I don’t have much experience composing online, other than social media and texting, but I do think it has impacted me in many ways. Social media is a big time waster in my life, yet I am addicted. It has become something I turn to for comfort, through every emotion. No matter how late at night it is, I will make sure to include my down time at the end of the night to scroll on Tik Tok and Instagram. I do post comments at one time or another, but most of the time they lack depth. There have not been many times where I have used the internet to promote social action, but I do like to watch videos and view content that discuss social issues.
Turning this into more on the educator side, using online materials is very important in today’s world. It is nearly impossible to teach students in a classroom setting without allowing them access to the internet and everything it has to offer. It is important for us as educators to understand that although not all students have access, they all should. From the Jenkins reading, we can see that media is not a one size fits all situation. It’s not all about powerpoints and padlets, but many other forms of learning that can come from a few resources. One of the readings we viewed was about Digital Literacies and TikTok. The discussion of how BookTok can be a place where students find new reads is an interesting take. Although I do have mixed feelings about this, specifically because BookTok can sometimes show more "adult" themed books, it can be a great place for students to discover new titles in an easier format. I could even see this taken a step further, by allowing students to pick a book for an assignment and showing you the BookTok that inspired this. Being able to hear the summary and the person's rating in one short video can encourage students to give the book a try!
It is also important to have students learn about sources. How do they differentiate a reliable source from an unreliable one? Something that college students normally have nailed down, but takes a while for middle and high schoolers to get the hang of. Checking the authors, the date it was written, and other pieces of a source are crucial for teaching students the simple skill of detecting a bad source or a good source.
Overall, using media is a blessing and a curse, specifically for ELA education. It can be used as such a great tool, allowing students to search what they need and then some and bringing us resources for learning that we never imagined. Although this is true, it can put a damper on education. Allowing students free access to that much content, and allowing them access to tools such as ChatGPT can bring learning to just regurgitating information.
What do you think?
Well that’s how I see it anyways.
I agree about the importance of multitasking. One of the earliest skills we teach children is how to follow a series of instructions rather than one step at a time, but it seems like a lot of that gets lost/not applied to more complex situations once students enter the middle and high school years. I think this also goes hand-in-hand with the importance of teaching students about time management, as I think many students now just assume grace periods are built into schedules and late assignments aren't a big deal.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you on how using media is a good and bad thing in the classroom. I am glad you brought up AI, since this is an ongoing problem in classrooms today. I think there is so much online, that students may feel lost and overwhelmed. I like the point of multitasking, I think it is difficult doing two things at once to be able to put all of your effort into both things. That is my experience. One thing fails, while the other is soaring. How do you view this in your life? How would you manage this in your classroom with students who can't multitask?
ReplyDeleteI can’t help but relate to the downtime being dedicated to the infinite tik tok scroll as well. I love the quote that “media isn’t one size fits all,” because it rings true especially in the classroom. The skill of multitasking is so important as well. It makes me think of how overstimulating so much media can be that it feels like it’s at a point where you’re already multitasking just by watching. Giving students the opportunity to develop these skills can help them craft these healthier media habits early. You did bring up the great points to how this much access to internet can have its pros and cons with one of the cons being the possibility of them finding poor shortcuts such as chatGPT.
ReplyDelete