"The ability to learn continuously changing technologies for literacy may be a more critical target than learning any particular technology of literacy itself." This quote from EduBlog Insights is probably one of the best reasons for taking 23 Things! It's all new, all changing and we all need to learn and attempt to keep up with at least some of the changes. Literacy is changing as evidenced in the numerous blogs we were given to investigate. The very questions we were asked to respond to in Thing 4 deal with the new"er" genre of blogging as a form of literacy. So what do I notice. I notice that as I work with campuses and with our new TEKS on what are the new state standards, they only begin to address the modern era in communication. Think of how just 10 years ago, we received information. In a newspaper it was a sampling of international, national, local news with advertising thrown in. If we wanted to read a more targeted sampling of writing, we'd subscribe to an educational or trade journal. Even then, we might find one or two articles that pertained to our interests. Blogging seems so much more specific. You can really hunt out your favorite topics.
One of the key observations in this blog was about teaching readers of blogs, especially students, to be critical navigators of the information that is put out there. Unlike the journals of the past, many of these bloggers do not site research or back up their "opinions" with facts. This increases the need to have students investigate what they read for foundational evidence. Before I ramble on any further, I think I'll visit the Students 2.0 blog on "teaching brevity."
Okay, I get the gist. Be brief, say what I think about this in a few words and move on.
The whole structure of writing is different in blogs. Most of them are more conversational in nature, more journal-like. Depending on the author, some are much more philosophical while others are merely thought provoking or entertaining.
In most cases the writing is well done, focused and coherent, but much less formal than publications in the past. I look forward to finding new and varied blogs in the future.
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Weak Geek,
ReplyDeleteI love the phrase "critical navigators of the information that is put out there". If we could teach our students analyze information, determine its merit and skew from the stand point of the author, and determine on their own how it relates to them, we would have taught them more than they could learn from all the books in the library.