What I have learned about being digitally literate...

To start I think I have to consider where I started with my understanding of what it meant to be digitally literate prior to having completed this course. At the beginning of this course I felt that digital literacy meant just being skilled in the use of technology in general. What I have come to define digital literacy as at this point is an understanding of the how to utilize digital tools in order to accomplish a goal, being able to remix and collaborate with one another. I feel now that my definition of digital literacy matches my definition of literacy that I had determined prior to this course which was that literacy was the ability to be competent and skilled in a various different areas of knowledge.

Many of our readings confirmed this new understanding of digital literacy. McKee-Wadell in her article Digital Literacy: Bridging the Gap with Digital Writing Tools stated that "Digital literacy is...the ability to use information and communication technologies to find, evaluate, create, and communicate information requiring both cognitive and technical skills (p.26).

Lankshear and Knobel also define it as "the ability to understand and use information in multiple formats from a wide variety of sources" this is from "Digital Literacies--Concepts, Policies, and Practices" (p. 19).

Why I included the definitions of those two authors is because I have come to learn from these experts in their field and they have had an influence in my own definition of literacy. In almost all the definitions given throughout this course of digital literacy there were components of how to actual use digital media in order to be considered as digitally literate and thus I have come to define digital literacy and fluency as requiring the ability to utilize technology to accomplish goals that impact others.

What Digital Literacy Means to me...

Digital literacy has a wide range of meanings to me, first of all digital literacy is something that in this day and age we can no longer live without if we seek to engage with the world. It is a requirement in order to be a part of the workforce here in the United States and I have to consider the weight that this places on us teachers. We are raising the next generation of lawyers, doctors, teachers, volunteers and so on and our students have to be able to be digital citizens and although many already are we are responsible for fostering their growth and understanding of technology in order to utilize it to accomplish great things, this seems like a lofty goal for us as teachers.

What digital literacy means to me continued...

What digital literacy also brings to mind for me is how I have grown up without it and with it. The usage of digital tools seems to have grown as I grew, I lived in a house that had a computer that did not have internet on it but as I grew up technology changed alongside me and as it did we got internet, we got smartphones, and we got a changed world. I think that a major part of me has been impacted by this development. Earlier in this course we were asked if we feel that we are digital natives and I had to consider if I felt this was true or not. What I decided was that though I have pretty knowledgeable about the digital world I am not a native...

This then has made me consider digital literacy is constantly evolving and how I have to be prepared to meet it as it does. What often resonated with me while taking this course was how as Delzer states in her video Reimagining Classrooms: Teachers as Learners and Students as Leaders (2015), "Teachers don't need to master it all...sometimes the comfort level of teachers is less important than doing what's right for the kids." This stuck with me as a reminder that I need to keep pushing myself out of my comfort zone for the good of the kids.

Theories that have resonated with me from the course...

The first theory that resonated with me was from James Paul Gee and his article A Situated-Sociocultural Approach to Literacy and Technology and how he said that "People don't just read and write in general, they read and write specific sorts of 'texts' in specific ways determined by the values and practices of different social and cultural groups" (p. 168). Why this resonated with me was that it made me consider the contexts in which we look at digital literacy and how we determine its meaning. It helped me to consider the generational gap between digital natives and those that came before them and how we have to teach students and ourselves how we are to interpret digital texts.

Another theory that stuck out to me was the concept of Participatory Culture. In his video, Influence of Participatory Culture of Education, Henry Jenkins questions "why do we restrict students to not using social media and technology in school where there are safe and ethical uses of those technology?" This made me consider how we could be utilizing our students prior knowledge and understanding in order to build a deeper sense of digital literacy while we are there to protect them from some of the dangers of digital media and teach them how to interpret and protect themselves in the future, while also learning how to "connect, organize, share, collect, collaborate, and publish" (Wesch, [video file]). 

What stage of Spencer's 8 Stages am I in?

I think that I am likely in the 7th stage of Spencer's 8 Stages. Why I believe that I am in the Integration stage is that I am not resistant of using technology in the

classroom, I was in a school that had 1:1 Chromebooks during my student teaching experience and that made it so that I had to be willing and able to use technology in my teaching. I frequently experiment with new technologies that I am introduced to and after experimenting I either determine to integrate the new technology or not. I think we are all familiar with the disillusionment stage with technology, the Wi-Fi goes down and we don't have a backup prepared and we are frustrated with technology but I think that we have to understand that, that is a part of technology and we must accept its cons with its pros.