The New Media Literacies

New Media Skills

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Todays world is nothing like what it used to be. The world for the most part is completly dependant on technology. Wheather you are on your cell phone, lab top, or iPod technology is all around us and being used in almost every facet of life. This video The New Media Literacies basically talks about what kind of skills an average person has to have to live in the 21st century. These skills are no longer just for a student studying in school, or a professor teaching a class, these skills are for everyone, and are essiential to being able to function in a world so tech savey. These media skills help a person function in our current media environment, and deal with the fast pace of culture today. We can all agree that the over all pace of life has increased over the years, and it will continue to do so, but these skills help a person keep up with the fast pace of todays society, culture, and movements. It helps people understand things that we use to consider simple like our cell phones or getting on to the internet. These skills help shape creative artists, teaches you how to be a citizen, and even teaches you what kind of tools you will need to be a future worker in the United States.

One intresting thing this video mentioned was that these skills use to not be the same as they are today. It use to be that most average people were just consumers of media. They would watch or learn, but would never have much impact or input, but we are seeing that is changing now. Average people are not only consumors of todays media, but they are becoming producers of todays media also. People are starting to put something out there. It could be as simple as a facebook or myspace page, but the point is that we are now able to control media. Some skills mentioned in the video that people will need are things like judgement, in which we will have to determine if information is reliable or not that we find in the media. Also, negotiation, this is were people will know have to enter into different spaces on the internet, and recognize the social norms of that area. The third skill people will have to posses is called appropration, which means people will have to beable to take massive amount of information found online, sort through it, make sense of it,remix it, and use it in context in a meaningful way. Another skill was called play, which is defined as experimenting with our surroundings as a form of problem solving. Other skills were transmedia navigation, simulation, collective intelligence, performance, distributed congition, visualization, multitaksing.

In my opinion, I think these new media skills make alot of sense. If you think about our world today and the enourmouse dependancy of technology in our media then these skills really are needed and are even vital to function in our culture.If you think about any job in the United States, most all of them will included the use of technology. Wether its computers, the use of the internet, iPhones, or email it would be very hard to find a job free from the use of technology. So in my opinion these skills are a must for anyone who needs a job, which is pretty much every one. In education technology is being used in the classroom more than ever. There are colleges that are all online. A single mother who works two jobs can have the opportunity to take classes online and earn a degree. The possiblitities are endless, but if a person is illiterate and does not posses theses media skills then their opportunities are severly limited.


Media Skills in the workforce


I do posses most of these skills listed in this video like judgement, negotiation, appropration, play, and visualization. The skills I think I am not as litterate on are transmedia navigation, simulation, collective intelligence, and multi tasking, but I think all of those skills can be gained. The main way in my opionion to gain these skills is to practice. To learn by actual experience of different types of media. For example, I am a terrible multitaker. When I am searching the internet I like to focus on one thing at a time, but this does not help becuase in the real world I will have to put together lesson plans and gather inforomation together from several different sources. To help me get better in this skill I would simply practice taking several sources about a topic online and practice pulling them together to form a cohesive piece of information. In conclusion, I think these new media skills are vital to make connections, function in a fast pace world, and be sucessful in whatever area of life you focus on.