MOUNTAINS OR MOLEHILLS:

Untitled Slide

What's going on in there?

"The reality...is that we do not know enough of the benefits or misperceptions of technology as they related to important student outcomes" (Nora and Snyder, 2008)

When researchers focus too closely on technology as tools, we lose "information about the ways in which these tools shift the literacy practices of students" (Wilber, 2008)

New Literacies Perspective:
1. Literacy is a social practice
2. New literacies are deictic
3. New literacies mobilize new values or ethos in how people practice literacy

Literacy as a social practice: texts only have meaning within the context of a society

"A Discourse is a socially accepted association among ways of using language ... thinking, feeling, believing, valuing, and acting, as well as using various tools, technologies or props that can be used to identify oneself as a member of a socially meaningful group...to signal (that one is playing) a socially meaningful "role," or to signal that one is filling a social niche in a distinctively recognizable fashion. "(Gee, 2012)

BECOMING FLUENT IN A DISCOURSE

• Acquisition (modeling/emulation)
• Learning (explicit instructions)

New Literacies are deictic

New literacies, new ethos

How do first-year college students experience Information and Communication Technologies in the higher education environment?

Phenomenological Study

Land Grant Institution
Great Plains
24,000 fte

19 First-Year Students

• 17 women, 7 men
• Diverse ethnic and racial heritages
• Aged 17-43
• Diverse socio-economic backgrounds
• Range of technology comfort and majors

Interview Questions

• Experiences
• Thoughts
• Emotions
• People
• Perception: of self, of tech

First-year instructors

Common, shared experiences:
1. Academic integration
2. Social integration
3. Locus of control

THE MOUNTAINS

What do you call that thing?

Mingxia and KSOL

"I just know KS Online. But KSOL, where is KSOL at? And my classmate, "Ah, just KS Online." Now I know. (Mingxia, 18)

Don't understand instructor's expectations

Abby and the Flipped Class
I guess watching lectures online ... would be very unusual for me. I know it's not unusual here, but the first year it's kind of strange...I was getting frustrated. I was already like upset because I feel like this is a three-credit-hour course, so I shouldn't be doing all my work at home. I guess I didn't really understand how the credit hours worked. I understand now. (Abby, 18)

Everybody knows...

Craig and PowerPoint
"I've never even, even touched PowerPoint, but apparently people do that in 6th grade now. And he, he wanted to do a PowerPoint presentation...I tried to talk him out of it only to save my -- some of my face, you know. I didn't want to show I did not know how to do PowerPoint. And, I mean, they just expected me to know that. I didn't." (Craig, 43)

It doesn't work. Really. It does not work.

Cody and the Intermittent Internet

"When I'm doing, like, a quiz or something online and it goes out, it's kind of annoying... And some of them are timed. And the time doesn't stop, so. I've had one where I couldn't get back on the Internet period. I kind of, I failed it because I couldn't -- I had no way to do it."

They just said because I.. [my dorm] is like farther away it goes and comes back in sometimes. So, there's really nothing I can do, they said.

He said I should have been better prepared, but I don't know how that would have.. I don't see how that could have worked out. (Cody, 18)

Obstruct learning

Ellen and Online Homework
"I don't really like having to do it online. I'd rather do it in class or like hard copy...they're not there to tell me what I'm doing wrong whereas like if I had it all written out they could say...I know I have the wrong answer, but I don't know why." (Ellen, 18)

Ellen and Online Homework (Part Deux)
"...I do like getting the instant feedback of if it is right or wrong though because if you wait for class you don't know"

Instructors not modeling expected behavior

Christine and Email

"Sometimes I'm like, 'Oh, I have to be all professional, but then you just send me like nothing.'...I mean, that's fine. It's whatever. They're the professor." (Christine, 18)

MOLEHILLS

Understand instructor's expectations

Nate and Online Tests

Nate: I had a test today where it was -- you just go into K-State Online and click on the test, and it's --- you're timed ... 60 minutes for this test. And you've just got to basically do it.

Interviewer: Had you done tests like that before you came to K-State?

"Before I came to K-State, no. But they -- the instructor was, like, it's really simple, "Make sure you save your progress often enough so, that, in case the worst is to happen, you've got that saved progress." And basically it's -- you know, 95% of the class is going to do this fine. The 5% that doesn't, or that messes up, loses power, lose Internet connection, or it freezes, something like that. He said, "Oh, I'll talk with you, and we'll figure out a way, but for the -- most of you" -- he was basically making sure that 60 minutes wasn't going to be, you know, extended... " Most of you will be fine, so don't come crying to me, like, oh, I didn't finish the test in time, because I was -- I don't know, busy procrastinating or daydreaming or whatever." (Nate, 18)

Make sense of course content

Self-directed learning

Patrick & the Geography Game
"I have to know where things are on the map..I just Google search like, 'South America countries game' And then, you just place them where you think it'll be...It helps, a lot. [laughing]" (Michael, 19)

A bridge

Christine & her Best Friend
"We would do this think where like, Hulu, you know that? We watch the show 'Pretty Little Liars.' And so, she would get that up on Hulu and I would watch it on DVR and we would watch it together while Skyping. So, kind of like, you know, sitting --kind of like we were watching it at the same time...And then, we would Skype and just talk about our lives and stuff." (Christine, 18)

Meeting new people

Lisa and Meeting People
"It's hard to meet people when you're in a class with like 400...I would like sit by someone and I would, I'd like to talk to the person on the first day...But it's kind of weird, like it, it was really weird. I felt like I was dating. Not dating, but, I don't know, it was weird...I felt creepy in a way, but, I mean you have to. [laughing]" (Lisa, 18)

Bethany & the Effect of Friending
"I don't know why that is, but I guess because you like know more about them without knowing more about -- I don't know, like you seem closer to them just because you've like-- you've seen their Facebook." (Bethany, 18)

Social norms

Brandon and Social Media
"I don't every really use Facebook much. I use Twitter a little bit just to, if we have an inside joke or something or something that reminds me of them, I'll Tweet at them really quick, but that's about it." (Brandon, 19)

"You don't need a computer to be social." Michael, 19

The cell phone culture

Advice from students

"...he puts the PowerPoints up on K-State Online after so, honestly, you don't even need to come to class -- which if I had something to say I would say, "Don't put them on K-State Online because then people really won't come to class." (Jacob, 18)

Consider Texting
"I don't check my email when I first get up and all that in the morning. I check it like later, after my classes. And like, a lot of teachers expect you to check it like as soon as you wake up and I don't.. So, like I think it would benefit to just like text." (Yolanda, 18)

Be explicit
"Always treat people like a moron because they might know but they might not. And if you explain it to them the first time they won't think you're talking down to them later." (Craig, 43)

Technology Orientation
"I think it'd be nice if there was a way you could be introduced to how some of this works. Because, like I said, I was kind of just thrown into it. And now being overly interested in how things work on a computer, it would've been nice if somebody like ran through like, 'This is how you need to get to [Keyboard] State Online. This is what you'll use it for." (Ellen, 18)

Implications for practice

• Technology is part of our academic culture
• Technology is part of our students' social culture
• First-year students are changing our cultures

Questions?

Untitled Slide

Bethany and the Psychology Videos
"You get to see like experiments play out and stuff...it's a lot easier to understand when you're like actually seeing it instead of reading it out of a book." (Bethany, 18)

Daniel and the homework
"It was a really frustrating assignment, because you'd sit there and draw one atom or one molecule four times...Get it wrong each time until the last one. You'll sit there and go, "I don't know what I did different. It should have been the same." (Daniel, 17)