What is the Value of Our (Informal) Learning?

I am supposed to be writing about the evaluation or assessment of informal learning or its impact on learners, but instead I'm just saddened. I opened up the course text to read the final chapter and found this intro:

When we think about what a new educational environment might look like in the twenty-first century, we can imagine a number of things. Imagine an environment that is constantly changing. Imagine an environment where the participants are building, creating, and participating in a massive network of dozens of databases, hundreds of wiki and websites, and thousands of message forums, literally creating a large-scale knowledge economy. Imagine an environment where participants are constantly measuring and evaluating their own performance, even if that requires them to build new tools to do it. Imagine an environment where user interface dashboards are individually and personally constructed by users to help them make sense of the world and their own performance in it. Imagine an environment where evaluation is based on after-action reviews not to determine rewards but to continually enhance performance. Imagine an environment where learning happens on a continuous basis because the participants are internally motivated to find, share, and filter new information on a near-constant basis.

Finding an environment like that sounds difficult, but it isn't. It already exists, and in one of the most unlikely places: a new generation of games. Massively multiplayer online games--such as World of Warcraft, EVE Online, Star War Galaxies, and Lord of the Rings Online, to name a few...


I do not argue with this postulation, that such a dynamic learning world exists in mmos, but it breaks my heart.

Why can't we create the same collectives, the same camaraderie, the same self-initiated research and skill development around things that matter?

The text says educators dismiss games as frivolous or time-wasting, but I ask, how are they making the world a better place? It sounds like a beauty pageant answer, asking for everyone to be the change (I was given the Chinese name 世宁 "World Peace"...), but have we looked beyond our flashing computer screens to see the needs across the street and around the globe? My generation is investing hours upon hours to join together in guilds and hone our digital skills to advance through raids, only to pick up an item dropped by a monster that will help us with the next challenge. What if we came together to build houses for Habitat for Humanity? What if we volunteered at a soup kitchen, read books to kids at inner-city libraries, coached a youth sports team, built community gardens, or cared for orphans and widows? There is so much crying out for attention, yearning for help, desperate for someone to bring hope, and yet we devote our time and energy into these mmos. I am sad to hear that the model for informal learning is a world that I find increasingly offensive.

To learn is not noble. To be changed by learning and to be the change through learning, that is worth pursuing.

Homelessness, world hunger, immunizations, HIV/AIDS, sex trafficking, genocide, endangered species, global warming--my heart aches that the same passion for learning would be channeled into the real world problems (collective problems that they are, Thomas and Brown, Chapter 5) that assault humankind. Am I tainted in my perspective because I am not a gamer? Two different times today with two different people, I have lamented that my peers that are too busy playing life on a screen to play life in real life. To walk the Great Wall, to dive with the fish of the Philippines, to feed the poor, hug the brokenhearted, and build into the soul and spirit of their fellow humans.

Above all these thoughts, I hear Solomon's words: vanity, vanity, all is vanity. For if I do not love, I am nothing.

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Museums as Identity Practice

Not everyone who goes to a museum is deliberately test-driving a new identity, but my first trip to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. was just that. I was in 11th grade and on a family vacation when I asked my parents if I could go to the NGA by myself while they took my elementary-school-aged siblings to the Air and Space Museum. I'd been to the Air and Space Museum with my parents when I was an elementary student. It was then that I impressed Trekkies with my recitations of "these are the voyages of the starship Enterprise...", a little 6 year old girl who was constructing her identity from the passions and pursuits of her father. Now at 16, I'd recently become invested in the art world, and that museum across the mall was calling my name. But to explore the museum, and on my own, I had to try on this new role. What would the other visitors think? Would they label me an imposter? A newbie? Or was I the real-deal?

I danced my way throughout the museum, trying to look inconspicuous, as if I belonged, but awed by the architecture and thrilled to see Matisse, Rothko, and Van Gogh in person. I made it through every room, not wanting to miss a single thing, and even managed to convince my mother to return with me the next day. I remember looking with her at Chuck Close's fingerprint picture of Fanny. It was amazing! I still had familial love of space travel, but this inspired me.

The identity work that conspired that day in November 2002 has forever endeared the museum to me; the museum is part of the fabric of myself as an art-lover. I returned the following year, organizing a trip for National Art Honor Society students to visit DC and the NGA, then again in university for our student chapter of NAEA. While I have enjoyed visits to other art museums around the world, all of which could provide the same identity work for a young adult dabbling in art, just the photo of the atrium in the East Building awakens my love of this one particular museum. It taught me that I could participate in the art world.


Assignment: Recall a personal experience within a museum that fits the definition of informal learning.

References:
Rounds, J. (2006). Doing identity work in museums. Curator, 49 (2), 133-150.
NGA East Interior: http://myfavoriteart.blogspot.com/2010/09/national-gallery-east-building.html

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Third Pedagogical Site: deviantART

deviantART is a social networking site designed for the artist. As a virtual domain, it is part of Brent Wilson’s notion of the third pedagogical site: the place “between school classrooms and kids’ self-initiated visual cultural spaces—a site where adults and kids collaborate in making connections and interpreting webs of relationships” (18). Due to the fact that the site is legally only allowed to have users 18 year of age and older, we might replace adults with the notion of the formally trained or the professional and kids with the hobbyist or student. deviantART is thus limited in its impact on K-12 art education, but a viable option for the post-secondary student (which is where I was first exposed to the site, as a roommate who was majoring in Fine Arts had/has an account).


This online literacy site is a host for the collective, a breeding ground wherein the personal is valued as it is revealed in relation to the collective. The site was founded in August 2000 to “entertain, inspire, and empower the artist in all of us.” One can upload into galleries, add captions, link to other artists, and comment—fulfilling needs of agency and identity in a space where participation is valued. It is meant to be a deviation from the norm, from formal learning, and to encourage the peer-to-peer, nodes-of-information discovery and growth characteristic of informal learning. Share ideas and inspiration in the depth of creativity and diversity flourishing within deviantART (promotional video). It is “a place where the personal can begin to meet the collective in a meaningful way” (Thomas and Brown, Ch. 5). Artwork might be self-initiated or a response to a second site assignment, but it is now a part of the collective and forming a new life beyond either of the first two sites.


Assignment: Identify a site on the web that is directly interested in one of the ideas put forth in Wilson's article (visual culture, childhood, comics, and the third pedagogical site). Review the site, making connections to Wilson's article and the concept of informal learning.

References:
Brown, J. S. and D. Thomas. (2011). A New Culture of Learning: Cultivating the Imagination for a World of Constant Change. CreateSpace.
Wilson, B. (2005). More lessons from the superheroes of J. C. Holz: the visual culture of childhood and the third pedagogical site. Art Education, 58 (6), 18-24, 33-34.

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Informal Learning: VoiceThread

I was in love with VoiceThread until I started recording my narration. Remember that time you first heard your voice recorded and you hated the way you sounded? Well, I forgot how different I sound in my head. Some of it was fumbled words, some of it was vanity, but I recorded and rerecorded my narration to each slide at least three times. And that last slide, well I had to take a break twice during that because I flubbed it up so many times.

But alas, I have resigned to how my voice sounds to everyone all the time and finished my VoiceThread, so much as a VoiceThread is ever done. See, VoiceThread is participatory by design. Don't just watch. Type, record, draw a comment. Add to the dialogue. My intention was to present an explanation of informal learning within the context of VoiceThread and the "Knowing, Making, and Playing" chapter of A New Culture of Learning, but what does informal learning mean to you? How have you experienced the where in learning, in contrast to the what?

Though it is not reflected in my VoiceThread, I am particularly fascinated by the notion of geographic illiteracy v. a limited definition of "Iraq on the map" (Thomas and Brown, Chapter 7). I have heard these debates in the teachers' lounge.

     What is the value of memorization?
     Do we still need to memorize anything in our wired/wireless world?
     Why are we still giving tests that only measure the lowest levels of Bloom's taxonomy?

Instead, can we teach students to evaluate and decipher information, to know where to find it, and how the where informs the what?

Despite my embarrassment with my recorded voice, I am assigning a VoiceThread tomorrow in AP Art History. I love the format wherein one can start a dialogue around a piece of art. Each student will be assigned a different time period from medieval art. After reading The Important Book by Margaret Wise Brown, students will use Brown's repetitive nature to develop an outline emphasizing the most important information. To communicate this outline, student will create a VoiceThread that includes three specific works of art. The students will have one week to make the VoiceThreads, then an additional four days to add to the dialogue in the other VoiceThreads.


Assignment: Create a VoiceThread that provides a definition of informal learning and makes at least one clear connection between VoiceThread technology and one of the themes or theoretical perspectives outlined in chapters six through eight of the course text. Write a synopsis of the VoiceThread, including a statement about how Voicethread could be used in an art education setting, either by an art teacher, students, or both.

References:
Brown, J. S. and D. Thomas. (2011). A New Culture of Learning: Cultivating the Imagination for a World of Constant Change. CreateSpace.
Bloom's Taxonomy VoiceThread
VoiceThread Recorded Webinar by Michele Pacansky-Brock

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Second Life: Landmark Learning

I traverse the digital world of Second Life with hesitancy. As I’ve written before, I maybe be a digital native, but I am a video game immigrant. Nope, not immigrant. Unlike digital immigrants, I don’t believe I’ve entered the culture of video games, nor am I attempting to learn those skills. I have no desire to participate in role-playing games and only the occasional interest in using a Wii or Xbox Kinect to dance with friends. Yet I teleported around Second Life to visit some favorite landmarks of Metaphor Voom. Perhaps that makes me a Second Life tourist.

Second Life as a world that embraces change and a format for learning through play and imagination. My roommate, an early childhood educator, often says that play is a child’s work. She is not the first to say this, as it has been explored by child development psychologists including Jean Piaget. According to Douglas Thomas and John Seely Brown, play should not be abandoned as one ages. “In a world of near-constant flux, play becomes a strategy for embracing change, rather than a way for growing out of it.” (A New Culture of Learning, Chapter 3). Sandbox environments are one way Second Life facilitates playing to learn.

As a Second Life tourist, I stumbled upon a sandbox while wandering around the Brown University Media Studies landmark. Ignorant of the sandbox concept, I thought this was merely a digital version of a child’s playground. I tried to slide down a slide. I tried to dig in the sand. No success. I eventually abandoned the space and went to the next site on the list. Global Kids, Global Kids HQ, Periwinkle Infohub, ANGEL Learning Isle. As I worked my way through the list, teleporting to places that sounded interesting, I noticed the Berkman sandbox area. It was at this site that I made the connection---sandbox is a metaphor for building, exploring, creating. Like a child who sits in a sandbox, exploring the laws of nature, a digital sandbox is a place for Second Life residents to learn the laws of building in a virtual world. They are spaces where creativity and chaos go hand in hand.

It was at the Beckman Sandbox that I first found other residents. Through all my traveling, I had yet to interact with other nodes of information. Seeing other people was alarming at first. Despite the participatory nature of this collective, I was still very much in the private v. public dichotomy. (Chapter 5). I didn’t stay long because I was scared that someone might want to interact with me. Like the person who goes to Karaoke but refuses to sing, I was not ready to contribute to the collective. At the same time, I missed out on the chance to be mentored in the digital world. Instead, I teleported to Warmouth Infohub to continue exploring on my own…




Assignment: Describe the experience of visiting locations in Second Life. Make connections between one or more of the locations visited and chapters 3, 4, and 5 from A New Culture of Learning.

Reference:
Brown, J. S. and D. Thomas. (2011). A New Culture of Learning: Cultivating the Imagination for a World of Constant Change. CreateSpace.

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Learning for Fun: Article Response

Regardless of a visitor’s motivations for going to an educational leisure site (museum, aquarium, national park, etc.), the experience almost always results in learning. Visitors cannot help but learn, whether they realize it or not, as they interact in the setting. Jan Packer expounds on the unique aspects of these places, breeding grounds for informal learning. “Some of the characteristics that educational leisure settings provide, that seem to facilitate the process of learning for fun, include a rich sensory experience, novelty surprise, fascination, nostalgia, and the freedom to explore and to engage with information at a range of levels.…What is new is the understanding that it is these characteristics that make the process of learning fun.” Visitors find their time, and the learning that results from it, effortless. As opposed to traditional groans of students in formal learning situations, visitors generally find learning to be fun and, consciously or unconsciously, are drawn into experiences that involve learning. The discovery, choice, and engagement of senses are then coupled with an ease that removes the burden of work from learning and infuses joy.

(Digital) educational leisure (web)sites are similar in that they are interactive worlds (though notably less physical and sensory rich than real-life settings) where one has the freedom to explore and “window-shop” about learning. I recently rewatched a TED talk in the presence of a kindergartener and a first grader. The subject of the talk, the Google Art Project, led to exploration in that site, traveling to London, Florence, and New York City in a matter of moments to discover outstanding art in top museums. All from their living room in Chengdu, China. After some time had passed, the first grader asked if the speaker’s name was Ted. No, it was Amit. But then from where do we get the name TED? We returned to the TED site to seek out the answer (Technology, Entertainment, and Design, if you were curious). The first grader asked if he could watch another TED talk. Not Spongebob. Not Tom and Jerry. Could he watch another lecture from the site? Browsing about, the category of animals struck his fancy. We proceeded to watch two talks, the first about a species of snakes and crocodiles native to India and the second about leopard seals.

For this first grader and his kindergarten younger brother, learning is still fun. The joy and excitement has not been taken away by years of formal learning via rote memorization, boring lectures, and standardized testing. The world is still anxiously awaiting them, full of vast places and things they can discover. Yet for adults, few recognize, like the aquarium visitor, “that you’re learning all the time—you learn something every day of the week…” (336). Instead, we need to wander into an educational leisure site for recreation, with the intent to only be there for 10 minutes, and get lost for an hour and a half to rediscover the joy of learning (335). These sites, be it digital or real-world, awaken a love of learning that left for so many when school got boring, hard, and seemingly meaningless.



Assignment: Select a single sentence or two from the reading that is central to the essence of the reading. Reflect on this sentence or two, the content of the reading, and personal experience in similar situations or conditions.

Reference:
Packer, J. (2006). Learning for Fun: The Unique Contribution of Educational Leisure Experiences. Curator, 49 (3), 329-344.

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Art History: An AP Course with a thematic emphasis

The following syllabi serve as a mini-database for teaching art history with an emphasis on Advanced Placement and thematic units.

AP Central Syllabus 1
Students connect western and non-western artwork thematically through individual essays and a group presentation, though class content primarily progresses chronologically.

AP Central Syllabus 2
This course follows a traditional chronological structure of the western canon of art with random breaks to insert non-western chapters—no apparent emphasis on thematic learning.

AP Central Syllabus 3
Syllabus only notes a separate unit of non-western work at the end of a chronological western development, but states that it is taught in comparison with European work throughout the course and as a separate unit of study. Long essays are used to for individual thematic comparison of western and non-western, though it is unclear if these are during test or separate assignments.

AP Central Syllabus 4
Non-western cultures are inserted as units into a western canon as they relate thematically, for instance, Islam as religion and sacred space after the study of Byzantium. As a review at the end of the year, the class looks at thematic essay prompts comparing western and non-western art from previous AP exams.

Bexley High School
This course inserts many non-western units between ancient Egypt and ancient Greek in the traditional western canon. Each unit, western or non-western, includes an art organizer based on a theme that relates well to that culture (e.g. animals in art, propaganda and power in art, the figure in art)

Somerset Academy
Non-western art is compared as it relates chronologically to the western canon. In addition, specific days of study are included at the end of the year, as well as thematic graphic organizers.

George Mason University
Traditional college art history classes that take one semester to cover ancient up to the Renaissance and one semester for Renaissance to contemporary. No noted use of thematic concerns and very limited exposure to non-western art (Islamic art).

Pine Crest School
This course inserts units of non-western art between art before 1870 and art after 1870. There is no mention of thematic units and the coverage of non-western seems to only relate to the influence of art beyond the European tradition on the artists of the 1900’s, such as Japonisme, the World’s Fairs, and multiculturalism.

El Paso Independent School District
A normal chronological approach, this course inserts art of the Americas and Africa in the middle of medieval art. Art of Asia and Oceania is covered at the end of the sequence.

Walton High School
Though the course description calls this a survey of western and non-western work, the outline only references western units and makes no mention of thematic discovery.

The Art Institute of Dallas
This course inserts non-western units into the chronological western canon as they impact the development of western art, such as colonialism and the art of exploration.
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There seems to be a lack of syllabi available that truly embrace a thematic approach when structuring an art history course. Instead, the most integrated western and non-western studies make thematic comparisons while progressing through a western canon. The course I created, an AP Art History course that does justice to non-western art (at least 20% of the study, per Collegeboard requirements), would take on the same approach. This seems to be an authentic way to relate the works to their deeper role in society and tell the story of humanity, with its common themes that connect across time and throughout cultures.

In structure, I prefer to connect individual works of art to the western canon as they relate in thematically rather than insert full units of study mid-stream in the canon. Only teaching the history Asian art to show how European art changed in the late 1800’s does a disservice to Asian art; it is only valued for how it helped advance the “real” story of art. Similar to many outlines that devote the last portion of the course to non-western art, I would devote time to non-western specifically at the end of the year. Rather than tell chronological histories of those cultures in one or two class periods, I would still approach the work as part of the thematic story of humanity. This approach would serve as a review of all art for the AP exam. Specific works of non-western art would be revisited, along with new works that explore chosen themes, and previously learned western art that tells the same story.

A key teacher resource might be Exploring Art: A Global, Thematic Approach by Margaret Lazzari and Dona Scholesier, as it examines art “in the context of human needs within world cultures.” The textbook does not neglect chronology, but presents artwork thematically, chronologically, and geographically. This may be key as Collegeboard is rumored to be restructuring the content of AP Art History and embracing the same three-pronged approach that already exists in this text. Perhaps this may even serve as a student-text in the future.



Assignment: Construct a mini-database of syllabi or lessons related to a discipline, subject, or topic of interest within art education, visual culture, or museums/museum education and a synopsis of the course created from this database.

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Second Life: 美世

I've managed to avoid Second Life for more than four years, but it appears my run has come to an end. I was exposed to the program (experience? virtual world?) while studying Art Education at Kutztown University of Pennsylvania, but never explored it on my own. This past spring, in my first course with the MPS program from Penn State, I thought I might be required to create an account. I finished the course without ever going to www.secondlife.com, which I considered a success. The program was also referenced in the FRONTLINE documentary digital_nation, which we watched and discussed around the same time as part of the professional development program at my school. Francoise LeGoues was interviewed for the documentary. As a vice president and chief technology officer for sales and distribution at IBM, she is one of more than 10,000 IBM employees to conduct business activities in the virtual world. But now, for AED 814, I joined the site.

I'm a panda. Because it's funny. It relates to China. And digital people freak me out. Still, I wish I could have a real panda body type. Fat and all. In the teachers' lounge, I showed a few coworkers my avatar. I'd told them I was a panda, but their reaction to my panda's "tight butt" freaked me out and sent me searching around to figure out how to add layers of insulation to my panda's frame. I've only had minimal success with this body transformation.

Thus far, I have found the world difficult to navigate. Though I consider myself a digital native, my inexperience with video games handicaps my "virtual motor skills." I have a hard time staying on the track in Mario Cart on Wii. Now I need to control my movements with keys and clicking.


I expect that Second Life will be involved in more activities in this course, perhaps involving meeting together as a class. I hope to see some advantages to using the program because currently, I don't understand the purpose of the program. When I go to the website, their intro plays, hoping to entice me, but only evokes negative feelings.

          Who will you meet in Second Life?
          Where will you explore?
          Who will you be?
          What will you discover?
          Anything is possible in Second Life.
          Fasten your seatbelts.
          Expect the unexpected.
          A whole new world is waiting.
          Escape to the internet’s largest user-created 3d virtual world community.

I meet interesting people in real life every day. On a daily basis, I interact with people with passports from a variety of countries, who have lived around the world, and have an array of life experiences.

I am exploring China daily, and traveling other places in real life.

I am daily growing in who I am and discovering the unique things this world has to offer. There's so much of real world that I have left to explore, so I have no desire to "escape" into a virtual world. It's the escape-factor that I find particularly disturbing.

While some people might use Second Life in the educational sphere, I would be cautious to use it with minors. Most of my students are 3 years old through 5th grade, so it doesn't seem like an appropriate program. Even with my high school students, I would want to be in a contained world, like IBM uses for meetings. Still, once students have been required to create an avatar, I have opened up a new world to them, with all the positive and negative implications. I can see parents blaming teachers for choices students make in Second Life during non-school related play because teachers required them to join the world. I wonder what the legal stipulations are with minors using the program and its use within K-12 schooling. Lastly, despite our 1 to 1 laptop program at our high school, our geographic location limits our ability to access internet options. Perhaps Second Life will come under the same scrutiny that has made it inconvenient to use many sites like Facebook, Blogger, and Youtube.


Assignment: Speculate on the role Second Life will/might/could play in 814 and in your own teaching.

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Informal learning, online literacies and out-of-school literacies

The popular social networking site Facebook shows little to a visitor who does not have an account. The iconic blue and white design devotes most of the page to an image of orange silhouettes connecting across the world with the title “Facebook helps you connect and share with the people in your life.” Across the page, empty fields beg for you to complete them with your first name, last name, e-mail, password, gender, and birthday. The only green on the page is the button to click to “Sign up” for this account. It repeats, “Sign Up: It’s free and always will be.” (Despite any chain repost statuses announcing that Facebook will be charging starting on _______ if you don’t do this, that, or the other thing.)

Once an account in created, users navigate within a world of profiles for people and things. Users are first taken to their homepage, a constantly updating news feed, like the ticker at the bottom of CNN, but with photos, status updates, relationship changes, and links. Nearly everything is interactive, hyperlinking to the actual page, allowing you to comment or “like” the item, and using algorithms to predict what you consider “Top News.” The top blue bar allows for you to see friend requests, message, notifications (of ways others have interacted with you on Facebook), a search bar, a link to your profile, and a link to your homepage. Directly below, Facebook asks you to update your status, add a photo/video, or ask a question—again, focusing on interaction.

To be literate on Facebook is to interact. Facebook is a place to connect and share, particularly with people you already know and about the things you are already doing (though there are options to create unique online content, not merely reflect real life). Using Facebook is one of many “socially mediated ways of generating meaningful content through multiple modes of representation for dissemination into cyberspace.” (Alvernman 2008, definition of online literacies)

As the site updates, a user may choose to read new content posted by Facebook or outside writings about the site. More likely, trial and error, combined with forwarded how-to status updates, will help a user become literate. This includes ever-changing privacy settings, what types of content can be created, how to create it, and how to share it.



Facebook, as an online literacy, falls in the long line of l(IT)eracy, as described by Bill Green in 1988 and referenced by Helen Nixon in 2003. Participating in the site, being literate, involves operational and cultural dimensions, and sometimes works itself out in the critical dimension. Being able to operate in Facebook is the first level of literacy. While skills from other online sites, from hyperlinks to individual profiles, transfer into this new site, it does require some new vocabulary and skills to operate within its domain. As a modern version of the 15 year old boy's internet chatting and web authorship, it can be analyzed in the cultural dimension for how it used to make meaning in the world. Such research delves into "how people use the media for specific social purposes inside and outside schooling and in the intermediary spaces and places between them." (Nixon) The critical dimension is often seen as we repurpose Facebook for other tasks, be it within Facebook, a redesign, or an off-line retooling.

Much of the new vocabulary needed to interact with people on Facebook has become mainstream over the past 6 years. Friend someone. Like. Comment. Poke. (Yes, the poke does still exist, and I know how to do it. Just ask the three friends I poked while “researching” Facebook for this assignment.) Perhaps the prolific use of Facebook as an online literacy is what moved this language into daily conversation, giving new meaning to these English words. “According to a report released in December 2007 as part of the PEW Internet & American Life Project,” cited by Alverman, more than half of young adults surveyed who have internet access have created online profiles at sites such as Facebook and MySpace (9). Since 2007, Facebook use has grown exponentially, thus literacy in the online realm has transferred into vernacular in everyday life.

Even the composition of Facebook has affected visual culture. School bulletin boards and yearbooks make many references to the iconic blue and white layout of Facebook. Some speculate that the uniformity and clean-design of Facebook is part of its success. It appears more professional than MySpace, eliminating personalized backgrounds and songs to create a cohesive experience. The new format, Timeline, is an attempt to make Facebook more visually appearing with large pictures and events organized graphically (similar in layout to pinterest, though it only shows the content it thinks you would deem important). Timeline allows for more customization, allowing users to highlight events in their life and hide others from their profile. Still, this is a basic format for the layout and color scheme of the profiles is uniform and relates to the overall Facebook brand, an online literacy site that has worked itself out into offline iterations.





Assignment: Identify an online literacy site or out of school literacy site. Follow Terry Barrett’s three-step model of interpretation of “What do you see? What does it mean? How do you know?” to interpret the site.

References:
Alverman, D. E. (2008). Why Bother Theorizing Adolescents’ Online Literacies for Classroom Practice and Research? Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy 52(1), 8-19.

Nixon, H. (2003). New research literacies for contemporary research into literacy and new media? [online version]. [Supplement to Hagood, M.C., Leander, K.M., Luke, C., Mackey, M., & Nixon, H. (2003). Media and online literacy studies (New Directions in Research). Reading Research Quarterly, 38(3), 388–413.] Available: http://dx.doi.org/10.1598/RRQ.38.3.4

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