Jaxonenglish

In the article Maine's Laptop Initiative Improves Student Writing written by Anne Miller tells of a program that started in Maine's middle schools, every teacher and student had constant access to a laptop that was provided by the school. While also providing programs for the teachers to help them with using laptops in this new way, hoping to improve their students writing skills while also moving into the 21st century.

In National Writing Project National Reading Initiative Keywords Project by Marcie Wolfe with the New York City Writing Project, there are many "keyword articles" that have to do with education. The keyword that is most applicable to my research project is assessment. In this article Wolfe compares what peoples views are about what the definition of reading assessment is. She describes it as "data, interpretation, and formal evaluation." She emphasizes on student work over time like a portfolio.

The article, Connecting the Digital Dots: Literacy of the 21st Century, is arguing the point that the types of literacies are expanding every day, and people need to be kept up on them. The authors, Barbara Jones-Kavalier and Suzanne Flannigan, state that to be a fully functioning member of society, you must acquire and understand a new literacy; a digital one. They also state, "Today, we still seek better communication methods, only now we have myriad more choices, along with new tools and strategies and greater knowledge of effective communication". Technologies will not just be used to communicate though anymore, it is being to "create, to manipulate, to design, to self-actualize". In the New Literacy and Education paragraphs, it is stated that classrooms today are less advanced for the students who are being put in them. Almost all of these students are digitally literate, but teachers are presenting ideas in the ways they always have. Maybe, it is not just the classrooms that need remodeling, but the teachers need to attend workshops and become more accustomed to dealing with these new types of literacies. Schools who are looking to hire teachers need to look at what background the interviewees have, or require a pre-requisite for computer literacy. The authors also state that today, students are "digitally savvy". They don't believe that teachers should be re-typing overheads into PowerPoint's. There are so many different technological ways to teach things to students. It just isn't the same anymore to just use a whiteboard and an overhead projector. "As an example, now teachers can do a PowerPoint presentation with streaming video, instant Internet access, and real-time audio-video interaction, and they can do it with relative speed and ease".

Barbara Jones-Kavalier and Suzanne Flannigan in their article "Connecting the Digital Dots: Literacy of the 21st Century" state the reason the definition of literacy has gradually changed through time, will always be changed, and that the history behind why it has changed leads to the definition itself. They assert that through the technological advancements the thought processes in the humans mind have drastically changed; and in order for literacy to keep up with this rapidly changing "E-generation" Jones-Kavalier and Flannigan express that our minds need to be open to this change. They state that "vision combined with practical, recognizable goals and incentives that encourage people to embrace new digital and visual literacy skills individually and collectively" will allow there to actually be a change universally.

This article discusses how literate once meant a person's ability to read and write. Now that technology is rapidly changing, our society is learning to adjust to it. Now, literacy has a new definition. According to the authors, "Literacy includes the ability to read and interpret media (text, sound, images), to reproduce data and images through digital manipulation, and to evaluate and apply new knowledge gained from digital environments." Older generations are having a more difficult time adjusting to it than the teenage generation. Learning technology is starting to seem like learning a new language. Although, it's a priority for society to learn to acclimate to these changes in order to learn and communicate effectively.

Sexting and cyber bullying are the new "in" thing that happens on school campuses whether it be middle school or high school. Our schools cannot keep up with what is going on in our day in age with all the new technology that is going on. In my article it states that teachers and other school administrators are trying to figure out a way to keep children from doing this type of thing in school.

The article How Does Maintaining an Online Identity Affect Adolescent Identity Formation? By Lesley Cowie is all about social networking and the impact and influence it has on a person's identity. It discusses an identity transfer starting in the adolescent years because that is when kids are allowed to sign up for these social networks.

In chapter five of this book, Gee, the author, explains that humans have a difficult time processing information that they cannot relate to other contexts. When students sit in lecture for a long period of time and then told to go apply what they just learned, it's almost impossible for them to do so. Information learned this way is only stored in the brain for a short period of time.

In an article written by Professor Shelia Tucker of East Carolina University, the hotly debated issue of Online Education vs. Traditional Education is analyzed and scrutinized thoroughly. Appropriately titled, "Distance Education: Better, Worse, Or As Good As Traditional Education?" Tucker discusses how each type is viewed in the field today, the ideal group of learners for each type of education, and the research study conducted as well as its results. To read more about the article visit my Google site at: https://sites.google.com/a/mail.csuchico.edu/walker333/

In the video, Ken Robinson says Schools kill Creativity, the speaker, Ken Robinson, talks about how not only the United States, but education systems all around the world, hinder children's creativity because that won't get them anywhere in life. He brings up this notion of creativity in schools being the most important thing, and programs like music, dance, and theatre are on the bottom of the totem pole where Math and English are perceived as the core subjects in schools. He challenges that notion. Why are Math and English at the top? The point of this video is to make people re-think creativity in school and the fact that education will not have a future if we keep dismissing the use of creativity in schools.

In the book "Digital Nation: toward an inclusive information society" by Anthony G. Wilhelm, he states that "a new provision of national education policy in the United States states that every eighth-grader must be technology-literate regardless of socioeconomic status or race". Wilhelm argues that the way we look at education as a whole nation needs to change. It might be difficult because we will be both "integrating these new skills into traditional subject areas and, more fundamentally, in transcending disciplines and school walls in pursuit of a more rewarding relationship to knowledge", but the whole world is transforming be more technologically savvy. Wilhelm also talks about the staff for schools and how they too need to adapt to the changing environment. He talks about people who use the internet "engage in self-directed work" because they want to. They go on this website because they want to learn but didn't always get the chance to in school.

Seeing No Progress, Some schools Drop Laptops I found this article in an old edition of The New York Times, Seeing no progress, some schools drop laptops. In this article the author addresses the fact that in most schools having laptops given to children at such a young age was of no academic successes but instead has been making it a hassle for teachers to be able to teach their students properly. This article is aimed towards laptops being banned from elementary schools and high schools, due to the facts that studies have been done on the academic success that should have been brought on with these laptops were non- existent.

The article "Being smart about technology" by Elizabeth Marcoux, a librarian, wrote this article about a seminar she had attended regarding technology use in schools. She had talked to technology directors from three different school districts. The article points out the different views of the educators and the views of the educator's administrators. They "viewed the similarities and differences between what I will call "traditional" approaches versus "21st century"

great resource for articles that research the web and social media.

Article by danah boyd from the journal First Monday. Abstract from the site: ""Are you my friend? Yes or no?" This question, while fundamentally odd, is a key component of social network sites. Participants must select who on the system they deem to be 'Friends.' Their choice is publicly displayed for all to see and becomes the backbone for networked participation. By examining what different participants groups do on social network sites, this paper investigates what Friendship means and how Friendship affects the culture of the sites. I will argue that Friendship helps people write community into being in social network sites."

danah boyd is a lead researcher in social media. Her website has links to most of her scholarly articles

After reading David O'Brien and Cassandra Scharber's article "Digital Literacies: Digital Literacies Go to School: Potholes and Possibilities Digital Literacies," one will come away with a better understanding of the definition of "digital literacies" as well as how and why to implement this concept in classrooms. The authors discuss the importance of digital literacy's presence in the classroom and how to make that presence the most beneficial for both the students and the teachers.

In "The New Writing Pedagogy" the authors, Angela Pascopella and Will Richardson, discuss how technology and the Web are creating a new emphasis on student's writing process. This is creating teachers to no longer fear upcoming technology, but embrace them within the classroom. Due to this teachers are using "Web-based social networking tools like blogs and wikis, YouTube and Facebook as digital spaces, multimedia texts, global audiences and linked conversations among passionate readers." Furthermore, "The New Writing Pedagogy" has many comments and quotes from professors and teachers of all levels that comment on how they are adapting to "this new pedagogy" and how we are the creators of it.

The article I choose to read is very similar to Gee's Book we have been reading. It begins by talking about a teacher in New York, who is teaching a 6th grade class. But, this is no ordinary class, he is teaching these students through video games. These kids not only have the opportunity to watch video games and plot the characters movements, but they also have the chance to create games themselves. I then goes on to talk about what it would be like if the way we educated kids completely changed.

In Yasmin Kafai's article Playing and Making Games for Learning, Kafai claims that if one individual were to write a history on the development of child education, they would be forced to include the impact video games have made on child learning. Kafai writes that teachers have picked up on the fact that video games capture children's attention and have tried to use this to their advantage by incorporating video games into their teaching style. There are many ways to incorporate video games into the classroom, but Kafai generalizes that there are two main categories of thought when it comes to teachers integrating video games into the curriculum: instructionalists and constructionalists.