week 6

COPY AND PASTE LITERACY?
In my opinion as an educator, I believe myspace is for communication between teens and adults, but at times it has been abused. I know from experiece at my school a couple of 7th graders were suspended for posting pictures with students flashing gang signs in the classroom (that were taken by a camera cell phone). Some of the students that were posted didn't even know that their picture were even on the web. Myspace should be modeled in a positive way, so with teachers using it in classrooms, it could be a daily way of journaling between the teacher and students or between student to student. The question is: Is myspace really literacy? With all the copying and pasting, what really is the individual's work or even his or her own words.
Myspace is a way teens and adults can freely express themselves, but need to be shown how in a positive way. Using myspace is a way to keep up with our digital world in a expressive way. It ould be educational and pure enjoyment. There are teens that use myspace as an attention getter which can turn sexual and then there are others that use the site to bulley their peers (which can lead to other serious situations).
Myspace is turning into a commericalized blogging site then a individual creative site that it was supposed to be. Literacy? How can it be a great literacy when most of the information on everyone's site is simply copy and paste or videos. Copying and pasting doesn't take much skill.

The Perils and Pitfalls of Wikipedia
Wikipedia? Good resouce site? As a 2nd grade teacher, I used this site for my students when we were researching about US symbols and I thought is was great. Until I came to one of the US symbols were were researching on Wikipedia and half the the information was typed over with information that wasn't even about our US symbol. That was the last time I used Wikipedia, mainly because heaven knowns what could be typed on this site. At the present time, teachers every where are determining whether using Wiipedia as a resource place is valid or not.

Reading 5

As educators, we need to be aware of this new "participatory culture" that is experimenting with online sites (facebook, message board, blogger etc). They are young teens that want to be heard and thinks for only themselves or their age groups. This "participatory culture" can do one of two things create great podcasts that gets anyone thinking about an issue and go far in this high tech world; or just wants to cause trouble and uses sites to bash and/or bully others in their age group. This bullying on the web has become one the major uproars at school and on the news. We as teachers need to educate this teens and parents about the proper use of blogging and message board. With bullying on the web, schools are locking down more and more sites, teachers have little to none in the classroom. Honestly most of the problems are happening at home where teens have access to everything on the web with little or not parent supervision. According to this article Confronting the Challenges of Paricipatory Culture Media Education for the 21st Century: Educatiors must work together to ensure that every American young person has access to the skill and experiences needed to become full participants, can articulate their understanding of how media shapes perceptions, and has been socialized into the emerging ethical standards that should shape thier practices as media makers and paticipants in online communities. Educators need to shift this "participatory culture" from individual expression to community involvement. By teaching the new core social skills of using Web 2.0, teens can express themselves by what they can do for their neighborhood, school community and computer community in a positive nature. Teens are learning to develop bloggs and live action gaming sites that help with reading comprehension, writing and data processing skills which everyone will need to be successful in this high tech world. As a 2nd grade teacher, I could teach these skills by using a blogger site as a "look what I did in school this week". My students could post daily or weekly work to show their parents when they get home. It could be as simple as a couple of math problems that they finally accomplished or a story that they publish to read at the next Reading Expo (a Friday function at Copper King where students K-8th grade can read to an audience).