Brian - Reflection 2

Writing in New Media for the New Generation

"... tapping into a type of literacy in and of itself, that can be used as a bridge for engaging them in more traditional learning”  

(Comer 243)

With the birth of the Internet, education entered a new age. We see its impact in how our universities now have to employ devices like TurnItIn and SafeAssign to guard against plagiarism, and how these devices function using the sheer wealth of information available online in databases that can be accessed anywhere in the world.

But what I believe will change (or require a change in) education even more is the birth of the generation of students who grew up with the Internet, who have learnt to navigate apps on iPads and iPhones and to post and share streams of information on Facebook and Twitter with an intuitiveness available only to those who had access to it from birth. It is, as Comer pointed out in quoting O’Connor, a brand new type of literacy in and of itself that is sadly under-utilized in our Secondary schools.

The idea that Comer tapped on in getting students to use Twitter to express key points in the books they were reading is one such way to tap into this generation’s inherent ability to use new media. Another intriguing use of it is seen in the Twitter account @RealTimeWWII, where a group of users have endeavoured to post Twitter updates ‘live’ from the ground in World War 2 over a span of several years. Projects like these might almost be said to feature a form of transmediation since it involves the recreation of information into a new form, albeit one with a sign system that is still logocentric. And yet the very presentation of that information is itself arguably a new medium, from novel (or history) to a specific mould that requires students to summarize key points or tap on characterization when they step into the shoes of a character.

Tharp also tapped into the same power of new media when he engaged his students using a wiki. “The essential nature of a wiki,” he wrote, “is to allow students to take an active role in composing while teaching them to work together to compose, revise, and edit an end product” (41). A wiki itself is an invaluable tool in collaborative learning because the very nature of the medium is one that demands peer-editing and contributions from the entire group. The infrastructure is in place for group members to edit, comment and reformat entire pages with ease.

However, these devices so far have only been used with the intention of assessing understanding of content. Despite the creative potential of these mediums, students have not yet been tasked with writing something original using these mediums. To that end, one idea I definitely want to explore is how a wiki can be used to organize an entire class into developing a work of fiction. The collaborative and modular nature of a wiki means that students never need to be constrained by the need to meet face-to-face, or even the need to work in a linear fashion when developing aspects of a work of fiction. Indeed, it is impossible to write a novel in the traditional sense using a wiki. The medium itself therefore challenges students to produce a narrative in a different way – one that it symbiotic with the medium it is presented on, and not a mere translation from paper to webpage.

Works Cited

Comer, Melissa. “Young Adult Literature and Alternative Assessment Measures”. Theory into Practice 50.3 (2011): 239-246. Web. 22 Aug. 2012.

Tharp, Tara Leigh. “Wiki, wiki, wiki – “WHAT? Assessing online collaborative writing”. English Journal 99.5 (2010): 40-46. Print.