Digital Literacies

  The first thing we asked ourselves (and you may ask too) when we fjrst read the concept of digital literacies was its meaning. According to an article written by Nicky Hockly, digital literacies “refer to our ability to effectively make use of the technologies at our disposal. We are not just talking about a checklist of technical skills, but also about the social practices that surround the use of new media.”
  For three years we have studied different theories that explain why communication should be our teaching goal. Now, if we really want our students to communicate, we cannot avoid including digital literacies in the classroom. In such a globalized world, where you can communicate so easily with whoever you want, wherever they are, technology becomes a device of everyday life. We cannot imagine our lives without technology – and yet we do not consider ourselves purely digital natives.
  We should be aware that when students finish school, when they go out to the real world, they will need tools that nowadays, we are ignoring. “By integrating digital literacy work into our English classes, we can make them a little more relevant to who learners are once they are outside the school environment.” (Hockly, N. 2013)

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Information Literacies

  Information literacies, according to Hockly, is “the ability not only to find information amongst the mass of sites and sources afforded by technologies, but also to evaluate that information” (Hockly, N. 2013).
  If we are to include digital literacies in the classroom, we have to bear in mind that you can find endless webpages on Internet, and not all of them are good sources, or provide correct information. That is why, we should learn, first ourselves and then teach our students how to distinguish a serious webpage from one that is not.
  A website page we have analyzed was Discovery Education. It is an educational website which aims to be a tool for English teachers designing materials to use with their students.
  On this website teachers can choose the content and topics according to their students’ age, developmental level and needs. What the page provides are different kinds of games/activities for teachers to use with the specific content chosen.
  We have created a word search in which the students, after listening to a story about an animal band, will have to find animals and their instruments.



Find the animals and their instruments
T J W D S N M G K F H J H E Z
U N Q N N Y A G T O E E E A B
U W A O W L R Y E P F C A P Z
B K S H Z T A H N U R T U S U
E A N G P H C M I M O N K E Y
H L J U E E A U R R Z U W A O
H T I Z I F L R A A E U S T V
L I H S T O M E L V S E E N K
F Z G W G A I Y C R L P Y X U
I Q V G M U T C Z A M L L U E
N W U J H S I B L U U D F E I
Q S A A A R C T R E N X R P U
O N A I P B A T A Q O X N A M
I I O G C J R E H R I W K R B
Q H S J V P K O B N L V Y N E


BEAR
CLARINET
ELEPHANT
GUITAR
LION
MARACA
MONKEY
PIANO
SNAKE
TRUMPET


  Another positive aspect of the website is that the information is clearly presented. The text is neat, legible and formatted for easy reading. The steps to follow to create the different activities are clearly stated and well-organized. However, teachers cannot download the activities directly in PDF. They have to print them directly from the page or, in the case they can't do that, they have to copy and paste it in a word document.


Sources:
- Hockly, N. (n.d.). Digital literacies: What are they and why should we care? Retrieved July 05, 2016, from https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/digital-literacies-what-are-they-why-should-we-care

Digital Natives or Digital Immigrants?

On many occasions when we enter the classroom - especially in primary school or the first years in secondary school - we face a totally different generation. We call it different in the sense that young students are considered Digital Natives by some authors since they were born surrounded by new technology, while older people are described as Digital Immigrants. We do not think we completely belong to either extreme. On the one hand, we are not Digital Immigrants because technology is not odd to us since we were born at a time where it was already present in society. On the other hand we are not Digital Natives because technology did not exist in the amount it does now and we did not have easy access to it.

We have read the article “Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants” written by Prensky. It is interesting to see the different points of view that this author presents here. One of the ideas we agree with is the fact that, according to the author, “Digital Immigrants don’t believe their students can learn successfully while watching TV or listening to music, because they (the Immigrants) can’t.” Actually, Digital Immigrants see learning or studying as a separate thing from relaxing. They watch TV, a movie, listen to music, etc. when they have finished their work. For instance, some of them think young people do not read because they are not seen with a book, when actually digital natives are constantly reading. They can read in the social networks like Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, or e-books.

On the other hand we do not think it is impossible that the Digital Natives will go backwards to learn the old ways We are aware of the fact that bringing something odd to Digital Natives can be a risk, but it could be a good opportunity for them to leave technology aside for a while. We should try to take the risk and see what happens. For example, we could ask them to design a poster rather than a Power Point presentation. If the activity or task succeeds, they will be working in a way that they may not be accustomed to and it may call their interest. If it doesn’t work, well, at least we have tried! 

All in all, the best we can do is to strike a balance. We have to bear in mind that we will not always find the facilities needed to use technology in all the classrooms/lessons and that is why it is important not only that we adapt ourselves to the way of learning of the Digital Natives, but also that they respect and try to deal with other kind of activities presented to them. 

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Sources:
- Prensky, M (2001). Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants. On the Horizon