Wright - CURR 501: Digital Media Literacy

  Will Hunting: Not your average learner When I was in elementary school, I often got in trouble for being "off task." I remember, in particular, my first grade teacher regularly chastising me for being off-task. She would take my crayons away when she saw me doodling, or make me sit in the corner to complete math worksheets, or call home if she caught me singing under my breath when I was doing a reading lesson. Her favorite form of reprimand was to make me put my head down on my desk for an indeterminate amount of time if she felt I had really strayed off the educational path, such as reading ahead of that day's prescribed lesson. (Heaven forbid.) She relayed my egregious misdeeds to my parents at conferences. My mother, a middle school teacher herself, was incredulous at this accusation. I was getting my work done in my own time and in my own manner, and there was explicit evidence of learning, she argued. The teacher rebuked that my inability to follow directions and ...

I remember sitting in an introductory communication course when I first heard my professor used the term "digital native" to describe the generation of students sitting in front of her. I was absolutely flabbergasted by this descriptor being applied to me. Digital native ? There was absolutely nothing "native" about my relationship with technology. I had grown up on a weird precipice of technology, wherein we had a communal family computer and early model cell phones, but conventional classroom learning was done with pen on paper and we had strict limits on screen time. I had to learn by trial and error how to use any technology to which I was exposed. I never received any formal training on how to operate so much of the technology I now use everyday, nevermind think critically about the information I gleaned from those interactive experiences. Ten years later, I have to stop and consider my own implication upon by students that they be digital natives. I can't ...

Hi there! My name is Hope Wright. I am originally from Maine, but I've called India, Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles home, before landing in Providence, Rhode Island last year. I attended Santa Clara University, where I received my B.A. in Communication and English, before working at Illumination Entertainment as an executive assistant for two years. I now teach ESL English at Mount Pleasant High School here in Providence, and it's the best job in the entire world. I just finished my first year of teaching and I'm already thinking about being back in the classroom! I get to work alongside the greatest people, and I get to teach and learn from the most fantastic students out there. I truly love what I do and the people I do it with! When I'm not in the classroom, I try to absorb as much dog-related content and listen to as much music as possible. I am absolutely obsessed with dogs, especially my family's one-year-old German Shepherd Lily. My mom and I rescued...