Digital literacy could be said to encompass all/some of the following:
- technical skills (how to navigate and use systems)
- transferrable skills (across operating systems and software)
- visual literacy (both as a creator and a consumer)
- cultural literacy
- filtering and judgement
- safety and ethics
- critical analysis
- authenticity
- identity
- social communication and collaboration
This week Jo has promoted digital storytelling as being a cross-curricular activity, encompassing content, design, technology, art etc. She also discusses the idea of real life perspectives. While I agree that digital storytelling does lend itself to multiple avenues for learning, so do many other activities in the traditional literacy curriculum...A class developed performance, for example, could equally convey powerful personal storytelling, aspects of design (set, props), analogue & digital technologies (lighting, sound) and still address areas of digital literacy in both approach (critical consciousness) and even topic (cyberbullying). It also has the advantage of exposing a class to a challenging situation; creating an environment for personal development and risk taking, beyond the comfort zone of a computer.
Distraction from the fundamentals?
Yes, digital storytelling could offer opportunities for validating sources, referencing and intellectual property as students create and publish their material, but as Leanne McRae suggests, this does not currently seem to be the case.
In an opinion piece “Is digital literacy killing critical consciousness”, McRae argues that her current tertiary students “have been betrayed” by a system that favours digital technologies “...educational efficiency and rationalist curricula” over the “fundamental mechanics of writing” and critical analysis. McRae describes the poor quality of work produced by her students in a tertiary assignment. She suggests that balance is required in an educational approach. “Education at its best allows access – not to technology, a screen or a program – but to ideas and a critical consciousness” (McRae, 2004).
Distraction from the source and intention?
Digital storytelling implies a wholehearted celebration and endorsement of Web 2.0 technologies. This buy-in could be said to be a distraction from a major aspect of the digital literacy debate - the fact that these technologies are generated by business as a means to make money. Social networking sites and digital storytelling tools frequently ask for 'subscriptions' and sign-ups as means to collect personal information that may be used for commercial gain.
As Ben Williamson points out in his review of this book Digital literacies: social learning and classroom practices : “Literacies research, for all the recent theoretical, methodological and practical advances ... still offers no coherent response to the educational consequences of technological commercialisation.” (Willamson, 2010).
A balanced approach is best
Promoting digital storytelling as the best means of delivering a digital literacy curriculum, does not address the need for a balanced approach. When the curriculum starts to endorse a focus on digital literacy taught exclusively through an online medium, this comes at the expense of time spent on other types of individual and cultural literacy development.
In the article Is Google Making Us Stupid, Nicholas Carr discusses his own questionable adaptation to an online world. He asks the question: “If we lose those quiet spaces, or fill them up with “content” we will sacrifice something important not only in our selves but in our culture.” (Carr, 2008)
McRae L. 2004 Is digital literacy killing critical consciousness? Online Opinion
Williamson, Ben (2010) Digital literacies: social learning and classroom practices, Learning, Media and Technology, 35:1, 87 - 89 Retrieved on 6 May 2010 from http://www.informaworld.com.ezp.lib.unimelb.edu.au/smpp/section?content=a921501708&fulltext=713240928
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HI, I’m not an English teacher so please forgive my ignorance. How long do you think it would take to complete the process from draft to movie? 1-2hrs? Can you fit it into the curriculum easily or does something else have to give? I know we've got crowded curriculum syndrome- but it seems to me to be extremely useful. However, with each post I read, I can see the other side of the argument presented and I sway back to the other side! Good arguments guys. andrea
ReplyDeleteHi Jane, Great points this week!
ReplyDeleteYou say that "McRae describes the poor quality of work produced by her students in a tertiary assignment. She suggests that balance is required in an educational approach."
A 'balanced approach', meaning what? The implication implies a balance between traditional and 'new' literacies. As I've mentioned previously, I don't believe digital storytelling excludes reading and writing in the traditional sense. I do think it allows us to engage with students who are stereotypically Gen Y, online, all the time. In putting forward digital storytelling as the 'best' way to teach literacy, I am suggesting that a balanced approach is needed, we need to push curriculum more towards digital literacy teaching, because I also believe that 'out there' we don't actually have much change happening.