Thursday, September 10, 2009

Finding a Name

I am an instructor for a graduate course on new literacies.  I am requiring my students to maintain a blog about a book on new literacies for a few weeks, so my conscience forced me to try it myself.  The technology part is easy, but the name for the blog--ah, that was another problem.  

I knew I wanted it to be about literacy, but I didn't want the title to be so boring and obvious because I might want to talk about things other than literacy, but I wanted teaching and learning literacy to be central in some way.   So, I, of course turned to my word processor's thesaurus, searching for synonyms for various related words--musing, reading, etc.  No luck.  Then I went to the literacy entry of MSN's Encarta encyclopedia and found the quote that provided the title for this blog:  "In honest hands, literacy is the surest and the most effective means to true education. In dishonest hands, it may be a most dangerous, in fact a suicidal, acquisition," a quotation from Obafemi Awolowo.  Of course the next step is Wikipedia where I found that he was Premier of Nigeria from 1959 to 1960, and a politician, lawyer, and social activist.  Within a few minutes, I had found an acceptable name for my blog and learned a bit about Nigerian history.  To me, this is what new literacy is all about--exploring, asking, finding, following and flowing. 

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3 comments:

  1. Megan BaldrigeSeptember 13, 2009 at 1:49 PM

    very good title!

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  2. Blythe TurnerSeptember 16, 2009 at 5:13 PM

    I love your idea of "...exploring, asking, finding, following and flowing." Perfect example of what we're doing here. Can we add "floundering" from time to time?

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  3. SydneOctober 15, 2009 at 1:00 PM

    I would definately have to agree with Blythe about the floundering part. I just keep asking myself why is some of the information in my book, so foreign to me. Why am I nervous to try things out in the virtual world? I think it all boils down to that it is not part of my frame of reference. On the other hand it is completely natural for my children? This made me think I wonder where they accquire this comfort level because it isn't from me or their teachers. Maybe it is society as a whole. Also I think people are bigger risk takers in the virtual world because they feel that there is not anything to lose. They will be able to start a new game and look at the problem in a different way. That is what I would love to develop in my classroom that "safe" enviroment where my students want to take risks. Any ideas why that is so hard for me?

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