My Final Reflection

               I remember the day I told a friend of mine, “I don’t know if I chose the right subject to study at college. Though I have always liked linguistics and partially literature, I sometimes find it too tedious as it’s mostly focusing on just one thing: “writing”. I think technology is flowing in the veins of every aspect of our lives while as Literature students, we are focusing on poems and fictions, and when it comes to technology, we only do blogging to respond to what we learned again about “writing” .To me, science sounds more like business, while literature is like vacation. Maybe I should have chosen another discipline as a college field, and could read literature at my leisure time.” My friend had a different point of view, claiming that literature teaches us how to live a better life, and that scientists become more like robots. I did not fully disagree with my friend in that Literature teaches us how to live a better life but I still think no matter what field, we do need to learn more science and technology because in this century it is everywhere around us. When Professor Gleason told me about Digital Literacies and gave me a description of the course, I thought this is what I have been yearning for.

            I am so pleased that this course is offered in the English Department, and for Language and Literacy students because it is a totally different subject from all the other courses we take; helping students get more familiar with technology and the modern digital world we are living. I believe it is a must for anybody who wants to be a teacher, because we cannot simply teach using the same strategies used centuries back. Besides, modern techniques and basically iMedia can be substantially effective in making the class more dynamic and eventually facilitating learning.  What I most expected from and liked in this class was the practical parts. Working with different software, programs, and tools, which helped us create our own contents, was very useful. Learning how to make user-generated content was the most interesting part, and I will definitely put this knowledge into use in my future classes. I will not only use the websites, and tools already on the Internet, but will also make my own videos, which would fully serve the purpose of instructing a particular subject. For example, to teach grammar, I was thinking of taking different dialogues (preferable humorous ones), making videos and teaching that grammatical point through the funny video.

            In the Digital Literacies class, we got familiar with different tools such as jing, and prezi with which we could make videos and photo stories. What I liked about Professor Peele’s class was that not only did he introduce different software to us and taught us how to utilize them, but he also had us find more effective new tools that would be useful in teaching strategies. One tool I found was TypeItReadIt; some free software in which you could type, and then convert your text into audio files. It would help one with proofreading, improving speaking and listening skills in different languages, and would be very beneficial for people who are visually impaired. Another useful software by which I made my instructional video as the final project was camtasia. It helped me make my video, edit it, add audio tracks to it, adjust the sound, and send it on youtube.

            Apart from the software, we also read some articles as well as some chapters of Weinberger’s “Everything is Miscellaneous” and Nicholas Carr's "The Shallows”. They were all very insightful and interesting. What I liked best about each text was that it not only taught us technology and the digital world but also gave us new insights into the society. For example, in Danah Boy’s “White Flag in Network Publics?” although the focus was on comparing Facebook with Myspace, we saw very vividly that racism is still around. That some of us are still racists while we do not consider ourselves racists and that is only implied in our words: “It’s not really racist, but I guess you could say that. I’m not really into racism, but I think that MySpace now is more like ghetto or whatever.” –Kat (1)

            Other articles were all so absorbing in different ways, such as Danha Boyd’s “ Teen Sexting and Its Impact in the Tech Industry” which opens the eyes of the reader to outrageous act of sexting, especially child pornography, and its horrifying consequences. In other words the digital Literacies class thought me how the digital world is similar to the physical world in that there is communication but its threats, there is crime but some solutions, there are products but some limitations, but most interestingly, a place to count on individual’s creativity (web 2.0 and user-generated contents).

            I also feel more digitally literate in a sense that I more technically know about the digital world and basically its jargons, which have been helping me a great deal in reading the news, and websites on technology. After taking this course, I feel I am a better analyzer of blogging, knowing how to change the visual face of my blog posts to better attract the audience, and also add remixes to make it not only more meaningful but also more interesting.

            In the end, I can say that it would be great if this course by Professor Peele could be offered in fall or spring semester and as core course. The integration of this course into the other courses we need to take as Literature students will help not to have that feeling of Literature as vacation and science as business but make me feel technology, literature, reading, and writing are all blended into one another. This course can be a new dimension in our field, and a great deal of help to anybody who wants to teach. Although I was under a lot of pressure, (as I had taken two summer courses, unaware of how much time and energy I would need to devote to summer courses), Professor Peele’s being understanding and flexible also gave me more motivation to stay ambitious, and in the end feel it was all worthwhile.

             

           

Jann's final reflection

     I have been raised in the digital culture but never really paid attention to it. For me, the digital world was something that was always there but the inner workings of it was a mystery. This class brought to light and broken down the changes and advances digital technology have been through. This class is like the first drop in the bucket of knowledge of digital technology.
     Technology continues to change and evolve in an exponential speed. Most of the digital applications we covered in class I wasn't familiar with. I have blogged during my early days in undergrad but havent continued it. I have continued to read blogs that have things I am interested in and have used the information provided by them in my life. I have to admit i am not a fan of twitter because of the oversharing. I dont need to know that you are "taking a shower" or "of to the Bronx zoo". This problem is not only with twitter but is a general problem online. The oversharing culture that is fostered by digital technology has negative effects. Gossiping, venting frustrations and sharing of inappropriate pictures online has gotten people in trouble. For example, businesses look into their employees websites to keep an eye on them or dig up information on them that could get them in to trouble or worse, fired. I do think that jing and prezi are great tools and they are something I will use again. I like jing for its ability to capture anything online or show using a video how to do a task. I really like prezi because it makes a presentation very unique with its zooming capablity and posting videos right on the presentation. For teaching, i think it would be interesting to create daily lessons to show in class or lesson overview for students to view at home. One of the things that struck me when I was working on our final project is how time consuming and how much hard work went behind the making of the video. the problems you encounter with sound, video quality or editing. It puts the videos we see on youtube and other websites in perspective. The authors of these videos have put a great deal of time and energy to put out a product.
     I have always been a visual learner. If i see something then I am more likely to retain it. I liked the videos assigned in our syllabus. It brought different aspects of our texts into the visual realm. I think it is a powerful was to bring content to different types of learners, especially as the educational environment moves more online. Smart-boards, cheaper laptops and desktops, and cheap fast internet access allows the digital environment to be in the hands of more people than ever before. this opens the door for more catered learning and to bring in outside materials to help students.
     I do think digital text is revolutionary in the sense it brings in outside materials to aid knowledge. You can link, tag, add videos and other materials to text and enrich the readers experience. It really allows for the reader to get more out of the text than just the words and its content. Digital text allows the writer to play around with different type of fonts and visual images in order to solidify their point of view. It is also cheaper to purschase digital text such as ebooks and that way it is available to more people. This doesnt mean printed text is irrelevant. I think printed text is very good for reading academic papers. Texts in blogs or newspapers are often shorter than academic papers and i am an avid reader of these sort of digital text. For academic papers or longer pieces of work i still prefor hardcopies. All the readings for this class i printed it out because i still like the interaction between the page and reader. I like to underline and make notes on the side. Maybe an application exsists out there that allows for this but so far i havent found it. another problem is the computer screen. Staring at it for hours to read takes a toll on my eyes.
     The future is just filled with new digital advances and we have to figure out tactics to deal with the changes. Digital text and digital technology opens up many gateways to learning and leads to hurdles. One of the things this course has taught me is that there is so much thought, propaganda and business behind the internet. It is not just an open universe, distant from our physical world. it is a reflection of our physical world: filled with the same or similar dangers and ideologies. This course has allowed me to begin to see the content online more than just its face value.  For example remix culture, which ping pongs between original craft and plagiarism. It walks a fine line between the two and it is something I began to understand because of this class.  

Final Reflection

One of the points made early in this course was the distinction between being a consumer versus a producer of digital texts. Surprisingly (?), this is something I hadn't thought a lot about. I was thinking about the strange position many teachers find themselves in, where they are supposed to "bring" technology to their teaching (of the vague verb in a moment), yet the students are more tech-savvy than them. Tom pointed out the aforementioned distinction, that students may readily consume digital technology but rarely produce it. I think when a lot of people say that teachers should bring technology to the classroom, they're not quite sure what should be brought--maybe the teacher fires up the Smart Board now and again and ventures with his or her class into the computer room (or wheels in the cart of miniature laptops). Just throw it in there somehow.

What is clear to me now is that a teacher should do all three of the following:

1) produce digital texts (himself or herself), not just use (or even utilize) technology in some generic way (i.e. projecting typed notes from a lap-top, or having assignments posted on a class web-site--though both are effective practices).
2) have the students produce digital texts.
3) discuss technology.

Regarding the last one, part of this could be based on selections from (reading-level appropriate) commentators. (The Boyd piece about white flight, I think, would be an engaging example). But the discussion should start with what students think about their experience of producing the digital texts in that class.

Which brings me to what I thought about producing digital texts (in a roundabout way). When I started this class, I was not much of a producer of digital texts. My only real foray that I can think of was last year I started creating amusing power-point presentations to provide background and review for the Oedipus plays, which I was assigned to teach at the last minute, and which many students found dry and confusing. I then had students create slides on paper, because it seemed like too big of a hassle to have them create actual slides, which still contained pertinent content but was stripped of what made the format (relatively) compelling when I used it.

Not only wasn't I much of a producer, I wasn't even much of a consumer in the digital world. I have a low-level anxiety about how I spend my consuming leisure time--I don't ever sweat the time I spend with people (which brings up what counts as spending time "with" people--do you have to share the same physical space? ). I think this stems from a desire to improve my reading and writing (amplified by the fact that I am very slow at both, so if I don't allocate a lot of my available time for them, I feel like I'll never get anything read or written. So if I "goof" around on the internet or watch a tv show or sporting event I feel like I've squandered precious time. (Regarding the time as "precious" admittedly strikes me as being at least--probably more obnoxious than it is true). I realize it's not entirely logical. For example, I will listen to music for an hour, say. How is that more worthily spent time than watching a tv show, which to me feels frivolous (as an experience not a claim). How is watching a movie more substantial than navigating the internet? And somehow, time late at night seems more "wasteable" to me, even though that's probably the opposite of how it should be.

So I can't claim for simplicity's sake that I suddenly became aware during this course of how arbitrary and self-justifying my decisions are. However, over the past month, I have reexamined many assumptions about what's deeper or better or more substantial. And, in a similar vein, I think, I've dispensed corrected an all-or-nothing style of thinking about the digital world. For example, digitally robust texts still benefit from "old-fashioned" restraint. It's not the snazzier the better. And in a way, text can be more privileged in a setting in which it is granted prominence among other elements (even if temporarily), as opposed to having prominence by lack of anything else around.

My uninformed dismissal of Wikipedia is another example of re-examined assumptions. I don't think you can go there expecting more than an encyclopedia (albeit a compelling one), and I think that encyclopedic-styled "information" is probably given too much weigh by many. But that's a different problem.

Perhaps the fundamental reason I've steered on the periphery of the digital world is that it seemed too overwhelming to me. The "text" world is overwhelming enough. As I discovered, first in Weinberger, the web can be navigated with much more control than I thought through tagging. In practice, I'm just beginning to set up a stream into my Google reader, just beginning to see the degree to which tools like stumbleupon can increase the ration of finding versus looking for stuff that I'd want to see. The fact that I can in principle be a filter is one thing; the idea of me being an effective filter is truly exciting. When I said I felt conflicted about "goofing" around on the internet, a lot of that judgment is on me--not knowing what the hell I'm doing--not the internet.

By the way, my confusion about the efficacy of tagging in the case of my youtube video was resolved: a friend suggested that it might take youtube a day or so to enact the tags; the next day I punched in Xuan Bell and my video came up. The tagging world had briefly seemed suspect--if I couldn't track down a video of possibly the only person in the world with that name, and it was a video that I put there (with idiosyncratic nicknames tagged in for good measure), how the hell could I find anything?

The notion that knowledge explored through the web is increasingly socially-constructed is a powerful idea to me, still percolating... The laptop I am borrowing, however, might start melting if I don't wrap this up.

So, finally, I intend to use prezis and worldles for sure in my classroom--and have my students do them too--and I already used a jing, and am going to show a few things to my brother via jing. (It came in handy for my final project too. Speaking of which, I may use windows movie maker too, just not spend 175 hours preparing a video about the oracle at Delphi.) I gained a lot of confidence in using online tutorials to work my way through troubles and questions, most recently for cutting and manipulating (very basically) two tracks on audacity. I felt more self-sufficient by asking the computer for help than asking a living, breathing person (which I would still do in a heartbeat if one was around--but they often aren't).

I tried to make a point of breaking up my blog posts with images and links, and so it's maybe ironic that for this parting one I have nary an image and but one measly link, but here it is.

My Blog

Just wanted you to know that on our Course Blog there is a link to my blog, which has my projects/assignments on it as well as the final reflection. Check it out, I hope you like it.

Final Project

Here is the video for my final project. Thanks for your recommendations to keep improving it.

Final Reflection

I searched for a class like this throughout CUNY, and I'm so glad I found it. I wanted to gain an understanding of what people need to know to become digitally literate. I consider myself a pretty quick learner, but I wanted to know:

1) The tools available online
2) How digital literacy is different from traditional literacy
3) The skills someone needs to master to become digitally literate

This picture would be more accurate
of my feelings if the student was smiling.

I feel successful in this class because I gained some understanding of the concepts above. I say "some" because, like all learning, I feel that my mastery of digital literacy has just begun. And with the recent developments and rapid change in technology, I do not think it is possible for anyone to become an expert in everything that web applications can offer (with the exception of our fearless leader, Professor Peele, of course). On a serious note, however, I think that we are only at the beginning of Web 2.0 and that user generated content, from Ipod Apps to Firefox plugins, offer ever increasing possibilities. Since more and more people are becoming literate, more and more people are developing tools and technologies. I know this will lead to exponential growth in available online applications and tools. In an attempt to stay current, I subscribed to "Engadget" through my google reader. As always, I will rely on my younger students to notify me of up and coming tools. I also feel that this is the type of class I would have to take every few years. I can imagine that the syllabus changes every year, and probably even throughout the year.

Knowledge of Available Online Tools

I really liked the smaller projects we completed as part of this class. I have never used a wiki page before, so I enjoyed being part of the process. I can see how a wiki can be an incredible tool to create an online community for my classes. Photostory was so simple (and free!) so I can easily see myself assigning projects for my students. Jing was fun to use and an awesome tool. I will probably use it for personal and in my classroom. It is a great way to ensure that "I couldn't use the website" excuse is legitimate. If the website did not work, I'm going to ask my students to send in a Jing of them trying to use it. As for twitter, I have personal reservations, but I did like to hear how professions use it to communicate and take notes during conferences. Prezi is a tool I have been meaning to use for quite some time so this was a great opportunity to finalize my skills. I was completely unaware of Wordle and I loved it. It's a visual way to get students involved in looking at their language and word choice. StumbleUpon was too much fun and wasted a bit too much of my time. But I didn't know about Firefox AddOn so it was incredibly useful in that sense. Also, I never knew that it was so easy to create websites or blogs with these free online programs. Now that I know how easy it is, I'm not going to shy away from creating online communities through blogs or wikis. If I can figure it out, my students surely can.

The Difference Between Digital and Traditional Literacy

By this title, I mostly mean that I wanted to know the difference in the way that people read online texts and the way that they read traditional texts. While I feel that screen settings can greatly affect endurance and attention, I think people will continue to do more and more of their reading online. And since I've had students write complete papers on their Iphones and other nontraditional devices, I wanted to know how the device affects the brain. Peterson, Wysocki, Stroupe, Manovich, Carr, and Weinberger all helped to to learn about online reading. While I was less than excited to hear that we all skim online and that our memories and attention span are decreasing, I would much rather be informed than to be in denial. I want to finish Weinberger so I can understand a little more. But these theories and research are extremely helpful in trying to plan lessons and projects. We are using different parts of our brain than we used to when we read and I need to take this into account when I plan lessons using digital resources. A remix requires creative thinking, but not exactly the same type of creative thinking that literary analysis does. Both have a place in the classroom, but I'm glad I know a little more about where each one belongs.

The Skills Required to Become Digitally Literate

As I explained above, I feel that this is an ever evolving field. Clearly, most people have to be able to type and navigate a computer and the web, but these are evolving all the time. The skills required to use a computer in 1993 are vastly different from using an Ipad in 2011. Typing is different, the homepage is organized in a different way, and the web looks and feels different. Technology will continue to evolve and we will have to adapt if we want to stay current. However, I do think that we need to be creative, become willing to try new things, open to strange ideas, critical in our analysis of new tools, and reflective in the way that we use these technologies. The final project also helped me understand that just when you think you've figured everything out, then you realize how far you still have to go.

Overall, I am very glad I signed up for this course. I learned a lot about the theories behind digital literacy. They have helped me become more reflective in the way I am going to use these programs and tools in the future. I feel that this course left me in a position to engage these technologies to "keep the conversation going" outside the classroom. Also, I'm glad this course was so collaborative. Through everyone's posts and class discussions, I gained a new understanding of the tools available online. Thank you for making this a great class!

Final Reflection

1. Before Digital Literacy Class
Technology + Ayse = Chaos
2. During Digital Literacy Class
Technology + Ayse = Fight
3. After Digital Literacy Class
Technology + Ayse = Beginning Of a Love Story


In Fall 2010 I have started this masters program. Professors told me about Blackboard and Blogs. It was very tough to follow the writing assignments because I did not know even that a Blog is something “online”. Finally, I understood how blogging works and I could do my writing assignments. Of course, I lost some points but I learned. During the first semester I could not understand the purpose of blogging and thought that I will never use this for my curriculum. But, never say never. During the Spring Semester I understood the purpose of blogging and could think about to include this to my own curriculum.

Through the Digital Literacy Class I have recognized that I have to deal with these new tools and also saw the benefits for teaching Literacy. Students love to use technology and as a teacher we should use this love for our teaching methods. The effects of sparkly letters, which plays music, or to think about how is an essay different from a photo story might be an interesting discussion topic for teenagers. Also to talk about the experience to use a program where they can read online which writes directly into the screen is a new thinking and different writing practice for teenagers. With these new tools teaching Literacy takes a new dimension.

Nevertheless, we have to teach them technology awareness so they learn how to use technology. Maybe we can speak about “Moral of Technology Usage”. Danah Boyds articles helped me to understand the problematic of the usage of the new media (Facebook, texting, Myspace and more) by teenagers. I think as a teacher it is our duty to teach the benefits of technology and also the “risks” of technology. Posting a comment or a picture is not anymore for a certain time, it can follow you your whole life. On the same time I think that we learn right now as a society to deal with the problematic of the new technology. We need time to figure out how to deal with it and how it is changing our lives and relationship with our family, relatives and friends. The Digital Literacy Class made me think about this question: Do we control online technology or does it control us? Time will answer this question and it will be not a clear “yes” or “not”.

Through the Digital Literacy Class I have learned to deal with the new technology and not to give up. Of course, my grade depends on my performance but after the first week I have discovered that all these tools will help me to improve my teaching skills and this acknowledgment pushed me harder to discover the new tools and to learn how to apply them. For sure, I was a stupid consumer but after this class I have developed myself also as a producer. I know exactly how to fight to learn new tools. All the tutorials on YouTube will help me to understand and improve my knowledge and I think this is the beginning of a love story.