A Different Age

While reading Dr. William Kist's New Literacies in Action, I found that there are many things I have not thought of before when it comes to education. Going over Chapter 8, "Final Thoughts: 'My Grandchildren's Time Zone,'" I found it interesting how the teachers and students had conflicting ideas on what the goals were for these new literacies. (pg 127) Are these used to help the students get better jobs in the future, understand their environment in a different, perhaps better way, or to help them tap into emotions in order to better understand the world around them. I thought it was interesting to see how these educators also had trouble assessing the students since this type of teaching and learning is different that traditional text based strategies.

I also found it interesting to see how the students would call these new literacies an "easy A," while others found it more difficult. I do not think this answer is only found with new literacies, but also with traditional ones as well. And when asked why some thought it was difficult, some of the students gave the answer that it was time consuming and made you think deeper about the task given, such as the Edward Scissorhand's movie assignment.

I also was surprised how many teachers had to "let go." This was very interesting to me since I have always thought of teaching as time management, and making your lessons and assignments for particular sets of days, weeks, etc. This thought did scare me a little, since I am a very organized person. (If I am not, I would forget my own name and where I live.) But being able to let go and let the lesson go down a road all its own is a little intimidating for me. I think it would be difficult for me, as an educator, to just be like, "Oh, well this is something I would like to go deeper into, and I am not sure how long it will take for the little lightbulb above my student's head to go off, so I am just going to let it go where it wants to." But I do appreciate how these teachers were able to adapt to the lessons, their students, and even let go of their preconceived notions on how to "teach" in order for their students to get the best possible learning experience out of the lesson being taught.

I also thought that it was interesting to see how students could get "burned out" when it came to new literacies. Especially when it comes to working with technology and the lengthy assignments. I just thought that younger students would be all about computers and using them at every possible moment. I guess that is because my four-year-old neice has her own computer and can work it all by herself already. I was obviously not working on a computer at that age, so I just assumed many students would be glued to the screen. It was interesting to see how these students also wanted "traditional" work, such as sitting at a desk without a computer!

I thought this was an interesting chapter that made me re-evaluate what I had thought once before. All this technology is a little intimidating to me at times, but I am open to learning new things and incorporating them into my classroom. And I also feel that the new literacies are going to gain momentum as the years go on. I mean, just look at my neice. She will be able to do more with computers in a few years than any of us could probably think of. And she probably won't even be in the double digits yet.