Social Networking Technologies for Learning June 14, 2010 Reading Revolution

Social Networking & Literacy New technologies are bringing revolutionary transformations in reading, writing, communicating, and knowledge production. It represents a fourth revolution following language, writing, and print. Warschauer, 2008

Social Networking: Changing Literacy Practices Work 62% of adults cell phones and text message at their jobs. MMORPG’s Business Leadership Resources are distributed Highly-competitive Highly-collaborative Civic Engagement Obama Facebook YouTube Debates Record number of registered voters under 30 turn out to vote in the primaries. Power to the Millennial!

Social Networking & Youth 96% of 9-17 year olds report using social networking technologies. 70% use at least 9 hours a week. Changes the way young people: Communicate Socialize …and how they approach learning

Social Networking & Schools 80 – 90 % of schools against any type of social networking technology like , posting to discussion boards, blogging, & text messaging. Purpose of Education To ensure that all students benefit from learning in ways that allow them to participate fully in public, community and economic life (New London Group, 1996).

In an Out of School Literacy Practices School based literacy practices Decoding and encoding page bound print Comprehension of page bound print. A solitary cognitive act. Standardized measures of achievement. Out of school literacy practices Using texts and technologies to get things done. Read and write multimodal texts Collaborative Knowing the unwritten rules, values, attitudes, and beliefs Friending Effective communication in a specific context. “Just so you know I’m your b.f.f. not your b.f.f.l

New Literacies Design web pages people want to visit. Know rules for participation in electronic communities. Effectively and appropriately insert oneself into an electronic community. The ability to follow the flow of stories and information across multiple modalities. The ability to travel across diverse communities, discerning and respecting multiple perspectives and grasping and following alternative norms.

Why youth ♥ Social Network Sties They allow them to work out identity and achieve status differently than in face-to-face environments. They get to subvert “ascribed” identities and “achieve” an identity. A strong connections exists between identity construction and motivation to engage in literacy learning. Motivation is key in raising literacy achievement!!

Profile Pages: Kamry Concrete representations of who we are or who we want to be. Use digital ways of reading and writing that differ from print-based ways of writing Multimodal, Non linear, and Networked Connected to other texts, contexts, events and websites.

Question Can using SNS in school promote both in and out of school literacy learning?

A Comment Reading & Writing Across Contexts: Audience and Purpose A Discussion Thread A Bog Post

Videos: Multicultural Learning Where I am From Multimodal expression Learning about different cultures Remembering Martin Luther King Promoting Multicultural education

Best Practices in Adolescent Literacy Instruction for the 21 st Century Provide a clear purpose for writing. Provide an authentic audience for writing. Provide opportunities for self-expression. Provide opportunities to draw on funds of knowledge. Provide opportunities for collaborative writing. Provide opportunities for multimodal expression.

Benefits Students become closer and more inclusive as a group. Provide students with opportunities to build digital literacies who lack access at home. Improve motivation to engage in literacy building activities. Bridge out of school literacy practices with academic literacy practices in ways that improve both skill sets.

My beliefs Not the equivalent of unproductive classroom talk. These web pages count as legitimate text for learning. Students are learning how to texts and technologies to communicate effectively. The are learning to read and write in ways that schools claim to value. They are learning skills valued that will help them become productive citizens and achievement personal fulfillment in their lives outside of school.