Chapter Five Reflection

            Chapter five titled, “Understanding Youth and Digital Media,” focused mainly on three tough questions teachers should ask themselves regarding learning, literacy, and knowledge.  The questions teachers should ask themselves are: what does learning look like in the 21^st century? What does literacy look like in the 21^st century? And what is knowledge in the 21^st century?  Why are these questions tough?  The answer is, because teachers must see past their training, fear, and experiences in order for them to offer competitive and engaging classrooms.

            Chapter five also discussed new media and how this new media, which the author calls digital media. Because of the way students can manipulate digital media, its contents can be shared, edited, and interacted within the student’s community and around the world.  This community is an environment of support, collaboration, peer-based learning, creativity, interest-driven practices, and friendship-driven practices.  The author hopes the book will inspire teachers to understand the 21^st century student and how they participate and learn with new media.

            My reflection of chapter five was how the author discussed relationships.  Just like back in my time as a teenager, today’s students are focused on maintaining, developing, and fostering relationships – they just do it differently.  I liked how chapter five said not to judge students, but to respect how they communicate with each other.  Those sloppy text messages are a way of protecting themselves and those relationships.