New Media & New Literacies - John Pirrone

     Social media platforms, content-sharing platforms, and communication tools allow educators to interact with students and engage them in classroom activities. These platforms shape communication, influence information consumption, and engage their users. Each platform requires specific literacies to navigate them efficiently for their intended use and outcomes. Two of the platforms that I use almost on a daily basis are Google Classroom and Quizizz.  Google Classroom   https://edu.google.com/workspace-for-education/products/classroom/         Overview : Google classroom is a content sharing platform used by both students and educators in the K-12 school system. It is a platform that allows teachers to post content, assign activities, and organize all of the materials given out in class. It can also double as a calendar for upcoming assignments and curriculum in your class as well. For students, Google Classroom is a platform that all...

     After considering multiple topics from previous modules, I would like to conduct more research on implementing simulations and virtual reality into my curriculum. I am a high school Earth Science teacher and one of my primary goals is to ensure learning for all of my students. Right now in my career, I have been tasked to teach multiple Earth Science classes throughout the day, all of which have diverse learners. I would like to have the ability to display earth’s processes and actions through the use of simulations and virtual reality to ensure my students’ understanding of the material. Many of my students benefit from a physical lab where they have the opportunity to look at a “smaller scale version” of what is actually happening outside of the classroom. As new media sources and new literacies arise, I would like to stay ahead of the curve and have different ways to explain processes to my students. Technology is advancing more and more everyday. I would like to ...

          The readings from this module have shed light on the importance of designing lessons that go beyond the screen and outside of the classroom. Currently, I am teaching Earth Science at the high school level and have contemplated the many ways to engage students in conversation around new literacy practices. One literacy practice that I believe to be extremely important, is the ability to filter information found on the internet. With so much information on the internet, students are often confused and uncertain of pieces of information found online. One way to engage students in this digital literacy practice is by connecting lessons to real occurrences outside of the classroom. In the article Assessing News Literacies In The 21st Century , Jacobson states, “In Taiwan this school year, students will begin to have lessons on how to recognize credible websites and discern propaganda from legitimate news.” (ILA, 2017). In an Earth Science class, I hav...

            Upon completing the additional readings for this module, there were multiple statements and points of view that were enlightening and insightful. One of the statements that resonated with me the most was “Powerful literacy instruction should prepare students today to produce, communicate, interpret, and socialize with peers, adults, and the broader world they will enter when they graduate” (International Literacy Association, 2018). As an educator, my primary goal is to prepare students for the world outside of the classroom. It was not too long ago when I graduated from college with hopes that my college prepared me enough for my future career. Something that I have noticed amongst the current student population is their lack of attention towards punctuation and formatting emails. I want my students to be able to properly format and send emails, write professional papers, and communicate their thoughts and perspectives in a manner that sho...

          Now more than ever, new literacy practices are relevant to both my professional and personal life. In terms of my professional life, one of my goals is to be the best teacher that I can possibly be. In order to be the best version of myself in the classroom, it is extremely important to keep up with the times and with modern technology. The article, Expanded Territories of “Literacy”: New Literacies and Multiliteracies states, “First, while the “old technologies” mostly consist of simple forms of production, the new “technical stuff” is a “hybridization of multimodal media” that includes texts, images, music, videos, etc., which altogether create interactive and interconnected forms of production that can be retrieved conveniently (Lankshear and Knobel, 2007)” (Sang, 2017). In today’s world students are growing up with technology far more advanced than when I was their age. In order to effectively teach, we need to understand the technology that t...

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