I found this book difficult to get into, mainly because I didn't understand a significant amount of the terminology. But, once I made my way further into the text, it was easier to understand some of the concepts being addressed. I think the topic in the text that finally made it "click" for me was in Chapter 2 when the music industry was brought up. The first chapter had me somewhat confused on "place," but I want to look further into it to gain more understanding.
Chapter two helped clear up some uncertainties I had regarding terminology. I had been searching the text for tools and techniques that were being put into practice. I had this goal in my head, yet I couldn't seem to figure out what I was looking for. I knew that what I read had a list of new techniques, I couldn't see, however, how they were put into practice. Peer-to-peer was one of those practices that I was having trouble with. Recently, at school, we had to discuss our technology policy with the students about peer-to-peer file sharing such as BitTorrent. When we discussed this, I had no clue what they were talking about. The music industry discussion in this chapter helped with this disconnect. Since I can remember being on the computer, if I wasn't downloading music, my brother was. Before getting music on the computer, we purchased CDs, the internet, however, made accessing music very easy and convenient. We rarely used iTunes to purchase music, and found various ways of getting free downloads. P2P file sharing makes for an easy way to access almost anything through the internet. It does have it's downfalls though.
As stated in the text, "The emergence of P2P was an obvious threat to corporations that perceived file sharing as theft of their intellectual property." (p. 51). While I downloaded music for my own enjoyment, I rarely thought that what I was doing was illegal, but I did feel that I might have been cheating the system in some way. As mentioned in the text, "music industry's revenues plunged," (p.50) and they continue to today. I personally know a few musicians, and they know the struggle of trying to sell music. Many people expect the music to be free when they find it online, but they often don't recognize the time and effort that goes into producing the music; something I didn't realize when I searched for free downloads. File sharing can be misused across the board. Individuals have been using other musicians work in their own songs for decades, that is nothing new. However, this file sharing is now being battled with copyrights. Sampling, quoting, and remixing songs is making it difficult for some original artists to be able to make money off of their pieces. "There is a very real problem of artists being able to make a living through their music." (p. 51).
Additionally, the distribution of music has changed drastically. No longer do people need professional recording studios or to be signed by a record company. They have the ability to produce and distribute their own music. They have access to how to produce their own music and what equipment they will need. All they would have to do is read a few articles online, and scope out a few blogs to figure out what they need and how to use it. After they produce their own songs, they can easily share what they have made through almost any social media platform. Anyone can use "social networks [to] spread new and unknown artists to their friends and their friend's friends." (p. 54). I know from a variety of friends that this method has been effective; I have helped share music for friends, and I have been opened up to new music from friends. When the music is shared on a social media platform, I almost feel like people will be more willing to pay for their music, because they will feel a different type of connection to these musicians, than those that you don't know personal connection. Blogs and other platforms are used by musicians, too, in order to "market" their personalities and their music.
I feel like I am only skimming the surface with this topic, and I hope to become more fluent in it soon. It is easy to see that the internet is making many things (more than music) convenient for consumers, but it is also making things more complex for bigger companies, businesses, and corporations. Corporations are trying to control the way information is consumed, but at the same time, consumers are trying to control the way that same information is accessible. It's a two way battle that seems like a tug-of-war contest. I can see a lot of things going on with this book, and I want to get more of a handle on it. I'm hoping that through discussion with the others taking this course will help me get a better understanding of the tools, techniques, and skills being mentioned. Additionally, I am looking forward to reading other blogs about this reading. I feel like I am aware of many of the issues mentioned throughout the text, but I want to hear how they are applied to these tools and techniques. I'm still working on clearing up some confusion, but I feel slightly better after reading about the music industry and how I can relate to it in some way.
References:
Varnelis, K. (2008). Networked Publics. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press.
Friday, September 30, 2016
Friday, September 16, 2016
Week 1 Post: New Literacies as a Social Practice
"The distinctive contribution of the approach to literacy as social practice lies in the ways in which it involves careful and sensitive attention to what people do with texts, how they make sense of them and use them to further their own purposes in their own learning lives" (Gillen and Barton, 2010, p. 9).
Literacy is not often thought of a social practice but more of something that you work toward through education. Lankshear and Knobel (1992/94/97) caught my attention when they stated "Literacies are many, not singular" (p. 76). I feel that people normally think of literacy as being literate in mathematics, or in different forms of sciences, being able to read and write to convey a message, reading a book and being able to analyze it and summarize it. However, our world's definition is expanding exponentially. Within the past couple of decades, this shifts in literacy have been a challenge for many people on a multitude of levels.
If I think of my own life, I can remember before being in pre-school that I could turn on my father's computer in his office and start up a CD-ROM computer game, a task that he had to attempt multiple times before he was successful. Not only are there generational gaps in these new literacies, there are gaps between cultures, social statuses, and economic statuses.
On a cultural level, I can think of the students I have had that were refugees. In the country they came from, they were literate in a variety of modes. They could understand their government (whether or not good things were happening), they could understand the injustices that were present all around them, and on a basic level of literacy, they could read and write to convey a message and understand a text. But upon entering a new country, they have to meet new standards of literacies. We don't notice all of the ways in which they must become literate in our society. We certainly don't recognize the literacy surrounding technology, which was mentioned throughout Durrant and Green's article, we take our technologies for granted, when to many refugees, it may be a new source for texts. It is a challenging shift from using texts in our lives for an informative use only, to using text to deepen our understanding of the world around us and have purpose in our learning lives. I can understand two different viewpoints on media literacy that were brought up in "Critical Literacy and Active Citizenship." First, it was mentioned that through texts and images, we are "able to become more active citizens, eager and competent to engage in forms of social transformation" (Lankshear & Knobel, 1992/94/97). I feel like this is the mindset of many people who come to our country; they want to make change in our society and they need to be able to read texts, understand texts, process texts, and use that to mold their opinions. We need to be educated to make significant change. On the other hand it was discussed how "the more information people have of their world... the more powerless they often feel" (Lankshear & Knobel, 1922/94/97). I know that from talking to many of my students, they feel that they are powerless, even if they have the ability to vote. But, they are not the only ones that feel that way. My students have not been exposed to many texts regarding the world around them, including their own world and government. Even people that have read texts and understood them, feel that with the knowledge they have gained about the happenings in their lives, they have no control over what happens, or as Lankshear and Knobel say, they lack "sociological imagination" (1992,/94/97). Even with all of the texts we have available to us, we all make sense of them in different ways which makes literacy as a social practice a very complicated concept.
Having multiple forms of texts available is a gift to education in general. It is now possible to teach and learn through so many different modes. My students are in a very technology based classroom where it is necessary for them to use different forms of texts. They may utilize a video, a physical manipulation, an on-screen manipulation, an article, an illustration, and so much more. For them, they are not just receiving information, they are gaining a deeper understanding of everything surrounding what they are learning. They are using all of these different modes to solidify their understanding on a single topic. It is amazing to see how they are able to use multiple forms of texts to solidify their learning. These student are moving away from a traditional approach to texts, "such as books [that] have strict order at various levels, and given entry-points" (Gillen & Barton, 2010). They have shifted from the old norms and have moved into the new norms of "multimodal texts, with their organisation on visual principles, and their multiple entrypoints [that] offer and even expect the reader to construct the order of reading for her/himself" (Gillen & Barton, 2010). In an essence, these students are creating designing their own learning lives; they have the ability to learn in almost anyway that suits them. It is quite an amazing shift in education, and society in general.
Lankshear, C., & Knobel, M. (2011). Literacies: Social, Cultural and Historical Perspectives. New York: Peter Lang Publishing.
Literacy is not often thought of a social practice but more of something that you work toward through education. Lankshear and Knobel (1992/94/97) caught my attention when they stated "Literacies are many, not singular" (p. 76). I feel that people normally think of literacy as being literate in mathematics, or in different forms of sciences, being able to read and write to convey a message, reading a book and being able to analyze it and summarize it. However, our world's definition is expanding exponentially. Within the past couple of decades, this shifts in literacy have been a challenge for many people on a multitude of levels.
If I think of my own life, I can remember before being in pre-school that I could turn on my father's computer in his office and start up a CD-ROM computer game, a task that he had to attempt multiple times before he was successful. Not only are there generational gaps in these new literacies, there are gaps between cultures, social statuses, and economic statuses.
On a cultural level, I can think of the students I have had that were refugees. In the country they came from, they were literate in a variety of modes. They could understand their government (whether or not good things were happening), they could understand the injustices that were present all around them, and on a basic level of literacy, they could read and write to convey a message and understand a text. But upon entering a new country, they have to meet new standards of literacies. We don't notice all of the ways in which they must become literate in our society. We certainly don't recognize the literacy surrounding technology, which was mentioned throughout Durrant and Green's article, we take our technologies for granted, when to many refugees, it may be a new source for texts. It is a challenging shift from using texts in our lives for an informative use only, to using text to deepen our understanding of the world around us and have purpose in our learning lives. I can understand two different viewpoints on media literacy that were brought up in "Critical Literacy and Active Citizenship." First, it was mentioned that through texts and images, we are "able to become more active citizens, eager and competent to engage in forms of social transformation" (Lankshear & Knobel, 1992/94/97). I feel like this is the mindset of many people who come to our country; they want to make change in our society and they need to be able to read texts, understand texts, process texts, and use that to mold their opinions. We need to be educated to make significant change. On the other hand it was discussed how "the more information people have of their world... the more powerless they often feel" (Lankshear & Knobel, 1922/94/97). I know that from talking to many of my students, they feel that they are powerless, even if they have the ability to vote. But, they are not the only ones that feel that way. My students have not been exposed to many texts regarding the world around them, including their own world and government. Even people that have read texts and understood them, feel that with the knowledge they have gained about the happenings in their lives, they have no control over what happens, or as Lankshear and Knobel say, they lack "sociological imagination" (1992,/94/97). Even with all of the texts we have available to us, we all make sense of them in different ways which makes literacy as a social practice a very complicated concept.
Having multiple forms of texts available is a gift to education in general. It is now possible to teach and learn through so many different modes. My students are in a very technology based classroom where it is necessary for them to use different forms of texts. They may utilize a video, a physical manipulation, an on-screen manipulation, an article, an illustration, and so much more. For them, they are not just receiving information, they are gaining a deeper understanding of everything surrounding what they are learning. They are using all of these different modes to solidify their understanding on a single topic. It is amazing to see how they are able to use multiple forms of texts to solidify their learning. These student are moving away from a traditional approach to texts, "such as books [that] have strict order at various levels, and given entry-points" (Gillen & Barton, 2010). They have shifted from the old norms and have moved into the new norms of "multimodal texts, with their organisation on visual principles, and their multiple entrypoints [that] offer and even expect the reader to construct the order of reading for her/himself" (Gillen & Barton, 2010). In an essence, these students are creating designing their own learning lives; they have the ability to learn in almost anyway that suits them. It is quite an amazing shift in education, and society in general.
Lankshear, C., & Knobel, M. (2011). Literacies: Social, Cultural and Historical Perspectives. New York: Peter Lang Publishing.
Gillen, J., & Barton, D. (2010). Digital Literacies. Retrieved from: http://eprints.lancs.ac.uk/33471/1/DigitalLiteracies.pdf.
Durrant, C., Green, B.( 2000) Literacy and the new technologies in school education: Meeting the l(IT)eracy challenge? The Free Library (June, 1), Retrieved from: http://www.thefreelibrary.com/literacy and the new technologies in school education: meeting the...-a063132991.
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