This week we focused on participatory culture and specifically new media literacies. We took a closer look at eleven skills needed for new media literacies and were asked to discuss which of these would be most easily integrated into our individual contexts and ways in which we can think of combining new literacies within formal education. Here is a summary of the blog posts from Group 1:

Katie Bandy: Cooperative Learning in New Media
In Katie’s blog post, she discussed how multitasking, collective intelligence, distributed cognition, negotiation, and simulation were of high importance in her financial institution workplace. Distributed cognition and collective intelligence are important skills in this context as learners need to be able to use available tools to discover and share information for the benefit of the organization. Negotiation is an important skill in her workplace due to the diverse geographic locations of employees and customers. Simulation is also necessary for understanding the many procedures within the organization and multitasking for being able to prioritize one’s focus amidst many needs.

Katie also discussed how she already utilizes simulations in technical trainings in her eLearning courses and how she could take this to another level by allowing learners to contribute to these simulations in order to form a participatory culture in which learners have strong support for creating and sharing one’s creations. A practical application that she suggested was in allowing for knowledge sharing through individual article contributions. I found it important that she also discussed the need for a content review process to ensure the accuracy of content being shared.

 

Penny Ward: Media Literacies

Penny first defined participatory cultures and discussed the differences between formal education and informal learning and how informal learning communities have best supported participatory cultures up until now. After exploring the Web 2.0 tool, Scratch, she shared the skills she saw that this could support, including play, collective intelligence, networking, simulation, appropriation, and multitasking. In looking at how new literacies can be implemented in formal education, Penny acknowledged the realities of many teachers who lack the professional development and attitude in order to teach these skills. She brought up a very important point that “a focus on expanding access to new technologies carries us only so far if we don’t also foster the skills and cultural knowledge necessary to deploy those tools.” I found this to be very relevant. How often does a workplace push a new technology or tool yet there is not adequate training or support for its implementation? Even if I can see that a technology has a lot of potential, if I don’t feel capable or skilled using it, I probably won’t use it!

Penny shared six skills that she specifically uses in her workplace: play, collective knowledge, networking, simulation, appropriation, and multitasking. She uses play in experimenting with information between departments to solve problems and also uses collective intelligence as she polls knowledge from her colleagues to work toward a common goal, which both then result in networking as she collects, analyzes, and distributes knowledge and information. Penny also integrates simulation in practicing and modifying processes so that they model the required procedures as well as appropriation by using old processes to make new ones through the remixing of media (i.e. flyers, brochures, video, etc.). Lastly, she uses multitasking in juggling the many tasks and interruptions effectively throughout each day.

Penny then shared several Web 2.0 tools that she could integrate into her workplace. Those included blogs for job improvement and resource creation, Google hangouts for club participation, Prezi and voicethread for peer teaching and resource creation, and wikis for building collective knowledge on campus.

 

Tom Conway: Supporting Participatory Culture with New Media Literacies

In Tom’s post he discussed how he incorporates new media literacies in his English classes as well as how those could be integrated into other formal learning contexts. In his context as an English teacher, he incorporates play through research-based problem-solving and both performance and simulation through role-play, mock trials, and skits. I have a difficult time incorporating performance into my science classes, but his idea of having students record podcasts interviewing literary characters opens me up to ideas in my own context, such as students interviewing science professionals or even role-playing as members of an ecological community in biology. Although I had not previously considered citing quotes as appropriation, Tom points out that this is a prime example of “sampling and remixing content.” He also uses this skill when students write alternate endings for novels.

In addition to several other tools that Tom described in his context, his discussion of multitasking and distributed cognition were particularly of interest. He said, “overall, many formal education contexts do not support multitasking skills.” In reflecting on this thought, this is often true, even in my own classes because I tend to think and teach in a more linear fashion. He explained how he allows his students to multitask in their writing process rather than require a linear process (research, notecards, outline, etc.). His point that distributed cognition is one that is most resisted in formal education is worth mentioning, particularly that “brains that need to worry less about memorization of facts can ultimately expend more energy analyzing, creating, sharing, and evaluating.”

In analyzing these new media literacies and how they fit into his English classes, Tom also provided ideas for how he could incorporate web 2.0 tools into some of these teaching practices. For instance, using podcasts for student interviews or blogging or content creation for simulation. He also suggested the use of tools like Google Classroom for conveying lecture components from class and blogging for negotiation so that students learn to negotiate new communities and perspectives.

 

Lauren McNally: New Media Literacies in K-12 Online Education

Lauren discussed four primary skills used in her K-12 online science classroom. The first was simulation, which is relevant in teaching science because students conduct experiments, either on their own at home or virtually. This often requires using digital models and simulations in order to analyze and interpret processes in the real world. Judgment and networking were also discussed in relation to how students must conduct their own research, assess the reliability of sources, and synthesize and share their understandings with their peers. Negotiation was also relevant due to her experience in teaching diverse groups of international students who come from multiple perspectives and distinct communities and backgrounds. She also discussed the role of appropriation in her role on the curriculum team. Team members continually support course authors and one of the ways in which that is done is through creating and even remixing content for eLearning courses.

In Lauren’s post, she addressed how student choice in presenting and demonstrating their knowledge can be one way of integrating new literacies in formal education. This can allow for skills like play and performance to be used in demonstrating understanding. She also discussed the use of Scratch, as did Penny, and how it is being used in some formal education settings to use collective intelligence and distributed cognition skills.