PLP

Emerging Literacies (from previous meetings)

Basic Literacy (3Rs+ rigor + technology basics + disciplined mind)

Basic Literacy has also been around for awhile. It covers teaching the foundational skills
students need and developing Gardner’s disciplined minds.

It does not necessarily prescribe a canon of content beyond that which is necessary to
allow students to acquire the skills needed to communicate and read; to develop
numeracy, scientific, and economic literacy; and to be proficient manipulating electronic
devices. (Yes, I’m wrapping technological literacy into basic literacy as it has become a
basic skill and shouldn’t be thought of as an added skill to address but as a fundamental
skill that is essential to success.)

Visual/Media Literacy

Just look around you - the recent election, the case for global warming or energy
alternatives, the move to green - everywhere we are bombarded by messages ranging
from subtle to overwhelmingly persuasive. All need to be viewed with a critical eye that
seeks to discern truth and bias, innuendo and allusion, and fact from fiction. In the
reverse, how can I select an image, series of images, video, or music that will
appropriately convey my message? This expands our responsibility from teach students to
understand and produce the types of documents the printing press made public to a
compulsory obligation to teach student to understand and produce the wide range of
communication formats that the computer makes possible.

Information Literacy

In a world where information is being created at an exponentially increasing rate,

students need to learn how to manage it - to evaluate its integrity, to respect it as property,
to detect the bias inherent in much of it, and to create with it. Students should become
discriminate consumers, creative producers, and scholarly researchers. They have a
wealth of information at their fingertips must learn to access it and construct meaning
from it. We cannot teach them what they need to know for jobs and processes that aren’t
yet a reality. We can only prepare them to learn how to first ask the right questions and
then to construct the right answers.

Intercultural Literacy (Global/Cultural Awareness)

Students need to understand, appreciate, and respect differences in perspectives that are
based on culture. They can develop this to some extent in humanities courses that expose
them through art, history, and literature to other cultures. They will not become literate
without exposure to other people and technology certainly affords us the opportunity to
make synchronous and asynchronous connections.
Citizenship and Ethical Literacy (Digital Citizenship)

Our immediate spheres of influence are much wider now and potentially transcend what
were once cultural barriers. The six degrees of separation is more rapidly unveiled. The
ability to collectively interact, create, publish, connect, organize, and promote has never
been greater. Students must understand what the appropriate barriers are for personal
safety and global collaboration. They must understand what the implications of their
digital footprint might be, regardless of whether or not they wore the shoe that created the
footprint. They must nurture their online identity.

Network Literacy (includes communication and collaboration in a flat world)

In today’s networked world , students and teachers have the ability to create a learning
network. They understand this power when framed in the context of a social network,
largely because of the impact facebook has had in teen culture. It is our job to show them
the power of networking for learning and to leverage that same power in our own
professional learning. It is this literacy that requires a certain proficiency in all the other
literacies as it situates learning in a global, interconnected web that understands that the
intelligence of many, when properly engaged and directed, can be harnessed to do
incredible things.

Habits of Mind Literacy (or is this just thinking)

This literacy is the one that we claim we always teach. It includes critical thinking,
persistence, risk-taking, creativity, all the ideals that an independent learner would
possess. There are two slightly different schools of thought on Habits of Mind. I interpret
Costa and Kallick’s philosophy to be slightly stronger on the importance of
metacognition while Sizer and Meier’s framework invokes more of a sense of
understanding community and acting with ethical behavior. (I think Pink would like
Sizer/Meier while Friedman would gravitate to Costa/Kallick but that’s just a fun little
supposition on my part.) Collectively, they describe the behaviors that are needed in
future thinkers and learners. While we have always tried to teach these, technology
allows me to make their acquisition more transparent and provides a tool around while a
creative and engaging curriculum can be built. Carol Dweck offers some good reading
here too with her thinking on the growth mindset.
PLPs To Do List
Join MICDS group
Join an Expert’s group
Read and Post – Participate

Potential Project Thoughts

Breathe life and understanding into the literacites, articulate and expand where they are
taught, define what elements could comprise an electronic portfolio to assess student
acquisition of those skills ( or a more manageable subset of those skills)

What are they?

Why teach them?
Where are they taught?
How are they taught?
When designing with UbD, are they included?

Promote concept of Networked teacher Using Ning for faculty – external, distance
sessions with some of same tools PLP is using..

Your thoughts?

Potential Reading:
Why Johnny and Janey Can’t Read and Why Mr. and Mrs Smith Can’t Teach
http://tinyurl.com/3w6nkb

Habits of Mind
http://www.i-learnt.com/Thinking_Habits_Mind.html
(http://tinyurl.com/4r5uo5)

Dweck Growth Mindset –

http://tinyurl.com/3bwvx6

Teaching for the knowledge society, I argue, involves cultivating these capacities
in young people œ developing deep cognitive learning, creativity and ingenuity
among pupils; drawing on research, working in networks and teams, and 
pursuing continuous professional learning as teachers; and promoting problem­
solving, risk­taking, trust in the collaborative process, ability to cope with change 
and commitment to continuous improvement as organizations. 
(Hargreaves, 2003, p. xviii)