Book+Reviews

 =BOOK REVIEWS: Books about literacy and technology =

1)  //The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young American and Jeopardizes Our Future// by Mark Bauerlein
The title here pretty much says it all. The author's assumption and opinion is that students aren't really learning anything on the internet and instead spend most of their time playing games, twittering and blogging about their personal lives and the lives of others-both known and unknown to them. This book is a good companion on the opposite side of the digital revolution-so to speak. I have been 'recommended' this book by several parents. Then, Kristin (our classmate) said that she and her husband were reading it as well, so I was intrigued. I am finding a trend in my readings as well as when I talk to people. That trend is that parents seem to be a little "concerned" about the amount of time that their kids are spending on the web and-here I find this interesting-they are investigating. //What **are** their kids doing on the Internet?!//



2) //Rewired: Understanding the iGeneration and the Way They Learn// by Larry D. Rosen, Ph.D
This book was recommended to me by my Differentiation in Education course professor. In it, Dr. Rosen starts to examine what is actually physically happening to our brain's anatomy when we use the computer and other digital technologies and how this impacts how today's students learn. Very, very interesting-especially the discussions about how when we 'surf the net' we are actually altering how our neurons are firing in our brains. What was of particular interest to my Differentiation class was that in the book, many of the students were saying the same thing-__they hated school.__ And the reason? It was boring. Rosen believes that children today have the same technology that their parents have, yet they are using it completely differently-and that is where traditional education fall behind.

**from Amazon's Book Description:** Publication Date: March 30, 2010 Look around at today’s youth and you can see how technology has changed their lives. They lie on their beds and study while listening to mp3 players, texting and chatting online with friends, and reading and posting Facebook messages. How does the new, charged-up, multitasking generation respond to traditional textbooks and lectures? Are we effectively reaching today’s technologically advanced youth? //Rewired// is the first book to help educators and parents teach to this new generation’s radically different learning styles and needs. This book will also help parents learn what to expect from their “techie” children concerning school, homework, and even socialization. In short, it is a book that exposes the impact of generational differences on learning while providing strategies for engaging students at school and at home.

From Elizabeth Alderton :
== 3) //Reconceptualizing the Literacies in Adolescents' Lives// by Donna Alvermann == Dr. Alderton told me about this book way back in November and at that time, it's release date was Dec. 12th. Now, the release date is Dec.21st-however, I still have my order in simply because the description of this book sounds excellent. I especially like the Companion Website, which I think is a terrific added element. Really practicing and applying what you are learning in real life type ways is so important to really learning and keeping that learning when you are learning something new.

from Amazon's Book Description:
ISBN-10: 0415892929 | ISBN-13: 978-0415892926 | Publication Date: December 21, 2011 | Edition: 3

Like previous editions, the third edition of //Reconceptualizing the Literacies in Adolescents’ Lives// invites middle- and high-school educators to move toward a broad, generative view of adolescent literacies. Recognizing that digital media, social networking phenomena are now central in adolescents’ lives, what is different is the focus in this edition on bridging students’ everyday literacies and subject matter learning. Four chapters from earlier editions serve as touchstone texts, honoring youth’s diverse experiences and illustrating how young people’s literacies are enacted, situated, and mediated in various locales; nine new chapters consider how these themes are lived in today’s schools and in the rapidly changing world outside of school This edition features heightened attention multimodal meaning construction, more discussion of practical implications of the ideas presented, and co-authored teacher commentaries at the end of each section. A Companion Website, new for this edition, facilitates practical application of the text’s key ideas, with discussion questions, and links to instructional activities, blogs, additional readings and viewings, and interactive web pages, and videos

==4) //Adolescents and Online Fan Fiction// by Rebecca W. Black == This book is part of a series that highlights eduction and technology, New Literacies and Digital Epistemologies. I am disappointed to report that I have not read this book-I haven't received it as of today. But I am very interested in the alternate literacies that adolescents are participating in. My sister is a writer and she knows several of her contemporaries who actually get published on these fan fiction sites. I also have read several articles in which fan fiction is mentioned as one way students are using literacy outsdie the school, while having difficulty writing inside the school.

From the Back Cover
"Rebecca W. Black's //Adolescents and Online Fan Fiction// enters into an important debate about the ways that our collective participation within popular culture may enable social, intellectual, and personal growth. This book offers a vivid account of how and what young fan fiction writers learn through their activities, one which bridges between the best cultural research into fan cultures and the best pedagogical insights into informal learning. The results will be important not only to fellow researchers but to also parents, educators, policymakers, and fans themselves, as they seek to weigh competing arguments about the value of the time so many of us spend engaging in online recreation." -//Henry Jenkins, Author of// Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collides ; Co-Director, Comparative Media Studies Program, MIT

5) //RSS For Educators: Blogs, Newsfeeds, Podcasts and Wikis in the Classroom//
by John G. Hendron This book should look familiar to us in the 763 course, for we read Chapters 1 (Weblogs) and 9 (Blogging with Students) for our module for weeks 5 and 6. When I asked if anyone had contributions for this page, Dr. A suggested this one. It is (unfortunately) with my online fiction book I have not received yet. However, I figure we've read some it, so you all get the basic idea of the book.

[[image:http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/413s6lIsnhL._AA160_.jpg align="left"]]
==6) //Engaging the Eye Generation// //:// //Visual Literacy Strategies for the k-5 Classroom// by Johanna Riddle == <span style="color: #008000; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Actually, I remembered that I had this book as a result of our assignment on visual literacy. Coming from a primary (kindergarten and first grade) background, most of my teaching must be very visually and aurally oriented. I was first given this books by my parents, who felt that it was a good edition to my professional library-and would help me see how the digital age was really here to stay and I better get used to it! What I really liked about this book is that the author is older and she has learned how to work with her "traditional" knowledge (that school librarian), and meld it to keep up with the times. I really liked this web site which deals with media and visual education that she suggests: Media Literacy at [|Medialit.org]

f**rom Amazon's Book Description:**
Literacy in the twenty-first century means more than just reading and writing. Today’s students must learn how to interpret and communicate information through a variety of digital and print-based media formats, using imagery, online applications, audio, video, and traditional texts. In //Engaging the Eye Generation//, library media specialist and National Board Certified Teacher Johanna Riddle draws on twenty-five years of education experience to show teachers how to update the curriculum for twenty-first century learners. Technology neophytes need not despair. Johanna suggests enhancements ranging from low-tech to high-tech and explains how teachers, even those with limited technology skills, can effectively guide students to proficiency. Each chapter—filled with meaningful and motivating activities—thoughtfully explains how to elevate traditional learning and add new layers to students’ reading comprehension, critical thinking, and communication skills.



<span style="color: #008000; font-family: Georgia,serif;">7) //ISTE's Technology Facilitation and Leadership Standards//
<span style="color: #008000; font-family: Georgia,serif;">This title intrigued me. I also recognized ISTE as being affiliated with John Hendron who wrote the RSS book above. I am always interested in how those who are the experts decide what is the most important stuff to know. What would they recommend to me, your average classroom teacher about technology and how it fits into my classroom. What do I need to do and learn to help my students truly master the technology in their lives?

** from Amazon's Book Description: **
Preparing effective technology facilitators and leaders is an increasingly important mission for colleges of education around the country. To meet the growing need for highly qualified educational technologists, ISTE worked with the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) to develop a set of performance assessment standards for initial and advanced endorsements in the areas of Technology Facilitation and Technology Leadership. ISTE's Technology Facilitation and Leadership Standards: What Every K-12 Leader Should Know and Be Able to Do is an inviting and surprisingly easy-to-follow guide for any educator, practicing or pre-service, who wants to be an effective technology facilitator and/or educational leader. Whether you intend to pursue formal accreditation through one of the many schools of education that have adopted these standards, or you simply want to increase your skills and competencies, this practical step-by-step guide provides everything you need not only to understand the standards, but to meet and exceed them. With each chapter dedicated to a single standard, the authors provide insight, advice, and tips for every level of facilitator and school leader. Accessible to pre-service educators and with hands-on practical lessons for currently practicing professionals, this book can also serve as a template for superintendents and cabinet-level policy-makers as they create and define the job descriptions of the next generation of educators. Topics include: -Technology facilitation

-teacher education

-technology standards

-leadership

I found a book called, //Can We Skip Lunch and Keep Writing?// By Julie Ramsay. Here is her blog: eduflections http://julieramsay.blogspot.com She uses kidblog with her 5th graders. She also uses twitter to let people know the kids' blogs are ready for viewing.

//<span style="color: #008000; font-family: Georgia,serif;">9) Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education in the 21st Century //
Here is a link to the entire 72 page report: [|Confronting the Challenges:]



<span style="color: #008000; font-family: Georgia,serif;">I have always been curious about how school districts decide on what becomes a priority for them and what they feel that have to work on as a district. I understand the need to comply with federal, state and district standards regarding curriculum. I also grasp the need to work whatever results your school and school district got regarding standardized and local testing. But after that, how do they decide what needs to be worked on? There was on school administrator who said that how they decided came from studies like this one here. Because of that, and also because I saw this report referenced when I was doing research for my Adolescent Lit. School Wide Literacy program, I decided to take a look at it.



<span style="color: #008000; font-family: Georgia,serif;">10) //Language and Learning in the Digital Age// by James Paul Gee and Elizabeth R. Hayes.
<span style="color: #008000; font-family: Georgia,serif;">This is a fascinating book written by an author (Gee) that I read in my Adolescent Literacy class when we looked at Discourse theory. Gee also did several books on video games and how they can be useful for learning. This book discusses literacy. In the Introduction, Gee and his coauthor write: <span style="color: #008000; font-family: Georgia,serif;"> "//In a title like (this), the word language seems less trendy than the word digital. We are rightly impressed by our new digital tools. Their perils ad possibilities are new. In comparison, language seems so old and mundane, its perial and possibilities long forgotten, However, we will argue that the perils and possibilities of digital media are, in fact, species of the same possibilites and perils we find in...oral and written language (Gee & Hayes, 2010)."// <span style="color: #008000; font-family: Georgia,serif;">What I find very intriguing is that the authors write that literacy is technology, just like automobiles or computers and the like. What we are going through at this time is a transition between past uses of this technology-literacy- and its new uses. They use as one example, how literacy used to--by combining it with the spoken word---to transmit history. When people used to tell their histories and their cultures stories by using epic poems was a way people in the past used literacy technology. This is no longer necessary (in our culture at least), and literacy tends to reflect the current culture more than the past. **VERY INTERESTING BOOK!**