DOUBLE JOURNAL 3

Quote

Over the past quarter century, communication technologies have spawned an explosion of ways in which “text,” both written and electronic, has become part of the out-of-class curriculum. This explosion has outpaced our pedagogy, our curricula and methods of instruction, and the definitions of what it means to be literate in a multimedia society. (One major irony in American education is that no philosophy or pedagogy has been developed to take into account the role of visual representation in instruction, while at the same time increasingly large portions of the education budget are being spent on iconic technologies such as computers, video recorders, and video cameras.) These technologies are much more than electronic envelopes for delivering the old curriculum in a marginally new way(Semali, 2001).

Reflection

I agree that while teachers are encouraged to use these new technologies there is a lacking of how to use them to their best use.  When technologies and multimedia are use just for the sake of meeting a requirement or to use a new toy it is the students who suffer and the teacher misses an opportunity to extend learning.  When media literacy is part of the instruction learning is extended to include a personal analysis of the material and to form a personal view that can be used both in and outside of the classroom.  The students who are given this opportunity have a greater sense of how to form views and the forces that are present to steer their thinking in a particular way.  I believe having good analyzing skills make us more award of information and better citizens.

Source:

Semali, L. (2001, November). Defining new literacies in curricular practice. Reading Online, 5(4). Retrieved from: http://www.readingonline.org/newliteracies/lit_index.asp?HREF=semali1/index.html

In a webpage from the John Hopkins University, School of Education the topic of Visual Literacy and the Classroom was discussed.   This article also agreed that the term literacy does not have a concrete definition and there is much debate on what constitutes literacy there is a driving force behind the debate and that is technology.  This article discuss what this means in the classroom and how the valued skills being able to analysis written and visual message will give the student skills that will be used outside the classroom and be carried over into society and culture.

Riesland, E. (2010). Visual literacy and the classroom. Retrieved from http://education.jhu.edu/PD/newhorizons/strategies/topics/literacy/articles/visual-literacy-and-the-classroom/

1. What is meant by the term "new literacies" and give me a concrete example of how it should change teachers' understanding of what it means to literate in the digital age.

“New literacies” seem to have many different meaning but it is generally means the shift from the printed world to the use of technologies, visual messages and multimedia.  I think that it is a great opportunity for teachers to build critical  thinking skills by using multimedia examples to show how they are produced and why they are produced.  Giving a student the chance to analyze and form their own opinion is so important in our society today and if we can give them the skills to interpret what they are watching, reading, listening to or viewing they will have a stepup in the world outside school.

2.In your own words explain what this quote means:

    "In the current historical juncture of democratic decline in the United States, ideals and images have become detached from their anchorage in stable and agreed-upon meaning and associations and are now beginning to assume a reality of their own. The self-referential world of the media is one that splinters, obliterates, peripheralizes, partitions and segments social space, time, knowledge, and subjectivity in order to unify, encompass, entrap, totalize and homogenize them through the meta-form of entertainment. What needs to be addressed is the way in which capitalism is able to secure this cultural and ideological totalization and homogenization through its ability to insinuate itself into social practices and private perceptions through various forms of media knowledges. (p. 196)"           

I think this quote means we are presented messages that are the message that the government, political canaditates, marketing firms and manufactures want us to hear, believe and accept as fact without questioning.

3. What does the lack of critical media literacy in schools create?

It creates a student who accepts the influences of media without being able to know what the underlying message is and how to decide if this is a view or idea they want to accept or reject.

4.  Why is it preposterous to claim an absolute definition of " literacy"?

In the article the author Ladislaus Semali, that while one definition would be developed and agreed upon the rapid development and advances of technology and media would make the definition obsolete before it could be accepted.

5. Why does this author advocate a more critical approach to visual literacy? Do you agree? Why or why not?

The author favors a more critical approach to visual literacy, one that goes beyond the impact that visuals have on individuals. Thus, for me, visual literacy refers to multiple abilities to read, view, understand, evaluate, and interpret visual texts including artifacts, images, drawings, or paintings that represent an event, idea, or emotion(Semali, 2010).  I agree with his view because I think that we all need to skills to interpret and evaluate what we are reading, listening, viewing or watching not only to understand but to develop our own opinions, emotions and ability to accept and use the information or reject it and file it as useless.