the craziness of new literacies

It used to be that if you wanted to communicate with someone, you went and visited them. If they left and went very far away, you might never see them or talk to them again. You would thus focus on those within reach. Later in time, you could write to them, then you could call them. Now the explosion has happenned to such an extent that one can become completely confounded. My entry won't be as hypertextual or multidimensional as my fellow group mates, I will stick to the basics of writing... but in that recent medium, the blog.

From chat rooms, to IM, to blogs, to discussion boards, personal spaces, fanfiction sites (loved looking at a few of those), and who knows what else, people are communicating and making connections, in many ways, to suit need, their personalities, the moment.

Through our readings a whole world, an ever expanding one has opened up to me. And I find myself somewhere in the middle of the road questioning my motives. Through the readings, I find that, although the media and styles differ, the essence remains the same. We want to communicate, we want answers, we want to exchange ideas, we want acknowledgment and validation. I am bowled over by the myriad of possibilities out there, and we have only scratched the surface of an ever growing mountain.

What seems to be happening is that in this day and age is that, to become part of the community we must embrace the new ICTs and the literacies they entail lest we fall behind, and not be able to communicate, find the answers or exchange ideas, and no longer be acknowledged or validated. There is, however, a whole other world that is in that position, toiling away along with the cycles of the seasons, not being bothered or able to get digital, not even knowing about what digital is. What a crazy world we are living in... and how will it continue to evolve?

YOUTUBE: Sharing Life and News In Real Time

I believe that one of the biggest literacies to hit the young kids is the advent of YouTube. While it may have started as a way of showing "bum fights" or showing off your kid learning how to ride a bike, YouTube is now becoming a the mecca of the multimedia world.
What YouTube allows for is for virtual real time news delivery and commentary. Barack Obama gives a speech on race, within minutes its posted online for the entire world to see. It gives the public access to the entire speech and viewable "On Demand."

We no longer need networks to provide the news. Where YouTube then took shape is that commentaries by everyday people will begin to popup. Virtual soapboxes appear across youtube. It brings together a community of people around a topic. Offfering differences of opinions, and exposing viewers to a multitude opinions
As far as students go, it can enrich their lives by watching historical events or "how to" videos. Everything from campy School House rocks videos to teach different topics.

Students can also use YouTube as an Art Outlet. Whether posting a video for their garage band, or an interesting artistic endeveaur, it allows students the opportunity to expose their creation to not just a local audience, but a world wide audience.
I think that YouTube allows for students to have to develop a coherent idea and then present it in an understandable way. In essence, what YouTube is doing, is helping to hone the presentation skills of students. This will help them from the classroom to the boardroom.
The other great part of YouTube is the interaction between poster and viewer. Viewers can praise or critique parts of the video, allowing for real time feedback to improve the next generation of content.
While schools block out YouTube, and for obvious reasons, I believe it is essential for kids to use this vehicle to express their ideas. Whether ranting about how New Kids On The Block have reunited

or discussing the merits of the death penalty, it has become a mutlimedia message board that connects the ever increasing flat world.

Journal Writing

Journal writing has changed from personal to public.

In the past people would keep a journal on their bedside table to keep records of their daily events and their thoughts. Writing down in daily diaries would help people remember their life. These paper trails of life was a private introverted way of compiling ideas.

Today recording life's daily events have now changed. Blogger and Twitter are different ways that technology has changed journaling from a private affair to sharing daily events with friends, family and even random blog stalkers.

Blogging has opened the world to keeping updates on your daily life. (Blogs can be used for more than just personal journaling but today I am just going to talk about journaling) Speaking from a personal experience... I have been using blogging as a way to keep friends and family updated on my baby Riley's photos and growing changes. People have written to me disappointed that instead of posting everyday I choose to play with Riley. People have become excited to read the daily updates and view photos. People are even more excited to be mentioned or even posted in a photo in the blog.



I have been using the blog as a new form on "baby book" for personal record keeping and to share with others. Websites like can take your blog and print it out into a paper book or journal to save in another form of media.

Blogstalkers have also made blogging an even more popular way to use public journaling. I have a few blogs that I am a blogstalker on. and have become two of the blogs I love to read. Both have joked about how they have blogstalkers. People who feel like they know them but really don't. I have a few blogstalkers as well. One came out of the closet the other day. One of my parents' classroom parent approached her the other day about one of her vacations. Apparently, she found my blog and then linked over to my father's photo blog and saw all of my parent's vacation photos. haha! Luckily for us we did not put any photos that were too personal up. People are using the internet as a way to stay updated on other people's lives through their blogs.

is a new microblogging addition that can be added to your blogs. Twitter helps you keep people constantly updated on what you are doing. You can update instantly that you are standing in a line at Target... or walking down the road thinking about the beautiful day. This instant microblogging takes the journaling to a new level. Recording instantly every little thought or moment. People are aware of your every thought or move when you introduce Twitter.

Are we becoming more extroverted and using online journaling as a tool or has online journaling created a more extroverted lifestyle?

Do you really care about others and are excited to keep updates or has the Internet made you more noisy and curious about others life?

Which came first the blog or the blogstalker?? :)

Cyberspace Vs. Physical Space

"...many schools still operate from a mindset rooted in the Industrial Revolution that is 'forged in physical space' and organized around the production of material goods (Lankshear & Knobel, 2003)" (Black, Just Don't Call Them Cartoons, p 583). Whereas, contemporary students are entering classrooms with a mindset that is 'forged in cyberspace' and organized around the production and distribution of information and various texts, including traditional print documents, graphic arts, spoken and embodied language, and other forms of online and post-typographic communication" (Castells, 1996; Lankshear & Knobel, 2003)(Black, Just Don't Call Them Cartoons, p 584).

I believe the above quotes sum up the state of education today! The students of today are born into a world where nothing stays the same for very long and have learned to embrace this state of constant change and use it to their advantage. Whereas, the education system of today is still based on the old world, where things move slowly and where one has time to adjust to change because of the slow pace. At what point do we finally figure out that if we want to engage the students of today we need to ride this tide of change and use it as a framework for education?

Sometimes I feel like I am the only educator in my school that wants to, or goes out of her/his way to change. I do not like things to stay the same, and perhaps that is why I am an Educational Technologist, as opposed to an Earth Science teacher (although I am certified). But, when I think about it, Earth Science is not a stagnant subject either, and there again, maybe that is why I was drawn to it. Technology excites me!! I love to try to keep abreast (nobody really can) of all of the new technologies that are born every day. I have no problem learning from my students, in fact, I believe that being able to learn from my students, shows them that I truly want to be a part of their world.

As an educator I believe that we should seek out ways to purposefully integrate out of school literacies. Since our students"...use popular culture to locate meaning, to construct individual and group identity, and to define that identity within a larger landscape of peer relations" (Hagood, Intersections of Popular Culture, Identities, and New Literacies Research, p 538), we would be overlooking an exceptional educational tool. Students perceive these literacies as a part of who and what they are, and, if we as educators want to help our students grow into knowledgeable and proper citizens, it is incumbent upon us to use all available means to do so.

It has been shown through research that our students "...escape the boundaries of lived realities and explore new territories in textual spaces beyond what is available to them in their daily lives" (Hagood, Intersections of Popular Culture, Identities, and New Literacies Research, p 539). Isn't that what we want to see as educators? I want my students to question, explore and construct new meanings of everyday things for themselves. I, as an educator, want to be there with them to help explore, learn, and understand the world around us.

If we want our students to be life long learners, don't we want the same things for ourselves? I want to show my students that I am integrating and welcoming their new skills into my classroom. I would love to let my students teach me about anime, manga, or any topic of their choice while participating in classroom activities. I think that we, as educators, need to seek out ways to have our students integrate their every day lives into their own education. Only then will they see things as relevant as to who they are and who they want to become. Let's stop putting up the road blocks when they are not necessary. Let's stop being the teachers spoken about in the following: "...teachers frequently shy away from using popular culture texts in literacy instruction (Finders, 2000; Marsh, 2006; Marsh & Millard, 2001; Xu, 2004), thus continuing the split between in-school and out-of-school literacies (Gallego &Hollingsworth, 2000)" (Hagood, Intersections of Popular Culture, Identities, and New Literacies Research, p 536). Let's use cyberspace over physical space and become participants in a great world of new literacies!

IM: What's The Fuss???

I remember when I used to talk on the phone for HOURS!! I would be on the phone late into the middle of the night when I had to be in the house and even when I was doing homework. I remember keeping the line open with my best friend and we would talk back and forth as we did our school work. I even remember when we were finally able to have a 3-way conversation, WOW, we thought that was something! (Now I know I am really dating myself, but...)

SO, what is the big fuss about IM? IM is the NEW (not anymore) form of social exchange just like the telephone was for our generation, only BETTER!! IM "allows users to manage multiple simultaneous exchanges and also track their buddies' appearances and disappearances" (Lewis & Fabos, Instant messaging, literacies, and social identities, p 473) Now I don't have to call someone to see if they are home and available, I just keep my computer on and see the instant my friends are available. It is this instantaneous experience that is relevant to this generation. We all know that the internet and computers have changed this world into needing immediate feedback, better feedback, faster and faster. IM is just another way to derive immediate feedback from and about our friends.

What is exciting to researchers and some educators is how "IM motivates young people to engage in decoding, encoding, interpretation, and analysis, among other literacy processes," (Lewis & Fabos, Instant messaging, literacies, and social identities, p 473). The response in my school district, however, has been to block any access to IM. Not only does the district block access to IM, but to any form of collaborative exchange among people. The Language Arts teachers especially, but many other teachers as well, feel that IM is the downfall of human literacy. I, on the other hand, feel that is an evolved form of literacy and continue to frustrate many teachers with whom I have contact.

I believe that why IM and other technologies seem so threatening to some educators is that the "differences between print and digital technologies...indicates the need for educators to rethink what is means to teach and learn..."(Alvermann, 2002; Kellner, 2002). As the researchers have said "...online reading and writing practices may have been shaped by their print practices, thus providing through regular IM activity more experiences with the reading and writing processes and skills valued in school". "IM is multimodal at its core in that it blurs the distinction between speech and writing." (Lewis & Fabos, Instant messaging, literacies, and social identities, p 475) This "change" in teaching and learning is what is so frightening to some educators that they are willing to try and stop the emergence of new technologies, but are unable to accomplish this because evolution marches on.

Much of the research that has been available points to the fact that participating in IM activity actually helps to create a more literate learner. The researchers found that,"Abby had to be able to scan across windows, spatially, to do the work of this kind of writing. She had to read and write quickly across surfaces, delving deeper only when a particular conversational thread kept surfacing, and thus demanding a more developed response. Making on-the-spot decisions about where to focus one's attention is critical to managing the flow across messages. This is an act most of us are accustomed to performing in conversation, but on that the IM user must master in writing." (Lewis & Fabos, Instant messaging, literacies, and social identities, p 486) Looking at these findings, one understands that indeed there are differences in digital literacies as opposed to offline reading and writing.

When one is involved in IM activity, "...the need to fluidly shift performances from audience to audience is unique to the dyadic yet nearly simultaneous nature of IM". "Writers in digital environments frequently address and are addressed by multiple audiences simultaneously." (Lewis & Fabos, Instant messaging, literacies, and social identities, p 493-494) When actively involved in IM a person may be interactive in many conversations at the same time and needs to respond appropriately to each. Therefore as the researchers describe about Abby,"she is able to shift her performances almost simultaneously; performing "sympathetic conspirator"..., "casual acquaintance"...and "flirtatious friend"...". (Lewis & Fabos, Instant messaging, literacies, and social identities, p 493)

The only rational response to all of the above research seems to be that educators should be embracing these new technologies and learning to use them to their advantage, rather than blocking and forbidding their use. I, for one, will continue to fight for their integration into our school curriculums.

My IMing

I am not particularly fond of IMing as a pastime. I sometimes use Skype's chat capability to message friends in far flung places. Once discussion becomes more involved, we switch to voice/phone mode. For this program, I signed up with AIM and, invariably. don't sign in... It's almost as if I can't be bothered. For me IMing is really a quick way to get a hold of someone for an answer to a question. Judi and I have exchanged a couple for assignments, and I have been in contact with several other students in the group but really to exchange info. I only sign in when I have to... although I have been trying to be more open about it and try to sign in more. While reading the article, I recalle my own high school days, and the occasional long hour(s) on the phone to friends, invariably talking about boys or parties. I would have loved IMing if it had existed back then, and would have been damned good at it. It might have helped with my general shyness for I was always more of a writer than a talker. At this stage in the game, I prefer email, as I have not yet (this article clued me in) incorporated the partial sentence rule for when you have something long to say. This article was indeed an eye-opener on many levels.

Bene's post Take 2

"Instant messaging, literacies, and social identities" (2005, Lewis & Fabosu) outlines some very interesting characteristics in IM use and users. The prime appeal of Instant Messaging seems to lie in the phone/pass message feel of things or “hybrid spoken/written nature of IM,” as the authors call it, where “users have to be good at sounding as though they are speaking in written texts.” IMing mirrors real life, makes it hyper real and fosters hyper-connectivity, expanding on face-to-face encounters, yet at the same time emboldens due to anonymity or what I would call ‘cyber distance.’

Much is conveyed through IMing such as style, tone, content, intimacy, emotion, distance, popularity… But, as the authors point out, and what I very much agree with is that email seems more appropriate for more substantive discourse with ‘bigger words,’ and both email and the telephone provide a more immediate and practical means of telling longer stories.

The subjects reveal their use of language cues for specific purposes by imitating/mimicking as a way of ingratiating oneself into a group of strangers, of tone modulation for more/less intimacy, or raising/lowering the language bar, and changing styles depending on who the audience is and what the social context might be. I like this notion of “social currency” which is so predominant during the teen years (and often beyond, especially in competitive jobs) and the elements of timing or withholding responses so as to appear a certain way… just like in real life. Phone and face-to-face strategies are being transformed and adapted… leaving “more space for play, parody, and performance.” Quite surprising and reassuring to me was the “seasonal use” of IMing (more in winter, less in summer) which denoted a preference for face-to-face.

Although the researchers lean towards on analytic reflection focusing on the act/results of IMing as a way for students to explore strategies, style, tone, community, etc., they do hint at what I feel can done in a class setting, i.e. "dramatic interpretations and other artistic modes of expression." I am thinking of simulation activities, role play, wordplay, dialogues in a foreign language, and think-aloud exercises. By impersonating a character (Oprah interviews Thomas Jefferson and Albert Einstein together, for example) using the styles they are accustomed to in IMing, not only could students convey ideas but they could doubly explore style, tone, content, strategies, community from the perspective of another (imagined, famous, dead, or foreign).
I also think that tandem IMing can be great with group activities to pair people off as team members. Members of a pair boost each other’s self confidence, motivate each other as in the double-dating example in the text of two boys and two girls.

Being able to print out a dialog or group conversation and sharing with the class would add to the notion of analysis and promote further discussion.