, we first watched the youtube clip of the Dot

Then I showed the students how dropbox and flickr worked and how we were using them in this collaborative project. The class then discussed the pros and cons of each method of cloud computing.

To my surprise, as the year 12 students set to work, my year 11 students (who are so often disengaged and difficult to motivate), asked whether they could create a dot. Of course, I said “yes”! I wasn’t going to miss a learning opportunity that the students requested. They borrowed iPads from the library and set to work on the Doodle Buddy app. Levi and Nathan then created a simple collage using Pic Collage.  It took 25 mins of concentrated effort to create the dots shown on this post.

21st century literacies – it’s all in Blogging!

Having blogged for more than three years, I am as passionate about blogging as ever and see it, as one of the few online tools that can embrace both the emerging and establishing digital technologies. Over this time, I am convinced that blogging is the “door” to digital literacy. Digital literacy is defined as “the skills, knowledge and understanding required to use new technology and media to create and share meaning”. It is a true 21^st century language.

Although there are times when it could be argued that blogging should be a private space or kept within a ‘walled garden’ of the classroom, blogging should also be ‘out there’ for a global audience to reach. This has been written for an educational setting,  but is equally true for all those people who wish to survive and excel in the 21^st century.

Blogging  is a crucial 21^st literacy skill. Why? In the following, I have listed what I personally see as some of the key digital literacy skills and how good blogging can display these skills.

1. It creates a personal identity/digital brand/footprint. Blogging puts on view, who we are, what we have been involved in, how we think, what we like, our skills, what we have created, it is our online advertising  etc . Opens the door to employment, scholarships, networks etc
2. Digital text literacy can clearly be used:-  hypertextand hyperlinked language should be visible in  blog posts. Using blogs and reading blogs teaches important digital navigation techniques.
3. Ethical issues: Cyber safety, plagiarism, digital citizenship, digital commerce, netiquette, reuse ethically are all skills that should be taught, or could be incorporated into blogging. Evidence of avatars, vokis, appropriate usernames, language, original images/media etc
4. Base for digital connections – blogs provide the base for virtual contacts to discover, maintain communication, provide base for discovery and continue connections over a long term basis. They are essential when, in an educational setting, firm and lasting connections are to be made with another/other global classroom(s).
5. Multi- literacies – Blogs can provide a ‘doorway’ or platform for exhibiting digital media including images, visual data, animations, podcasts, digital movies, music, digital storytelling, podcasting, screen casting. These can be embedded within a post or page or linked to.
6. Networking literacy – impact of networking, making friends, what does it mean to comment and be commented on, blog rolls , how to promote blogs and posts etc
7. Organisational literacy: Use of  tags, categories, blogrolls, #tags, links to commonly used resources, timetable page, embed online calendar
8. Global literacies: use of translators, common txt language, multi-media to convey messages etc
9. Authenticity – Spam/phish detection in regard to comments and links
10. Communication literacy: – blog can and should show evidence of other forms of communication eg video conferencing, global, immersive environments
11. Empowerment – empower our students to work on a constructive online presence, give  them a positive use of the internet, empower self confidence to overcome any form of cyber bullying.

It is vital to have a good, online presence where others can connect to, communicate and create with, and continue an ongoing, readily contactable network. Blogging provides all this and more! Digital literacies must be taught – let’s blog!

What do you think? What are the key digital literacies? What further digital literacies are there? How does blogging support them?