Just Call Me Ish.... I Mean Rafe

By way of introduction... My Name is Raphael "Rafe" Snell. I currently teach for Harrison County Schools in the Option Pathways Program. I currently hold a WV Teaching Certification in the following: 5-Adult... English, General Science, and Social Studies, as well as K-Adult MI/BD, and an Option Pathways endorsement. I'm originally from Petersburg, WV, but now call Shinnston, home. I will complete my Digital Media New Literacies and Learning, Master's this summer. I always look forward to the diverse ideas and thoughts others have to share when reading and learning basically the same material... new and refined insight that leads to greater understanding is my primary goal for this class.




The image I chose has a similar type of view;

References:

Published on Oct 17, 2014

This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences. Jesse is the founder ofhttps://www.schoolofthought.org an online fully immersive learning environment that will be free for students, teachers and universities all over the world. He believes the key to engaging future generations is to 

teach them how, and not what, to think.

Google Images

Disruption: Visualizing the Future... No Text Needed?

Hologram or Holographic images was my first thought because the idea of having an image that speaks is... well like the coolest thing ever... in that stories (Books) could be told by the author with all the inflection the author originally intended. Then I read the passage and begin think there is some much more than a thousand words contained in a single image that when used in context needs No explanation. I have to reflect on the past as I look forward and assess modern communication as they might offer a glimpse into what communication will be like tomorrow... The SyFy (new) or Sci-Fi (old) has always offered that fanciful look into what the world will look like tomorrow, but even more fascinating than that are the words of Nikola Tesla, about wireless communication in 1926...

"When wireless is perfectly applied the whole earth will be converted into a huge brain, which in fact it is, all things being particles of a real and rhythmic whole. We shall be able to communicate with one another instantly, irrespective of distance. Not only this, but through television and telephony we shall see and hear one another as perfectly as though we were face to face, despite intervening distances of thousands of miles; and the instruments through which we shall be able to do his will be amazingly simple compared with our present telephone. A man will be able to carry one in his vest pocket."

This idea of communication led me to connecting why the written word was developed to begin with... as an economic device in a universal language, which is easy enough to "see" that images are in fact fairly universal. Then symbols became more complex and further developed into alphabets, which quickly morphed into sophisticated languages as specific forms of communication. These new forms of communication require(d) extensive learning, encoding, and decoding skills in order to understand... the simple universal trade language had been replaced in just a few hundreds years. So the rest of my post will rely on visual communication only... if you have questions or need clarification leave a comment.

Possibilities?

"What's more, there are no language barriers with images."

References:

Bilton, N. (2013, June 30). Disruptions: Social Media Images Form a New Language Online. Retrieved May 23, 2016, from New York Times: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/30/disruptions-social-media-images-form-a-new-language-online/?_r=1

Clever Prototypes LLC. (2016, January 1). Photos for Class. Retrieved May 23, 2016, from Photos for Class: http://www.photosforclass.com/  (Each Photo has a Specific Citation Attached)

Novak, M. (2015, January 5). Nikola Tesla's Incredible Predictions For Our Connected World. Retrieved May 25, 2016, from Paleofuture: http://paleofuture.gizmodo.com/nikola-teslas-incredible-predictions-for-our-connected-1661107313

New Literacies

When confronted with the ideas of literacy many people have their go to definition of what that means... so if you add the word "new" what or how do you now define literacy?
I have over the course of the past 20 years been slowly introduced into the educational system... that is to say... when my son first began kindergarten I like most parents started to get involved in school organizations like PTA and met with teachers during parent teacher conferences. Because I can be a little opinionated (I'm sure an understatement according to some) i soon became involved in the Local School Improvement Council (LSIC) and because my son was diagnosed with a Learning Disability (LD) I soon found myself on the Special Education Advising Council (which later became the SPED Steering Committee), which all led to a 4-year term on the County Board of Education. It was not long after that term that I really began to think about education differently... and nearly 13 years after it began I found my self in a college classroom in pursuit of an education degree. The goal of earning a degree was realized so the natural progression was to earn a Master's... A bit unsure of what I exactly wanted in a Master's led me down a road where if I didn't know exactly where I was going it would at least be comforting in going with people I already knew. The people I knew came by way of professors I had undergrad classes and were teaching Master's classes... it was a connection to a passage I read in my 75-hr clinical class and book assigned by a professor, Dr. Lindstrom, called Digital and Media Literacy, by Renee Hobbs, that I began to really understand my new working definition of literacy. Along that 13 year journey, when I did Not have formal education credentials, many of my ideas and opinions about education were dismissed by those in education or those possessing degrees. Not in an open or derogatory fashion, but dismissed none the less, as well as many times being told about how sites like wikipedia was ruining research paper writing.  And how texting and removing required handwriting classes was ruining the generation's of today ability to write properly. Which all turns out to be more about the ability to recognize and support new literacies than this or that ruining education... because many of these past educators only see things the way they were taught to see them... and when they became the "power class" they condemn what they do Not understand. A willingness to recognize and seeking to understand new literacies as new generations add to their own understandings and interactions with the world in which they live is what I would call... "wisdom at work!" I include this TedTalk by John McWhorter as an example of understanding New Literacies



Connecting learning to practice!