Resource Log 3/ Reflection

Pascarella, J. (June 2008). Confronting the Challenges of Critical Digital Literacy: An Essay Review Critical Constructivism: A Primer. Educational Studies, 43(3), 246-255. Retrieved from: http://library3.webster.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=ip,cookie,url,uid&db=aph&AN=32708637&site=ehost-live. Retrieved on 1-18-2009.

The more articles that I read, the more I understand the purpose for this course. This book review on a text by Joe L. Kincheloe titled Critical Constructivism: A Primer, summarizes the main idea of this book to be how and for what purpose we should be more thoughtful to teach digital literacy to our students. This article made me think of several things. First, I reflected on my own educational experience. I believe that I am the last generation of students who were taught straight out of the book. I was unaware of the internet until college and the only thing I used computers for in grade school and high school were to either type papers or play "Oragon Trail". I was able to start using computers for research and universities were being to put their card catalogs online. Even though I'm only thrity-two years old, I realized what a different perspective my students have about technology to mine. In some cases already, my nine and ten year old learners have done some very meaningful trouble shooting for me.
The article went on to talk about different electronic media and how decieving it can be. For example, I was unaware that anyone can edit a Wikipedia entry. I have a student who constantly want so to look up information on this site. The article states that because this media can be so easily manipulated, we need to teach our students that it is not always reliable and how to tell the difference. That is a large responsibility for educators. I thought by limiting them to only district approved sites, I was just responsible for keeping them safe. Now it seems to be much larger.
This article talked about how our students, because of technology are going to be apart of a larger society or "global media". This statement made me feel as if I am already short changing my learners. They are going to have to work with people from all over the world of different cultures (an idea in the article). This put me in awe and is causing me to question how am I to prepare them for this world that is becomming increasingly bigger.