Cathy Davidson, Professor of English and Interdisciplinary Studies at Duke University, also co-founder of HASTAC (Humanities, Arts, Science, Technology Advanced Collaboratory) asked her university students for examples of the digital literacies they were developing in her classes. Here’s what they said:

• Using online sources to network, knowledge-outreach, publicize content,
  collaborate and innovate
• Collecting, managing, and interpreting multimedia and online data and/or content
• Appreciating the complex ethics surrounding online practices
• Engaging successfully in an “Innovation Challenge,” an exercise in simultaneous multi-user, real-time distance collaboration, on deadline
• Developing a diversity of writing styles and modes of communication to best reach, address, and accommodate multiple audiences across multiple online platforms
• Demonstrating technical and media skills: Web video, WordPress, blogging, Google Docs, Livechat, Twitter, Facebook Groups, Wikipedia editing
• Participating successfully in peer leadership (without an authority figure as the leader to police, guide, or protect the collaborators), peer assessment, peer self-evaluation; making contributions to a group on a coherent and innovative project
• Cultivating strategies for managing the line between personal and professional life in visible, online communities
• Understanding how to transform complicated ideas and gut reactions about technology into flexible technology policy
• Learning how to champion the importance of the open Web and Net Neutrality
• Collaborating across disciplines, working with people from different backgrounds and fields, including across liberal arts and engineering
• Understanding the complexity of copyright and intellectual property and the relationship between “open source”and “profitability”or “sustainability”
• Excelling in collaborative online publishing skills and expertise, from conception to execution to implementation to dissemination
• Incorporating technology efficiently and wisely into a specific classroom or work environment
• Leading peers in discussing the implications and ethics of intellectual collaborative discourse and engagement online and beyond
• Using the superior expertise of a peer to extend my own knowledge

Michael Mateas, author of Procedural Literacy: Educating the New Media Practitioner (2005) and Director of the Center for Games and Playable Media brings our attention to the role of procedural literacy for learning. He speaks to procedural literacy defined as “the ability to read and write processes, to engage procedural representation and aesthetics, to understand the interplay between the culturally-embedded practices of human meaning-making and technically-mediated processes.” And he advocates a focus on developing games as a way to teach and engage with students to develop powerful and effective procedural literacies.

As you think about these two contrasting examples advocating for interpretations and definitions of ‘literacy’ that go beyond the traditional print reading and writing, consider your work with students at your level. What are the features and functions of digital and procedural literacies that you can grow and develop to help our students become fully literate learners? How can your work support them to best participate in the digital and media centered experiences in and out of school, now and for the future?

Jenna Ream is an educator, parent, and perpetual student of learning on ground and online.  Raising kids, consulting with schools, and pursuing a doctorate of education in Urban Ecologies, Jenna engages in conversations to find ways communities and schools can learn from our teachers and kids, to do better by our teachers and kids.  

Now that the school year is off and running, you have initially gotten to know your kids, are you sitting back and checking in with yourself: how are things going? Am I on a good track? Teaching is challenging. Building relationships with kids, determining how you will organize and present concepts is one layer. Thinking about how you will structure the learning experiences in ways that support the development of ideas while simultaneously developing the skills needed to talk, read and write about them is another. And depending on how well your current content and group of learners match your previous experiences, making the choices about what and how you will do, well, frankly, it can be overwhelming. But the truth is— you don’t have to go it alone.

Finding the ways that you can connect with others is an additional critical layer that can support you with ideas, conversation or collaboration- the choices are many and there are others who need what you need out there- the trick is, finding them! Sifting through the multitude of possibilities can be challenging in itself. Being proactive and finding the ways collaboration fits into our workflow early can be one of the best supports of all. Terrell Heike has a few ideas to get you started here. Connected Educators has links to existing communities you can join in regularly or just drop in to see what others are talking about. Edutopia Groups and ASCD Edge provide space for teachers to talk to each other about a range of themes from Project Based Learning to Social and Emotional Learning, New Teacher Support and Green Schools. And of course, in person in your building or virtually on Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest, these serve as additional venues for the conversation as well.

In setting up the school year we so often think about the ways we will structure and support our learners, this year, take some time to establish a network of support for yourself and connect.

Jenna Ream is an educator, parent, and perpetual student of learning on ground and online.  Raising kids, consulting with schools, and pursuing a doctorate of education in Urban Ecologies, Jenna engages in conversations to find ways communities and schools can learn from our teachers and kids, to do better by our teachers and kids.