I understand the discomfort some teachers have with new media texts. I am not completely comfortable with all the new technology. As teachers, we must make ourselves comfortable with the technology in order to teach our students how to use it for themselves. However, in most cases, the students are more proficient with technology than the teachers are. Knowing how to read, discuss, and compose texts through new media texts is a must for students today.
One way to do this is through integrating virtual literacy into composition classrooms. According to the article, virtual literacy is the ability to read, understand, value, and learn from virtual materials such as still photographs, videos, films, animations, still images, pictures, drawings, and graphics when they are used to create a text as well as the ability to create, combine, and use visual elements (colors, lines, forms,and images) and messages for the purpose of communication. WOW! That's a mouthful!!
Many teachers use alphabetic texts as as the primary text in the classroom and the visual text as a secondary text. One reason teachers do this is the expense associated with some of the technologies and the uneven distribution in the schools. Regardless, teachers in composition classrooms need to give the students the skills required to use visual literacy.
No comments:
Post a Comment