Media Literacy and Web 2.0

During the last academic year, I have revamped much our teacher education program to take advantage of the affordances of Web 2.0. Towards that end, I have redesigned the Technology and Media literacy course to include using Web 2.0 tools, such as Voice Thread, Wikis, Nings, and Xtra Normal. Prospective teachers enrolled in the course used these tools to complete assignments and to design web-based activities for teaching texts. We also included a "no tech"/"low tech" option that would allow teachers to make use of media resources even when not connected to the Web. Teaching candidates participated in social networking through a class Ning.

During the Summer of 2009, we collected data from teaching candidates enrolled in the course (LAE 6861). Preliminary analyses of data suggest that the Web 2.0 experiences prompted these students to shift their understandings of literacy practices and the ways that those practices are enacted through using technologies to understand texts. We have submitted a paper on this project for publication.