Skip to main content

The Movement of 'New Literacies': Week 3 Reflective Practice INTE 5340 Digital Storytelling

Week 3 Collage

Introduction


As part of the educational discourse in digital storytelling each week, I will conduct a reflective practice self assessment. These ‘reflections’ will serve as both formative and summative assessment to the learning goals of the course INTE 5340.

See learning goals in the INTE 5340 syllabus. See DS106 syllabus.

Requirements and Production



The Daily Create (x2)

Where I Stand tdc1262

The Power to Shape The World Through DrGarcia's Lens tdc1266

DS106 Assignment Bank (Video)

Ken Robinson HG Wells Quote - Kinetic Typography

Response to Lankshear & Knobel “New Literacies” chapter one and selected scholarship

Ed 2.0, Affinities, And Social Responsibility: A Response to Lankshear and Knobel Chapter 3

Digital story critiques (x2)

Let’s get fired up! CNN Ron Clark Academy Global Citizen

A Curious Critique On A Story About A Story, About Another Story

Comment peer critiques (x2)

Critique Week 3-2: Critique: Edutopia- Fostering Creativity and Community with a Platform Video Game

Week 3 Critique: 2 I Got 99 Problems… Palsy is Just One

Comment peer chapter responses (x2)

Reading Response: Chapter 3 - "'New' literacies: technologies and values / War of Art, Pages 61 - 86


New ethos and social learning – Week 3 reading response


Reflective summary

The Movement of 'New Literacies': Week 3 Reflective Practice INTE 5340 Digital Storytelling

What was challenging?

The challenges of this course overall is the amount of production that must take place each week. This would not be so bad if it was not for other responsibilities such as a full time job that also requires an intense amount of production and communication across several platforms and devices. I am currently experiencing multiplicities of ‘new literacies’ almost to the point of overload. I let Twitter distract me on a daily basis because I want to be thinking about the course, and what I am learning, pretty much whenever I am not sleeping (and I am sure some tweets find their way into my sleep). This slows down my work day and makes it more enjoyable but it’s a distraction. I’m finding part of navigating ‘new literacies’ is to choose times of focus and limitation of communiques and times of extreme communication across multiple platforms and devices.

Secondly, what’s challenging about this week was the video assignment I chose from the video assignment bank. I knew it was going to be hard to learn how to animate effectively in Adobe After Effects, and it was going to take a long time to make the illustration I had in my head, but I knew I would learn a lot whether successful or not. Because I was finding success, I kind of became obsessed with animation and was working late until 2-3 am a couple of nights. This tends to happen to me when I start to grab a hold of something new. It’s good and bad. Because after staying up until 3am and getting 3 hours of sleep I got sick the next day and I was not as productive. This was a reminder to me about pacing myself better. I probably would be okay staying up until 1am and getting up at 7am so I should try to shut my brain off earlier.

The third challenging part of this week was chapter 3 in Lankshear & Knobel. There was a lot of information to digest in this chapter. I read the chapter 2-3 times and I highlighted important things and put sticky notes on pages with thoughts as they came up. This was just a small step to being able to synthesise what is learned in the chapter with scholarship. I downloaded Ken Robinson’s “Creative Schools” this week and I have been listening to the audio book while I do my professional work. I know I am an aural learner, right next to social and visual so it is possible for me to get just as much, if not more, out of the audio recording rather than more reading. I found much relief in doing this because the amount of reading I do on a day to day basis is already immense. After making it halfway through the audio book, I was able to make some connections between Lankshear & Knobel and “Creative Schools.” Now the real challenge was limiting myself on what I wanted to focus on for my response. Chapter 3 encompassed so many things, but I decided to focus on the contrast between modern/postmodern, web 1.0-2.0, and affinities. I was able to draw out some deep thinking by focusing on the comparison in education reform to these concepts as well as suggest social responsibility in regards to participation in affinities.

What was most enjoyable?

I really enjoyed creating the animation as part of the kinetic typography video assignment. It was challenging, but I now feel empowered to create animations for many other things. In my mind on any given assignment, I see movement, I hear sounds, I see words - now I feel as though I can take what is in my head and deliver that to the world. Rather than something static or abstract from what is in my head, like simply writing about it, or making a static visual, now things can move and emote to communicate what I am thinking about. However with that in mind, I have to limit my scope of work so that I do not take on too much work. In fact, I would like to do a video showing some behind the scenes stuff and reaccounting the week in an animated compilation, but I know I will spend another 4-6 hours on this and I don’t have the time to do that. Knowing when and how to effectively use media, all things considered, is also part of the learning that happens in this course.

What was learned about the focal theme and what issues / questions have emerged?

The light bulb turned on for me when I saw the table on page 53 of Lankshear & Knobel. When I was able to see and compare and contrast modern/postmodern by use of the table and compare that to education it all started to make more sense. As a society we have entered the postmodern era and so must education. I likened it to ‘ed 2.0’ in response to ‘web 2.0’ as was learnt in the chapter reading. All this fuss about about creativity in schools, and creative arts, and technology is about this pull from society for education to be more relevant in the postmodern and digital age.

The issues that have come up this week, however, in regards to’ affinities’ and ‘open,’ and as I think about education reform is: What is acceptable and appropriate use? We have seen, on numerous accounts, that young learners can align themselves with very harmful factions or individuals on the internet. In Colorado alone there has been accounts in the news of teens aligning themselves with ISIS through use of social media. And of course, the most recent event in Charleston, SC, where the shooter aligned himself with white supremacy. Is it okay for young learners to have a Twitter account, or email, or Facebook? How do we really monitor and guide young learners in ethical, moral, and responsible ways to interact, create, and etc.? When do we start talking to young learners about these things?

Points earned 10/10?

This week was rough. I got sick and I struggled physically and mentally. The pace and breadth for this course is extremely intense. I don’t feel like I delivered as well as I typically could on the critiques and as timely as I would have liked. I also came in a little later than I like (Friday) for the reading response to chapter three. Although I don’t feel the quality of most of my work suffered this week, the timeliness sort of did. However everything was turned in this week and I did participate in more than the required discussion on blogs and twitter. I give myself 9/10.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

VR ‘Redefining’ How We Design

SAMR: REDEFINITION. Image courtesy of Christina Moore 2017. In recent years virtual reality (VR) technologies have gained popularity for enhancement of a myriad of industries and experiences. It’s hard to dispute VR has the potential to transform. It’s exciting to consider exploring these technologies for the purpose of education, but before putting VR into practice in the classroom, it’s important to apply the study of theory to VR potential. The SAMR model (substitution, augmentation, modification, and redefinition) is a great way to apply rather basic theory to VR tech. Although it’s possible VR practitioners and learners can traverse SAMR, based on how VR is used, “redefinition” may be the most impactful way to demonstrate use of these technologies for learning. Redefinition, in regards to SAMR, refers to the ability for technology to “create tasks and ways of learning that were previously inconceivable.” (Technology Is Learning 2014) From the perspective of a CAD and Int

How Discourse and Creativity Express Meaning

Moving from literacy and ‘new literacies’ to D iscourse. In chapter one of New Literacies: Everyday Practices and Social Learning Ed by Colin Lankshear and Michele Knobel . I learned about literacy as a historical concept and a social practice. I also learned about new literacies as ‘paradigmatic’ and ‘ontological’ (Lankshear & Knobel, 2011, p. 27). In chapter two I began to learn more about literacy as a social practice through Discourses and encoded texts. “Hence, literacies are ‘socially recognized ways in which people generate, communicate, and negotiate meanings, as members of Discourses, through the medium of encoded texts.”  (Lankshear & Knobel, 2011, p. 50). As a social practice one can think of literacy as observable ‘things’ humans do with their bodies and minds to create meaning. Lankshear and Knobel cite the work of Scribner and Cole to describe these practices as “consisting of three components: technology, knowledge, and skills. (ibid,: 236)”

The Everyday Remix Practices of Teachers: A Critique of Christopher Emdin: Hip-Hop and the Remix of Science Education

Christopher Emdin: Hip-Hop and the Remix of Science Education UC Denver digital storytelling students wishing to comment on this critique:   Although I would love it if everyone had the time to watch the full youtube video, you can get ‘the just’ of this remix practice within 5-10 minutes of watching if you would like to participate in comments. Please don’t shy away because of the length of the video. Critique Format As part of the continued practice in digital storytelling, in INTE 5340 MA ILT at CU Denver, I will consume digital stories and offer critiques. Until now the course has focused on Jason Ohler’s assessment traits as criterions to assess stories. For the remainder of the critiques in the course, I will focus on “everyday remix practices” as described in the Lankshear and Knobel text New Literacies: Everyday Practices and Social Learning Third Ed by Colin Lankshear and Michele Knobel , on pages 127-140. Introduction In efforts to transition and answer so