Google is my Friend version 2:Literacy in searching

Google is my Friend:  Literacy in Searching
by Pascal Routledge

·         Topic 1:  Becoming an Insider

The patterns in our research data indicates a repeated involvement with websites looking for information, typical behaviour for participatory culture.  The data does not indicate that we were becoming an insider.   An insider is someone who is involved in sharing a discussion online within a certain group or web community.  As the patterns indicated I did not act as an insider because I did not engage in online discussions with members of the Fan Fiction sites that I visited.  I found that in order to be an insider of this culture I needed to have more experience with stop animation and Star Wars before I would feel that I would be an insider.  I was more of a visitor outside the web space merely collecting the information that I needed.

An insider is someone who is an “expert” or acting “expertly” on the particular subject.  This expert will engage in online discussions offering their suggestions, criticisms, to others as well as receiving suggestions and criticisms to perhaps something that the expert has posted.  As the project developed it was evident that we had established a pattern to seek out information, which we needed to produce our stop animation movie.  We found that engaging in online Fan fiction websites, where there were people or members who could share their knowledge at that time, helpful.  In addition, we were able to go back and search through old posts or discussions through these websites.  We discovered relevant information to help us with our own stop animation project.  We decided that because these members had contributed to the online discussion that they had experiences in this area making them an “insider”.  This engagement of online discourse is “literacy” or acting in a kind of “new literacy” through participatory culture using digital media that today’s 21^st Century Learner is comfortable using.

·         Topic 2:  Accessing Expertise

Accessing “expert” opinions while searching online for solutions to problems, which arose during our project, was a pattern.  Each time we were able to access “experts” through Affinity or fan based web sites accessing their prior experiences which they have shared online. “Experts and novices share the same space.”  (Black: 14 Fan fiction and affinity spaces). This type of information gathering as the need arises is referred to as just-in-time-learning which is a pattern that became evident as we analyzed our data.  Analysing the data collected from our field notes clearly indicates this pattern of the use of online affinity spaces to gather information or learn each time that we came to a problem for our movie creation.  The repeated actions of this just-in-time-learning indicates the learning through digital literacy activities. 

·         Topic 3:  Who is involved in Affinity spaces?

These online areas where youth ‘hang out’ provide many opportunities for learning to occur as needed, commonly referred to as just-in-time-learning opportunities.  This type of online social behaviour assists youth in their learning of traditional literacy (Jenkins et al, 2006, p. 4).  This open online collaboration according to research from Black supports the fundamental equality, racial equity, social status equality that is found very often among these online affiliations or Affinity Spaces: It is important to keep in mind that space refers to “…the idea of a space in which people interact rather than on membership in a community.” (Situated Language and Learning: Gee page 77) These online spaces and shared affinities offer opportunity for the learning to be voluntary and quite sophisticated.  It is at this early stage that the literacy becomes apparent in this type of media rich project which is mostly self-generated by fans; however it is understood that our stop animation project was first and foremost a vehicle for the learning to occur.

·         Topic 4: The act of “being” involved in affinity spaces

This is where the literacyness of online fan communities, like affinity spaces, such as stop film animation web sites, or chat rooms provides the insider information needed to successfully produce a digital artefact on a particular style of animation, for support of creating these movies, which further develop the participant’s literacy skills.  According to Jenkins and Gee:        “Affinity spaces offer powerful opportunities for learning, Gee argues, because they are sustained by common endeavours that bridge differences in age, class, race, gender, and educational level, and because people can participate in various ways according to their skills and interests, because they depend on peer-to-peer teaching with each participant constantly motivated to acquire new knowledge or refine their existing skills, and because they allow each participant to feel like an expert while tapping the expertise of others.” (White Paper: Jenkins page 10). 

By being involved in this type of participatory culture activity, today’s youth are far more willing and able to develop their reading and writing skills, their social skills, research skills, technical skills, and critical analysis skills which are mastered outside of the typical lecture style of teaching in the classroom. 

These are the literacy’s of the 21^st Century Learner that became evident through the act of creating a stop motion animation movie or other digital artefact. This less modern method of learning involvement or setting with the students being far less engaged in doing the work and more engaged in listening to the teacher lecturing to the students is deemed as far less effective learning; referred to as the “broadcast” approach by Don Tapscott, Growing Up Digital.  The acts of involvement in this online space is the stuff that makes up the new literacy practices and the things that students need to learn to succeed in their future.

·         Topic 5:  On the edge

The use of Affinity fan fiction websites, for problem solving, such as finding additional effects and sounds for a stop animation movie.  I felt that I was on the “edge” or “periphery” of participating in an Affinity or Fan Fiction Website.  The data indicated that I was engaged in accessing distributed expertise online.  In Gees idea of an affinity site whereby I searched out information as it was needed just-in-time to advance my learning of stop animation.  I did not become part of the actual online discourse because my need for information is of a temporary situation, in other words, because I do not plan to be an active participant and continue to make fan fiction movies I consider myself temporary because of the temporary nature of this just-in-time-learning information needed for the movie project.

I did not feel like I was an expert in the creation and sharing of the stop motion animation movie, as indicated in the data:   I did not contribute or add anything to the many different posts of people who were insiders or experts in stop motion movie making using 21^st Century digital skills, therefore I was unwilling to actively participate in a discussion on a Star Wars Fan Fiction chat board.  

However, there was no reason why I could not have created an account, and participated in the many chat rooms or boards where other insiders “hang out” because there are no boundaries therefore “everyone has a more active stake in the culture that is produced.” (White Paper: Jenkins page 10). Perhaps it is the reason that this was a project in learning and not entirely of my own personal interest that I did not act as an “insider”.

Additional ideas

( In our data, identifiable elements of this dimension of new literacies elements include accessing expertise from affinity websites, being an insider in these affinity websites, just-in-time-learning, and problem solving. In our data, X typically….  For example

·         Just-in-time-learning by accessing distributed expertise found in websites or affinity spaces

·         What is an affinity space according to __________

·         Was being involved in Affinity spaces a new literacy practice?

·         What do affinity spaces offer for learning? As indicated by data pattern

·         Namely:(
(a) Where is the ‘literacy’ in what you did? That is, what is it about the practice you engaged in that makes it a kind of (new) literacy practice? What are some of the main dimensions or aspects of its ‘literacyness’ and what examples from your data can be used to illustrate/argue for this view?
(b) How did you (start to) become ‘literate’ and ‘fluently literate’ in and through the ‘doing’ of (participation in) the practice you chose to engage in? Here again, you will use the data collected to identify significant aspects of learning how to engage in the practice and becoming more of an ‘insider’ to the practice.
(What is the pattern? What did you find? What is the conclusion?))

References