Transliteracy worries me a little bit simply because I feel like the gap in education between socioeconomic status will broaden. How can a student become technology literate when they family cannot afford to turn on the heat let alone to buy a computer? Students who grow up in a house with iPhones, iPads, computers, tvs, gaming stations, and cameras are set up to have a foundational knowledge about technology. I guess I am wondering how learning for a child can be equal when one has more 'advantages' at home. I guess I am going off on this tangent, because teaching internet focus skills does not pertain as much to early intervention, but giving students a foundation of learning in technology does.
When reading the slogans, the one that caught my attention was "we need to read, not speed." While I understand the premise behind this idea, I feel like I disagree with it in part. I know that I assess the quality of a webpage by quickly looking at the way the information is presented. I feel like this is a valid skill to have though. If I search 'early intervention' on google, 76,600,000 results come up. To slowly read all of these pages would take more than my lifetime, therefore I need to have some way to sort the information. In order to sort through this information I must quickly assess if the website (and therefore information) is worth my time. This is where the 'speed' comes in handy. It gets me to the information that I am looking for faster.
I too am worried about how transliteracy will effect the achievement gap present for students of different socioeconomic statuses. I hope to work with students in low-income areas and my students' access to the internet and computers in general will be a concern of mine. Hopefully resources available at school and teachers becoming aware of this issue and making transliteracy a focus in their lessons will help combat this discrepancy at least somewhat. Very nice article review!
ReplyDeleteI never even thought about how this could effect the achievement gap, what a great thing to point out! I remember growing up teachers didn't start requiring us to use the computer for homework until high school and that never was an issue for me because I always had one available. But I did have several classmates that would have to go down to the local library and use that computer for papers. But I completely agree that for students that don't have access it puts them in a very tough situation. And I think Savannah is right about keeping this a concern when we do work with low-income areas.
ReplyDeleteYou brought up a great point about the gap in education due to socioeconomic status. While transliteracy is an important focus for the way our society has developed, it is clear that some students have more advantages than others because of their home lives. Some students go home to multiple TVs, laptops, ipads, and any other device in the world. Others go home to none of this. Some families cannot afford all of these tools, and others do not believe in surrounding their children with technology. While I do think it is important to educate our students about how to use and become literate in technology, there is no arguing that some students will have an advantage over others in this area. We need to seriously think about this as we progress our transliteracy education to attempt eliminate any gaps or issues that may come with it.
ReplyDeleteI really liked your point about the achievement gap. I myself hadn't even thought of it until reading your post. We as teachers can't assume that children have the access to technology at home. Just because it is in the school system doesn't mean that everyone has the ability to access it whenever needed. I know that I didn't have internet through elementary school at home and we would have minor research projects but I had to do the work elsewhere. Some students won't even have the chance to access it elsewhere (excluding school) and we need to keep that in mind.
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