Discussion Post #1

Multimedia mediums have been broadening the term of literacy that we used to define as solely reading and writing. However, now with the 21^st century incorporating technology into everyday life, multimedia mediums have started to broaden what it is that we define as “literacy”. Although most of the courses in high school and college are starting to require multimedia projects as a required aspect of the course, not everyone is educated properly with the proper tools and resources that is needed in order to sufficiently use these multimedia mediums effectively. As Elizabeth Daley (2003) mentions in her article, young people in the 21^st century “need to be taught to write for the screen and analyze multimedia just as much as, if not more than, they need to be taught to write and analyze any specific genre in text […] they have had instruction in text at the secondary level, but rarely have they received similar instruction for multimedia” (p.37). When I came across this section of the article I took time to think about the educational world today. I am shocked that students as low as Kindergarten are enforced to use computers throughout the day, but yet the school districts have eliminated computer classes from the curriculum, which, would help to assist students on how to properly use the computers and integrate media into the classroom.

In spending my time during student teaching in a 2^nd and 5^th grade classroom I noticed how incapable students in both age groups were in using the computers. Throughout the 21^st century we have been exposed to many advanced and useful programs in technology, however, when students are inefficiently using them the technology tools become a waste of time, as well as, useless to them and their education. During my student teaching a huge factor I came to understand which helped to explain why technology was not being greatly integrated into the classroom was for the fact that teachers knew very little about technology and what it had to offer. Since teachers are not highly advanced with the various technology/multimedia tools that are available to them in the classroom, I found that many of them steered away from integrating them into their classrooms. My 5^th grade cooperating teacher that I was working with during my student teaching was unskilled with different multimedia tools until I offered to help her in getting to know them. After showing her different multimedia tools and what her students could gain from implementing them into their learning she was willing to give it a try on their next classroom project. Although I personally am not concerned about not knowing enough about multimedia project development to instruct my students,

during my time student teaching, I noticed how unaware teachers are about the new technology tools and how they would be able to effectively integrate them into his/her classroom. I think the change in technology over the past decade has stressed teachers out with not knowing or having the time to integrate these useful tools into their classroom. In my future classroom I think I would be hesitant on incorporating technology and multimedia tools into my classroom primarily due to the issue of time, not only the time it would take to learn about the tool, in addition to as the time it would take to help my students utilize the tool and if there were to be any technology issues I would need to factor that in as well.

Multimedia analysis could potentially create an issue for my future students merely because it is understood in this time period that most, if not all, student’s own technology devices at home and are able to use them frequently, which is not the case. The 21^st century creates this image that because technology is advancing younger people are more aware and knowledgeable on how to use these devices, however, Elizabeth Daley (2003) informs us that, “young people today have less fear of the computer and more technical ability with software for rich media; multimedia is indeed their everyday language. However, they have no more critical ability with this language than do their elders – perhaps less” (p.37).

Overall, I think that it is apparent that
although students are more willing to explore and utilize these different technology devices it should not be understood that they are able to analyze or deconstruct these multimedia tools as efficiently as we would anticipate.

References

Daley, E. (2003). Expanding the concept of literacy. EDUCAUSEreview, 33-40.