Throughout today’s education, there is nothing hesitations about the utilization of technologies. In school environments, computers/laptops and iPads becomes second resources for students to engage through their learning. Comparing with the traditional classroom, calculator was the only one technology allowed. How did such dramatic changes happen in today’s education? In other words, why should we implicate technologies in the education system?
As you may notices that YouTube is a worldwide social media (except the countries limited). In YouTube, there are plenty of media resources for people to watch based on their personal interests. It has diverse contents and some of them categized by hashtag (like in Instagram) such as, #tvshows; #gaming; #entertainment; #sport; #music; #beauty; #food; #education, etc. According to each category, most media created through the lives and it from what we called Youtubers. We could describe YouTube as a visual commutation platform, which makes connections with the people who watch the lives and videos.
YouTubers are diverse. They might be the persons who well-educated or the persons who just enjoy for lives. Especially in terms of education, you will see that some YouTubers lives for educating English, Math, Science, etc. One of my favorite YouTubers called Deeva Jessica, a South Korean. She utilized the mystery contents (i.e. ghost, supernatural phenomenon, UFO) to increase the interest in learning English. Honestly, by enjoyed watching her videos, I learned so many vocabularies that I never used in school, as well as to recognized many historical events that I never learned from my social classes. By connecting to my teaching content area, I really encourage students to enjoy the person who teaching in math in this platform because no matter the contents students learned or not, it develops a sensible recognition of mathematical thinking. Also, when students watch videos on YouTube, they could review the contents they already have learned in math class. Similarly, students could learn the contents ahead if the contents itself which haven’t learned yet. Consideration to the students who could not join school community because of certain disabilities, I think watching educational videos are another pathway of learning each subject instead of being present in school.
In YouTube, you can make comments on the specific media that you want to deliver to that specific Youtuber. Students may leave questions and thoughts about the contents that they watched. Some YouTubers might reply to students or if not, students may share that questions and thoughts into the class! By doing so, students might become one of the YouTubers if they would like to express their thoughts & understanding through the media. For instance, students have a presentation on word problems that I assigned. As we expect, students may present as the creation of poster with colors. But other than that, don’t you think recording video about their presentation is another way to achieve their task, too? It’s realistic about students who they are and how their voice sounds like, as well as how their thinking enlightens to other learners or educators in the YouTube community. Once they upload their video on YouTube, the purpose is not for having the number of likes or comments instead to understand how the others think about the contents that they presented. Of course, the numbers of likes and comments increase students’ self-efficacy of learning and most importantly, I think this is another way to develop students’ own identities, as well as be part of the communication since their thoughts and opinions are valued. Another cool feature in YouTube is the subscribe. If students willing to see more contents about what Youtubers upload, the subscribe button helps students to see more relevant contents in the future.
Category Archives: eLiteracy and Social Media(tion)
How do we deal with the autonomy in media use?
For this MVP, I would like to talk about the media use in-school and out-of-school.
“One aspect of the in-school and out-of-school divide is about availability and acceptance of media technologies”. Media technologies are common use in-school because it brings lots of convenience to studies. Media technologies can support students to learn knowledge from visual videos and news. However, children are mostly using media technologies like Ipad and cell phone to have entertainments. Children spend most of the time on playing games or watching video games or chatting with friends on smartphones, which occupies a great time of the day and impact their studies. So in some cases, children are not allowed to use media technologies in schools. So how do we deal with the autonomy in media use? Things children can get from media devices are different from things parents and teachers can get from. So how do parents and teachers enter the worlds of their children and know what are their children thinking about?
Identity as Narrative
“An alternative conceptualization of identity relevant for our purposes is that proposed by McAdams, who has argued that the development of identity is an ongoing and fluid process, during which identity is adapted to current postmodern conditions (McAdams, 1997). Identity is never ‘established’, but instead is a process of narration that occurs in the context of several multiple selves. According to McAdams individuals on the brink of adulthood construct narrative or dynamical life stories about themselves and these stories form the basis of their identity. These identity narratives draw from the adolescents’ past, present and future and contain themes related to agency (or achievement and mastery) and communion…”(Subrahmanyam, K. & Smahel, D., 2011, pg. 61)
The introduction of the article lays out a few definitions of identity development in adolescence. This definition in particular, next to the other fixed ideas of identity, really peaked my curiosity. The fixed ideas of identity development, perhaps, made sense in an analog age due to social, cultural, religious and familial ‘bubbles’ that were relatively small. The models also make sense for a time when adolescents weren’t expected to travel far from home.
However now, in the digital age, the idea of narrative identity makes so much sense considering the access to different worlds or ‘bubbles’ given by internet and social media. Additionally, in many cultures in the U.S. adolescents are expected to leave home for a period of time to either go to school or start work/career. Fluid narrative identity theory compliments these expectations of adolescents as identity formation matches whichever scenario or niche the adolescent is in. Narrative identity works for self-generated digital identities, as young people may choose to identify differently within various online spaces. One example is that of ‘finstas’ or ‘fun-instagram’ accounts where young people choose to keep specific accounts private and accessible only to a few friends. These accounts let them be goofy or silly, while their public accounts act as curated and carefully constructed versions of self. While this may seem odd, Narrative theory of identity development leaves room for agency. ‘Finstas’ demonstrate the awareness and choice young people have online, and in real life, about how they represent themselves or where they choose to find community. Narrative and evolving identity formation allows adolescents to be multi-dimensional, and represents social media and digital worlds more broadly.
Out With the Old in With the New?
Teachers of English need not sacrifice the mature literacy practices of adults to the informal literacies of youth. Conversely, they need not sacrifice the literacies of youth to the formal literacies of adulthood. (Mills, 2010, pg. 38)
I thought deeply about this passage: how true it is, how I can relate to it, and how it inspires me. First thing that came to mind is how teachers set routines in their classrooms, which is great. It helps our youth create good habits that they carry on into adulthood, hopefully. But, looking deeper, there are other routines that teachers put in place that adolescents don’t see connection with or relation to and that’s when we lose their interest in school. In other words, the traditional pedagogy theories that teachers don’t let go of completely, and therefore make it hard for students to find that link between that and their lives, is basically: “Here’s the rule, this is the strategy, learn it, study it, and good luck applying it outside of class.” So, how do we change this? Well, this article is trying to tell us that we shouldn’t sacrifice mature lectures and then only teach what the students are into nowadays, instead we must bridge the two spectrums in order for students to naturally make connections from their “informal experiences” to what is being taught in class. This inspires me to always keep in mind that I shouldn’t have to sacrifice anyone’s interests, the school’s and student’s, to be able to teach effectively.
Is new generation youths still the protectees?
This article talked about media literacy and its impact on young people’s well-being. I found the most fascinating part of this article was that while traditionally we think adolescents as a vulnerable figure that need a lot of protection, the new media era is bringing adolescents more possibilities on the internet. They might be able to pick up media literacy better than their parents and know more than parents with the help from the media. Even though their “puberty” is longer than the previous generation (due to the fact that it is harder to be financially independent than their parents), they still actually can be independent, since they have more choices on media. I am also thinking that this opportunity is turning their figure from protectees to a more mature, and independent figure. I also see a lot of young people are getting financially independent by taking advantages of the internet. That is a nice piece I realize after reading this article.
It is also very interesting to know that children do not learn more because of technologies. Probably because the nature of our brain decide that we only have a certain capacity to hold all the knowledge? I’d love to learn more about this issue in the future.
“All research does not show children learning more because of technologies.”(p.71)