Weekly Reading #9

"Teachers need to play an active role when incorporating wikis in their classroom by discussing critical and ethical issues surrounding them and facilitating their use to encourage individual voices in collaborative ways" (Asselin & Moayeri, 2011).

I agree with this statement, because students can contribute their own content to a class wiki based on their opinion. This could cause other students to automatically trust the information provided by their peers and to change their own opinion, rather than contributing a new idea. This is a great opportunity to teach the students about bias and trustworthiness of online information. The students should research, validate, and cite all the information, then come to their own conclusion based on factual evidence. Teachers are responsible for demonstrating this process and encouraging students to discuss and work collaboratively.

Link to Example Class Wiki

I like this class wiki because it includes guidelines for the students and various helpful resources. I think this teacher is playing an active role by incorporating the class wiki and providing information related to critical issues involving online collaboration. This class wiki relays the message to encourage students' individual comments in an ethical way. 

1. What makes a literacy practice a "new literacy"?

A new mindset about knowledge makes a "new literacy." It is a participatory knowledge to include creating and publishing content. Knowing how to locate information collaboratively and contribute with annotated web pages.

2. How does Citizen Journalism support the development of "new literacies"?

Learning how to read material with annotations is a new literacy skill. TrackStar includes annotations for the students to read and perform website validations. This helps them to become more efficient with searching and evaluating online information.

3. What is critical literacy and how does your Citizen Journalism project encourage critical literacy? How might you change your project to encourage critical literacy? 

Critical literacy views information through a political, social, and economic mindset. Citizen Journalism can encourage critical literacy by allowing students to examine a community issue and their perspective on it. The project enables students to go beyond conventional skills of evaluating information and incorporate digital texts.

4. What problems may arise when students use Web 2.0 tools for learning in school and how might teachers capitalize on these opportunities to promote information literacy?

• Students contributions to social networking sites and you tube can be be controversial. It is important for them to learn to be ethically and socially responsible.
• Students are encouraged to view commercial sites critically and detect potential bias and become critical consumers.   

Resources:

Asselin, M. & Moayeri, M. (2011). Practical Strategies: The Participatory Classroom: Web 2.0 in the Classroom. Literacy Learning: The Middle Years 19(2).http://ictandliteracy.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/practical-strategies.pdf

Collaboration - Social Studies Middle School Wiki
http://collaborationnation.wikispaces.com/home