Technology and Literacy Readings: Changing Times

This week’s readings focused on the change in classrooms based on the increase in technology. In the article Expanding the New Literacy’s Conversation they make the point that “The most profound influence on life in the 20^th century may turn out to be the internet”. I agree that the internet itself, as a huge resource of information has changed the ability of people to access articles, opinions etc. What has changed even more in the past 15 or twenty years is the accessibility of students to this resource. Many homes have computers and the internet, classrooms usually have one or more computers and now, cell phones contain this technology for you to use on the go. What I fear we don’t consider is those homes that do not have the interne, or the schools that lack funding. I do not believe we are to the point yet where we can assume students have access to the internet and therefore make online work a requirement out of school. This concern is shared in the reading, stating, “Thus students in the poorest schools become doubly disadvantaged: They have less access to the Internet at home, and schools do not always prepare them for the new literacies of online reading comprehension at school”

This article, as well as C’s of Change Intervene point out that when incorporating such a huge part of youth culture into the classrooms new policies will accompany the new technologies.  It is not far-fetched to assume that new policies are in the future for teachers, with the restructuring of the education standards, standards looking at technology will make their way into classrooms. The article points out that “New policies for teachers that include an internet aspect and integration and communication”.  Teachers may be required to communicate online with students through blogs or digital submissions; they may have to meet requirements for amount of work being done online in the classroom and balance written work with digital work on projects, class work and homework.

I found it interesting that this week’s reading pointed out that “No state writing assessment in the United States measures students’ ability to compose effective e-mail messages”. For technology to be playing such a large part in society, educators need to grow to incorporate modern issues such as email, social networking and data searches. We  are still asking students to perform tasks that will not be as useful to their future as if we asked them to use the internet. The article supports this concern, stating “First and foremost, the Internet must become a dominant instructional text within today's classroom. Students cannot build 21st Century Literacies in classrooms that revolve around textbooks”.