New Literacy Concepts, My thoughts...

With an uncanny accuacy the latest set of readings have again matched what is happening in my world. On Mondays I teach an extension media goup. The group is called LCM or Literacy Creativity and Media. The work is being overseen by Marilyn Small who is an efellow and is studing the effects on literacy levels when children have an authentic auideince which is provided for us by the fact that our work goes onto Pukecho Echo ( A regional kids TV show ). For weeks I have avoided having converstions with Marilyn with regard to my thoughts of the literacy component of the work I do with the children. Now having completed the latest set of readings I can barely stop discussing the impacts as I percieve them to be.
Unsworth, L. (2001). “In order to become effective participants in emerging multiliteracies, students need to understand how the resources of language, image and digital rhetoric's can be deployed independently and interactively to construct different kinds of meanings.” (p.8) This then gives gives me the permission to validate my suspicions that as we create and collaborate on projects such as our sinking of the titanic add for the fair-go awards we are indeed making headway with the new forms of literacy not merely the old school beliefs of pure reading and writing. This need to validate new literacy learning for both the student and the teacher is reflected by Unsworth, L. (2001). who states that “Teachers are looking for a coherent and practical framework for classroom work, which consolidates fundamental aspects of traditional literacy pedagogy and also encompasses the multiliteracies competencies that children will need to negotiate in the new millennium.” (p.1).
By running this purely multi media program I have found other educators can be skeptical of the teaching and learning and I have until now found it hard to justify what seems like to much fun, be clearly literacy to the children let alone colleagues! This issue is was also highlighted by Lankshear, C & Knobel, M (2007) who state that, “Indeed, the kind of ethos we associate with new literacy's will often – if not typically – run counter to systemic thinking and norms. For this reason, teachers who seek to adapt their practices to take account of new literacy's ‘insider’ perspectives may well find themselves stepping into ‘minefields of local education-system politics’ (Jill McClay, personal communication). They may do this consciously or unconsciously, strategically or not strategically, in smart or not so smart ways, and successfully or unsuccessfully.” (p230).
Kahn, R. & Kellner, D. (2005) has given me the knowledge and quotes to use an example to use is, “A media-literate person, then, is skillful in analyzing media codes and conventions, able to criticize stereotypes, values and ideologies, and competent to interpret the multiple meanings and messages generated by media texts. Thus, media literacy helps people to use media intelligently, to discriminate and evaluate media content, to critically dissect media forms and to investigate media effects and uses” (see Kellner, 1995). p244
On another note I will be contemplating-the purpose of wikis and blogs as my topic for assignment 1. This was illuminated to me recently when observing a year 1 class news telling prelude to a lesson. The tiny 6 year old girl was using the class blog world feed map to show where her mums friend lived. (In England) The reason was to embellish the chocolate cake baking tale because as mum didn't have a good enough recipe she went onto her friends blog, and got a better recipe. The cake was great and she had a piece for play-lunch. Such occurrences are common now as is supported by Unsworth, L. (2001). who states that, “many instances can be cited from the professional literature and from everyday experience of children intensely involved in multimodal textual practices outside their school experience, which are rarely reflected or acknowledged as part of school literacy's.” This is the view was supported by Brown, J. S. (2000) who gave an example of photocopy technicians and collective intelligence rather than assistance from a technical manuel. The use of the web for common growth was discussed by Lankshear, C & Knobel, M (2007) who found that, “It is, then, an encyclopedia created by participation rather than via publishing; it ‘embraces the power of the web to harness collective intelligence’”(O’Reilly, 2005, n.p.) (p227).
I strongly believe that blogs and wikis have a place in every classroom and am excited to research further.

Brown, J. S. (2000) GROWING UP DIGITIAL: How the Web Changes Work, Education, and the Ways People Learn. Change March/April 2000. 12-20.

Kahn, R. & Kellner, D. (2005) Reconstructing Technoliteracy: a multiple literacies approach. E–Learning. 2.(3) 238-251.

Lankshear, C & Knobel, M (2007) Researching New Literacies: Web 2.0 practices and insider perspectives. E–Learning. 4.(3).224-240. www.wwwords.co.uk/ELEA

Unsworth, L. (2001). Teaching multiliteracies across the curriculum, Changing contexts of text and image in classroom practice. pp1-20. Open University Press Buckingham. Philadelphia.