Week 9- New Media Literacies

Your thoughts/understanding about New Media Literacies... Do they fit in your content area? Yes, No, Why not or how? Do they fit in education in general? etc...

In general, New Media literacies fit into every single content area that I can think of. Even elective high school courses like art and music now rely on New Media Literacies. Students are downloading sheet music, creating deviantart accounts, sharing their content and absorbing other people's through the web. To navigate the new world created by Web 2.0, people need to have the new set of skills known as new media literacies. The same skills that are required to do these things will make our students successful in the workplace. One of the videos shown this week listed the following skills and new media literacies:

Judgement, transmedia navigation, negotiation, simulation, collective intelligence, performance, distributed cognition, visualization, multitasking and play. Play is defined as experimenting with your surroundings as a form of problem solving. This is in my opinion one of the most important skills that our students can have. The American workforce is not about manufacturing anymore. We are a nation of entrepreneurs, problem solvers, creative thinkers, and innovators. Whether you are finding a new tool to help your company be more efficient, or solving problems in your small business, having the skill of play allows you to problem solve. I see this problem when trying to teach my parents or grandparents how to do something on the computer. They are afraid to touch anything because they will "break it." As a result, they don't learn new software or see out new technology well. They are dependent upon other people (like their children or grandchildren) to bring them new tools.

My content area is Business Education, which is all about real world business problems. This is one content area where new media literacies are so important. The business world is essentially constant problem solving.Whether you have your own start-up, or work in an office, your job is to solve problems to make the company work better or run smoother. In most jobs, no one holds your hand and says do steps 1,2,3,4 and then you have fixed the problem. I worked in construction management for a summer and I was constantly asked to meet deadlines while staying in budget, prepare reports for the next weeks staff meeting and solve little problems that came up along the way. How I did that was up to me, I just needed to get it done. In my opinion, teaching our students skills like play and judgement is more important than having them be able to recite the "P's of marketing."