EDU 790 Week 7: Media Literacy
2/19/18
Hello,
This week's blog focuses on the ideas of Howard Rheingold and 21st Century Social Media Literacies. After reading the article titled "Attention, and Other 21st-Century Social Media Literacies" by Howard Rheingold, I learned that I had been aware of the many social media literacies, but maybe didn't know them by the same names. The three main literacies that stuck with me the most are attention, participation and critical consumption.
Although this article was written in 2010, I feel that is still strongly relates to learners today. Rheingold stated that "Students feel a strong sense of entitlement to the freedom to direct their attention wherever they want. For students, the classroom is a marketplace, with multiple seductive attractions from the online world competing with physical presence. If I can’t compete with the Internet for their attention, that’s my problem" (Rheingold, 16). I agree! The attention I receive or don't receive from a student is my, the teacher's, problem. I am constantly needing to come up with new ways to get the attention of my students. If I don't, that's my issue to solve and to then make sure the students catch up on what they missed. It's hard to complete with Chromebooks. The students have almost unlimited information and entertainment at their fingertips. I know this sounds terrible, but I can't complete with the internet, youtube, video games, music streaming and so on. However, it is my problem when students miss important information and then need extra help. What I'm trying to say is, if I don't have their attention the first time, it creates a lot more work for me later on. The students at my school are given endless opportunities to prove their learning. For some that means, the student can spread their attention so thin while in class and always have the opportunity to make it up at a later date. What this means for the teacher is, meetings with students before and after school to catch up on material, retakes, reteaching, and late assignments with little to no consequences. I know I'm ranting a little bit now, but Rheingold said it right when he said " If we don’t know enough to turn around when we hear a bicycle or automobile horn, we’re not going to survive long. Clearly we have different forms of attention that are appropriate for different ways of doing things. Sometimes we need to “turn on all the lights” in order to be aware of as much as possible. Sometimes we need to be vigilant to information outside our focal area, and at other times we need to block out distractions and narrow our attention to a spotlight" (Rheingold, 16). I feel that some students aren't paying attention to the car horns and plan on turning all the lights on later when it's more convenient for them.
I agree with Rheingold's statement when he says "we are seeing a change in participation in society." Teachers, parents and students all need to understand that communication and participation are now global actions. "For example, if we were speaking, we could communicate only with the people who could hear us directly. Now, technological networks ranging from the telephone to the Internet have vastly expanded the number and the variety of the people we can contact"(Rheingold, 18). Teachers and students now have the opportunity to communicate with others from around the world, unite with peers about common passions, share information. The participation of young learners in their education is needed now more than ever.
Finally, the most challenging and dangerous of the media literacies, Critical Consumption. "Critical consumption, or what Ernest Hemingway called “crap detection,” is the literacy of trying to figure out what and who is trustworthy—and what and who is not trustworthy—online"(Rheingold, 22). Students need help when it comes to being safe online. They must be guided and taught starting at a young age. So many of my students skim through the first resource that pops up after a Google search. Hardly any will check a second source, check for accuracy, check the date it was published and so on. Without proper guidance, students may put their education or themselves at risk. I feel that Rheingold's article is still very relevant to today's learners. Technology has changed quite a bit in the last eight years, but many of these media literacies still apply.
Rheingold, Howard. "Attention, and Other 21st-Century Social Media Literacies." ,
September/October 2010, file:///Users/tkelly/Downloads/Rheingold-
Attention%20and%20Social%20Media%20Literacies.pdf. Accessed February 19, 2018.
Hello,
This week's blog focuses on the ideas of Howard Rheingold and 21st Century Social Media Literacies. After reading the article titled "Attention, and Other 21st-Century Social Media Literacies" by Howard Rheingold, I learned that I had been aware of the many social media literacies, but maybe didn't know them by the same names. The three main literacies that stuck with me the most are attention, participation and critical consumption.
Although this article was written in 2010, I feel that is still strongly relates to learners today. Rheingold stated that "Students feel a strong sense of entitlement to the freedom to direct their attention wherever they want. For students, the classroom is a marketplace, with multiple seductive attractions from the online world competing with physical presence. If I can’t compete with the Internet for their attention, that’s my problem" (Rheingold, 16). I agree! The attention I receive or don't receive from a student is my, the teacher's, problem. I am constantly needing to come up with new ways to get the attention of my students. If I don't, that's my issue to solve and to then make sure the students catch up on what they missed. It's hard to complete with Chromebooks. The students have almost unlimited information and entertainment at their fingertips. I know this sounds terrible, but I can't complete with the internet, youtube, video games, music streaming and so on. However, it is my problem when students miss important information and then need extra help. What I'm trying to say is, if I don't have their attention the first time, it creates a lot more work for me later on. The students at my school are given endless opportunities to prove their learning. For some that means, the student can spread their attention so thin while in class and always have the opportunity to make it up at a later date. What this means for the teacher is, meetings with students before and after school to catch up on material, retakes, reteaching, and late assignments with little to no consequences. I know I'm ranting a little bit now, but Rheingold said it right when he said " If we don’t know enough to turn around when we hear a bicycle or automobile horn, we’re not going to survive long. Clearly we have different forms of attention that are appropriate for different ways of doing things. Sometimes we need to “turn on all the lights” in order to be aware of as much as possible. Sometimes we need to be vigilant to information outside our focal area, and at other times we need to block out distractions and narrow our attention to a spotlight" (Rheingold, 16). I feel that some students aren't paying attention to the car horns and plan on turning all the lights on later when it's more convenient for them.
I agree with Rheingold's statement when he says "we are seeing a change in participation in society." Teachers, parents and students all need to understand that communication and participation are now global actions. "For example, if we were speaking, we could communicate only with the people who could hear us directly. Now, technological networks ranging from the telephone to the Internet have vastly expanded the number and the variety of the people we can contact"(Rheingold, 18). Teachers and students now have the opportunity to communicate with others from around the world, unite with peers about common passions, share information. The participation of young learners in their education is needed now more than ever.
Finally, the most challenging and dangerous of the media literacies, Critical Consumption. "Critical consumption, or what Ernest Hemingway called “crap detection,” is the literacy of trying to figure out what and who is trustworthy—and what and who is not trustworthy—online"(Rheingold, 22). Students need help when it comes to being safe online. They must be guided and taught starting at a young age. So many of my students skim through the first resource that pops up after a Google search. Hardly any will check a second source, check for accuracy, check the date it was published and so on. Without proper guidance, students may put their education or themselves at risk. I feel that Rheingold's article is still very relevant to today's learners. Technology has changed quite a bit in the last eight years, but many of these media literacies still apply.
Rheingold, Howard. "Attention, and Other 21st-Century Social Media Literacies." ,
September/October 2010, file:///Users/tkelly/Downloads/Rheingold-
Attention%20and%20Social%20Media%20Literacies.pdf. Accessed February 19, 2018.
Hey Theresa. I agree with you that students need to be taught these skills at an early age. The question I guess is how early? I do teach K-5, and certain things can be introduced at certain ages. At K through grade 2 I focus more on skills like using the mouse, keyboarding, opening and closing windows, logging on and off, maybe a little bit of coding, and building up to searching with kid-friend search tools like PebbleGo Fact Monster. In grades 3 through 5 I go deeper with critical searching using SafeSearchKids but I also go over digital citizenship and safety as well as copyright and citation. Many of these things are also reinforced by their other teachers as well (I only get each grade for only a half hour to an hour a week...) I disagreed with Rheingold's use of the term "literacy" because I liken them more to skills that are used in all subjects, not just technology. The problem is that the younger you go the more literal and deliberate you have to be with teaching the base skills before moving on to the more elaborate "literacies".
ReplyDeleteHello Scott,
DeleteI never thought of it that way. I agree that "literacies" should and can be applied to all subject areas. Using those literacy skills will help students become more active learners. Thanks for sharing.
Great post, Theresa, thank you for the citations. It's funny how we see "2010" and think that it is "old" yet as Rheingold has proven we are still facing the same issues surrounding media literacies. These days, however there seems to be an over emphasis on critical consumption.
ReplyDeleteHi Theresa!
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your blog post. I also think that it is challenging for teachers to captivate the attention of their students. One thing I think we are lucky with in our school is that most students are NEVER caught using their phones. I only see phones at the end of the day! The students do, however, lose attention due to their iPads. When teachers have students put their iPads away, I think that this helps. But, students are sneaky! I teach special education resource and the first thing we do is write down homework on the MyHomework app or Reminders app. The problem is, if I do not stare at each students iPad, some will watch Fortnite! I have caught students doing this. The power that students have at their finger tips is revolutionary. Our curriculums should utilize this power. Students may not need to memorize 50 states and capitals, but rather, investigate specific information about these. Why are they named this? What is the history behind the founding? Just some ideas.
I agree that keeping the kids attention is on the teacher. It's a bigger challenge with some than it used to be with kids only driven to pay attention to 'screen time'. It's up to the teacher to try to incorporate technology in a way that engages and educates the students. I think when this is done at a young age it helps. There are still some teachers that choose not to utilize the technology they have, and they seem to have a more difficult time keeping their students attention. When teachers choose to use technology and social media in a productive way with students, they'll retained the information they learn a lot longer. We just have to incorporate responsibility along with it.
ReplyDeleteHi Theresa,
ReplyDeleteI agree that critical consumption is a very important because you can't trust everything you read. Students need to understand that everything on the internet is not true. There is a need to check reliable sources when you read something that's too good to be true.