Turkle and Wesch, Wesch and Turkle

   

Tonight, I am struggling to answer the questions assigned for our blog: "What is the relationship between Turkle and Wesch? Do you see them as allies, or opponents in this discussion of new media and technology?"

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the readings. I think it is safe to say that I enjoyed reading Turkle a little more than Wesch tonight but I think that both articles offer valid points, and arguments and information. But "are they allies?" or "are they opponents?", I am really not sure. So I took some time to read a few other blogs to see if I could stir up some ideas.

After careful consideration, I felt that Amy hit the nail on the head. She was able to help me see what I just couldn't tease out myself, at 9:00 at night, at the conclusion of day 4 of class, with 2 young girls that are missing me during the day and a little extra needy in the evening, and making dinner, and, and, and...

Anyway, Amy so eloquently stated "I feel that the relationship between Turkle and Wesch is that they are both studying the world of people, how we learn and interact. I don’t see them as allies or opponents. Turkle is studying the idea that people are too attached to their devices and should step back to learn better conversation skills. Whereas Wesch is adjusting his classroom to better fit our changing world and the way students learn best."

and all I can say is "I AGREE".

Even living in today's society, I am continuously shocked and amazed (and a little guilty myself) of the amount of time we spend hooked up to a device. I mean, do you really need to pull your bike over on the side of the road to take that phone call? Do you need to be checking your Facebook at the dinner table? Why do we feel the need to be "plugged in" all the time? It wasn't that long ago that people had conversations, real face to face talking conversations. Where you clearly understood the meaning and context of the conversation because you could hear the intonation in her voice and see the expression on her face. You were not left analyzing the meaning by reading the text over and over and over, wondering just what she meant when she said...

I worry that we as a society are losing our interpersonal skills. As Turkle says, we have "confused conversation with connection" and I think its a slippery slope, and a dangerous one at that.

Go, Go, GoNoodle

So what is the purpose of GoNoodle? 

Why use it in your classroom?  

 Move with a purpose!  GoNoodle makes morning meeting, daily subject transitions, afternoon math, indoor recess, and even living room dance parties much more exciting and fun.  GoNoodle make everyday moments better!

GoNoodle is so much fun for kids and teachers alike.  And what's even better, is that it works with kids across all grade levels.  Getting up and moving is a motivator and a welcome break to the monotony of our rigorous and unexciting current classroom curriculum.  GoNoodle is quick (videos last any where from 1-10+ minutes) and fun and energizing!  What else could we really ask for in the classroom!  

Oh, and one more thing, it's FREE!!!


The GoNoodle site is visually appealing, full of silly characters and fun colors. It is very user-friendly and easy to navigate but be careful, it is also easy to get lost (lost if the fun videos I mean).

Signing up is easy and stress free, all you need is an email and a password (and your birth year).  You can sign up as "I'm a kid or parent" or "I'm a educator". 


Once you are logged in, the site is very easy to navigate (and that is coming from a bonafide Digital Immigrant).   Here is what it looks like:

As you click across the menu bar at the top, you will find

Champs : collectable friendly monsters are the primary motivation system.  Every time you play an activity with your students,  you help to grow your champ.  They collect activities out of 10 and then you advance to the next Champ. 

Explore: Videos are organized by "newest in GoNoodle".  Each video tells you the title, amount of time it takes and the category it falls into.

Categories:  There are broad categories and then subcategories under each.  Categories range from Curricular to Sensory and Motor Skills

Channels: The channels are simply a different way to organize the videos.  Here they are organized by interest.  When you hoover over the "channel", it offers you a brief description of the videos you will find there and also the number of videos that are on that channel.

As you explore and use GoNoodle with your students you are able to mark your favorites to return to with ease and convenience.  You can also search a particular video you want to show.  You can filter your search by duration of video and/or energy level.

With GoNoodle, I feel like the possibilities are endless to infuse some fun back into our day!

Seventeen, Self -Image, and Stereotypes

I am not going to lie, I had a hard time choosing a chapter to read.  I spent a lot of time looking at the titles, choosing one that I thought sounded interested, reading the first few lines and then changing my mind.  Here is the chapter I finally settled on: Seventeen, Self-Image and Stereotypes
by Bakari Chavanu.  I guess I was feeling like I needed some more information about how our culture and the media shape our views and how important it is to teach people (not just students) to look at it thought a critical lens.

In this chapter, a high school teacher works with his 11th grade students to do just that.  The class participates in a 7 week unit around media literacy in advertising.  His goal is to "help students consider more critically the role and influence of medial, particularly the pervasive and intrusive nature of advertising, and how it conveys certain values, messages and ideas that often perpetuate sexist, racist and pro-capitalist points of view." (p. 24)

He began the unit with a self assessment of media interests and habits.  He used a resource titled "What's Wrong with Advertising?" and then he had his students perform satirical skits.  This is a great way to have the students begin to look critically at advertising.  By having the students act out the stereotypes they identified, it brings it to life, allowing the students to really tap into their creative side. In addition to the skits, the class also watched and critiqued TV commercials, questioning the everyday adds as they watched.  Sometimes the commercials were presented without sound to help the students begin to understand the underlying messages and then to see the powerful role the music, editing and voice-over have when media is "influencing our values and decisions as consumers".

Some students were resistant, claiming that the media had no influence on them.  They were challenged to name their favorite car and to no great surprise, they all names cars that were advertised in the commercials they were exposed to on a daily basis. This illustrated to the students that very often we are not even aware of the biases that we are internalizing because they infiltrate our daily lives so seamlessly.

The work with commercials prepared the students to watch watch Killing Us Softly 4: Advertising's Images of Women, a "humorous analysis of how images and ads shape our values."

I think it is important to note that media teaches us what is considered "normal" and "good" and it is sad to say that we are part of a "culture in which one out of five women has a serious eating disorder, where adolescent girls increasingly have problems with low self-esteem, and where blacks, especially women, have historically had serious problems and prejudices concerning lightness and darkness of their skin".

This chapter gave some concrete examples of activities that teachers could incorporate into their current classroom curriculum to help students begin to develop the critical questioning skills that they need when they are consuming or producing media.

can we unlearn the myths?

Growing up,  I had a pretty good relationship with Disney.  My family would go to Disney World at least every other year. You know, it is said to be the "Happiest Place on Earth".  As young children we would stay for a week or more and experience it from top to bottom but as my brothers and I got older, our visits to Disney World got shorter and shorter.

I owned all of the Disney movies, on VHS of course, and can still recite most of the words, especially to all of my favorites. But I would by no means say that I am obsessed with Disney, and believe me, I know people that are OBSESSED with Disney.  

I have 2 young girls.  My oldest, despite my best efforts, has not really taken to Disney.  She has watched some of the movies and has decided that The Little Mermaid is her favorite with Beauty and the Beast a close second.  As a toddler she watched The Mickey Mouse Clubhouse (which, in my opinion is a terrible show from a educator's point of view.  I am very disappointed that the writers do not take advantage of their captive audience of young children to properly incorporate skills and concepts, like the correct order of the days of the week, or logical ways to solve the problems they encounter in each episode, but that is for another blog on another      day).  We have only visited Disney World for 1 day as a family.

So anyway, even after frequently watching Disney movies as a child, I never dreamed of being a princess.  I didn't hope that Prince Charming was going to come and rescue me.  I didn't want to live happily ever after in the fairy tale that was portrayed in the movies that I enjoyed so much.  I had different ideas of what happily ever after looked like.  Maybe I am not the norm. Maybe most young girls spend days pining for the fancy dress and the horse drawn carriage and the castle and the prince. It just wasn't my thing.

As I was reading Christensen, I could relate to what she was saying.
Of course the media influences us. Isn't that its job?  If you take a close look at cartoons, the "secret education" is everywhere.  However,  I couldn't help wondering, "What came first, the chicken or the egg?" I get that stereotypes are rampant in cartoons, especially in the cartoons that we watched as kids. Stereotypes and bias are everywhere in our culture.  They are evident on TV in commercials, cartoons, sitcoms. They are all over magazines and billboards. They are embedded into the songs we listen to on the radio.  Everywhere you look, you are hit with the "secret education" of our culture.  So it begs the question, "which came first, the chicken or the egg?"  Is our social culture plastered with subliminal messages because we are trying to reinforce the SCWAAMPiness of our country and influence the masses ... or isour nation so SCWAAMPy because we grow up seeing these stereotypes everywhere we look?

And is there a way to combat these stereotypes and bias from manipulating the way that we see others and the world? If according to Christensen, at the age of 3, children already have a set of stereotypes in place; then, how as teachers, mothers, fathers, uncles, aunts, grandmothers, etc do we help children see beyond what the media wants them to see? How do we help them "unlearn the myths"?

I remember seeing Frozen for the first time, a little over 3 years ago.  I took Natalie to the movie theater to see it when it was first released. I was an adult of course, and it gave me a new appreciation for Disney characters.  The female leads seemed to break the rules of a traditional Disney princess. Anna is real. She is human. She is flawed. She makes mistakes.  She is silly and unsure of herself. Anna is strong and brave.  She has a love and loyalty to her sister that is not usually found in Disney movies.

I have probably seen Frozen upwards to 10 times (remember, I have a 5 year old at home) and it never fails, I am always surprised by the ending.  I consistently find myself assuming that the "act of true love" is going to to be a kiss between Christof and Anna.  I find myself smiling when I am reminded that the "act of true love" is between Anna and Elsa.  The bond that the sisters share is strong enough to break the spell.  Love comes in many forms and I love this little "twist".

digital natives?

What do you make of the (divergent) positions of Boyd and Prensky (per our discussion in class and/or per the article above?)  Where do you stand on the “digital native” terminology?

Today was the first time I had ever heard the terms "Digital Native" and "Digital Immigrant". The terms made sense to me. They seemed like a clever way to describe the children that are growing up in today's technological society in contrast to those of us that were not surrounded by so much technology during our childhood.

Our discussion today in class focused mostly on Marc Prensky. Prensky states that, "today‟s students think and process information fundamentally differently from their predecessors." He says that, "it is very likely that our students’ brains have physically changed –and are different from ours – as a result of how they grew up." This also made sense to me. I can see how my daughters seem to "think" differently. They have almost an intuition about how to use technology, that I simply don't have. I am reluctant, some might say hesitant in my use of technology. I still have my "accent", similar to if I were learning to speak a new language. I am willing to try, but definitely feeling like an immigrant in the process. During class today, I was beginning to think this Prensky guy was onto something.

But then I read what Dannah Boyd had to say about these popular coined terms and she raises some valid points as well. Boyd questions the ability of "digital natives" to be able to, "inherently have the knowledge or perspective to critically examine what they consume." They appear fluent in their computer skills while navigating Facebook and Instagram or even Googling information but "becoming literate in a networked age requires hard work." Boyd believes that the term "digital native" implies expertise in all things technological when in reality this is not the case. It gives society a sense of false security that these individuals are using and interpreting the information accurately; however we must learn to "become medial literate". Youth must, "have the skills to ask questions about the construction and dissemination of particular media artifacts." Just because it is on the internet does not make it true. And the fact of the matter is, "most people have little training in being critical of the content that they consume." I know that I am guilty of this myself. I often find myself believing everything I read, and it is really only recently that I have started to be more cautious of the information that I am taking in.

So what do I think about the term "digital native"? To tell you the truth, I have mixed feelings. I know several people that would not fit into the category of being born after 1980, that are extremely tech savvy on all levels. I also know people (myself included) that were born after 1980 that are nowhere near native in our digital skills. However, I think that the term is an accurate way to describe the youth of todays society at the service level. Most appear to have native like fluency in their ability to navigate through social media, search engines, email and word processing. They can pay bills and find directions and order pizza faster that you can say "bippity boppity boo". But to imply that they understand how to use the technology that is so readily available to them in a purposeful way is not always an accurate statement. I do not feel confident in giving them that much credit, especially if we are not taking the time to teach them how to truly become literate in those skills, because like Boyd says "becoming literate in a networked age requires hard work."

Digital Native? I don't think so

Am I a Digital Native? Absolutely not.  There is no question about it, I am unequivocally a digital immigrant. Sure we had a computer growing up. It had a black screen and a cursor that blinked back and forth.  It had a slot in the front to insert your floppy disc. It was called an Apple IIGS and compared to the computers of today, it was archaic but for a child growing up in the 80's, it was innovative and exciting.  I am not even sure what I used it for, but it was exciting technology at the time. 

Having grown up right along with the advancement of technology, I am embarrassed to admit how utterly technologically un-savvy I truly am.  
My resume of computer skills include 

• Microsoft word 
• Checking my email
• Facebook
• Google
• Amazon

In our house, I am definitely the most technologically challenged, with the exception of my 20 month old daughter. My husband often comes to my rescue when I get into a pinch. For example when I can't get the picture that I just emailed to myself to download and once it does, I don't know how to save it or even where to find it.  

I am amazed at the the technological world that my girls are growing up in. Natalie, my 5 year old has no apprehension when it comes to navigating my IPad.  She knows how to swipe, close popup windows, click on YouTube and search for the videos that that she likes to watch.  She uses the IPad for a variety of reasons: videos, pictures, games, music and books.  She also likes to pretend that she is making her own YouTube videos under the name "Pickle Partners".  She is even teaching her younger sister. To her, this is just the way it is.  Technology is an everyday part of her life.   

When I think about Digital Native vs Digital Immigrant, I am somewhat reminded of the work Stephen Krashen has done related to second language acquisition. Did I miss the Critical Period of development?  Is my affective filter too high? Krashen says that the affective filter can be prompted by many different variables, such as stress, self-confidence, motivation and anxiety. I feel like all of these variables come into play when I am using technology.  Is there still hope for the Digital Immigrants out there like me? I sure hope so or I am going to be relying on my 5 year old a whole lot more in the future. 

All about me

My name is Melanie and I am a kindergarten teacher in a Dual Language classroom in South Kingstown, RI.  I am creating this blog for a Digital Media Literacy course that I am taking at Rhode Island College this summer.  I am excited to learn together about digital media and the implications that it has on myself and my students. 

Let me tell you a little bit about myself.  I have been teaching in Early Childhood for 15 years with 11 of those years spent in kindergarten. Our district recently began a Dual Language program and I eagerly joined the team.  Along with a shift in my everyday classroom routines and responsibilities, I was also required to pursue a graduate degree in ELL/DLI, a challenge I gladly accepted.  So here I am, at the end of a 2+ year journey of Dual Language and English as a Second Language coursework and I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel.

In addition to growing and learning as a professional, my family has also grown over the past 2 years. I am the mom of 2 beautiful little girls, Natalie (5 years old) and Amelia (20 months old). We also just recently added a second dog to complete our family. And just to keep things interesting, I waitress at a local family restaurant a few nights a week.  

My life is busy and crazy but I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world. 

I can't wait to see what new adventures are in my future in the upcoming years!