Week #1

Hello all! My name is Marlisa Lake and I currently live in Fairmont, WV. I'll be finishing up the final two courses of my Master's degree(which is an Ed.M with a concentration in Digital Media, New Literacies, & Learning), and I'll be on my way to being a classroom teacher for a few years.

I'm really looking forward to this class because of the great readings as well as my peers' collective writings. The collaborative atmosphere of the blogging learning environment is one of the most beneficial ideas that I've picked up-I undoubtedly plan to use this platform in my own teaching.




The clip that I chose to represent what I view literacy as in the 21st Century is an overview of scientific literacy by Neil deGrasse Tyson. To me the processes of curiosity, exploration, and discovery are ideas that need to be applied in all areas of society. Tyson makes a very good point when he says that by 'not being scientifically literate you are disenfranchising yourself from the democratic process, and you don't even know it.'

I just couldn't resist including this image of the Twitter birds emphasizing our methods of communication and literacy through the social media platform! From an outsider's perspective, our usage of hashtags(#) and @ symbols for communicating with others seems a bit odd.

**Random thought alert--I wonder if the bird mascot for Twitter has anything to do with our method of sending paper messages attached to a bird many centuries ago?