When viewing the videos about connected learning, I couldn't help (the English teacher inside me), considering how "Connected Learning" fully relates to the concept of adolescent literacy acquisition. Although it may seem that literacy education is wholeheartedly missing the needs of our students today, it is partially due to the fact that the term and educational procedures themselves still have yet to be fully defined and understood. Not only has this struggle to define such a convoluted term caused many researchers to search for information to help understand and measure literacy in unrealistic, insufficient ways, but it has also forced the process to be hastily accelerated; therefore, denying students the proper educational approaches that will help them to become effective communicators, collaborators, and members of a connected society.
Our
students have voices; they have ideas; they are creators, generators,
developers, thinkers, hackers, lovers, fighters; and most of all they
are real people with real problems. Education as a whole needs to
embrace these unique characteristics of our students. Educators will
never be able to even begin to understand their students until they
allow them to have a voice. Until we begin to listen to
our students, to care about what they think, feel, and do, then we will
never open the door to understanding how we can help to enrich and
empower them. We need to begin to hear their ideas and respect their
lives. Literacy today cannot be defined simply by our previous
notions of it, but rather it must embody the distinct characteristics of
today’s youth; otherwise, we fail to utilize the amazing opportunities
that modern advances offer for our students.
An
understanding of not just technological advances, but also the
functional, critical, rhetorical, and networked complexities that
surround us, must become a foundation for education. We must begin to
teach our students how to be thinkers, evaluators, producers, and users
of technology, information, and knowledge, not simply just “readers and
writers.” We can not possibly develop such foundations in our curriculum
until we begin to understand and embrace the real lives of our
students.
Literacy
no longer exists only in school, but rather it has become ingrained in
semiotic and social influences all around us. As we begin to deconstruct
these notions of literacy and broaden the lenses through which we
define it, we will begin to identify and understand its use in every
aspect of our students’ lives; therefore, helping us to discern how we
can teach them best.
In
my own personal experience, I have found that students become far more
engaged and are far more likely to complete tasks, when they are
producing, evaluating, or critiquing something that relates to their
lives in some form. Whether it’s reading articles and posing questions
about age limits for things like piercings and tattoos, discussing and
using social media, or producing persuasive films about the prevention
of teen suicide, students want to feel like they have a presence and
voice in their work. Not only do they want to have a voice and be
listened to, but they also want to feel like they have produced
something that could possibly have meaning or influence outside of the
academic walls of their classroom. Students want to affect people and
effect change; they want their work and their learning to have meaning.They want to be connected to their learning and to the possibility of influencing one another.
Literacy
no longer implies that our students are simply just storers of
information, but rather they have become producers, composers, and
creators. These previous notions of literacy must be replaced by the
epistemology of literacy in today’s generation. We must teach our
students how to utilize their multiliteracies in order to enhance their
capabilities to become producers and creators.
We need to begin to think of our students as those who are developing
our future. They can do much more now than simply just memorize and
recall information. They can produce unique ideas, thoughts, products,
and solutions. What will our students create? What impression will they
make on society? How will they use their access to infinite amounts of
information? How can we teach them to develop ideas, think creatively,
evaluate information and make fair judgements? Certainly not by teaching
them how to take a test.
