Blog Post 12

Assignment: Watch the video Teaching Writing in a Digital Age and write a blog post detailing your thoughts on the future of writing mentioned in the video and how you could incorporate some of these methods into your future classroom.

Teaching Writing in a Digital Age is a video that was made as an appeal to a school board who was skeptical about the use of technology in the writing classroom. Many of the points the video makes can be applied to any discipline and not specifically writing, but I still thought the video brought up some good points. One of the main ideas of the video is a redefining of the word literacy. In EDM 310 we have spoken many times about technological literacy and its importance in the field of education, but this video views technological literacy as an extension of what we think of as actual literacy. The video places this shift of the definition of literacy in the near future, which may in fact be the case. This shift reminded me of a video we watched for blog post 10 called "This is How We Dream" in which a fundamental change in writing is described. These two shifts, the new definition of literacy and the new way to write, go hand in hand.

My favorite point of the entire video was made by Dr. James Paul Gee, a professor at Arizona State University, who makes the argument that the American education system seems to perform best when its back is against the wall. He gives two scenarios in which this has occurred. The first was the launch of Sputnik, which prompted a jumpstart in American education, and the second was in the 1980's when Japan seemed to be on the verge of controlling the technological sector. The first example is obvious and is absolutely correct; the second example is arguable, but he does have an interesting point. With the current state of the American education system, it seems highly likely that we are in a period where our "backs are against the wall." Our education system has become complacent, but I remain hopeful that a phenomenon, much like the one Dr. Gee describes, has begun to take hold. With more and more teachers and school districts embracing technology and collaboration in schools, we may be on the precipice of a jumpstart to the American education system.