Blog Post Three - Leveraging Tools, Text, and Talk in My Teaching Context

When leveraging tools, text, and talk in the context of teaching there has to be considerations for equity and engagement with content. In a previous experience I had during a student teaching placement I observed how the utilization of online spaces can negatively affect students who do not have equal access to those spaces. In the effort to build new literacy skills and utilize digital resources in the pursuit of a classroom across spaces teachers must consider the tools that are available for all students. After reading this modules resources, my understanding of designing to support practices beyond the screen is that teachers have a responsibility to utilize face-to-face classroom analog instruction as well as online digital instruction to support the development of new literacies without negatively effecting the students in the process. New technologies should be constantly integrated into the classroom environment in order to bridge the gap between the classroom uses of technology and social uses of technology (Philip & Garcia, 2013). In my experiences, everything in education is about balance, for example, balancing between online and real-life learning experiences. While we want to incorporate online spaces for learning to better support our students new literacy skills, we must use this as a supplement to our real-world spaces for learning which present their own benefits as well.

In my opinion the best way to have conversations about new literacy practices and navigating them in a purposeful and informed manner is by putting them in the positon to have to use those practices and apply the necessary skills. In my experience, when integrating new literacies into assignments and course content these conversations will come naturally through teacher feedback and student engagement. It is for this reason that “technology should be considered within an array of educational tools and strategies and judged in light of its potential to introduce or reshape texts, tools, and talk.” (Philip & Garcia, 2013) It is easy to ban phone usage in classrooms and create paper copies of learning activities so that students do not have to have conversations about new literacy, however this only disadvantages the student themself in their pursuit to effectively support and contribute to the digital space around them. This further rotates back to the idea of creating classroom digital experiences that are relevant and connected to social digital experiences. Students are craving exposure, knowledge, and progress in this area as a result of increased social media influence in recent history, so we should expose them to these digital spaces in a safe and control manner that teachers students who to maximalise their capabilities.

One example of a project that I could assign in a mathematics classroom to incorporate analog and digital learning experiences towards a complex learning goal could be related to collecting and visualizing data. To teach qualitative versus quantitative data student's could be prompted to create a personalized topic which they want to research, including a variety of closed-ended quantitive practices as well as open-ended qualitative practices. Students could be encouraged to use analog experiences such as in person interviews and discussions as well as digital experiences such as an online survey or affinity group posting to collect the necessary data. Then, students could also use digital applications, such as google sheets or Microsoft excel, to generate data visualizations and practice new literacies through the exploration of different data visitation softwares.

Because this project allows for students to choose their own topic and path as well as engage with affinity groups that interest them, there is room for both positive and negative outcomes from this project. Positive outcomes include the use of reality pedagogy since this project encourages teachers to get proximal with students and gain authentic insights and asset-based perspectives of their culture and associated interests (Edmin, 2021). Additionally, incorporating the use of affinity spaces into data collection and the sharing of the data visualization has the capacity to build stronger presences in their affinity groups. One highlighted tension of the use of affinity groups is inconsistent feedback and experiences as a result of students not participating enough in the spaces in order to understand their online audience (Magnifico, 2018). However, by integrating affinity spaces into the data collection and sharing the data collection once it has been visualized in an illustrative format will help students in repeat exposure to their affinity group and thus create high opportunity for them to become invested in the responses and considerations of the other members of the affinity group. A project such as this will encourage student participation and cultural responsiveness by allowing students to pick their own topics. Additionally, this project would support a variety of analog and digital experiences aimed towards designing a classroom across spaces and utilizing a variety of resources to create increased digital competency and new literacy skills for the students.



References

Edmin, C., Adjapong, E., Levy, I.P. (2021). On science genius and cultural agnosia: Reality pedagogy and/as hip-hop rooted cultural etching in STEM education. The Education Forum, 85(4), 391-405.

Magnifico, A.M., Lammers, J.C., Fields, D.A. (2018). Affinity spaces, literacies and classrooms: tensions and opportunities. Literacy, 52(3), 145-152.

Philip, T. M., & Garcia, A. D. (2013). The Importance of Still Teaching the iGeneration: New Technologies and the Centrality of Pedagogy. Harvard Educational Review, 83(2), 300-319,400-401.

Blog Post Two - How New Literacies are Relevant to Us

     My previous post explored the general applications of new literacies in my professional and personal life as well as the importance of understanding literacy to be more than a narrow view of communication. However, with this post it is my goal to explore in greater depth the components of digital literacies that I will utilize in my workspace this upcoming school year as a middle school mathematics teacher.

    To begin, one of the readings I chose to explore in this topic was the 2018 Literacy Leadership Brief by the International Literacy Association. From this reading, my broad takeaway was the newfound understanding of the expansiveness of new literacy and its implications on society and education. Most importantly, there is an emphasis on the need for our classrooms to “move fluidly between the digital and analog worlds that we simultaneously inhabit.” (International Literacy Association, 2018, 3) From this I have a better understanding of my responsibility, as an educator, to ensure the appropriate representation of new literacies in my classroom as a means of better preparing my students for the reality that they are living in. This being said, with new literacies comes new problems. While educational inequality has persisted through generations as a result of long-standing marginalization of students’ on the basis of race, class, and gender; there is a new concern created by new literacies that schools may widen the achievement gap by overemphasizing technology and further harm marginalized communities (International Literacy Association, 2018). Reading of this concern shocked me as it is not something I initially considered in my pursuit to learn about new literacies. From this point there is the prevalence of a new line for educators to balance, one which requires us to incorporate technology as a means of preparing our students for life after school while also accounting for the possible overemphasis of technology which could harm marginalized groups. 

    This brought me to a point of considering my own anticipated use of digital literacies in my classroom. How can I support my students exploration of new literacy without harming students who come from marginalized groups? While there may be no clear answer, this question does offer me the opportunity to evaluate how I can utilize digital literacy without losing sight of the need to accommodate and support all students. Unfortunately it is clear that technological opportunities are not equally distributed across schools or viable solutions to deeply rooted educational problems (International Literacy Association, 2018). However, this does not close the door for me to adapt my instruction to ensure that my students have the best opportunities in terms of having equitable access to practicing new literacies. From this I must learn to look at the current digital literacy I will be using in my work setting such as tools and applications for research, content access, and instructional messages, and assess them in terms of their accessibility to all of my students. While the school may have computers and internet available inside of the building during the school day, there is no guarded that each of my students goes home and has equal access to these same materials. By acknowledging this real limitation of what digital recourses can do, I can use digital resources for more meaningful, just, and authentic forms of literacy instruction to support the students in my class for civic, academic, and vocational pathways beyond school (International Literacy Association, 2018). It is important that I keep all of this in mind as I aim to create inclusive classroom experiences for student's from diverse backgrounds that may not have equal access to technology and could, in turn, be further marginalized by excessive use of digital literacy.

    Noting my new understanding new literacies and the concerns that I need to keep in mind when educating my students, I continued in my pursuit of learning by reading the issue brief by Vanek titled “Digital Literacy” (2019). When reading and viewing this briefing I was immediately drawn to the following visual which opened my eyes to the true complexity of digital literacy.

Sourced from “Digital Literacy” (2019) by Vanek, this visual highlights the multitude of proficiencies that aer addressed in current research regarding digital literacy. This image brought me to the same conclusion that I keep arriving at as I read and learn about new literacies; I am glad I’m taking CURI 6010: New Media and New Literacies because I clearly did not understand the true importance and vast opportunities that are available when integrating and assessing new literacies into course content prior to starting this course. 

    Furthermore, what may be the most important lesson I gathered from continuing my learning regarding new literacies by reading “Digital Literacy” (2019) by Vanek was the understanding of necessary skills that I need to help my student's to develop so that they can improve their digital literacy. Critical thinking, communication, processing and analyzing information, self-awareness, problem solving, and navigating systems are all deeply necessary skills in the pursuit of achieving proficiency in digital literacy (Vanek, 2019). Understanding these skills is necessary to me because they represent integral components of digital literacy that I must incorporate into my instruction as a means of supporting my students growth and preparation for future endeavors. As a mathematics teacher I would of course love for all of my students to graduate high school and enter field of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. As a result, I must support these digital literacy skills by using relevant technologies to these fields to ensure my students have a level of comfortability with them as a means of easing the transition to college and careers (Vanek, 2019). Additionally, I can integrate more technology and emphasize access so that I can giving my students ample opportunities in and out of class to explore low-stakes reasons for digital literacy in a way that lessens the resource gap by using and providing technology that they all can have adequate access to (Vanek, 2019). Ensuring the inclusion of these practices and associated skills in my classroom helps me to be a more effective teacher in preparing my students to function after their k-12 education.

    While I have not yet started my position as a middle school mathematics teacher, these resources have provided me the opportunity to reflect upon and critically analyze the expectations I must have for myself as a teacher aiming to incorporate new literacies into my courses. As a teacher I must ensure I am providing a consistently inclusive education that builds on the skills associated with digital literacy in a way that supports students need to one day grow into productive colligent students and members of the workforce. Without consistent and appropriate incorporation of digital literacy in my curriculum I will not be able to achieve this goal. This further affirms my need to continuously reassess and reevaluate my teaching practices in order to provide a high quality educational experience for all of my students.

References

International Literacy Association. (2018). Literacy Leadership Brief: Improving Digital Practices for Literacy, Learning, and Justice More Than Just Tools. International Literacy Association. 

Vanek, J. (2019). Digital Literacy. The Skills that Matter in Adult Education. American Institutes for Research.

Blog Post One - Defining New Literacies and Why They Matter

     In all honesty, prior to starting my M.Ed. in Curriculum and Instruction with SUNY Empire State University, I did not have a strong understanding of what new literacies were and how literacy even was outside of academic English in terms of reading and writing. While we are only in the second module of CURI 6010: New Media and New Literacies I am already finding myself to have a growing understanding and more cohesive view of the importance of integrating new media and new literacies into students academic experiences.   

    When considering the idea of how literacy is relevant to me in my professional and personal life, it has now become very clear the high level of importance I must place on my understating of new literacies. From a professional standpoint it is vital that I, as an educator, am able to understand new literacies I and implement them into my classroom instruction for the benefit of my students. It can be said that “instead of placing trust in the latest gadget, faith must be placed in the expertise of teachers to sustain classrooms that reflect the contexts of learning that are encountered outside of schools and in the real world.” (International Literacy Association, 2018, 2) From this view it is vital that I am able to integrate new literacies into instruction for the purpose of creating a holistic education that prepares my students for their future experiences outside of k-12 education. For example, in preparing my students for their future goals and aspirations I should focus less on investing resources and energy into individual tools, and instead put more pressure onto the involvement of classroom technology that more clearly mirrors the kind of work environments I expect my students to eventually encounter (International Literacy Association, 2018). Furthermore, as a professional who is attempting to create more opportunities for the practice and development of new literacy skills in my classroom there are changes I need to make. I must pull my instruction away from being anchored in individual apps and devices while pushing my instruction towards generating the consideration and implementation of  how “todays professionals seamlessly produce, respond to, and coordinate work and personal activities across myriad devices, tools, and topics.” (International Literacy Association, 2018, 3) Additionally, in the pursuit of growing my understanding of new literacies for my students, I must also implement and address my usage of them in my personal life. By using my personal experiences with new literacies, and my newfound understanding of what new literacies are, I can supplement my instruction to create a more holistic educational experience for my students.

   Common misconceptions of literacy involve the idea that literacy is only the existence of reading and writing in academic English. I, admittedly, believed this to be the extend of literacy for far too long. New literacies have expanded the concept of what literacy means and how it must be taught to our students. The International Literacy Association (2018) highlights this need for a broader understanding of new literacies by explaining the extent to which literacy is now present in our lives by sharing the following quote. 

“In their professional and personal lives, many people today move fluidly across digital and nondigital resources: texts and tweets may be used to coordinate plans, whereas face-to-face meetings can yield multimodal products like Instagram posts and Facebook messages. Schedules are coordinated digitally, and groups of employees meet in person to produce digital texts for presentation to audiences in multiple formats.” (International Literacy Association, 2018, 2)

This paragraph quote represents the exact need of understanding of the true meaning of literacy in today’s society. If we are not developing and addressing new literacies such as digital and social literacy, as evident by the consistent exposure to digital texts and social media platforms, then we are not preparing our students for the experiences they will face in the real-world outside of a textbook. Understanding these literacies offers students more than an education, it creates a whole new space for communication and research with endless possibilities for personal development. When we create a narrow mindset for what new literacies are, we adversely neglect and deprive our students from truly understanding how to communicate and interact with society in the other forms of mediums that are explored through acknowledge what new literacies are. For example, digital literacy may often be written off as computer skills. However, digital literacy represents more than having proficiency with these discrete computer skills (Vanek, 2019). In fact, in this example, we ignore the fact that “the crux of what is meant by digital literacy is the recognition of these skills’ relevance in specific contexts and one’s ability to creatively apply them.” (Vanek, 2019, 1) By not truly understanding what this type of new literacy is, we minimize it to a form which neglects the expansive importance of what we can stand to learn and develop from it. By developing strong and concrete understandings of new literacies we replace these minimized understandings with broader views of literacy that help us to prepare our students more efficiently.

    When we incorporate these new literacies into our curriculum we can better support the holistic learning of our students towards developing the skills required to function within society. When we don’t acknowledge the expansive opportunities that come as a result of understanding new literacies, we do a disservice to our students by not preparing them adequately for life outside of school. 

This image, displayed in the article Multimodal and New Literacies (n.d.), can serve of a visual representation of the many forms of literacy that fall into the idea of “new literacy” which has been made possible by technology. (Multimodal and New Literacies, n.d.)

References:

Multimodal and New Literacies. (n.d.). Cultivating Creativity in Writing. http://cultivatingcreativityinwriting.weebly.com/multimodal-and-new-literacies.html

International Literacy Association. (2018). Literacy Leadership Brief: Improving Digital
Practices for Literacy, Learning, and Justice More Than Just Tools. International Literacy Association.

Vanek, J. (2019). Digital Literacy. The Skills that Matter in Adult Education. American Institutes for Research.

Introduction

 Hello all! My name is Savannah Taylor and I am from the Rochester, NY area. This is my second semester at SUNY Empire State University in the M.Ed in Curriculum and Instruction program. Prior to starting this program in January 2025 I had just completed my B.A. in Adolescent Mathematics and Special Education at Keuka College. While I have past experience subbing, I currently work as a preschool lead teacher as my full time job. However, I recently excepted a position as a middle school mathematics teacher at a local school district!

My biggest interest is understanding trauma-informed educational practices and policies. During my undergraduate degree I completed an honors project surrounding this topic and through my masters I have continued to learn more about this topic and its importance in the field of education. My interest would be to grow my learning enough so that one day I can help teachers and schools develop curriculum and instructional practices that are based in trauma-informed research and policies. I chose to pursue the M.Ed in Curriculum and Instruction because I wanted to grow my mindset and further my understanding of research based practices related to building curriculum and offering valuable instruction. Additionally, Empire State allowed me the opportunity to do this asynchronously in an online format where I could choose my own pace. These benefits fit my needs very well as it is my goal to complete my degree in December of this year while working full time.

My learning goals for this course are quite general. I feel as though media and literacies are not well represented in mathematics classrooms. I would like to use what I learn from this course to better supplement my students holistic learning in the mathematics setting and create a space where students are building a full toolbox to help them in their future endeavors. Along with this I also believe that this course will support my personal understanding of new media and new literacies since I currently feel that this is an area I am lacking in.

Attached here is a meme that one of my friends sent to me recently for May 4th. It made me chuckle so I decided it would be a good meme to share here! (Explanation: when you take the square root of a number there are 2 answers, one is positive and the other is negative. In this meme the student is saying that if x squared is 9 then x must be 3 because the square root of 9 is 3. However, there is another answer because the square root of 9 can also be negative 3 since negative 3 times negative 3 is positive 9 because a negative times a negative is a positive.)