Discussion # 4 Chapter 9

Many educators believe that with the growth of media and information technology, media literacy is just as important as – or even more important than – print literacy (that is, learning to read and write).

What is your position on the relative importance of the two “literacies”?

My position is that I think they are both equal I know that me personally I rather use technology with getting information for my classes then using the book. I am not a huge reader and so when it comes down to reading from a book. If I have to read from a conversation on the computer or from a document for me it’s much easier to do and focus on then reading from a textbook. Although we need the textbooks but they need to be more up to date. Like you can’t have history textbooks that do not have anything about 9 11 in it those are way out of date. With every kind of textbook they develop new and different ways of teaching your students ways of learning. So I think that they are equal as far as importance goes.

What information from this chapter helps support your position?

That you have more available resources in a way then with just textbooks because you can email or blog about ideas or look certain things up online on websites. With textbooks and regular books they have tapes and cds that you can use to listen to while you read along with is something that is more up to date.

Discussion #2

Esmerelda is having her students do a social studies project in which they do "virtual interviews" of experts on various periods in U.S. history. She schedules time in the computer lab and has them locate experts by searching Internet sites. She gives them an initial list of sites, but encourages them to branch out from there, looking for additional sites on their own. There is no lab manager and she has to go back to the classroom for periods of time as they work, but she knows they are competent Internet users and can be trusted not to leave the lab without permission. For their contacts with experts, she has them prepare a standard email with the school name; their names, ages, addresses, and personal email addresses, if they have one; and a description of what they would like to know.

1. Assuming she is correct that students will not leave the lab with permission, is Esmeralda's plan for having students use the Internet a good one? Why or why not?
No this is not a good idea for one you should never leave your students unattended and secondly because they are competent and no how to use a computer leaving them alone only makes them realize no one is there to make sure they aren’t doing what they are suppose to. For instance, some of those students might know how to get around the security and get onto websites they really should not be on. So that’s why I feel that she shouldn’t leave the students alone while doing activities on the internet.

2. Do you see any problems with the email she is having them send?
Well the students shouldn’t really be giving away a lot of the personal information she is having them give away. Also if they are emailing them not from their personal email they shouldn’t have to give them their personal email. That’s how a lot of the child molesters and things like that start talking to children from them giving out to much information about themselves.

3. How would you change her plan to improve it?
I think she should bring whatever she has to work on with her to the lab that way she can still monitor the students. If she really feels that she has to leave the computer lab then I would make sure that she can find a hall monitor or an aid of some type to stay in the class if she really needs to leave.