Remediation, check.

It’s amazing the difference a decade in the digital age makes. According to Bolter and Grusin, “many cyberenthusiasts assert that the web and computer applications are creating a digital culture that will revolutionize commerce, education, and social relationships” (60). Just over ten years later we can go down the list and check each one off.

Revolutionized commerce, check. I spent my entire paycheck on a variety of things without ever touching my wallet. With my last paycheck spent I’m left wondering how to pay for next quarter’s fees—which I will eventually pay online. Revolutionized education, check. What you are reading now is an assignment for a class on computers and literacy. Yes, computers and literacy. Revolutionized social relationships, check. I now have 277 friends on Facebook. I never realized I even knew 277 people and now I’m friends with them, well kind of.

The list can go on, remediation has always been reforming reality and the way we live. Society changes, cultures change, and remediation sits at the core of much of that change. Remediation reforms, no doubt. But does such reform improve life—who knows?

Taking a photo, uploading it, and showing off some Functional Literacy

Opening the classroom to everything we can aim our camera phones at...

Great presentation! Thanks!

Bend with it, move with it, flex with it.

We talk about what a wonderful world it will be when our students fit the multiliterate bill—students as functional users, critical questioners, and rhetorical producers of technology. Technological literacy will take on a whole new meaning, one that more accurately reflects the users who participate in shaping its very existence. But wait. I think it all sounds simpler than it really is. We, as future educators, may often overlook our responsibility in all of this. If we are going to push students to Selber’s multiliteracy then, we too, must qualify accordingly. This is not a responsibility we should take lightly. How do we get students from functional and critical abilities to the rhetorical producing abilities that begin making real difference? According to Selber, “The key for teachers is to be flexible in their perspectives on literacy” (182). Maybe that’s where we should start. We have to be open to adjusting our ideas, beliefs, and set-in-stone perspectives of technology and its ties to culture, community, and education.

PONG ME

By the time I was first introduced to video games Atari’s Java-based game PONG was already over a decade old. It was the simplest of games but fun on so many levels—bringing the competitive nature out of anyone. I remember playing it for hours at a time at my cousin’s house. Looking at it now it’s absolutely comical, but 25 years ago it was still going strong as video game/graphics innovation (well, at least to me). I was amazed at the gameplay, the seamless joystick reaction, and the blips and bloops that rang competition in all its analog glory. PONG stopped time long enough for players to get their immersion fix. Today, we still get our fix. Today, we have new kinds of “Pongs.” Okay, maybe it was just a lazy person’s table tennis, but it was cool. Long live cool things—past, present, future.

Get a mini PONG fix here:

http://www.xnet.se/javaTest/jPong/jPong.html/

Any Kind of "Triple-Threat" is Sweet in My Book

It’s obvious that technologies change faster than we can keep up with. It seems like as soon as we get used to one type of technology something new to learn pops up. Some of us have the motivation to move on to the latest innovation, but most of us (I’m assuming) are so glad we mastered the last thing we’re not in any hurry to let it go and start over. However, Selber’s take on the triple-threat multiliterate student is interesting; from functional to critical to rhetorical—user, questioner, producer. When looked at as a package deal I realize the importance of keeping up with technology, in the least at a basic level. Keeping students’ functional literacy up-to-date can enhance their ability to look at that same literacy with a critical lens and, in turn, have more to offer in a rhetorical sense. I would venture to say that as educators and future educators it may be just as important, if not more, for us to stay on top of things as well. Though it’s understandable that not all of us are geared to be technically savvy, it may well be our duty as educators in this digital age for us to be technically aware. Who knows, maybe a raised level of awareness will lead to levels of functionality we normally assume out-of-reach? After all, how can we expect our students to be multiliterate if we are not already?

Munday is Funday

I used to limit my use of technology to very low levels of functionality. But tonight, tooonight, I use technology for the heck of it—just for fun. I call it FUNctional Taeknology. Recognize.



(I also wanted to practice getting these videos properly embedded).