Friday, September 16, 2016

What is Literacy 2.0 and What Happened to Literacy 1.0?

I found this chapter of the book to be very informative. Growing up and going to school in the early 2000's has really changed with the advancements in technology, especially when it comes to working with technology in the classroom. As a student I personally enjoy reading from a textbook as to online. I feel like it is easier for me to concentrate and I like to be able to take side notes and highlight on the paper. It saddens me to read from this text that we are moving towards almost not even having paper books at all and leaning towards reading more on the computer.

When I was in first grade I struggled a lot with reading. I remember one day when my teacher was preforming a running record with me and she was marking off all of the words that I was reading wrong. This was making me very anxious and I continued to read the words wrong when I was trying to correct them over and over. My teacher noticed that this was making me uncomfortable and let me take a break before we continued. I feel like the opportunity to read face to face with my teacher with the book open together made it helpful for her to guide me. If I was taking a running record over the computer and reading aloud I may not have gotten the help that I needed. 


This textbook (Johnson, 2014) mentions that 93% of children from the ages of 8-18 will spend an average of 90 mins on the computer daily. If this is the case I think that if we put more technology in the classroom to read, then the time spent on the computer will increase dramatically. However, I do not think it will increase because they are using the computer to read. I know from experience that when I am reading on the computer or doing homework I get very distracted on other things such as the internet and social media (for example it has taken me over an hour to just write this much of my blog). I agree that reading online can help students learn with the extent of hyperlinks to define vocabulary and show you alternative links to what they are reading, but I think it should be monitored.  On page 7 in the text it gives a table of the differences between traditional print and digital print. I highly believe that both environments for reading and comprehending are beneficial for readers but I think the reader’s ability to read plays an important part. In my opinion a child that is new to reading may benefit better with a traditional book where they can flip the pages on their own and learn that print goes from left to right and from page to page in order. Where as a more advanced reader may benefit from the digital text so they can look up synonyms of words and expand their reading further. Overall, this chapter of the book really made me think about what the future is going to be like for upcoming students and how many traditional styled paper books are actually going to still be made.

1 comment:

  1. Hi Jessica,
    I have to completely agree with you, I completely understand the struggle when reading online texts. I am that person that loves to highlight, and right down ideas right next to the point that helped me develop that idea. So when I think of our technology and it's growth it worries me for how children will learn when it no longer comes from a textbook. Will they take away the important knowledge that is needed for their education?

    I also relate to you completely when you discuss struggling when learning to read. I had the hardest time, it made me anxious to go to school and in honesty for a while I hated being so embarrassed about reading that I would pretend to be sick so I wouldn't have to go. But then I met a reading teacher in my elementary school who was going to help me improve my reading skills, and she truthfully changed my overall feeling of school, she made me want to learn again.

    I completely agree with you that both traditional and digital print are important in today's society for children's learning.. I really enjoyed reading your post!

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