Blog 2 Ephrem Uwalaka

Blog 2                                     Ephrem Uwalaka

Using New Literacies and Popular Culture within the Primary Classroom

Explore the outcomes of your parental/student teacher survey. Did any responses surprise or challenge you? What might be the subsequent implications for your future practice? Make links to the in-session discussion and to any relevant readings.

As a parent and a teacher/trainer, my interviewee gave some interesting views on popular culture, he said modern technology must be in the classroom because it is at home; it is engaging, although he recognized the cost and the issues of tech savvy children being advanced users; he explained this by saying we can only keep up with the technology we grow up with. Regarding artifacts, he was a visionary and a realist by saying we need 3D tangible objects but in the future we won’t need to worry about it because of virtual environments (VE). Lastly he said that with VE patients could be operated on and no one would get hurt. Also, the technology in the classroom will be used in the work place.

On my last SE media was only used once during a 4 week period, this was in contrast to other classes/schools I have worked in where media and rich text filled artifacts have been used virtually on a daily basis. DfES (2006) state ‘the broad and language rich curriculum’ this implies the emergence digital and media literacies- new media. There is a wide belief that serious thinking needs to happen regarding the position of this so called ‘new media’(Green and Beavis, 2013:42) and the relationship of in school and out of school learning and all the other peripherals involved such as hardware ( tablets, iPads, digital recording…), pedagogy, teacher training, education, and the list is long because a re-focus on what children need to be educated in has changed; no longer will the traditional teachings of the past curriculums (reading and writing), prepare a child fully in this now fast changing global field.

My interviewee has the vision, the foresight and understanding to realize change is needed. This was only one person who I imagine will accept change. Little steps, big changes or reactive instead of pre-emptive, the debate continues on the three main questions, which are: What is literacy now and in the future? What is ‘new literacy’? And what are the implications toward teaching and learning? (Green and Beavis, 2013) .

 

Bibliography

DfES (2006).  Independent review of the teaching early reading. http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20130401151715/https://www.education.gov.uk/publications/standard/publicationdetail/page1/dfes-0201-2006 Accessed online on: 25/01/2014

Green, B. and Beavis, C. (2013) International Handbook of Research on Children’s Literacy, Learning, and Culture: Literacy Education in the Age of New Media. West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell and Sons. Ltd.