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New Vision for Literacy Education (By Jun Akiyoshi and Riza E. Masbuhin)

What are 3 of your fundamental beliefs about learning literacy?

  • We believe that learning literacy is to take responsibility of one’s learning and its outcome. More specifically:
    • Learning literacy is associated with obtaining “others’” knowledge and making that knowledge to “our” knowledge.
    • Learning literacy is associated with finding trustworthy information, and with continuous search of new information.
    • Learning literacy is associated with transforming collected/constructed “our” knowledge to more accessible knowledge for “others.”

 

  • What are 3 of your fundamental beliefs about teaching literacy?
    • We believe that through teaching literacy, students should become independent and autonomous learners.
    • We believe that through teaching literacy, students should construct a specialized self for interaction with discourse/s in societies.
    • We believe that through teaching literacy, teachers can create powerful generation.

    What should be 3 key goals for literacy education in a digital age?

    • We believe the first goal is to make students recognize that they have an access to the public knowledge as recipients as well as generators of the knowledge.
    • We believe the second goal is to create creative, innovative, and discovered generation who are capable of entering new enterprise/doing new things.
    • We believe the third goal is to

     

  • What should be your basic approach to teaching literacy? What role should technology have in that teaching approach?
    • We believe that technology can facilitate learners’ collaborative learning of literacy.
    • We believe that technology can allow learners to have multiple drafting.
    • We believe that technology can facilitate learners’ multimodal literacy skills.

    How should literacy pedagogy respond to today’s technological world and to today’s digital learners?

    • We believe that by using technology, teachers can engage with their students more easily.
    • We believe that by using technology, teachers can fulfill their responsibility as teachers more easily (e.g., giving feedback, giving guideline, giving grades, etc.).
    • We believe that by using technology, teachers can let students better prepared for their future digital life including the students’ future career.

My Technology Narratives

I define technology as all machinery and equipment developed from the application of scientific knowledge to help accomplish various tasks easily in our daily life. Technology usually involves a specific piece of equipment, but that equipment can be incredibly simple or dazzlingly complex. In our daily life, simple technology can be in the form of electronic and communication.  Electronic technology is all devices that are run on electricity. This includes computers, washing machines, dryers, video players, car radios, televisions and any other devices I plug into the wall outlet. Communication technology includes everything from the old fashioned telegraph, telephone through cell-phones, satellite and internet which is used for communication throughout the world. All those types of technology are created to help us do our daily tasks easily and communicate with others without travelling to other places.

In my personal life, technology has revolutionized my communication. The first communication technology I used that I could not forget was telephone, because telephone helped me keep in touch with my first boyfriend who lived in different town, far away from my hometown. When I was 17 years old, there was not any communication technology like mobile phone, email, and internet to help me communicate with my boyfriend. As a teenager who feel in love for the first time, we always wanted to talk to each other everyday, but it was impossible because the only way to communicate with people in different places was by air mail. That was not always easy because it took time to send and receive mail via post and sometimes the letter that we sent went to the wrong address. When telephone was introduced and used in my hometown, I was so excited. By having telephone, I could easily communicate with him at any time to keep us in touch.

phone-conversation

Another example of technology that has affected my life is the computer and all its programs. When I was in my high school before the computer was used, I either had to write out my assignment or typewrite it on the typewriter. However, this was not easy because if I made a mistake there was no way to fix it but to write it over again and it was time consuming.

. typewriter

With the computer though, mistakes could be fixed before I print it out. These mistakes could be solved within seconds. Another great thing about the computer is that it is fast. If I were to write this narrative by hand it would take me about twice the time because I would have to write the letters instead of just pressing buttons to get the letters on the screen.

Next, the computer usually has an internet connection that I could use for communicating with people through email. The internet makes me feel like the world is at my fingertips. Technology has built bridges between people on opposite sides of the globe, and has brought people from all cultures and backgrounds into contact with each other.

I do realize that I depend a lot on technology in doing both my personal and academic tasks. I remember last week when I was on my tech free day, I could not completely be free from technology even for only one hour. For doing simple household choirs, I also depend a lot on technology for example doing my laundry, cooking and even just getting some recipes, I have to use internet both in mobile phone and computer. Imagining my life without technology is very difficult because things would be different from what I am accustomed today. Technology has made me do things faster and easier.

Tech free day

 

My tech free day on Saturday, September 24, 2016 from 6:00 am to 6:00 pm. I am not using my computer, laptop, tablet, mobile phone, fridge, microwave and washing machine. However, I have to still use my stove and lights.

My activities on tech free day

06:00am-08:00 am: Starting my tech free day, I am not using my computer to work on my assignment. Instead, I am reading all articles that I printed out one day before my free tech day.

08.00 am-09.30 am: I am walking to the nearest grocery store to get some vegetables and meat because I decide not to use my fridge. Luckily, I posted a note “TECH FREE DAY” on my fridge door when I am about to take some ice tea after walking back from the grocery store.

09.30-10.30 am : I am cooking some food using only my stove, no microwave is allowed.Cooking helps me kill the time because I do not need to use tech (computer and mobile phone) while cooking.

10.30 am-1.00 pm: I continue reading some books and printed articles and making notes on my note books. I find that making some notes using pen and paper helps me memorize well what I read. I am about to use my computer to access some journals related to the articles I read when I read a sticky post on my computer “TECH FREE DAY”.

After 1.00 pm, I finally decide to use my computer because I need to do some assignments and search some references. Although I am using my computer, I am successfully freeing my day from my mobile phone. I keep looking at the clock and counting the time because I really want to use my mobile phone. But, I do not use my phone at all until 6 pm when I decide that my tech free day is over.

Reflection

On my tech free day, I think I was not quite successful freeing myself from technology to some extent. I could not completely free from technology on my free tech day because on that day I was still using clock, lights, stove and even my computer. I realize that it was not easy for me to stay away from my mobile phone because I need to communicate with my family back home and my friends. Thus, my mobile phone is the tech device that I miss the most when I was on my tech free day. Since my tech free day was from 6 am to 6 pm, I did not answer any call and text at that time period. My friends and my family back home were wondering what happened with me on that day because I did not answer their call or their text. One good thing that I got from freeing from technology is that I got more physical activities. Since I decided not to use my fridge, I had to walk, rather than drive, to a grocery store to buy some chicken and vegetables before I cook on that day. By walking to the grocery store, I got more physical exercise. I was about to “fail” my tech free day when I was about to open my fridge to take some food. Luckily, I posted a note on my fridge door saying, “TECH FREE DAY TODAY.” My temptation to answer calls and text on mobile phone was saved by a note that I posted on the box where I keep my mobile phone. Since my life has addicted and depended a lot on technology, I feel that it is not easy for me to be free from technology even just one day.

 

 

Time Travel and Technology

  • Primary Blog Question
    • When compared, the two film clips help illuminate a key question for this course: How has our relationship to technology changed over time?
    • Comment/ answer: Both movies tell about similar stories and technology used. In the newer version, the technology is more sophisticated than 1960’s version. It can be concluded that technology develops over time as poeple get more “digital native”.
  • Secondary Blog Questions
    • How has film technology changed?
    • How have we changed as film viewers? As a film viewer, I feel that it is great if there is a real time machine that can bring people to the past and the future so I can change things happening in the past. Having watching the movie, I have learned that not all things in the past can be changed.
    • How has our understanding of time evolved? People evolve as time evolves.
    • How does fiction/science fiction impact our relationship to technology?  From my point of view, people learn a lot to develop new technology inspired by science fiction movie. For example, it was impossible in the past to make a video call as can be seen in some science fiction movies. As technology evolves, a video call is no longer an “impossible” technology. It is because scientists are inspired by science fiction movies to develop technology.