Module 1

First, I would like to say that I am very excited to blog my very first blog post!  I’ve never really blogged before and I don’t often read blogs, so I’m excited to see where this goes and how it all works!

            I would like to start off with a quote that I really liked from the text: “Literacy opens the door to the world and has the power to change lives.” (Johnson 1) I strongly agree with this, it is the reason that I want to be a reading specialist and work with children on their reading and writing skills. But literacy has so much more to offer now, with the addition of the World Wide Web; to tell you the truth, I was very uncomfortable with books becoming digital. I personally enjoy reading traditional text more than I like reading online text; upon reading this chapter, I have changed my mind quite a bit, but I still have a few doubts.

            One of my biggest concerns with introducing young children with online texts and the internet is that I have no clue if it can affect children’s eye sight and/or attention span in a negative way.  I know that when I stare at a computer screen for too long, my eyes become extremely irritated and I start having trouble focusing, so I can only imagine what it would do to the eyes and brain when they are still developing. But on the other hand, I realize that one must do everything in moderation, so it would just be a matter of finding out how much time a child should spend on the computer, before it becomes dangerous to their health.

            Another thing that I worry about is that the internet is largely unfiltered in a few ways. One is that there are a lot of websites that are inappropriate for children, but this can obviously be fixed with parental controls and monitoring. Also, many websites (especially social media) are not filtered for grammar mistakes and informational mistakes; but with parental guidance, this too can be avoided.

            There are a lot of things that I liked about online text, while I was reading this chapter. One of the things that I liked was how easy it is to access great information using the internet. You can get all the information right at home and without putting a lot of effort into searching for it. This is very appealing to kids, who obviously can’t drive and don’t have disposable income. It also helps parents, who don’t always have time to go down to the library with their children or the funds to buy new books. The Fox study shows that “quality of goal setting and comprehension monitoring was associated with interest.” (8) Therefore, if it is easier for kids to learn more about their interests, they are more likely to take in the information and have pleasure in doing it; if kids are taught at an early age to take advantage of the internet and learn how to use it, it will be easier for them to learn and prosper.

            Something else that I really like about the internet is something that I am doing right now. Blogging. I think that kids have a lot of trouble expressing themselves and that can hinder their ability to learn and understand things. With traditional texts, there is no way to publically comment on what was read. With online text, there is a new power with blogging and commenting online that traditional texts simply cannot do. This interactive feedback not only allows the writer to express themselves publically, but also allows them to be more engaged with the world around them, which will help them be more open-minded. And as the book points out (12), connective writing gets the writer to strive to write better and think more in depth, this is because the writer knows that many people will be reading and judging their writing.

            Overall, the first chapter opened my eyes to the many possibilities that Literacy 2.0 has to offer and I am very excited to continue reading and to see what my blog group has to say.