Pat_DePippo_SU2012


 * Personal Introduction**

Hello Everyone,

My name is Patrick DePippo. I am originally from Rochester, N.Y, but have shuffled around for a lot of my life. I completed my __#|undergraduate__ studies at Saint Joseph's University in Philadelphia where I earned an BA in English (Writing Concentration) and a minor in Secondary Education. Upon graduating, I taught one year at a public high school near Philadelphia before entering AmeriCorps where I was assigned to work as a teacher intern at a Nativity-Miguel middle school in upstate New York. Currently, I am seeking a teaching position in the city for the fall.

In my spare time, I love to read fiction and write screenplays. I am also a die-hard NY sports fan and enjoy playing basketball.

I am interested in learning more about how I can help my students use technology as a learning tool, in spite of unequal access and limited resources that many of former students frequently ran into. I also hope to learn how using various digital tools can help improve my own developing digital literacy as well as fostering the digital literacy of my students, to learn and become familiar the dominant modes of communication that my students most frequently use (mostly digital), and to learn ways to ensure that my students are comfortable using technology as a means of communicating and as a skill set they can use to function in our growing digitized society.




 * Life as a Tech User **

Technology has helped me gained access to information and communicate with others in a quicker, more convenient manner than ever thought possible before the advent of the digital age. One such device that has helped me accomplish these goals is my cell phone in particular, my ____#|smartphone____. These devices allow its users to accomplish a variety of tasks, such as communicating with others through a variety of media (e.g .calls, text messages, instant messaging, video calls, and e-mail) as well as providing on-the-go access to information resources such as the internet, video sharing websites, and __#|social media__ platforms. As such, I now rely more on a single device to complete a variety of communication tasks rather than using than several machines. Information and interaction with others has become more remotely accessible and readily available by using my smartphone. I find myself constantly using it as my primary mode of communications and a vital tool to access information and express my thoughts, opinions, and perspectives (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, etc.).

With the ever-evolving features that are being created, added, and embedded into every new model of smartphone, this dependency and reliance of it by its users, including me, will only continue to increase. Several accessories and applications with further the importance of __smartphones__ and open up even more access to a variety of information as well as help users complete a variety of tasks from reading a book on a 4 inch screen to mobile __#|banking__ to projecting holographic images and video right in front of you.


 * NETS Goals **

__Goal for NETS-T Standard I__

As an English teacher, I feel like I make great efforts to help my students learn and discover in new and creative ways beyond the traditional pen-and-paper tests and rote readings. I have students work on creative writing assignments that mimic or are inspired by the literature we read, create digital comic strips of events that happen in books, and challenge them to use other digital media (e.g. __Power Point__, ToonDoo, YouTube) to help them present their ideas and demonstrate their learning.

However, most of the learning experiences and assignments I assign to my students involve only individual effort and demonstration of what they have learned individually and very little group work or collective learning experiences occurs in my classroom. I also do not demonstrate to my students that I, too, am a learner in the classroom and as such am constantly learning from them as they are learning from me. In an effort to create a more shared learning environment, I would like to find more ways in which we, as a class, build knowledge together instead of building knowledge individually. Learning more about digital and online tools that promote collaboration such as wikis, online discussion groups (e.g. Google chat), and community blogs will help me become more knowledgeable about the means of communication that students are most familiar while also providing them with a learning experience that frames knowledge as ever-changing and open to debate and revision.

__Goal for NETS-T Standard II__

Since I teach primarily high school students, I believe that students, particularly adolescents, should begin taking more responsibility over their own personal learning and education. For students to become more independent learners, I need to provide students with the tools and strategies needed to manage, monitor, and evaluate their own learning. Therefore, I would like to become more knowledgeable about ways to build student motivation and the digital tools that best support and help them develop educational autonomy.

__Goal for NETS-T Standard III__

For me teach students how to master and appropriately use various digital media, I, as a teacher, must become an expert in the variety of tools and know how these tools work and what are their individual capabilities, limitations, and impediments. By better knowing about how these tools work and what they can and cannot do, I can better teach my students how to best use these digital tools and get the most benefit from their usage.

__Goal for NETS-T Standard IV__

With many students using social networking websites such as Facebook and Twitter, I believe it is become increasingly important to teach students how to use these tools responsibly and wisely. There have been countless instances of students using these websites inappropriately and getting into serious trouble. Therefore, I would like to learn how to teach students how to not only use these sites more appropriately, but also to learn and establish “digital manners” to help students know what is appropriate and inappropriate in terms of what they produce and create on these sites, how to respectfully use these social networking tools, and better understand the consequences and repercussions of their digital practices.

__Goal for NETS-T Standard V__

In the same way that good teachers never stop learning and are constantly abreast of the newest pedagogical techniques and methods, the same should be same for learning about the newest technologies and explore their implications for teaching and student learning. Therefore, I would like to read //at least// two articles about emerging technology uses in the classroom per week. By knowing more about the latest tools and how they are being used in the classroom, I can be more aware of what technologies are available and potentially find alternative learning tools that reach a wider range of learners or even groups of learners with whom traditional methods of learning were inadequate or ineffective.


 * Personal Use Project**

As outlined in my goals, I would like to learn how to use the online presentation tool Prezi in an effort to help build my tech skills, learn how to use more interactive digital tools, and learn how to present information in new and creative ways. In addition to learning how to make Prezi’s, I would also like to analyze and compare its benefits and shortcomings in relation to what many consider to be the standard presentation program, Microsoft Power Point.


 * Copyright Clarity Project**

Check out my interactive Glogster poster that discussed many of the explanations of copyright law and fair use from Renee Hobbs' Copyright Clarity: How Fair Use Supports Digital Learning.

[|Copyright Glogster Poster]

//We are no longer limited to being independent readers or consumers of information…we can be collaborators in the creation of large storehouses of information. In the process, we can learn much about ourselves and our world. //
 * Statement of Digital Literacy**

- Excerpt from Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms

Will Richardson’s explanation on how the rise of Web 2.0 changed the way in which people use, manipulate, and interpret “texts” embodies how our perception of what is means to be a literate individual is expanding beyond the traditional, and increasingly outdated, sense of literacy. Literacy can longer be reduced to simply the understanding and creation of printed texts nor can all we do, learn, and generate be collected and defined as just “literacy.” As 21st-century people, we must distinguish, develop, delineate, and treat these //literacies// separately as well as interconnected parts used to form an individual’s whole literacy. Due to its increasing emergence, rapid expansion, and its monumental impact on how we use, interpret, and interact with information and our world, a person’s digital literacy is in particular need of development in order for he/she to effectively function and participate in society.

A substantial aspect of digital literacy is the ability to comprehend, interpret, and use a variety of multimodal, interactive texts. Traditional printed texts (and traditional ways of reading and writing) are static in the sense that the material is fixed and can only be delivered through decoding the words to make meaning. Digital texts can be delivered through many different types of media such as texts-and-image, video, video-text, audio-video, along with countless other combinations. This multimodal delivery system makes “reading” digital material more interactive because the “reader” is immersed with multiple stimuli at the same time. These multiple stimulations engages readers in multiple ways—a sharp contrast to the single stimulation traditional texts use to engage readers. However, as these stimuli vie for readers’ attention, developing digital literacy tends to require more work by the reader, demanding more than simple decoding skills and manual (pencil and paper) writing.

Digital literacy goes beyond the tenets of traditional literacy of making people into readers and writers, but also editors, collaborators and publishers (Richardson, 2010). As editors, individuals learn how to filter and critically examine what is presented to them, rather than simply accepting what they read as legitimate and true. Additionally, digitally-literate people need to learn how to siphon what is extraneous, irrelevant, or unnecessary information that does not relate to their goals or help them solve their problems. Therefore, digital literacy also includes selecting and using specific tools and resources to complete specific tasks and goal, whether it be as complex as learning about central nervous system and programming a digital model of its functions or as simple as looking up the weather for a family vacation and booking flights and hotels for a two-week getaway to Maui. As collaborators, people develop how work with anyone with Internet access to create new material and new knowledge for other users to consume for many different reasons (e.g. recreation, entertainment, information, social interaction). Digital collaborators are not limited to only producing information and written material; they connect with users all over to accomplish goals (e.g raising money for a charity), establish online communities like contributing to social networking sites, and bring about change, reform, and awareness in the real world (e.g. what the advent of blogging changed the face of journalism and publishing). Digital collaboration also allows for many different perspectives and sources to come together and constantly revise, rework, edit and expand the amount of material available on any given subject. In essence, collaboration makes information and material more of a living thing, rather than a static entity. Finally, digitally-literate people know how to become self-publishers and produce their own work without the need of traditional publishing resources (e.g. a publishing company, a paying readership that will read your material consistently, a literary agent). Digital literates learn and make use of open-source tools, digital freeware, and a multitude of inexpensive, easily-manipulated digital programs and devices to help them put out their own material in an effort to share their ideas and build their identities as published authors with something to say. These additional roles of editor, collaborator, author, and publisher that digital literacy develops allows people to feel like more active participants who engage and manipulate the texts (in whatever form they appear) rather than the other way around.

Digital literacy also comprises of learn how to navigate through virtual worlds in an effort to participate in digital societies and develop digital identities. Many social networking sites and online gaming communities (e.g. Second Life, World of Warcraft) encourage participants to create online personalities and personas that can, and often do, drastically differ from their real-world selves. As participants learn more and more about how to manipulate and exploit these digital universes, they are able to present themselves in ways that they find the most fulfilling and satisfying. Participation in these virtual worlds allows anyone to transform their public image in these digital societies with greater ease than would be possible in the outside world. Digitally literate people who learn how to traverse these digital universes are then given greater opportunities for self-expression, creating their own self-image rather than being labeled and judged by others about who they are. Therefore, becoming digital literate means not only producing, editing, contributing, and publishing information about our world, but also about ourselves and how we wish to be presented and viewed by others.

Due to its very nature, a person can never truly be digitally literate: digital tools change and become obsolete too quickly, the amount of digital information being produced expands too rapidly, the applications of digital technology are far too vast (and nowhere near being completely tapped). However, despite this cynical realization, there exists a silver lining. A digitally literate person is one who constantly seeks out new ways to interpret, use, and create information; who constantly learns a variety of different tools in order to accomplish goals, solve problems, and contribute to the larger body of information and knowledge; a person who strives to use technology and digital resources help better understand his/her world and himself/herself. These are my //current// beliefs about what it means to be digitally literate in society, and I stress the world “current” because what I think it means to be digitally literate now may change as I learn more about digital literacy, develop my own digital literacy, and as new technologies that have yet to come into existence emerge and change the requirements once more. In spite of all of this instability, one component of digital literacy will remain constant: a digitally literate person is one that never stops learning from himself/herself and others.

= =  References = = Richardson, W. (2010). //Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms//. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

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