Wednesday, March 27, 2013

week 10 blog


Module Evaluation

This module has developed my understanding of the importance of including media and popular culture in the primary classroom. It has been argued that children of this generation are different to previous generations due to their exposure and knowledge of digital media (21 st CFP). Palfrey and Gasser (2008:1) describe children of this generation as ‘digital natives’. It has been suggested that teachers need to prepare children for now rather than adulthood due to the rapid change in technology and media being part of children’s childhood (Marsh, 2005, Millard and Marsh, 2000b and Palfrey and Gasser). One advantage which has been apparent during the course of this module is that using new technology, media and popular culture in the classroom can foster and maintain children’s interest and motivation (Medwell, Moore, Wray and Griffiths, 2012 and Milliard & Marsh, 2001a). As a future subject leader of English these theories have highlighted the importance of making teachers aware of preparing children for now rather than adulthood, and sharing the advantages which media, new technology and popular culture can offer may encourage teachers to include these in their planning.

This module has developed my confidence of including media, new technology and popular culture within my planning.  The 21st Century Fluency Project stated that teachers need to become learners themselves when using technology. At the beginning of this module I did not feel confident to include technology and media in my planning. However, from experience of becoming a learner myself when working with children, this emphasised the importance of teachers experimenting with technology to gain confidence and knowledge. As a future subject leader I may experience colleagues who experience the same confidence issues which I experienced at the start of this module. This module has highlighted to overcome this issue I need to encourage fellow teachers to become learners themselves and offer support and training to enable teachers to feel confident to include new technology and media within their planning.

An issue which arose in this module was time constraints in the classroom which could be seen as a limitation of using new technology and media in the classroom. My experience at Shirley Warren highlighted that media can be used cross-curricular which provides a suitable amount of time for media based projects to be finished. Cross-curricular links need to be shown to teachers from the subject leader to encourage teachers to include media in their planning.

Overall this module has given me confidence to include Multimedia and Multiliteracies in my planning as I now have a range of resources and skills to use in the primary classroom.

The 21st century Fluency Project Understanding Digital

Palfrey, J. & Gasser, U. (2008) Born Digital: Understanding The First Generation of Digital Natives New York: Basic Books
Medwell, J. Moore, G. Wray, D. Griffiths, V. (2012) Primary English Knowledge and Understanding London: Learning Matters (Ch 14 Electronic Texts pp196 – 202)

Marsh, J (2005) Popular Culture, New Media and Digital Literacy in Early Childhood Oxon:RoutledgeFalmer

Millard, E. and Marsh, J. (2001a) ‘Sending Minnie the Minx Home: comics and reading choices’ Cambridge Journal of Education, 31:1, 25 – 38
Millard, E. and Marsh, J. (2000b) Literacy and Popular Culture London: Sage


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