Notes from Kajder Chp 3

Chapter 3: The Twenty-First Century English Teacher

Much has been made of the terms "digital native" and "digital immigrant," and Kajder, while acknowledging the intent behind these terms, generally finds them limiting. 

*I basically see myself as a digital native, although I'm not as proficient or as connected as many people my age.  I don't have a smart phone and don't spend a ton of time on the internet.  However, I do maintain a blog (other than this one) and I am active in a few online communities (regularly reading mostly quilting and DIY home decor blogs). I few comfortable "playing around" with technology and I feel like most technologies are fairly intuitive to me.

Recently, I've seen the term "Web 2.0" thrown around a lot and Kajder does define this term early in chapter 3.   Web 2.0 learning environments are "collaborative, multimodal, self-directed" instead of "individual, print-based, and teacher/curriculum-based" (p. 35).  Another term for Web 2.0 is digital or new literacies. 


Kajder points out that none of the these ideas are new-- "what is new is the opportunity to do this work with an expanding tool set" (p. 36). 

*This very much echoes the Dewey that I was reading last night.  I probably need a specific post for this, but Dewey (1925) contrasted traditional education with progressive education. 

 
Some people are clearly against embracing digital literacies in the classroom-- why "pander to the tech-obsession of of digital youth?" "why emphasize 21st century skills over the 'foundational' ones of the 19th century that students have yet to master?" (p. 37).  And yet, we "pander to students through direct instruction and high-stakes assessement" (p. 37).  

**I'm soooo hearing Dewey again and I think Dewey would tell Kajder that this tension is important and fodder for a critical lens of our pedagogy.  I certainly don't want PBL or digital literacy to simply be a reaction against traditional literacy-- it should take what's working with traditional pedagogy, but also move in a direction that is more authentic. 

A constant thread throughout Kadjer-- "we as teachers have to be constantly learning" (p. 36)... not necessarily learning how to use tools or where to point and click but "leaning new ways of engaging with media and developing literacies that move our own work as readers and writers" (p. 36). 
 
*I remember Bob Fecho, in my writing pedagogy class, emphasizing that teachers of writing have to be writers themselves. 

Kajder then profiles three teachers who consider themselves digital teachers.  I noticed several commonalities-- they all mentioned seeing learning as collaborative and social in nature; they each were engaged in their own digital learning (through blogs, online forums, their own writing, etc); they all expressed hesitation and doubt-- no one was 100% sure all the time, but they were each willing to try something new in their classrooms; and they all sought out ways to make their students' work connect outside of the school walls.

There is "power in engaging within a broader English curriculum, one that brings together traditional practices of reading and writing and new literacy practices fostering information literacy, working in online communities, and composing through new media" (p. 48).