Today, I had my skype date with Jenna! We discussed the importance of the internet and how it has impacted new literacy skills such as online reading. New literacies are constantly changing and are multimodal. We thought it was important to point out that the authors defined new literacies in several ways. One quote that illustrates this point is, "new literacies are deictic; they regularly change as defining technologies change...new literacies are multiple, multimodal, and multifaceted" (Leu, Zawilinski, Castek, Banerjee, Housand, Liu, & O' Neil, 2007, p. 7). We discussed how there are specific skills needed for online versus offline reading such as navigating information from a website. It is imporant in both forms of reading that students remain critical. Richardson (2010) states that "consumers of Web content need to be editors as well as readers" (p. 148). Teachers should model and explain the difference between online and offline reading. They should allow for students to explore both on their own (or with other students), especially since research has shown that students tend to know more about different uses of technology than most teachers. This should be a trial and error process allowing students to synthesize and evaluate the information that they read (they need to be critical analyzers!). After talking about skype further, we realized that there are numerous classroom applications. One would be to have guest speakers that cannot physically come into the classroom use skype to interact with the class. Another classroom application that is similar in this fashion can include connecting to people who are experts on selected topic that are discussed in class. Skype could also be utilized to connect to other classrooms locally as well as globally. Other applications can include, but are certainly not limited to having a pen pal from a different area and interview different people both inside and outside of the classroom. These applications all lead to new social practices. Overall, my skype date with Jenna was fun. We definitely discussed a lot (almost too much to synthesize in one paragraph). It was a little difficult to screencap and upload the picture onto blogger, but we got it to work. I like skype for communicating, especially when you cannot meet up with a person face to face. Its an easy way to discuss ideas (even better than using the phone because you could show the person visuals if necessary). I think I would utilize skype in the classroom, if I could guarentee my students' safety; it would be awesome to be able to connect with other classrooms globally to educate my future students.
