DIGITAL LITERACY AND THE CHANGING LANDSCAPE

These are my thoughts after my encounter with the changing landscape,technology, society and education:

Society is undergoing a paradigm shift:  From the Agricultural World to the Industrial World into World of Information, Knowledge & Communication and onward toward the World of Creativity and Innovation and with this comes digital Literacies which include the following:Finding the information, Processing different media,decoding the information ,analysing the information, critically evaluating the information, organizing it into personal digital libraries,creating information in a variety of media, teaching the information to find the user,filtering the information gleaned,Creativity and Innovation

Although schools have taken a slow pace in the uptake of this, I have understood that: 

Teaching and learning need to equip learners for life in its broadest sense. Learning should aim to help people to develop the intellectual, personal and social resources that will enable them to participate as active citizens and workers, and to flourish as individuals in a diverse and changing society. This means that  Teaching and learning should go beyond the acquisition of skills and  should connect with the big ideas, facts, processes, language and narratives of subjects so that learners understand what constitutes quality and standards in particular disciplines

Teaching should take account of what learners know already in order to plan their next steps - building on prior learning as well as taking account of the personal and cultural experiences of different groups. Learners need to be supported as they move forward, with activities that develop them not only intellectually but also socially and emotionally, so that the learning is secure even after the supports are removed.

 Teaching and learning should promote learners’ independence and autonomy. Learners need to be supported to acquire a repertoire of learning strategies and practices, developing a positive attitude towards learning, and gaining confidence in oneself as a learner. Learners should be encouraged to work with others, to share ideas and to build knowledge together.

 Informal learning is as significant as formal learning and should be valued and used in formal education.  As a teacher I should learn continuously to develop my knowledge and skill, and adapt and develop my roles, especially through classroom enquiry and other research and develop a scope for professional judgement to decide “what works,” freedom to innovate, and room to take risks that encourage creativity in supporting learners’ needs.

The internet provides a lot of tools to use in the classroom: Google Earth, Itunes  Webspiration Hippocampus, VoiceThread, Animoto, Photostory 3, Movie Maker, Zoho, Blogger, Audacity, Wikispaces.

What does all this mean to me as a teacher?   

I must be able to:

 Adapt software and hardware designed for a business model into tools utilisable by a variety of age groups and abilities, adapt to a dynamic teaching experience. When it all goes wrong in the middle of a class, when the technologies fail, the show must go on. I must understand and apply different learning styles. I must be able to adapt my teaching style to be inclusive of different modes of learning.

See the potential in the emerging tools and web technologies, grasp these and manipulate them to serve learners’ needs.

 Leverage collaborative tools like Ning, Blogger, Wikispaces, Bebo, MSN, MySpace, Second life to enhance and captivate my learners. I   too, must collaborate; share, contribute, adapt and invent.

Take risks and sometimes surrender myself to the students’ knowledge. I can use the strengths of the digital natives to understand and navigate new products; have the students teach each other knowing   that the highest retention of knowledge comes from peer to peer teaching.

Continue to absorb experiences and knowledge; endeavour to stay current in my subject area, well aware that   technology   are fluid and dynamic evolving and changing. Therefore, I must change and learn as the horizons and landscape changes. I must learn and adapt.

 Be fluent in tools and technologies that enable communication and collaboration. I must go beyond learning just how to do it, but also know how to facilitate it, stimulate and control it, moderate and manage it .I am a communicator.

I must model the behaviours that I   expect from my   students by teaching values like tolerance, acceptance, teaching a wider view than just their curricula areas, global awareness, reflection .I must also model reflective practice, whether it’s the quiet, personal inspection of my teaching and learning, or through reflective practice via blogs, twitter and other medium, looking both inwards and outwards.

The greatest test of patience was in creating Wordle. The many experiments, trials and re trials, giving up and starting again- till I read the instructions for the nth time and bingo! I got it and easily and effortlessly created one.

I chose the shades of black with the hues of grey and white – to indicate the gravity of the matter, to emphasize the fact of digital literacy. Black white and grey are significant colours especially when one wants to make a statement. Here is my Wordle: Oh! I have failed to attach it!

However, in order to view my wordle, copy this link and paste it onto your web browser. 
Hope you are tantalised by it.

file:///C:/Users/nokullo/Downloads/NELLIE%20OKULLO%203.pdf