Why should teachers
care about digital literacy?
Our society is rapidly becoming overwhelmed by new
technologies and is vastly converting into a digital literate world; one which
our younger generation need to be exposed to in order to gain awareness and competence
with these new technologies (Marsh et al, 2005) as these will be their futures.
Digital literacy is having the ability
and awareness to use digital tools to facilitate learning of new knowledge through
an interactive and digital way.
Technology is changing within our society and is fast
becoming an integral role within society’s day to day running, therefore it is
vitally important children should be exposed to these early on so they can
develop an understanding. The results from a survey taken a few years ago regarding
practitioners within the education sector are alarmingly in favour of children’s
exposure to console games and television to support learning. A startling
number of teachers agreed that children can learn specific skills from playing
video games (Marsh et al, 2005), which is a fact I am astonished by being a
student teacher myself. How these violent video games can embed within young
children key learning skills which are transferrable within their education is
beyond my imagination, and I for one would not encourage children within my
class to engage with such violent games. However, I do agree that utilising
children’s popular culture, like video games and television programmes, within the
curriculum through activities can have a huge impact on their learning because
these activities would engage and allow children to enjoy their education more
as their learning can relate to their interests.
The use of popular children’s characters or television
programmes has been proven to benefit education, in particular within the
foundation stages, as Marsh et al (2005) identify that popular culture can in
turn promote children’s reading, writing, speaking and listening. From the view
of a student teacher I am baffled to understand how using television programmes
within literacy can help aid these key aspects of the subject, especially when 83%
of the professionals within the survey agreed that children ‘generally watch
too much’ (Marsh et al, 2005) television. Makin et al (2001) as cited in Marsh
et al (2005) identify that the use of popular culture within early educational
settings are more common than has been made aware.
Children’s popular culture does not just have to be television
or game related, it can be paper based, for example comics and newspapers.
However, according to Marsh et al (2005), this aspect of popular culture is
often less extensively used. This is likely due to influential educators opinions
that comics demonstrate the ‘scatological humour of childhood’ (Marsh et al,
2005). The alternative argument of this is that comics can promote learning and
adult interaction unlike the view of Marsh and Millard (2000 & 2001) who
imply that comics do not challenge children and include too many images and
colloquial language. In my opinion, I feel after becoming more aware of how
much digital technology some children are exposed to on a daily basis, utilising
paper based text within classrooms is hugely beneficial because it provides
those children who are reliant on technology other alternatives to digital literacy
and technologies.
Our society will eventually become solely driven by
technology and digitalised, and our children will become the digitally
illiterate. Therefore I believe that children need be taught the knowledge and
skills they will need as our technology becomes ‘more defined and extensive’
(Marsh et al, 2005). Palmer (2006) also states that children learn best when
they are interactive and hands on as opposed to passively watching; this should
and will influence how teachers use technology within their classrooms, and how
they promote effective digital literacy.
Marsh, J. Brooks, G. Hughes, J. Ritchie, L. Roberts, S. Wright,
K. (2005) Section 3: Practitioners’ views on and current use of popular culture,
media and new technologies in early childhood settings. In: Digital Beginnings: Young Children’s Use of
Popular Culture, Media and New Technologies. University of Sheffield.
Palmer, S. (2006) Toxic
Childhood: How the Modern World is Damaging Our Children and What We Can Do
About It. London: Orien.
This is really interesting, I really agree with your shock at the positivity surrounding the use of video games. Do you feel prepared for our society to become fully digitalised like you described?
ReplyDeleteI feel after completing this module, I am more confident in preparing myself for this developing digital future. However, this is obviously not enough! I like to think of myself as reasonably technologically sound but after working with the year 6 children at Shirley Warren, I was astonished at their digital ability! I definitely need to develop my skills and knowledge if I am to integrate technology in my classroom!
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