New Literacies Project Progress

For the New Literacies Project, James and I decided to switch from Glogster to Prezi. After taking a closer look at Glogster over spring break, we decided that although Glogster was a great example of social expression and communication, it was not comprehensive enough to contain all the information James and I wanted to present in our project. We decided to work with Prezi because it seemed like a much better way to present our information in a creative and interactive manner. After doing some background research about Social Literacy, I have learned some very useful information that I will use in my Prezi. Social Literacy has many definitions, but from my understanding it is the way that people act and communicate with others. In society, everyone has one or more specified roles that they employ on a daily basis such as teacher, mother, sister, adult, etc. and the roles they employ interact with other people’s roles in unique ways. One of those ways is through technology. Today, there are so many different types of social media, communication, and information devices that getting in touch with someone, something, or some piece of information takes only seconds. With sites like Google, Facebook, and Twitter, news spreads fast and communication is easy. While there are great benefits from using these sites to communicate and share information, there are also drawbacks. Cyberbullying has become a huge problem with young students today as well as Internet scams. Parents worry about their children’s safety while using the Internet because of potentially harmful people posing as innocent students or friends of their children. In our presentation, James and I plan to address the definition of Social Literacy and what that encompasses. We will also address some specific roles in society (teachers, parents, and students) and how they interact socially through technological devices such as phones and the Internet. We will then discuss the pros and the cons of certain types informational/communication sites like Google, Facebook, Twitter, Blogger, Pinterest, Webkinz, YouTube, and many more. We will talk about how these sites hinder or facilitate successful communication between the three roles (teachers parents, and students) and what can be done about some of the negative effects of some of these sites for example, cyberbullying. James and I are excited to be working with Prezi because neither of us have had any experience using it but so far it has been very easy to work with and we are excited to see what the finished product looks like!