Unit 1. The 21th century Curriculum: background concepts and theories

“THE EIGHT NET GEN NORMS”

The next reflection is done based on Tapscoot, Don (2009).

The eight net gen norms. [Online Image 1]. Retrieved on March 28, 2010 from http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0071508635.jpg

What implications may these norms have for education in general and for language learning in particular?

After reading about “the eight net Gen Norms”, I can say they have a range of good positive points, which might contribute to education. Given that Net Genres are well informed about many current issues around the world, try new and different things,choose through several options the way they want to learn, are collaborative, like to exploit creativity and enjoy what they do for a living among many other characteristics, can mean that they are not afraid of making attempts to unveil reality.

In addition, integrating these norms in education might be challenging and demanding for most of us because we would face people who want learn and try new ideas and get information whenever and wherever they want and perhaps we are not prepared to test certain skills Neo Geners possess as creativity, making learning with no innovation.

However, knowing this information about Net Geners could help education fostering for example the collaborative work educators do into the classroom and values as honesty. In the case of language learning, the implications would be positive in many aspects, since teachers might ask students to explore different cultures and ask them to explain them the way the want because for this students would have the chance to use as many resources as they want. Besides, they would be free to choose how to present their interpretation of cultures. Therefore, in the learning of a language Net Generes’ features are advantages for language teachers because through many contents, they can help students rise awareness about the world.

Finally, these norms bring more positive than negative points to education; in one hand, these characteristics give us a description of how Net generes want to learn providing us with clues about how we can create a pleasant environment for learning. On the other hand, for those who do not still know what the Net Geners want is going to be difficult to address students’ interests. As a conclusion, nowadays it is a must to know what is going on around the world because getting in touch with the reality might contribute to form more competent learners.

Reference

Tapscoot, Don (2009). Grow up Digital How the Net Generation is Changing Your World. Chapter 5

THE RELEVANCE OF MULTILITERACIES

Multiliteracies. [Online 1]. Retrieved on March 28 from http://www.readingonline.org/newliteracies/rush/figure3.jpg

REFLECTION ON THE IMPLICATION OF MULTILITERACIES IN THE LANGUAGE

LEARNING CONTEXT

It is sometimes thought that a literate person is the one who possess specific abilities like reading and writing, but after knowing about multiliteracies this term goes beyond. The implication of this new term in education and in language learning brings many positive points and new ways of literacy, one is visual literacy stated by Bamford (2003) whose focuses on developing critical and creative thinking to construct meaningful meaning based on images. Then, for this it is important to enhance verbal and written skills for making judgments, analyzing the syntaxes and semantic.

At the same time, media literacy stated by Daley (2003), enhances people to develop concepts whose purpose is to empower in the construction of meaning through interactivity. In order to develop this skill it is necessary to have some understanding about the language of media; a good point this type of literacy offers is that many young learners do not feel too much fear when facing technology, instead they are developing their technical abilities by experimenting.

In addition, Lima (2006) talks about critical literacy, which is crucial for learning, since it refers to language and worldviews, social practices among others. This type of literacy was born from the changing world we live in whose aims at helping learners to build up their own answers and negotiate meaning what depends on the context and needs. Here, educators have a big responsibility of fostering this way of literacy since we need to prepare competent people who are able to face the world situation.

Finally, the report of the 21^st century literacy summit (2005) highlights the idea to develop and expand the different multiliteracies skills that are emerging nowadays; learning new structures with the implications they might have, and then it is essential to create opportunities for unveiling learning.

To conclude, all educators around the world are responsible to develop all the literacies to shape students’ skills providing pleased environments and real contexts to use the abilities new generations need to have. It is all about representation of meaning seeing from different perspectives. Once we identify our learners’ intelligences, it might be possible to create an action plan to develop the others. Perhaps the skills mentioned above were never taught to us because the world was not as challenging and demanding as today, for that reason it is our must to be updated and open minded to face the reality.

References

Bamford, A. (2003). The visual Literacy White Paper. Adobe Systems. Retrieved from http://www.adobe.com/uk/education/pdf/adobe_visual_literacy_paper.pdf

Daley, E. (2003). Expanding the concept of Literacy. Educause Review. . Retrieved from http://net. Educause.edu/it/library/pdf/erm0322.pdf

Lima, C. (2006). A brief Introduction to Critical Literacy In English Language Education. British Council Brazil. Retrieved from http://www.criticallliteracy.org.uk/images/cleltbooklet.pdf

The New Media Consortium (2005). A Global Imperative: The Report of the 21^st Century Literacy

Summit. Retrieved from http://www.nmc.org/pdf/Global_Imperative.pdf