You are viewing the January-February 2011 EVO rendition of the Multiliteracies course.
For the most current version, please click on the links in the SideBar at right.
Week 4: Jan 31 - Feb 6 , 2011
Theme: Many stories: A sociopolitical lens
The theme this week verges on disruptions to prescribed order when transformative technologies are brought to bear on traditional gatekeepers. Mark Pegrum's chapter this week is on sociopolitical issues, and the readings concern the concept of "edupunk."
Punk or pedagogy: Points to ponder ...
We have in fact been viewing our topic through a sociopolitical lens all along, in Keen's suggestion for example that the "cult of the amateur" was creating a new elite that would rise to power by virtue of putting aside those who could not navigate the new folksonomies and identify with social networks; whereas Weinberger rejoiced in owners of content no longer owning the organization of that content.
To view such disruptions through a more pedagogical focus, take the ePorfolios that we hope participants here will create and/or develop as a record of their brief journey through this session. How would ePorfolios work as an assessment system where you teach, as opposed to the standardized testing and other exam-based criteria that might be driving your curriculum now? If you feel that ePortfolios are valid assessment tools and you have your students create them, you might be at odds with an entrenched system. If you use them anyway (because you think they are the best tool for the job as you perceive it), you would be 'edupunk'.
Recorded materials pertaining to this topic ...
When we interviewed
Mark Pegrum in January, 2010 (recording at
http://tinyurl.com/100131pegrum; and also an interview he did with
Gavin Dudeney in February
http://tiny.cc/ZdIbV) he turned the tables and asked us this question: what key literacies should we be teaching students in a digital world?
The 2009 K-12 Online Conference left a rich archive of video and podcast presentations, where many of the presenters addressed this very question thoroughly, in great detail and in many aspects, and with strikingly vivid illustrations. Listening to these presentations you might think that edupunk had gone mainstream, that everyone is teaching digital skills and using web 2.0 tools with students these days, and you would be very fortunate to be working in a place where this was the case. From the K-12 Online presentations, it's clear that educators have identified a broad set of multiliteracy skills needed for knowledge work in the 21st century, and that their own creativity and that of their students has blossomed as a result of ubiquitous access to tools leveraging these skills
Here is feedback from our Sept 2010 round of Presentations (on these current topics)
Jennifer Verschoor mentioned my list of 21st century competencies for educators referred to above (
http://ning.it/ctMFsN) in her talk on Sept 26, 2010
(If PBWorks persists in redirecting the podcast link above to a nonexistent URL then copy the link in your browser:)
Also Mark Pegrum and Gavin Dudeney chatted with us on Wed Sept 29, 2010, 08:00 GMT, also in Elluminate. In preparation Mark posted a remarkable wiki page at http://e-language.wikispaces.wikispaces.com/mr3 and I've transposed much of that to http://tinyurl.com/pegrum-dudeney, which I hope to annotate in order to prepare myself for the interview.
Tasks for Week 4
Scan the annotated list and identify the presentations you think most interesting and then view them and feed back to the list your reflections and answers to Mark's questions, not only
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What key literacies should we be teaching students in a digital world?, but also
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To what extent is it the responsibility of educators to teach/coach these literacies?
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Are there any drawbacks or dangers in teaching/coaching these literacies?
In conveying answers to your questions, try to utilize the tools and project formats mentioned in those sections below.
Yet another task, post to Twitter using the hash tag #evomlit and let's see if we can populate this Newsletter at http://paper.li/tag/evomlit
Seen on Twitter: "Every great advance in natural knowledge has involved the absolute rejection of authority."
- Thomas Huxley http://www.famousquotesandauthors.com/authors/thomas_huxley_quotes.html
And now for something complEATly different. The concept of edupunk suggests that there are issues regarding new technologies not being addressed by institutional learning, and it also suggests an 'in your face' approach to resolving some of these issues by stepping around the established authority and just doing it. This week we'll consider what some of these ill-addressed issues are, and we'll ask: when is it justified to simply take off on one's own tangent on the assumption that this is best for one's students? What are the up- and downsides to such an approach? In what way is this a multiliteracies issue? Participants should enjoy addressing the question: Do you feel that you, or anyone for that matter, is, are, or should be an edupunk?
- Content
- Jim Groom, The Glass Bees, http://bavatuesdays.com/the-glass-bees/ (with over 77 comments!)
Jim is known for encouraging students to commandeer the ePortfolio/PLE process by setting up their own domains and managing their own servers.
- Stephen's Web, Introducing Edupunk, http://www.downes.ca/cgi-bin/page.cgi?post=44760
- Leslie Madsen Brooks, Introducing Edupunk, http://www.blogher.com/introducing-edupunk
- "Brian" Living in Binary, Edupunk: Redefining Ed Tech (September 20, 2008), http://binaryliving.blogspot.com/2008/09/edupunk-redefining-how-we-use.html
- Education Innovation: Rock-N-Roll High School and The Punk Rock Pirates, http://educationinnovation.typepad.com/my_weblog/2008/10/rock-n-roll-high-school.html
- Projects
- Be moving your work here into something resembling a portal to an e-portfolio
- Podcasts
- Blog postings
- Wiki contributions
- Tools
- It's time now for participants to
- Help each other decide which tools introduced in this course are most useful to their own applications of multiliteracies concepts in their practice
- Suggest others not mentioned yet, new to the group
- Articulate findings in such a way that knowledge is spread efficiently throughout the network
Comments (3)
Sandra Annette Rogers said
at 7:59 am on Feb 2, 2011
This page says 2011 but the content says 2010. Is this Week 4 for 2011?
Vance Stevens said
at 1:43 pm on Feb 2, 2011
Thanks for pointing this out. This is a problem with a course that gets constantly updated. Does it look alright now?
Sandra Annette Rogers said
at 5:16 pm on Feb 2, 2011
Yes, thank you!
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