A New Literacy Agenda

The article “A New Literacy Agenda and Its Challenges” by Cynthia L. Selfe takes a slanted view on teachers and their lack of enthusiasm with integrating literacy and technology by stating,

 “My purpose is to convince teachers of English studies, composition, and language arts that we must turn our attention to technology and its general relationship to literacy education.  On the specific project to expand technological literacy, we must bring to bear the collective strength our profession and the broad range of intellectual skills we can muster as a diverse set of individuals.  The price we pay for ignoring this situation is the clear and shameful recognition that we have failed students, failed as humanists, and failed to establish an ethnical foundation for future educational efforts in this country.”  She goes on to say later in this essay, “This separation, after all. Has allowed us to use technology in our classrooms while generally absolving ourselves from the responsibility for planning for technology, thinking critically about technology, systematically assessing the value of technology, and making the difficult decisions associated with who pays for and has access to technology.” (p. 5 &11)

I understand the responsibility of educating children begins with the teacher but you cannot effectively teach technology if you don’t have the resources.  In the district I worked at for several years’ technology was taught by the computer teacher.  It was rare to find multiple computers in one classroom. Even now in my field experience classroom there is one computer.  How can you incorporate technology in your lessons when the districts cannot provide the resources both physically and professional?  The passage above places most of the blame on teachers and their lack of motivation instead of discussing why technology is not being implemented.  I spoke to the writing teacher in the district I am observing at now.  She would love to take her lessons into the world of cyber-writing, however, this option is not available for her or her students – this district like so many others can not absorb the cost of computers in the classroom nor do they have the funds to continually train teachers with the ever changing advancements of technology.  While I am sure there are some literacy educators who are reluctance to engage in this unknown technological world, there are many others eager to turn-in their paper and pencil lessons for writing in the 21^st century using technology but are unable due to the lack of resources.

As a teacher of the future I would love to have a technology component in all my content areas lessons – this is the new way of teaching.  To keep children engaged and excited about what they are learning we now need to enter their digital world and find ways of integrating this in our curriculum.  However before this can begin, we need to find ways of making technology more affordable for districts.

Cheers,

Lucinda

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Teaching Teachers Technology-Literacy

According to the reading Technology: Literacy in the 21st Century: The Importance of Paying Attention (whew!) by Cynthia Selfe, technology is becoming increasing more important for teachers to adapt into their classrooms. I strongly agree with this statement because in today’s world we are seeing the increasing use of computers, smart boards, and laptops in the classroom. Sometimes I think kids know more about the technology than I do. Selfe talks about the link between socioeconomic status and technology literacy. She states:

“It is a fact, for instance, that schools primarily serving students of color and poor students continue to have access to fewer computers and less sophisticated computers than do schools primarily serving more affluent students or white students. And it is a fact that schools primarily serving students of color and poor students continue to have less access to the Internet, multimedia equipment, to CD-ROM equipment, to local area networks, and to videodisk technology…” (6)

Cynthia Selfe goes on to say:

“These data, which are profoundly disturbing, become all the more problematic if we trace the extended effects of technology-literacy link into the country’s workplaces and homes.” (6)

As a student going through the Education Program at Rowan, this awareness of the link between computer literacy and socioeconomic status frightens me. I know from working at a preschool that starting at age 3 children are given the opportunity to begin using a computer to play educational games. By the time they reach elementary school they are computer literate. But, the preschool I worked at was also an expensive day care facility and I know the clientele were of the middle-upper class status.

I say all this to say, as a future teacher, what can I do to better prepare myself for those students who come into my classroom and are computer illiterate? Should I be worried about giving out homework that requires Internet searching or typing up homework? The only thing I can think of is offering those students who do not have access to a computer to stay after school and use the school’s computers or maybe go to a local library to use their computer, which I am sure is inconvenient.

If technology is so important and almost inevitably going to be a huge part of our classrooms, how do I work around the socioeconomic status problem? It almost seems like an unsolvable problem.

~Meg

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