A11.3: Participation Memo

Ashley Pence

November 4, 2007

Aims & Objectives:

I would first like to say that this has been a long week and one that was not devoted to my CD 315 class.  I realize that that is okay and all of my work will get done…perhaps a little less efficiently, but still quality work that is done to the best of my abilities.  My goals for this week were still met, just not in the timely manner that they usually are.  However, this was my plan and my plan came through. 

Declarative Knowledge:

I began this week researching Branching Literacy Skills in order to gain a better understanding of the 5 major types of digital literacy skills.  I realized that this one is not my favorite and that it was hard for me to really understand all that it deals with and I would like to gain more knowledge on what exactly branching literacy skills are.  I continued work on my I-Search paper and realized that I really like writing papers like this.  It makes writing something that I am interested in fun and easy to talk about. 

Procedural Knowledge:

As for branching literacy skills I realized that they are something that have really became evident in the last 15-20 years.  This was evidenced by Eshet-Alkali and Amichai-Hamburger’s study on Experiments in Digital Literacy.  The study shows us that the younger the group, the better they performed the task required of them.  This shows that we as younger participants have had more experience in branching literacy skills and it has really become a part of our everyday lives especially in the school systems. 

While compiling my I-Search paper I learned the basic parts to a paper such as this and what it should include as a final piece of work.  The first section of my paper will include introducing and questioning.  I began by briefly discussing what I already know about literacy in general and then talking more specifically about what I already knew about my topic.  I also include why I was interested in this topic that I chose and the essential questions to help me obtain my final answer.  The second part of this paper includes the research that I performed and what evidence I found to support my answers to my foundation questions.  For my final section I concluded and synthesized all the evidence that helped support my answer and cited my work properly.

Conditional Knowledge:

While completing the assignments for this week I became more knowledgable about other parts of digital literacy.  I also completed an I-Search paper rough draft that will gear me towards my final project.  As a student this weeks assignments helped me prepare to get a good grade in my class.  As a future SLP and citizen I am now aware of how to effectively use research to obtain knowledge that is or could be useful to me and others that I may serve.

A11.1: Research and Reflection

Ashley Pence

October 30, 2007

To begin this research into branching literacy skills I would first like to say that it is my least favorite.  Branching literacy skills are my least favorite because it seems as though the information I have found is not as informative, the information I have found does not make sense to me and it is the least interesting.  With that said I will tell you what I do know about branching literacy skills. 

According to Eshet-Alkali and Amichai-Hamburger in their article, Experiments in Digital Literacy, there are 5 types of digital literacy.  Branching literacy skills is one skill that is believed to be a part of what makes digital literacy a whole.  The same article explains a study that was performed to indicate what literacy skills were performed more adequately by certain groups of people.  Those people were high school students, college students and adult college graduates.  To focus in on the topic at hand, for the branching literacy skills the study required the participants to plan a detailed trip that included a map and an itinerary for visits every day as well as information about the places that they would visit.  By doing this task the participant had to use branching literacy skills to develop the tour plan from non-linear, hypertextual navigation through a knowledge domain, in other words, an internet site.  This task was graded on completeness, richness and complexity of the task’s outcomes. (2004)  Each group of participants were graded on the same scale and the end result was that there were no huge differences between the high school students and college students, but compared to the adult college graduates, they had a much higher score.  This meant that the younger the participants, the higher their ability to perform the task   With all of that said, I still cannot understand branching literacy and all that it entails, but I do know that it is something that has evolved in the last 15-20 years and this is why the younger participants have a better grasp on it over the adult participants.  This is not to say that the adults could not attain a better understanding of it, but it does tell us that the younger groups have had more hands on experience in working with the internet in order to obtain information to compile a larger sum of knowledge.  When I read about how branching literacy skills were tested in this study I thought back on the types of research and projects that I had done that were similar.  This helped me realize that I should not be surprised about this type of literacy because it is something I have been doing for a large part of my schooling and without it I would not have succeded in many of my classes.

As I mentioned above I am no surprised at the increase in neccessity of this skill.  I can see that in the school system things are being done to enhance our skills and have been since my elementary days.  Schools are now using computers on a daily basis multiple times in a day even and this is building the basic information that children in schools today will need for their future.  Some may argue that this “new” literacy is not useful in teaching children and that we should stick to the old ways because it worked for them, it should work for the children today.  However, in todays society we can’t expect students to be satisfied with pre-determined content material and subject matter.  It is now imperative that we branch out by using our branching literacy skills.  To gain the interest of today’s generation we must move away from the concepts of learning that many current educators grew up with.  Everything we knew as a child is undergoing major shifts and we must embrace that. (2005) Although I grew up with an introduction to the “new” literacy I can still see major changes and should prepare myself for even more.

Resources:

Eshet-Alkai, Y., & Amichai-Hamburger, Y. (2004, August). Experiments in digital literacy. Cyberpsychology and Behavior, 7(4), 421-429.

Eshet-Alkai, Y. (2004).  Digital literacy: A conceptual framework for survival skills in the digital era.  JI. of Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia, 13(1), 93-106. 

Aphek, E.  (2005) Digital, “highly connected” children: Implications for education.  Retrieved October 19, 2007 from www.phil-inst.hu/mobil/2005/Aphek.pdf