Am I going to be a teacher, a scholar, a researcher, or what?

I'm a student, a Ph.D student, who is not taken as a student, generally. In a sense, graduate students, especially doctoral students are students and not students at the same time. They are studying, and they are students. They are supposed to be studying and researching in at least one particular part of their field of academia, and they are not students. They are teacher scholars - I like this!

Now, then what are the teacher scholars supposed to do, in the age of technology in 21st century?

Computers are often said to be a typical representative of technology. Then, do we just claim that our (current and future) classrooms have more techonology - mostly more computers and more access to the Internet?

People say that younger students (not very young, just between 13 and 25, maybe) are more skillful in using computers and more aware of the efficiency of the technology. And teachers are always behind their students' technological advances.
Do I, we as teachers have to get the needed information and the knowledge for technology?

I believe that it's time for teachers to change their view of a 21st century classroom. Traditionally students are supposed to see and listen to their teacher during the class, but at least in a computer lab classroom, they should be free to face the monitors as they like it. They are not playing around with the computers. We should trust them, think that they ar working on the tasks assigned in the class. Just like all the distracted students as usual in a traditional classes, there may be students distracted by other funky Websites in class. Teachers in that wired-classroom settings, shouldn't expect them look at and listen to them all the time. Most of them are on the task of the class and they are listening to you.

Secondly, is it enough to let students sit in a computer lab and look at what you are writing on the screen in front of them? Do you call it an advanced, 21st century, hi-tech classroom? What's the difference of it from traditional teachers' writing on the blackboard? Do we need something more, and what is that?
As a convenient communicative tool, e-mail will be a good function of a class, but don't I have to find out something else to boost their motivation up?

Finally, when we call computer writing as a new form of literacy, teachers also should be aware of the skills related to the technology. Efficiency is the maxim of technology since the industrial revolution had changed our life style. Bringing pedagogical technology into our classroom is not an option any more, we need it. However, this doesn't mean that you as a teacher have to be a versatile technology performer. Even in the 21st century we are living, but it is impossible to have the same number of computers or technological equipments as the number of students in class for the present. It is our job to find out our own technological pedagogy in the classroom, you may teach 200 students in an auditorium with one computer at the podium, or you may teach less than 15 students in a well-equipted computer lab. We are living in the 21st century but this is not "the 21st century" we used to think of in the last century, because it is just the first decade now. I believe it's our destiny to fronteer the field of new classroom with 21st-century technology. If you don't like to make efforts to be one of the fronteers, you may not be qualified as a good teacher in 21st century. We have an extra burden. Just live with that!

Interpretations of Literacy Epistemologies

Short thoughts on the Interpretations of Literacy Epistemologies

Gee

Author's understanding of literacy--literacy is more than reading and writing...literacy is discourse, which is an identity kit. Primary discourse is unconsciously acquired/used to interact with family and the secondary discourse of school/job is consciously learned. You can't be truly literate unless you can function/use this secondary discourse. Literacy is the control of secondary use of language (i.e. uses of language in secondary discourses).
Give framework for literacy a label--literacy involves both learning and acquisition (a mixture). Need to put all skills to use.
Give an example of how this framework might be applied to some other type of data process/example--Instead of just reading a textbook and being quizzed on the material via exercises. Students can be given alternative sources such as stories, poems, plays, letters, newspapers, magazines, posters, menus to learn how to read. Read TESOL books have to use a lot of analysis to analyze what the article means by that author. You use both acquired and learned skills.

Freire and Macedo

Author's understanding of literacy---literacy is everything around you (a tool for reading the world)...the trees, the birds, etc. It's the relationship between text and context. Learning is done through relationships.
Give framework for literacy a label--reading the world (Vygotsky) through interaction/experiencing life.
Give an example of how this framework might be applied to some other type of data process/example---taught first year of high school...did not use diagrams and rules. Instead he taught them the significance of what they were reading. Instead they learned how language functioned by reading the text. Let them discover those rules by how they constructed what was being said.

Street

Author's understanding of literacy--Literacy is not just as set of uniform "technical skills" to be imparted by those who were lacking them--these groups have their own multiple literacies that are socially embedded. Literacy exists in every society/community. It is about knowledge--the ways that people address reading and writing are rooted in the conceptions of knowledge, identity, being. Communicative ways of thinking of reading and writing in cultural contexts.
Give framework for literacy a label--Respecting all literacies. In every community literacy does exist.
Give an example of how this framework might be applied to some other type of data process/example--recognizing local literacy practices. Research with instead of research on groups. Heath (1983) talks about different literacy practices in Black and White communities. Example--Black children using a cereal box to learn how to read when there were no books available in the home. Read to learn rather than learn to read.

Technology-based pedagogy guidelines

Technology-based Pedagogy Guiding Beliefs
(Technology’s Value as a Teaching Tool)

Ø Accommodates different learning styles (Howard Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences)
Ø Enables collaboration/links students together/sharing of information
Ø Creates lasting digital archives
Ø Links isolated classrooms to the outside world
Ø Facilitates the use of new types of writing/literacy activities (non-linear)
Ø Helps teaching keep pace with societal changes
Ø Content should precede technology
Ø Technology changes the nature of content

Ø If you use technology to teach, you will encounter technical difficulties
Ø The newer the technology, the more likely you will encounter problems
Ø But, you can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs
Ø To learn how to teach with technologies, you have to try them
Ø You can’t be afraid of making mistakes; mistakes are a natural part of the learning process
Ø Always have a backup plan; flexible
Ø Making mistakes can be frustrating, so it’s useful to be patient and not aim for perfection//process orientation rather than a product orientation
Ø Students often will know more about technologies than you do, so they can be useful resources
Ø You don’t have to know everything there is about a technology to try it
Ø You learn technology by using it, not reading about it
Ø Make friends with the technology support people; patience

[Source: http://www.english.iup.edu/pagnucci/courses/808/unit7-teaching/lecture-technologicalpedagogyprinciples.doc]

Literacy??? understanding of literacy, definition of literacy

Technically, literacy means the ability to read and write letters, alphabets and texts.

But the implication behind that is much more profound than it looks.

It's kind of chain of syllogism;
being literate means having the ability to read and write,
having the ability to read and write means how to manage things related to human behavior,
management of human behavior means having control over them,
control is power and government.

Literacy or being literate implies the social status of an individual's involvement in a community/society.

Teaching literacy?
Maybe (or probably I believe) teaching how to gain a certain social status which allows people a certain amount of power, to the extent that is allowed by the governing power-the highest literate group in that community/society.
Most of the time, we don't recognize that we are teaching people how to gain the tool for people's unconscious desire to be in the governing position.

In EFL/ESL context?
In most occasions, in human history, being multi-lingual has been a strong heritage. Being able to communicate with people of other tongues have let multi-lingual people have more information and this more information have led them to higher social status by having more chances to access to wealth and richness. We don't recognize but there always exists the game of money and power, i.e. the law of economy and politics.

Being an international student at IUP to become a better teacher

I was a teacher, an English teacher. Being a non-native English teacher to non-native English students in a non-tative English country leads me to this place.

1. The life at IUP: It has been good. People are good, the weather is good, and the atmosphere is good! The problem is my English proficiency. I don't think I'm illiterate to English but my ultimate goal is to be a fluent user of English - native-like level of proficiency, I hope. In four subdivisions of language, reading and writing in English is not bad, but the other two - listening and speaking are not satisfactory to me. It is always disappointing when I cannot deliver 100% of what I want to say.

2. I think I've learned a lot in terms of what to teach and how to teach in the future. But the problem is that, as an international student, I have an extra burden to take. I learn advanced theories and pedagogical practices here in the Unted States, but nowhere I can find out an application or related issues to my future teaching circumstances. This can be a "chicken-and-egg" question. Maybe this setting of my study here in the United States shows me how and what to study. I understand that as long as I plan to return to my country and become an English teacher, I have to take the extra burden and figure it out for my potential research.

3. Today's technologies are amazingly advanced to support the limitation of time and space in reality. I believe, they are quite supportive in teaching in this technoloty era. Some statistics said young poeple access their computers at least once a day and they are getting more familiarized to online intercommunications. And Korea, my country, is one of the most advanced countries of the Internet technology, so I see a lot more potentials in using online communication in teaching, particularly blogging, internet cafe, home pages, and real-time cyber lectures.