MAT 675 What digital literacy means to me as a learner and as a teacher

21^st Century learning and teaching involves understanding digital literacy from multiple levels.  No one can ignore the rigor of how digital media plays such an important part of our daily lives from both perspectives.  One ideal compliments another in that in order to become a more effective teacher one must become a better learner.  Students who have grown up in the digital age are often more adept at digital literacy than many of the teachers who use it in the classroom. 

Learning about new technology involves time.  Time to dive in fully, and not just to get your feet wet, but at the pace technology improves in our modern world, I think it is necessary to dive in headfirst when contemplating learning a new software or device application.  Technology is a meaningful tool that helps develop our thinking processes going on inside our head.  We first need to identify the steps toward the reasons of wanting to learn new forms of digital literacy.  We must focus on the reason why we want to learn and how it will help us in order to truly engage in the process of learning the use of new applications.  Without this reasoning, becoming discouraged and deflated happens relatively soon when the communication between software and understanding fails.

Much like a lesson plan outline, I find it best to have an objective and a learning goal to formulate the intrinsic motivation necessary to push through the failures and inevitable setbacks that come with learning new games and programs.  When I set out with these goals in mind, I find the engagement more compelling and I am able to better self-assess and self-manage my progress.  I do not give up so easily when I can review why I wanted to learn the application in the first place. 

Most often I use technology as a tool in the classroom to enhance my teaching and to differentiate instruction.  I use multimedia to leverage both my own learning skills, and also to provide more connections with my students who are often more entwined with technology than myself.  I could not even describe myself as an effective teacher without the support of knowing how technology plays such an important role in 21^st century education.  Therefore, developing a framework to incorporate technology in common core standards is just the responsible way to teach in today’s digital age.  Students respond more and engage more effectively when they can relate and visually connect to a variety of mediums.  Technology enhances teaching from a one-dimensional domain with textbooks to a multifaceted world of indexing and imagination with our computer at hand.  This process builds reality in a much more meaningful way that students can assess their own interest and have better buy-in to their own learning.  Thematic learning takes on a whole new meaning in the digital world for students to synthesize multiple sources and make connections that otherwise might seem impossible without technology. 

As a teacher, this means I must keep pace with digital literacy in order to affect a difference.  These are the attitudes and thinking that will bring success to our economy and to the business age that relies so heavily on technological progress.  With the rapid pace that technology changes in its uses we can no longer afford to become overwhelmed with time constraints associated with a learning curve.  We must hit the ground running and not be afraid to code our own paths. 

I feel that digital literacy goes beyond mere skills of using technology as a reference to insert pictures into PowerPoint’s and emails.  Being literate means that we can teach the how’s and the why’s of choosing the images and for what reason did we choose this source or that website.  Teachers can go beyond the scope of cut and paste and begin to have students focus deeper meaning to the advocacy of why they chose to use the source in their presentation or their report.  We can teach students how to disseminate facts from certain biases inherit in many media sites.  We can even begin to compare multiple sources for criticism in more logical formations.  And we can do it all with our fingertips in seconds right in the class without ever having to leave.  This provides for improved discussion forums that can be backed quickly with reliable sources that improve interest and make for more authentic connections.  Understanding that 21^st century education involves both learning and teaching means I am responsible for both realms.  Otherwise I think the line becomes blurred between who might be the teacher and who might be the student.  I would hate to be left behind by my own students just because I don’t know how to log on!