Monthly Archives: August 2015

Conclusions: New Media, New Literacies … new insights?

Leave a reply

Wrapping up months of study and discussion in a page or two? That’s a challenge.

Digression: I tell people fairly often that my mother was a philosopher. I’m quite proud of her, actually. She was offered a full fellowship in philosophy at the University of Chicago as a woman from a non-wealthy background, in the 1950s. And turned them down to become a lawyer.

Anyway, the philosophical orientation she bequeathed makes me think about the “underpinnings” of a subject more than most people. In this case, I am moved to question the basis of the course. There’s the concept of “reification” in philosophy, literally “making real.” In particular, philosophy would encourage one to start by questioning existence: Are there new media? And is “new literacy” a real thing?

No. They’re not real, at least in the way that a chair or an atom are real. They’re just concepts. Now philosophy says to ask if they’re useful concepts.

I’d argue that “New Media” is a useful concept. The experience of, say, blogging is different enough from the experience of reading and writing letters or magazine articles that considering it separately and analyzing those differences is worthwhile.

Does the existence of new media imply that we should speak of “new literacy”? Honestly, I’m dubious. Anyone who is “old literate” can read a blog. Anyone who reads text messages can read (for instance) a car’s owner manual, and anyone who can deliver a platform lecture (as I sometimes do) can follow a YouTube how-to video (as I sometimes do).

Does that make this course irrelevant? No. I’m not questioning that new technology exists and that newer tech is constantly appearing. And I certainly don’t question that skill with new media is both useful and often lacking. I suppose what I’m doing is arguing that the terminology is not helpful.

Similarly, I really enjoyed Crystal’s work on Internet language, even while denying its premise. He documented changes to English usage in this are well … but it isn’t a new language, it’s one of many, many ways English has changed for centuries.

Speaking of terminology: while writing the final paper, I decided to change terminology about myself. Prensky defined my generation as “digital immigrants,” but I grew up along with networked communications. My generation was the first to use online services, the first to use the Internet, the first to have cellular phones. I’m redefining us as “digital pioneers” instead of immigrants.

So, having criticized the entire basis of the course, what did I get out of it? Well, not unimportantly, I got an insight into and background in the current state of the field, an awareness of how educators and academics treat the subject. I familiarized myself with a fraction of the literature on the subject(s). And critically, I believe that I found areas that I plan to study further. A course like this is meant to be a beginning, not an ending.

Thank you all.

INFORMATION LITERACY: A GUIDE FOR ADULTS

Leave a reply

Introduction

When thinking about writing, I’m trained to consider the audience and the need. In this case, I have the privilege of choosing my own notional audience, and immediately chose “older” adult learners, because I feel it’s an underserved population and because these are most of the learners I deal with at my day job. As for the need: anyone who’s going to be seeking out an “Information Literacy” guide can be assumed to have some minimal computer skills and probably own a smartphone or iPad. Therefore, the guide should deal with more sophisticated subjects.

Of course, inevitably this will include general research methodologies as well as specifically Internet techniques.

I’m aiming this document at hypothetical adults (say, 40 and over, up to and including senior citizens) who finished their educations before the Internet and PCs were things, long before computers-in-your-pockets became an expectation. My theoretical environment is an “information literacy” adult education course, taught either at a library or community college. (I actually did a class not unlike that at my employer, some 25 years ago.)

START HERE

One thing the new generation does easily: find things out, without much fuss or time spent. Here’s how:

Google (and other search engines)

You’ve probably heard dozens of jokes about how Google can be used to find out anything. That’s not true. You can use Google to find out amazing numbers of things. Don’t want to pull out your calculator? Type “5+5” into Google. Need to read a European weather report? Type “29 Celsius into F” into Google and find out it’s 84 degrees American. There are plenty of things Google isn’t good for, but for simple things like finding the “capital of uganda” (Kampala) it’s really easy and works great.

There are also plenty of other search engines if you prefer to avoid Google. If you worry about privacy, Startpage.com, Ixquick.com, and DuckDuckGo.com all work great and don’t track your searches.

Wikipedia

If you want to actually learn about a subject (as opposed to find a fact), you can’t easily beat Wikipedia. Just like the name says, it’s an encyclopedia, but it has more content than any paper compendium, and it gets updated literally every second.

Every second? Yup. Because anyone who chooses to can change any article (except the few locked ones).

Is it perfect? No. You cannot count on every article, or any article, being right about everything. There are vandals and liars who like to put nonsense, obscenities, and lies in there. And you’ll almost never encounter them, because the truth-tellers way outnumber the liars and vandals. Even if you do come across a vandalized article, odds are it will be fixed shortly. (You can fix them yourself if you’re so inspired.)

Shopping

I’m sure you’ve all bought something from Amazon by now. Even if you’re buying in a store, the Web is your friend. You can quickly compare prices, get and compare product information, and find local sellers. Sites like Cars.com make buying used cars almost painless, by letting you skip the “getting sold to” part! You might want to bookmark sites like Google Shopping (https://www.google.com/shopping), Price Grabber (http://pricegrabber.com), and My Simon (http://mysimon.com), if you want to always get the best price. The manufacturer sites can also be great resources—for instance, my phone company offers “live chat” with representatives, with no waiting on hold and at no charge.

Speaking of chat …

SOCIALIZE

This covers almost any way people can communicate online. You all know about email by now, of course, but let’s compare the leading “social media” services as of right now. (They change constantly.)

FaceBook

FaceBook wants to be your online social life. It includes its own internal email-like service, its own chat, and of course its main service, which lets you post text-and-picture messages that will be seen by people who “Friend” you on FaceBook. A lot of people like its search ability, which lets you reconnect with old acquaintances. It also has lots of hidden features, like games you can play and event calendars that make it easy to invite people to a party, then track who is coming and what they’re bringing. It’s big, slick, reasonably easy to use … and that’s one problem. Lots of people find it addictive and spend hours just “facebooking”. Experts have also raised real privacy concerns about Facebook, as well. Some people love it, some find it unpleasant, like any other social environment.

Twitter

Twitter lets anyone post short (140 characters or less) messages, which might show up to anyone, but are much more likely to be seen if someone “follows” you. Twitter is used for quick updates more than anything else. It’s also a way to follow breaking news, as reporters and onlookers “tweet” what is happening in real time. Lots of companies are using Twitter for customer support these days, too.

LinkedIn

This one is aimed at not-everyone, unlike Facebook and Twitter. LinkedIn is specifically for business people. Not for businesses themselves especially, for people who work at businesses. It’s a great place to find ex-coworkers and to post your resume. LinkedIn is a wonderful source for professional groups to join and to network with colleagues. It isn’t really meant for family or recreational use.

Tumblr

Tumblr is all about its users. It isn’t technically especially interesting—it’s sort of “Twitter but with less features and no character limit.” Some people enjoy it because it’s very tolerant of controversial and/or sexual content, so fair warning.

Instagram

Instagram is an example of a photo-sharing service. While you can and many people do share photos on all social media services, Instagram is specifically for that and nothing else. It’s very popular among people who take lots of cell phone pics. This is the stereotypical service for people who take pictures of their meals.

One thing to remember: more and more, these services are meant to be used on smartphones. All of these services supply apps for both Android and Apple devices. Twitter and Instagram were really designed more for phones than actual PCs or laptops.

Social media change very fast. No one can confidently predict what the landscape will look like in a few years. (Twitter, for instance, is under 10 years old as this is written.)

ENJOY YOURSELF

Unplugged: no more TV

You don’t need TV any more. The big trend in entertainment, at least according to some, is “unplugging” from cable TV. You can see essentially the same video on your screens without it. Apple TV, or ChromeCast, or services like Hulu and Netflix, can all show you this year’s movies or 1962’s television, and low or no cost, anywhere. You also get more control than traditional cable, watching most things whenever the mood strikes you without waiting for them to be scheduled.

Unbound: no more paper books

Electronic books (ebooks) are revolutionizing publishing in much the same way. If you have a specialized ebook reader like like a Kindle or Nook, you can download a book whenever you like and start reading immediately. You can also install ebook reading apps on your phone, tablet, or computer and read the books there. Lower cost, no storage space needed, and instant delivery make ebooks a pretty compelling thing.

Note that “ebooks” includes magazines, too.

Beyond the chessboard: Games in the 21st Century

You’re familiar with video games, but if you believe the popular image you think they’re all about teenage boys shooting 3D images of zombies. Those games exist and are often fun, but the biggest group of gamers these days is women over 40 years old, according to CNN.

Most of those women aren’t playing games about hitting monsters with hammers. There are games for everyone, from Farmville (a FaceBook game) to phone-based trivia or drawing games to simply playing “Words with Friends” (a Scrabble-like game) on your phone with a friend in, say, Tanzania or Tasmania or Tashkent. Modern games aren’t just fast-moving and graphically beautiful, they remove the limits of time and space.

WELCOME, NEW CITIZEN

You’re a citizen of a new world now. You’ve joined the connected universe. It’s full of information, entertainment, and people talking to each other. Dive in!

Adolescent Survey

Leave a reply

I spoke with Joe, one of the students who attended the Engineering Pipeline Program at my place of business. (I was one of the instructors for Joe’s class, as well as the lead designer of the entire program.)

I’m making no effort to quote Joe here. The conversation took place by telephone and I’m working from written notes, so I don’t have his exact words in front of me. (My current smartphone does not have a call recording feature.) I believe I’m accurately paraphrasing what he said.

Q? How would you compare your own use of personal technology like computers and smartphones to your high school classmates?

A. Everyone is on the same page with smartphones–everyone has that all figured out. With computers and laptops there is variation. Some people actually learn how they work, even build their own. Joe was interested, but not as focused on the topic as the real buffs (to use an anachronistic word).

Some students used phones only to text/talk/take pictures. On the other hand, different subcultures did exist. Computer Science class members all extremely interested in how computers work and how to make them or program them. (CS is an elective, so only interested students took the class.) Joe himself is not one of the real computer-focused students, but two of his friends are–they both wrote video games while in high school.

Q)How do you think your average teacher’s tech use (not knowledge, but use) compares to a typical high school student’s? For instance, do they play online games? Use Facebook? Social media? Compare a typical teacher’s proficiency with tech with that of, say, a 10’th grader. If you think you can, consider several types of tech (phones, computers, etc.). Do you see a difference between younger and older teachers at your school? This can be any differences you think are interesting–tech usage, but also teaching styles and

A)There were what Joe calls “Dinosaur” teachers, who he characterized as the older ones. He felt that the younger teachers (under 30 or so) had tech skills enough to not need help, where he and other techie students would often have to assist older teachers.

All teachers, even the dinosaurs, did use technological assistance in teaching, things like smart whiteboards, email, online homework, and turnitin.com to allow assignments to be submitted online and to check for plagiarism. However, there was a visible difference in how fluidly and effectively different teachers used the tools.

Q)Now that you’ve finished your high school education, you’re in a perfect position to make suggestions. How would you improve high school for new students, especially in terms of using newer technology to make learning better, easier, faster or more convenient?

Multiple-choice tests should use hand-held clickers as opposed to Scantrons. Simulations should be used more when teaching sciences and social studies.

Q)What subjects that you took through grade school in general do you think were old-fashioned and won’t help you as an adult? What subjects do you think were left out, that you’ll definitely need?

Other students say that all social studies courses are useless. Joe feels that anything teaching history before the Industrial Revolution is a waste of his time. He also feels that English, after Junior High, is just repetitive, teaching the same topics every year and just making him do the same assignments.

He was not able to name a subject he wished had been part of his primary and secondary education, but which had not been included.

Q.)How would you compare the way you learned technical subjects like chemistry and physics in school to the way the Pipeline Program introduced you to engineering and the utility industry? Do you see a major difference? Which worked better for you? (Be honest!) How can we improve? What should we add and what should we remove from the program.

Schools are less hands-on in teaching technical subjects. There were only “occasional” labs at his school. Our STEM program differs from school in having almost no homework, and not enough review of topics covered.

He also felt that one week is too short for the topics we cover. It feels “crammed”.

Finally, the most valuable material, for Joe, was the career and interpersonal skills covered at the very end. He is confident of his ability to learn technical material on his own, but the writing workshop and practice job interviews were entirely new to him and he felt he had learned useful skills even in that brief exposure. (I’m proud to say that I instructed that segment.)

I was distressed that Joe, who plans to go into a technical field, had so little lab exposure in high school. In my day as a science teacher, half of our class time was spent on hands-on lab work. I’m also interested in his saying our writing practice was useful, because he simultaneously complained about having too many writing assignments in English–which hints to me that the English assignments avoided “practical” skills in favor of highly academic exercises like essays.

I’ll be taking Joe’s comments on my own program to heart when we revamp it for next summer, and I’m hoping someone is working on fixing these issues in the educational system.