Week 6 Reading 6816

1.How can schools meaningfully support the development of all students' new literacies; particularly those literacies engendered by Web 2.0 that foregrounds interactivity and collaboration around shared content?

I think the use of blogs in the classroom is the best way to support the learning of new literacies.  Students can post the information they learned (which can count as an assessment) and reflect on the work of their classmates.  What I like most about using blogs, is that it seems to be a safe way to collaborate online.  As the teacher, you can control what personal information your students put on their page. 

2.Why should schools engage students in the new literacies engendered by Web 2.0?

Schools should integrate new literacies in the classroom, because the new skills they learn will help them prepare for life out of school.  New literacies teach us critical analyzing skills that can be used to interpret images, videos, TV programs, etc.  These literacies can teach us additional skills about the world around us, and not just the typical reading, writing, and arithmetic skills. 

3.What are the differences between new literacies and conventional literacies?

Conventional literacies refer to the standard way we learn information—reading texts, taking assessments, researching topics, etc.   New literacies require new forms of collaboration.  We can learn and share information by posting to blogs, contributing to wikis, using videos and images, etc. 

4. Provide your own example of a classroom use of Web 2.0 that promotes a "Mindset One" approach and a classroom example that promotes a "Mindset 2" approach (the examples do not need to be from your own teaching or learning experiences; you can make them up).

Mindset One-- Students play the game Selene to learn about how the moon was created.

Mindset Two-- Students use Diigo to look for websites about how the moon was created.  Students then post a blog about what they discovered and comment on their classmates’ discoveries.