Nora+for+November+20

Nora Burton 11/20/08

Quotes: -“This interconnectedness means that many discussions about and critiques of news reporting within the blogosphere are collaborative affairs, with each poster building on or adding to an analysis from their particular point of view and range of expertise” (Lankshear & Knobel, 167) -“…students were more motivated to engage in work that was socially valuable and the socially valuable work provided the entire context that we needed to develop the individual literacy skills that the students needed in order to succeed academically and to contribute as engaged and thoughtful citizens” (Morrell, 111) -“How one identifies with a particular practice has strong implications for how one participates and what effort, if any, one uses” (Lee, 124)

Discussion: The authors of all three of the readings for this week argued that we as teachers must be aware of our students learning styles, out-of-school literacy practices, life circumstances, etc. Knowing about our students will strengthen our effectiveness, they claimed. When we are aware of how a student learns best, what a student values, or what skills and knowledge he or she brings to the classroom, we can create lessons that are more relevant and interesting to the student. These more relevant and interesting lessons should, in turn, be more motivating. When students can relate to a topic or an issue, as the students in Morrell’s class did with Native Son, then they are likely to have an in-depth knowledge of that topic/issue. Lankshear and Knobel, like Gee, believe that teachers should make use of certain technologies in the classroom, as these are literacy practices that students engage in outside of school. I wonder though, if we necessarily need to use the technological practice itself, or if we can instead integrate just aspects of the practice. For example, as in the quote by Lankshear and Knobel above, do teachers necessarily need to use a blog itself as a teaching tool, or can they incorporate the collaboration that is characteristic of blogs into a “traditional” teaching method?

Questions: 1. Morrell brought students’ home literacy practices into the classroom, and manipulated them in ways that may have taken away some of their authenticity. Would Lankshear & Knobel label these practices as “fitting old wine into new bottles”? If not, what is so different about Morrell’s incorporation of pop culture into lessons from using new technologies in lessons? If yes, then why did Morrell’s lessons work so well? 2. We are supposed to allow students to learn how they learn best, but Lankshear and Knobel argue we should be moving towards incorporating technology into the classroom - what if this isn’t how all students learn best? Isn’t it possible that some students who have not known a world without these technologies still learn best through “traditional” methods?