Week 10/11 - Adolescent Interview

For this task, I interviewed Alyssa Navos, a 12-year-old Brooklynite. Her answers were very interesting and were a little bit of an eye-opener for me.

For the first question, I asked her how she learned how to use the computer. She told me she learned simply by experimenting. This surprised me, because when I was an adolescent myself, my parents spent a lot of money to send me to a computer school during the summer to learn BASIC, WordPerfect, MS Word and Lotus 123. It just goes to show that the computer technology we have now is so much more user-friendly compared to 20 years ago. No need for classes!

Alyssa rated her computer skills as average, but believes she has more computer skills than her parents, which she attributes to her growing up in it. This shows us that there is indeed a "generation gap" if you may between the adults and the kids nowadays, with regards to technology. I personally know Allysa's mother, and she is not a novice to computers. She actually uses the computer everyday in her work as a nurse, and owns the latest smartphone. Imagine if Alyssa had a teacher who doesn't keep up with technology at all? She couldn't pinpoint though, who influences her online activity the most.

When asked how her life will be affected if she didn't have access to the Internet for a week, she replied that she will not be able to do her homework or any research. And if the lack of access stretched for a month, she wouldn't have access to news or whatever is going on in the big world. And she didn't know what she would do if she didn't have it for a year, and just said "Internet, come back!" Truly, the new generation is highly dependent on the Internet for a lot of things. For the latest news, I usually just turn the TV on. But this may be too "backward" for a young person like Alyssa.

She said she spent about 1 to 1.5 hours online. However when asked how much time she spends online for homework or research, she answered 2 to 3 hours. For entertainment purposes like music or video, she spends 1 to 2 hours online. Obviously, it doesn't add up, but I think she may not be able to judge accurately how much time she really spends online per day, and may be under-estimating it.

Alyssa, though young, is aware of the dangers of divulging personal information online and the risk of identity theft. She further said that one does not need to worry all the time if they're careful. Her parents do not allow her to post pictures of herself online. She has never bullied anybody nor experienced bullying online. She thinks that the Internet allows people to be more open in their opinion because there is less risk of criticism.

One very interesting information that Alyssa shared with me is that her school does not require the use of online books. I was sort of expecting the opposite. She said that she is a bookworm but prefers printed books. The online books are great, she said, however the light from the screen hurts her eyes after a while. And she prefers to hold and to flip the pages of a regular printed book. I agreed with her on this one, as there is something special about the smell and the feel of an actual book in your hand. There are some things that are just better in their traditional form.

Lastly, if she were a parent, she said she would allow online time depending on the child's behavior. She is a firm believer in technology and would encourage her children to use it. She believes going online will help with a lot of things and would not want her child to miss out on those.

Alyssa is a very smart girl and she gave me a clearer picture of how today's adolescents think. I think her generation is very lucky to have access to a lot of information ready at their fingertips. When you have a young population that is armed with information, and open to new ideas, you can expect great things. If Marshall McLuhan were still alive, he will be surely amazed that his predictions (the end of secrecy, transformation theory of communication, the end of monopoly of knowledge, etc.) have turned into reality. The next decade is going to be very exciting!

Week 6 - Civic Engagement in the Digital Age

     It is a known fact that nowadays, a lot of people, especially the youth, are involved in the participatory culture of the Internet.  People who may have been reluctant to share their views on the what goes on in the world (politics, economy, environment, education, or social issues) are now more "vocal" because of the Internet and the networking it provides.  The question remains, does this participatory culture translate to more civic engagement or does it simply suffer a natural death in the online realm?  This is important as "the future of democracy is in the hands of these young citizens of the so-called digital age" (Lance Bennett, p. 9).

     If we are going to measure civic engagement in terms of traditional ways such as voter turnout in the polls, there seems to be a disconnect of the increased online engagement versus actual civic engagement.  In the Philippines, for example, there was an online campaign not to vote a senatorial candidate named Cynthia Villar, a businesswoman, because during one of the televised debates, she made a mistake of saying that Filipino nurses do not really need a lot of education as most of them are merely "room nurses".  She may have been referring to the Philippines' need to create an associate nursing program, like in the United States, where people can work as a Registered Nurse with only two years of college, versus the minimum of four years in the Philippines.  But that comment drew ire among the Filipino nursing community and their families (who are the recipients of their hard-earned money from working overseas). Pictures of Villar, (comically, with a nurses' cap) and videos of the debate circulated in Facebook and Youtube, followed of course with angry comments defending Filipino nurses against her supposed "ignorant" statements.  Her credibility was torn into pieces.

     Shockingly, this woman still won and is now a full-pledged Philippine senator.  What happened here?  The reality is that, majority of Internet users in the Philippines are young (under 30 years old), and in this section of the population, the voter turnout is low.  In short, the people who made those caricatures and angry comments didn't go out to vote.  And vote-buying in the poor communities being rampant in that country, makes it more important for the educated and conscientious voter to go out and vote.  I know of a lot of young, college-educated people who say they "do not believe" in voting.  Is this true, are they merely too lazy to actually walk away from their laptops and go to a polling precinct and exercise their right to vote?  Going further, is the Internet making people lazy, wanting everything to be at the end of their fingertips, or maybe handed to them on a silver platter?

     It is also possible that the youth, being so informed now of the flaws of the voting system in the Philippines, specifically the vote-buying, coupled with cases of fraudulent vote counting referred to as "dagdag-bawas" ("add-subtract"), have become so "jaded" and no longer trust the government.  Admittedly, there is a need to regain social trust in the dotnet generation, whose political beliefs (or lack thereof) may have been influenced/affected by the generations before them.  "In short, we must not only prepare citizens for politics but also improve politics for citizens" (Lance Bennett, p.4).






    

Week 3 - Reflection on Jenkins' "Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century"

     One topic that stood out for me in the reading was collective intelligence, one of the 11 core media literacy skills.  It is defined as "the ability to pool knowledge and compare notes with others towards a common goal" (Jenkins, p.39).  Like-minded individuals come together online and share what they know and create a knowledge bank that can be tapped by the group.  A group may develop something trivial, like a guide to a game or a movie, or work together to modify Google maps by sharing images they captured, in order to allow victims of Hurricane Katrina to find information about any specific location. 

     "The ideal of collective intelligence is a community that knows everything and individuals who know how to tap the community to acquire knowledge on a just-in-time basis" (p.42).  When I was choosing where to buy a house, for example, I "consulted" an online forum and got responses from a lot of people who actually lived in the area and were willing to share information. I didn't need to drive around and knock on people's doors to get the information.  The online community enabled me to get this information quickly and at minimal cost. 

     For me, collective intelligence is the best manifestation of the participatory culture of the Internet.  Everyone feels free to contribute and whatever they contribute is appropriately valued.  People have more community involvement and are solving problems together.  It is not just about absorbing more and more knowledge, but being able to share this knowledge with other people.  "We are moving away from a world in which some produce and many consume media, toward one in which everyone has a more active stake in the culture that is produced" (p.10). 

     Using Green's Model, collective intelligence falls under the Critical Dimension, wherein social practices such as literacy are socially constructed and individuals can act on and transform literacy.  Collective intelligence is what made Wikipedia what it is, an online encyclopedia formed by contributions of all kinds of people -- from the scholarly experts to the lay person, who may know just one bit of information about a subject.

     I believe that the digital media, through collective intelligence, empowers people and makes them active participants in the community.  One person cannot solve the world's problems, however, the Internet makes it possible for people to work together for a common good, even if it is something as simple as sharing a traffic update.  As teachers, we should not only encourage our students to expand their knowledge, but also teach them how to work with others and learn the value of teamwork, social awareness and active citizenship.
    







    



  

Week 2 - Literacy - Online R U Really Reading?

     The world now relies on the Internet to the extent that makes it necessary for people to be possess digital literacy to be considered literate.  While it is true that reading books is a major factor in literacy as it helps students gain the skills in reading comprehension, for a lot of people, the Internet has made it easier to gain access to education.  The book is now considered just one of the different media for learning.

     There are pros and cons to the use of books and the Internet, and people have differing opinions on which one is better.  One gleaming strength of the Internet is the element of participation involved, whereas reading a book is mostly considered a more or less a passive activity.  Furthermore, one book may be a literary gem, while another book may contain useless or biased information.  On the other hand, a student can spend hours in meaningful online research, or spend all day chatting or playing games.  It is still how we use the media that is of utmost importance, if we intend to gain something from it.

     The advent of the digital age is prompting educators to rethink what literacy is and what should be included in the basic instruction of reading and writing.  Online reading is considered another skill that needs to be learned, as it involves interpretation of visual elements such as graphics.  A person who intends to be an active participant in the online community should be able to acquire writing skills that now include use of Internet to publish written material online in a blog or website.

Week 1 - Literacy as a Social Practice

"The distinctive contribution of the approach to literacy as social practice lies in the ways in which it involves careful and sensitive attention to what people do with texts, how they make sense of them and use them to further their own purposes in their own learning lives" (Gillen and Barton, 2010, p. 9).

What the author is trying to impart by this passage is this:  It is in how a person perceives and responds to information that any change in his literacy and the society’s literacy can occur.  Literacy is not a one-way street.  It is interactive.  It is dynamic.   Every person in our society is able to contribute to literacy in their own way.  And what we contribute is determined by how we perceive and respond to each other’s ideas, and how we use these ideas.

A good example of this social, interactive literacy is web blogging.  According to Huffaker (2005), “Blogs represent a perfect medium for literacy” (p. 93).  A blog, in a way, is a form of storytelling or self-expression.  Bloggers tell their “stories”, i.e. share their ideas with an online community.  People from all over the world are able to comment not only on the story but also to each other’s responses.    And whatever was shared in that interaction may be used by these people in another discussion and it goes on and on.  Imagine the magnitude of learning and social change that can be achieved through this!

This is what New Literacy is all about, as explained in an editorial by Dana Wilber.  She states, “New literacies, in contrast with traditional literacies, are more participatory. They are more collaborative in allowing for the open sharing and creation of information on sites like wikis and blogs“ (Wilber, 2010).  Gone are the days of writing a book report, meant to be read only by a single professor, and subject only to that professor’s feedback.  Through the internet, whatever ideas we share does not end up in the recycling bin, but has the potential of influencing other people and igniting change in the society.

Introducing myself...

Hello everyone!  I'm Noemi, a Registered Nurse.  Like most of you, I am also new to blogging.  This should be interesting.  I'm old school and still prefer face to face interaction in a traditional classroom.  However, multi-tasking is the norm now, as I am a busy working mom to two little girls.  I am thankful though that online education is here as an option for people like me.  I hope to make the most of it.  Nice meeting you all.  :)