Being digitally literate is fine and great. We should know how to navigate the digital waters using all the tools at our disposal. But I don't think we really do. I think sometimes we are floating along in our little boat and when we reach and unfamiliar shore we'll find we don't really speak the language.
Know why?
Because we're old. And lame. And old.
Huge swaths of the internet are the realm of the young. And the young want to confuse the old and feeble. The young are constantly growing and evolving and trying to destroy us. We did it when we were young. We had words old people didn't understand and we laughed at them for not understanding. Our music, our social clubs, out slang was all code. The difference is now the code of youth culture is actually in code.*
We live on the internet. We're #connctdeucatrs. But do we speak the lingo? If we're encouraging our students to be more involved online are we as prepared to converse with them about what they find as we think we are?
That's what this chat is about. It's basically a vocabulary test. I'll throw out internet memes, phrases, places, and things, things we ought to know because our kids do know them, and we'll talk about what they are and what they do. Why they are important. What place they have in our culture and youth culture.
I'm not giving you any answers. Welcome to my classroom. There will be lots of scuttling off to Google to investigate and report back. There will hopefully be questions, clarifying questions, wrong answers, and a few people who know some of these things.
Here's the thing- I'm going to miss a ton of stuff. Just researching the chat brought up how behind the times I am. I'm almost at that age where new things are interesting and I want to know, but I'm not going to be trying to play catch up with the Kids Of Today. I need to know enough to converse.
So be ready for questions about things you might not have heard of, but things your kids do know, will know, or want to know.
*that's so waiting to be memed
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