Summer Of Developing & Discussing Digital Literacy 2017

Clothing For All  Problem: Kids clothing defends gender stereotyping. Here is a link to clothing stores that are starting to create this possibility in real clothing lines.

As a student in the TESL masters program at RIC, I am constantly reading research that shows the benefit of conversation to students learning an additional language. Conversations allow students to practice and play with the language and learn from the mistakes. In addition, conversations between proficient speakers of a language provide a model of a language for language learners. However, I believe that Turkle and Wesch would argue that all students would benefit from a classroom that explicitly teaches conversation skills and incorporates conversations into instruction. At almost every family gathering, I hear my grandmother, Noni, state, “Doesn’t anyone know how to talk to each other anymore? You only talk with these plastic things! (referring to our i-phones). Although it’s true that we can be found sending a quick text to a friend during gatherings, we do mainly have our phones out at gatherings to show pictures or tell stories to relatives. When we are conversing we...

For today's blog, I decided to explore  Kahoot ! To be honest, I picked Kahoot because it was brand new to me and the name itself intrigued me. Kahoot is an application that allows teachers to create and administer polls, surveys, and ask questions in the style of a game show! On the plus side it is also free! Prior to today's exploration, I had previously looked at and tried out different polling type applications and game show apps. However, I often found them cumbersome or difficult to use. As a result, I often relied on PowerPoint to create engaging game show style review games. However, I still found making Power Points time consuming and I just don't seem to have enough time to include them as much as I would like. I first went to kahoot.com and was impressed by the clean lines and simple interface. I simply clicked the sign up button. I was easily able to create an account by creating a username and password, providing an email, and selecting the school and gra...

Similar to most girls, I grew up playing with Barbie dolls. In fact, I didn’t just play with Barbie dolls, I loved and obsessed over Barbie dolls. For birthdays and holidays, I often would ask for the newest Barbie play set. I spent hour after hour envisioning my future and playing that future out in my Barbie world.   I cherished my Barbie dolls because to me they represented not only a fun way to spend my time, but hope and unlimited possibilities of my future. To this day, I still have all of my old Barbie dolls saved and stored in my basement because I simply cannot part with them. As a result of my fond childhood memories for Barbie, I decided to read "Deconstructing Barbie: Math and popular Culture." This chapter focused on how Barbie's physical proportions are not based in the realistic images of women. I believe I was more receptive to the author, Swapna Mukhopadhya, because I had been shown a similar image to this one as part of a college course on being a c...

Similar to most adults my age, I grew up watching and collecting Disney movies on VHS. I spent most rainy Saturdays cuddling up on the couch watching Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, or Snow White.   Although I frequently watched these movies with my entire family, I was not raised to celebrate or obsess over Disney or the Disney princesses. As a child, I was never referred to as a princess. I did not own princess dress up clothes. Even as a young child, I was taught that princesses stories were not based in reality.   My parents did take me to visit Disney in first grade because they did believe it was a part of childhood. However by third grade, I was taught that princesses were for younger children and that I should focus more on realistic stories, sports, and school. My parents were very clear in teaching me the message that life is not always a happy ending and that girls could be strong and independent from men. Although my parents purposefully taught me thes...

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Over the course of today, I spent a significant amount of time diving into the term "digital native." The terminology digital native is derived from the works of John Perry Barlow and Rushkoff. However, the term was made popular and coined by Marc Prensky is his work, “Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants.” Marc Prensky argues that digital natives are individuals born after 1980 who were raised in a society in which digital technology was an essential and assimilated aspect into daily life. Those who were not raised in a society centered on digital technology are considered digital immigrants. Although digital immigrants can become tech savvy, Marc Prensky would argue that they interact and think about digital technology in a different way than digital natives. After discussing Marc Prensky in class, I would agree with his thought that society has evolved over the course of history to be more centered on digital technology. It is simply impossible to deny that our socie...