Textbook finally comes (& reflection of first chapter)

FINALLY my ordered copy of David Barton's book "Literacy" came by mail.  I have catch-up to do now, but not much time available till the weekend...
     I found it interesting while reading the first chapter, that completely successful public education still evades us after more than a hundred years of trials, while our predictions of rapidly increasing literacy rates in developing countries have fallen short of the experts' predictions.  But the books examples of variation in peoples "perception" of acceptable literacy, (especially when influenced by their cultures), muddled my own conception of what the ideal definition should be.
     Personally, the most fascinating areas the fist chapter touched-off on were the comparisons between the different writing systems in the world (as described in chapter 7), and the "archaeology of literacy," which follows the origin of various forms of writing throughout history.  I am already familiar with the early cuneiform writing of Mesopotamia (modern Iran/Iraq), early hieroglyphics of Ancient Egypt, the first phonetic writing from Phoenicia, the early alphabet in Ancient Greece (with the first two letters of Alpha and Beta, where we get our word for "Alphabet"), and the nearly modern alphabet of the Romans.  Although ancient Chinese/Japanese characters seam to have evolved nearly independently of those in the western world, I hope to learn more about the relationships between each of these written languages in further reading.  This is particularly relevant to me as properly teaching my students about these relationships is a goal for me when I teach Japanese.

This post is still incomplete...  I still need to include (and will soon update this);

1)      Among the four definitions/metaphors of literacy, which one is your
favorite?
2)      What does your favorite definition/metaphor of literacy have to say
about literacy instruction?
3)      Barton argues that there are three ways in which literacy is an
ecological issue (p. 31).
a.      “Languages are vanishing at a remarkable rate.”
b.      “Dominating languages like English need to maintain their diversity
and variety.”
c.      “There are communication technologies which can change the balance
of languages and cultures”.
                However, his arguments seem to be very brief. Please
discuss what you think about his three arguments about taking an
ecological approach. In your opinion, what can an ecological view of
literacy afford? Are there any drawbacks of taking an ecological view
of literacy?
4)      Since this course is about literacy and technology, let’s also try
to contextualize our  discussion in literacy and technology. For
example, for argument a, “Languages are vanishing at a remarkable
rate”, is it true to the impact of technology on literacy? If so, how?
If not, why not? For argument b, “dominating languages like English
need to maintain their diversity and variety”,  how can (or cannot)
technology be helpful?

Your task is to:
a.      Write a reflective paper that addresses questions above.
b.      Go to the group that you are assigned to in our Google group.
i.      First post your reflective paper.
ii.     Read reflective papers by other group members.
iii.    Interact with each other.

Annotated Bibliography #1

Rosenthal, Judith W.,   (2000).  Case Study #1: Foreign Language Instruction and Technology in Handbook of undergraduate second language education.  Retrieved from http://books.google.com/books?id=gQj2MBa2MG8C&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

     This book (with an online preview) includes a very interesting "Brief History of Technology and Language Learning" which illustrates the follies of several "best" practice educational reforms throughout the years. (p.304).  The book also contains several case-studies of technology and second language teaching.  Of particular interest is "Case Study #1: Foreign Language Instruction and Technology" which focuses on Yoko Koike, a Japanese teacher at Haverford College.  The study discusses how she has managed to depart from the traditional educational model that emphasizes "learner centered interactions," as apposed to teacher focused lectures, and she uses various technologies to accomplish this.  

I particularly related to her desire to help her students "come to see themselves as skillful communicators in Japanese, rather than as simply learners of the language."  In my own classroom, I use Japanese even when I'm not teaching a lesson, and when the students are also encouraged to play-along, they suddenly discover that Japanese actually relates to them since they are able to use Japanese in their lives (as opposed to just for a test).  They come to find that they are more skillful than they had ever envisioned and this gives them tremendous courage to learn more.

     An interesting concept that Yoko Koike discusses is the idea that although technology is invaluable if applied correctly when teaching, it also has the potential for be "noisy," meaning that "learning to use them can get in the way of and overshadow the true goals and processes of her communicative approach." (p.310-311)  This struck a chord with me as I've personally experienced the almost distracting excitement students face with new technology, and the learning curve they must summit before they can even begin to use the technology to learn Japanese in the way intended.

     As I have a challenging teaching position (with five different classes to prepare for daily), technology has become an invaluable tool to help me serve the needs of my students.  I teach one class at Harshman Magnet Middle School, and four levels of Japanese at Arsenal Tech High School.  The students are mostly inner-city children of single-parent families, but I've had great success in spreading enthusiasm and facilitating their learning.  In my favor, most of the students have elected to take Japanese themselves due to some personal interest as apposed to most core classes which they are mandatory. 

Please feel free to post comments to this Annotated Bibliography. Hopefully it is suitable, and perhaps even exceptional as a first attempt, but any suggestions for revision are always welcome.

Reflection 1 and Blog issues

It was great to meet everyone Saturday at University of Indianapolis.  I wish we could meet again before December 11th, but I guess we have to immerse ourselves in the virtual world for this digital class of 21st century skills.

I'm excited to employ more technology as a tool for learning and the ease to which it could by used to adapt to our students' needs.  I've actually used quite a lot of technology in my classrooms over the years, but not as of yet a blog.  The realization that some of my own students might be already using blogs even before I did... is a bit jolting, but I plan to do more than just catch-up with them.

In class we talked about the different kinds of literacies (Now I'm glad I included computer literacy on that questionnaire before class!) We learned about media, digital, visual, and information literacy, and how these might apply to inquiry based learning, and how successful teachers employ TPACK.  In truth I need to read more about TPACK to clarify a few things.  (Teachers Pedagogy A? Content, Knowledge)  Here is a link to the wiki
http://www.tpack.org/tpck/index.php?title=Main_Page  they have a nice Venn diagram there.

My definition of literacy is the level of proficiency an individual has in a specific area, such as reading, technology, social understanding/skills, etc.  I expect this definition to change as I progress further in this class.
My definition of technology is any learned skill, information, simple or compound machines or the use of them in a way in which serves a purpose in our lives.  Usually technology is accumulative and passed on to future generations in the form of culture or collected information.
Technology has had a tremendous impact on literacy by disseminating information and culture which allows more people to find use for it and even build upon it and re-disseminate, by aiding teachers in increasing the literacy level of people in societies, and by aiding individuals to find new ways to improve their own literacy in any area.  Technology has even enabled people with disabilities to access new forms of literacy. This could impact student learning by opening new possibilities for kids just as my blind friend Phil's computer reads webpages rapidly to him.  Technology is always changing, and teachers need to try to keep-up with that change or risk becoming obsolete when their students begin to live in a world their teachers can not relate to or even cope in.  Adapt!

I have used many forms of technology in my classroom; overhead projectors, LCDs, whiteboards, desktop computers, sets of laptops, CDs, DVDs, internet, video editing software, phones, various electronic devises, science lab equipment (microscopes etc), and even game-show style hand buzzers.  I don't like to use any of these simply for the purpose of USING technology, I like the technology to enhance, support, or enable new kinds of learning.  Challenges with technology involve the likely-hood that technology never seems to work "right" when you need it the most.  Sometimes being good at technology simply means being flexible, quick on your feet in solving problems, or finding clever ways to get the faulty technology to do what you need even when it does not work the way it should.  There is also the problem that a classroom of students might have many different levels of technological literacy and this makes leading the class through a task together difficult.

Many of the members of this class seem to have some international interest that has influenced us. I'm sure that most of us who are or will be teachers face similar problems of keeping-up with the latest in technology and it's limitations.

I have been testing out the widgets for Blogspace.com, and sometimes they don't seem to show-up on some computers (specifically my "Slideshow of Japan and my classrooms."  I'm not sure why.  If someone knows please let me know, (or even just if you can see it).

Testing Out This New Blog with Class Information

Welcome to EDUC 597: Literacy and Technology U of Indy Fall 2010 Class
Instructor Dr. Gaoming Zhang (Gao Mei)

My name is Mike Dwyer, and I am the Japanese teacher for Arsenal Tech H.S. and Harshman Magnet Middle School in IPS.

I just ordered the Book Literacy: An Introduction to the Ecology of Written Language  from Amazon.com for  $37.31 plus $3.95 shipping, but they gave a
Delivery Estimate: September 3, 2010 - September 21, 2010
This could pose a big problem if it comes on the late side of that...