I think I could summarize my growth and learning in this
class by just looking at the first word in title of this blog post,
Metacognitive. My spell check in Microsoft word says that word doesn’t exist,
or I spelled it wrong. Well, I now know what metacogntive means. What? You want
me to explain it to you? How about you go research it yourself, and then you
will know what this class was like for me. I do not mean that in a negative
sense, this class was an incredible experience for me, but it didn’t come
naturally.
From day one we explored things in this class that I, right
or wrong, never made strong connections to. The concept of media and literacy
were in many ways foreign to me as it has been quite some time since I engaged
in the formal learning process in a different way than how we engage our
students in the Agricultural Engineering Technology program at SUNY Cobleskill.
Our classes all seem to follow a similar structure. You come to class, sit in a
seat, take notes for an hour, read the textbook, go to lab, read the instructions
to take things apart, follow the instructions to put them together, write a
report about what you did, repeat for next topic. My intentions from the entire
MALET program is to change that and engage in more effective dynamic learning
opportunities with my students. So how did this class contribute to the cause?
I could go on and on in a length that none of you have time to read, it’s
Christmas and a lot of you still have shopping to do. Nevertheless I will
provide a couple highlights.
For me it was important to get past the point that literacy
meant more than just reading and writing. For me, it means everything involved
in using information, in print or digital or in alternative media formats, to
develop and communicate one’s knowledge. From this perspective I was able to
then start making sense out of how students learn and why certain techniques tend
to work and others do not. One of the biggest insights that I have gained
through this course is that digital technology, smartphones, participatory environments,
networked publics; they are not just new tools that we can use to enhance our
learning activities, they are part of our culture. They are as much a part of
our culture as our language, our books, and our social connections to our
community. Some would argue that in many ways these new technologies are
replacing those elements of our culture. It is hard to counter that argument.
What I have learned though is that it does not make sense to wage a war against
this cultural shift or creating a bunch of rules with the intent of “reversing”
the migration of our youth towards digital worlds, but it makes more sense to
embrace it for its positive value yet recognize the negative consequences and
implement ways of rectifying them. Whether you believe we have a problem with Cyberbullying,
diminishing beauty of the written word within our language, sacrificing our
privacy, lack of focus with too many distractions, increasing mandates on our
public education system, increasing levels of non-credible information being
absorbed, polarizing politics, etc.; as educators we all have the
responsibility to face these challenges and make an attempt to use our creative
techniques to overcome them. However, banning the use of the technology and not
embracing it into your curriculum is not the answer.
I want to thank professor Forbes and all of my classmates
for a wonderful experience and growing opportunity. I learned from all of you
as much as I learned from myself in my research activities. I hope that my
contributions to the class were valuable for all of you as well. I look forward
to working with all of you in future MALET classes and seeing the projects that
you all accomplish. I wish everyone a safe, happy, and healthy new year and
will see many of you (virtually) in a few weeks.
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