WebLog 6

Discuss the readings. What is your twitter literacy level?  How is it evolving? How would you define 21st Century Literacy Skills?  How does someone acquire these skills?  Do schools teach 21st Century Literacy Skills? What are the relationships between technology, participatory cultures, and 21st Century Literacy?  (the multimedia equivalent of 500+/- words)

 I consider myself an advanced twitter user. I started using twitter right when it came out, back in May of 2006.  My account number is 306 which means I started using it the very first day it was released, I actually had to get invited to it because it was a closed environment at first. I love twitter, just the idea of posting anything that's on your mind at any given moment to share with the entire world within a hundredth of a second, it's amazing.  Twitter didn't really become popular popular until late 2009-early 2010 because people thought that the idea of posting what you are doing, thinking going is just stupid. What they realized then is that it is much more than that; you can share important information, articles, break stories and even have polls or contests and interact with your followers. I myself love the idea that you can follow certain people and they do not have to follow you back, its kind of like a one way relationship, which is great. Aside from my love for twitter I would say that 21st century literacy skills are to have the technological equipment, fulfilling the digital divide AND knowing exactly how to use it and be proficient in it. In my eyes you need to own a computer and know how to use it to its fullest potential, whether it is just to access and read the webpages or to actually be a creator and create the content, you have to personally state your need for the technology. Adults if they weren't exposed as a child have to be physically shown and taught how to use the technology. However as a kid from the 90's and from then on, we basically grew around the technology it is is like a second nature to us, just from messing with it as a kid you learn how to use it and you gain more skill from just the use. Schools do not have the 21st century skills in their core curriculum. Today it is assumed that each teen knows how to operate the machine and be digitally literate. Schools do however offer elective classes where the individual may choose to learn about technology and becoming more proficient with it, it is however not a requirement. I'm not sure what stand to take on this; I feel like this should be a requirement however to those that have the literacy skills, sitting in the classroom just because they have to would be like a punishment to them. There is a close relationship between technology and cultures and the literacy just follows. For example, today students go to their classes wih their laptops and cellphones. In most cases they are free to use it to take notes or however they would like where as back in the day you were strictly only allowed to bring a pen and paper with you. We also live around the technology, we schedule our plans based on what is playing on the television and communicate with each other via emails and texts vs strictly telephone calls few years ago. In my opinion it is kind of implied that as people now use emails and text for communication the digital literacy is spreading between people as they know how to utilize and take advantage of it.