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Wikipedia: Information Source and Knowledge Community
One of the challenges facing the digital media and learning community—in fact, all educators—is the rapid pace of technological development that makes necessary the constant evaluation and investigation of new information and communication technologies. As a writing researcher, I am fascinated by the way in which knowledge communities shape writing, and these knowledge communities are often effective means of orienting students to new information sources. One of the most fascinating of these communities is Wikipedia, and Colleen A. Reilly of the University of North Carolina, Wilmington, has just written an interesting new article on how students can be taught to understand and participate in Wikipedia.… more
Teaching Digital Literacy
In literate societies, the idea of teaching someone how to read but not how to write is practically inconceivable. The dual connection between reading and writing is built into the very notion of literacy, making it a challenge to understand how someone could possibly do one without the other. It is safe to say that being able to use a medium as well as understand the processes of creation in that medium are the dual foundations of literacy in all media. This is the premise underlying the argument of media scholar Douglas Rushkoff's new book, Program or Be Programmed: Ten Commands for a Digital Age. In it, he contends that we have produced a generation of digital illiterates who understand how to use technology but not how the software that runs the technology they use is programmed. As he puts it, "We teach kids how to use software to write, but not how to write software" (p. 13). Those who fail to do this run the risk of being "programmed" by that software, not understanding how the decisions made by programmers "work on us" (p. 13), or affect our decisions while we use that software.… more
The Joy of Writing - With Ancient Tools or New
The Telegraph recently published an article announcing that, in the age of Facebook and Twitter, "ancient communication technologies" like handwriting "are current like never before." The title of the article -- "How Twitter made handwriting cool" -- is a little misleading in that there isn't much in the article to suggest how Twitter has any impact on the "coolness" of handwriting. Rather, it stands in as a representative of social media, against which the handwriting "movement" establishes itself as cool by rebelling against this new fad.… more