Digital Literacy

In addition to seeing Jennifer Donnelly yesterday, Ashley, Nichole, Kristin, and I also went to Kjersty VanSlyke-Briggs' presentation on digital literacy. During her presentation she covered some very interesting points. Much of the information that we spoke about during the 50-minute session was material that was very familiar to me (since taking English 307). She reviewed del.ici.ous and explained to us how it was useful to sign up for, especially if you have your own personal blog. She also told warned us about some websites that appeared to be credible, however they were not credible at all.

It is important for us as teachers to decipher the difference between those websites that are in fact credible from those that are 100% fictional. For example, VanSlyke-Briggs brought up the website, www.martinlutherkingjr.org Now one would assume by its attractive website and quick links that this would be a credible source in which to base a paper. However, this particular site it not at all what it appears to be. In reality, this site was created by a white supremisist group that despises King and only tells lies about the late Dr. King. There was also another website that she warned us about, one concerning the endangered "tree octopus." Again, from the looks of the website, it would appear that there really is a species known as the tree octopus. They give several facts and photographs of this supposed endangered creature and explain what we can do to prevent them from becoming extinct. Now, let's get real here! There is no such thing as the tree octopus and they certainly aren't endangered. It is important to warn our students of these sites, as there are millions of non-credible sites available at their fingertips. These are just two sites in particular that were mentioned during the presentation that I found quite interesting. Just based on looking at the website, I was fooled into believing that they were credible sites. It is amazing how people can create these sites based on only fiction.

VanSlyke-Briggs also mentioned how her class at Oneonta and our Eng374 class collaborated in a cross-talk on YA lit blog last semester. She stated that we all understood how to blog correctly, but there was a definitite lack in communication between us and the Oneonta class. I think this was just because a lot of us were unsure how to still use the blog. After taking this class, using a blog seems so easy! I definitely feel as though I am progressing well when it comes to this whole new media literacy thing! Let's just hope that it gets even better in the future!