Most of our lives are or are going digital. I am open to this and embrace technological changes in the present and future.
Here are some of the ways I use digital tools in my daily life and my beliefs.
1.. Communication: text, email (work and email) is mostly online. Discussion boards on online classes, blogs, etc. My phone rarely rings!
2. I read digitally: iPad, Kindle for iPad, iBooks, read on the internet (websites, etc.), blogs.
3. I write digitally: Word, Notes on iPad, text messaging, blogging, videos on YouTube, Facebook.
4. Teaching: most of my preparation for teaching is done online. I communicate to students mainly through email (!) and also our course management software “Blackboard” announcements, etc. I post handouts electronically and link them to online resources like articles, websites, and podcasts. Even my on-campus classes use Blackboard quite a bit. I teach with YouTube videos: http://www.youtube.com/user/peggysemingson?feature=mhee
Our Master’s degree in Literacy Studies is 100% online.
5. Scholarship: nearly all the scholarly journals I read are online and located through online databases. I still locate books in the library. Manuscripts are submitted electronically.
6. I think digitally in interactive and dialogic ways.I think visually and how pictures interact with text and words. My thinking has always been multi-modal with sights, sounds, images, and dialogue.
7. Althought I own records (nostalgia), I primarily listen to digital fiiles and online streaming radio.
8. I am indifferent to bookstores and hard copies of text going away. I am open to the demands of the marketplace and evolving trends in technology.
9. Some thinkers who inform my own thinking about technology: Lawrence Lessig, Ray Kurzweil, Don Leu and colleagues in literacy studies, James Gee, Colin Lankshear, Michele Knobel, Colin Harrison, and more. I will update this later.
10. I am not sure doc programs are training doc students enough to teach online. This should be required preparation and training in all doc programs everywhere.
I wonder what the future holds for education, both K-12 and higher ed.
Questions I have:
How prepared are educators to teach digital tools to K-12 and higher ed students?
What changes will we see in the near and far future in terms of teaching and online instruction?
What will happen to the publishing industry, bookstores, and libraries as we know them?
Technology Goals:
- Do more “real-time” teaching online. This includes using conference tools (like Adobe Connect, which I’ve used a little bit) and real time chat (never tried that with teaching).
- Keep up with writing relevant blog posts on my literacy blog
- Learn more about video production and editing
- Learn more about digital photography and how it might be useful to teaching
- Ramp up use of YouTube channel.
- Read more about technology.
- Write more about technology (research, articles, manuscripts).
For further reading:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Singularity_Is_Near
More to come. These are initial thoughts….
Literacy Update 