In his article on fan fiction sites and the way students are writing despite school, Henry Jenkins writes, "Through online discussions of fan writing, the teen writers develop a vocabulary
for talking about writing and they learn strategies for rewriting and improving their
own work." Some teachers may feel threatened that students are developing these skills without their guidance or to create something the institution doesn't feel is valuable. I am grateful that these outlets for creativity and connection exist. These affinity spaces are much more meaningful learning experiences than any that we can manufacture in school simply because school is an institution and not real life.
I would enthusiastically encourage students to participate in any of the activities we read about because it would give me as the teacher an authentic context to teach how to interact with others, evaluate what they read for themselves, and determine the rules of the affinity space in which they choose to spend their time. Jenkins explains that "Certainly, teens may receive harsh critical responses to their more controversial stories when they publish them online, but the teens themselves are deciding what risks they want to take and facing the consequences of those decisions." In school, teachers cannot force students to publish or even to produce, but if we teach them how to handle the types of criticism from "trolls" and genuine critics we can equip them for the types of responses they can expect in the work environment.
"Misinformation abounds online, but so do mechanisms for self-correction;" this is a truth often overlooked by educators whose contempt for Wikipedia and other sites stems from a lack of knowledge with how such information is constructed and who is constructing it (44). Instead of being intimidated by the potential for misinformation, teachers should be equipping students to sort through the mixed bag that is the results of a Google search to find the worthwhile pieces of information. As Jenkins points out, the best sources are not only the ones contributed by the gate-keepers.
Another difficulty that Jenkins points out that has plagued me and my students is the difficulty that the students have in maintaining boundaries between what they have written and what others have contributed. They also have trouble processing the information that they find in their research and often copy and paste the text from a source into a Word document without ever even reading the material carefully or trying to consider how it fits in the text they are constructing (51). At the beginning of the semester, I felt that my students were in the wrong and needed to value copyright much more highly than they do currently. Through the readings and discussions we've experienced, I now wonder how useful those ideas about idea ownership are. It seems that we need new definitions of what it means to create and to "own" something. The mash-ups our students make are their own creative effort that is a completely new thing that is separate from the original products with which they started. Documentation, the value of the individual, the results of collaboration: all these concepts have been changed by the rapid development of Web 2.0 and the proliferation of media through which anyone can express him/herself.
As we noted in last week's discussion, no one really knows what we're doing or where it's all going. Acknowledging that there are changes and that there should be new ways of considering institutions is a valuable place to start, I think.
Hey Laura,
ReplyDeleteYes. None of us know exactly where we are going. that is why I feel so conflicted in many of the issues we discuss. Everything so far has a pro and con and does not give precise and clear answers to which is right and which is wrong. I guess the only thing that we all know and can agree upon is that media has definitely changed the game and that there is no going back to the old ways.
What do you think fundamentally threatens the educators? Do they think that if students are learning without them that they will be out of a job? I think no matter how self-directed learning can get, there will always be a place for educators because students will always need some sort of guidance. You never really know that you don’t know something until someone else tells you. One of the best roles that educators can serve is to students guide themselves through poor online information and to help them cope with all of the dangers found on the web, like you mentioned in your post.
ReplyDeleteCopyright issues are probably some of the trickiest issues for educators since copyright infringements are becoming more prevalent and the attitudes towards copyright are changing. Students can still risk legal trouble, especially if they somehow make a profit off of the material they have stolen.
I clearly have similar feelings about copyright issues and plagiarism. It is tough to help students learn how to research, differentiate between what they find, properly include that info into their new essay, give proper citations for that info, include a works cited page that properly follows MLA format, oh and write well academically. Because things are changing, we need to begin considering what our priorities are and focus on the essentials.
ReplyDeleteI, like Charlie, wonder what teachers are worried about when students get information elsewhere. Are they worried that they will be replaced. There's no real threat of that. Students have been getting information from sources other than their teachers for decades, and teachers are still needed to help the students understand and apply that information. Are they worried that students will get wrong information? Probably, but getting wrong information gives a better lesson on finding reliable sources than I could ever give.
ReplyDeleteWe'll always need teachers, not only to instruct but also to encourage. I am a teacher, and I spend no more than 30 minutes of any given class period doing anything that even remotely resembles "lecturing." My role? Predominately, I'm a facilitator, coach, and tutor.
When kids get information on the writing process from other sources, it helps them learn to be self-teachers, which is a skill they'll use for the rest of their lives. So I say, bring on the fan fiction and affinity spaces!