Cultural Literacy
Cultural literacy is defined as “knowledge of history, contributions, and perspectives of different cultural groups, including one's own group, necessary for understanding of reading, writing, and other media” (dictionary.com). This is different from most of the other definitions of literacy because the focus is on background knowledge needed to communicate, rather than the communication skills itself. The definitions on the wiki usually did not discuss history or culture, but focused on reading, writing, speaking, and other communication skills. Most of the definitions of literacy on our wiki said that reading and writing were part of literacy, but many did not mention other media, so the definition of cultural literacy differs in that way as well. The mention of other media makes me feel like cultural literacy is more modern.
Becoming literate in this literacy may involve any of the traditional literacies, but it must include at least one. For example, it may involve reading about the history or contributions of a particular cultural group. It could involve listening to a lecture or viewing a presentation about a culture. It may involve everyone in a room writing about their background and sharing their cultural perspective with others in that way. They could present their background in a short speech, or could interview someone about their culture, so becoming culturally literate could involve speaking as well.
I was really surprised as I was exploring to find out some of the things that are similar across all cultures (cultural universals). These included having a sexual division of labor, having a concept of privacy, having some sort of body ornamentation, and distinguishing between good and bad behavior. I had originally thought that all cultures were different and that maybe some cultures did not have separate roles for women and men. I thought that privacy was unique to cultures such as the US, since people from some countries seem to stand way to close and not understand that people in the US need more space. I also did not realize that all cultures had body ornamentation and had never quite thought of jewelry in quite those terms before. Since all cultures distinguish good and bad behavior, there must be no real barbarians in this world. Now it makes sense to me why good versus evil is a universal theme.
I think that most students already have a pretty solid background in this literacy. By 4th or 5th grade, almost all students know what culture is and have been learning about it in social studies for a while. Some things that the students might need to know to become literate in this area is the cultural universals and the method that would be used to study culture. There are multiple methods, but I think the best one is the cultural relativity approach. In this approach, you try to study a culture other than your own without comparing it to your own. This is very difficult to do, but I think it is important to be open minded when studying different cultures so that you can try to see others’ cultures through their eyes. One important thing to keep in mind is that culture is constantly changing. I do not know how anyone could really be culturally literate, because no one even knows everything about their own culture. I suppose the important thing to be culturally literate is to know how to learn about other cultures so that when you read or interact with someone from a different culture, you can research beforehand to try to understand their culture. Then you can learn from that person, or from the book more about the culture they portray.
Interactive Maps
Writing in an interactive map is different from normal writing because instead of writing a paper, only one or two paragraphs are necessary in each box. All the boxes read together can sound like a paper, but they do not necessarily have to flow like a paper. The only requirement is that they all have a common theme. Also, when viewing an interactive map, the main part is the map, not the text. This is different from most books, in which the text is the most important part. Interactive maps must be viewed as a whole, with the map, the pictures (if there are any) and the text. Also, instead of simply viewing the map, in order to get the information, you must click on markers so that the text box pops up.
An interactive map is similar to a book in that you read from left to right and up and down. It is also similar because there is sometimes a preconceived order that you must go in as you read. The difference is that on an interactive map, this order is displayed through numbered markers, while in a book it is shown through separate pages and page numbers.
As far as making the interactive map goes, I have found writing in the text box a challenge. There is no undo button for the text box, so if you make a big mistake (like deleting a bunch of information by accident) you must retype it in order to fix it. To overcome this problem, I have been writing my information in Word first and then copying and pasting it into the text boxes. I think my main challenge with interactive maps is simply figuring out how everything works. It has taken a lot of exploring for me to feel more comfortable with them and I still do not feel fluent with the technology.
I think that I can convey my literacy fairly well with this technology. The problem for me is figuring out how exactly to present it. Being able to connect the information that you are going to convey with a place on the map is key to using the interactive map format. For this project, I am going to have to be a little bit creative in how I present cultural literacy, so that I can connect my facts with places on the globe.
There are a lot more possibilities to customize interactive maps than I ever imagined. You can change the icons, make paths, view the map from satellite view as well as regular, a mix of the two, and terrain view. You can name your own categories for markers as well as add in photos and links to web pages. I never realized how much you could do with this technology. It’s making me excited about interactive maps.
If students were using this technology, they would need to know that the place on the map, the picture, and the print are all connected and would need to view all three together to get the complete story. They would need to know to follow the numbered markers while viewing it. They would need to be able to write in order to make the map and they would need to be able to read in order to interpret the map.
I think that if students were reading a book in which the character traveled a lot, it would be cool to have the students design an interactive map of the character’s travels. This would help the students visualize where the setting takes place and display their comprehension of where the character is and what is going on in the story. This is also a neat presentation format because the students could easily present what they made to their classmates. The interactive map could just be online and each student could have a laptop and look at it in their own time. Or it could be presented on a big screen, with the student clicking on each marker in order and describing it to their class like a powerpoint.
Through creating an interactive map, I learned that I have fun using new technology but it is quite difficult for me and it takes a long time for me to really get used to it. I learned that it’s possible to make a window with a webpage in it pop up within the interactive map. Best of all, I learned that I can make an interactive map. Before this project, I thought interactive maps had to be created by people who were really knowledgeable about computers and were not accessible to the general public. Working on this project has shown me that through the internet, I can do more than I had previously imagined. The sky’s the limit when it comes to technology.
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