While studying for my master's degree, I encountered lot of reading material about twenty first century learning. AFter surfing Route 21, I am completely convinced that acquiring my master's degree later in life certainly came with fringe benefits!! BTW - 50 rocks! Anyway- back to the blog -one of the resources I refer to (Teaching with the Internet Grades K-12: New Literacies for New Times by LEu, Leu, and Coiro) regularly poses the controversial question: Is learning how to use the Internet a technology issue, or a literacy issue? Has anyone out there flipped through the yellow pages lately to get a phone number? Have the sales of Key Maps possibly diminished now that competitors like Mapquest and Google maps have , shall we say, become the more convenient way to find a route? In less than a second thought - we could agree that the times are telling us that learning how to use the Internet is a literacy issue.
On another note, the authors conducted a study which concluded that the Internet contained more content related to the skills and strategies on state assessments than appeared in school textbooks. Well duh - this is probably no surprise to most, however, the elephant in the room is the biiiiiillions school districts spend on new text book adoptions. Did someone say HISD is starting the review process for a new ELA textbook?? How about them tamales?
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you mentioned google and mapquest - that made me think of the way some people/businesses are able to change with the times. my early memories of AAA is my parents getting trip tickets that had maps and directions, those days are long gone, but they moved with the times and created directions much like the navigation sites you mentioned. i guess you don't have to stop doing what you do, you just need to keep up with the new tools that could make you obsolete.
ReplyDeleteActually, I was listening to a Key Map commercial on the radio the other morning and it hit me how my portable GPS that I use in my car must have cut into their business. I was a faithful Key Map user up until 6 months ago. Yes, I would get directions from Expedia, but verify it from my Key Map. (I just sold a collection of older ones at a garage sale last year. I know I had 4 earlier editions.) I also valued my map reading skills which I had refined as the vice-president and dispatcher of a delivery service. (You had to know how to read a map quickly when you had 10 drivers on a tight time schedule demanding directions over a land line. Anyway, now I just turn on my talking GPS and drive out trusting that she will get me close enough to where I need to be. Actually, I'm finding short cuts and scenic routes I never would have tried before without her calm voice leaving crumbs for me to follow. Do I still carry my Key Map. Yeah, for now, but I've only opened it once over the past 6 months. Will I purchase an updated edition? Probably not. Sorry, my faithful Key Map friends, but times they are a changing.
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