Who do I think I am...

Sadly I was unable to attend the campus session on the 9th October due to my working hours but I was really pleased to see that Rosemary McGuinness had posted up a brilliantly informative blog about what went on.

I decided that as well as reading through the blog I'd also take part as I go along so that I could discover some of the ideas/ have some of the thoughts for myself before reading further.

So far, I've only got to the first paragraph as I found myself immersed in, and reflecting on, the first article by Lankshear (Sampling "the new" in new literacies, 2007), which is on the resource list on the libguides page:

http://libguides.mdx.ac.uk/content.php?pid=121076&sid=1050736

Having read through just the first few pages I found that I have already had several thoughts about how it might relate to aspects of my practice:

• I spend a lot of my time communicating with parents and employers via email and text message, which requires me to keep language succinct, straightforward and clear. But to whom? Am I just thinking about what I can understand from my communications, with my social background and knowledge-in-practice, or am I presenting the information in a way that is accessible to all the people I am trying to reach.
• When reading articles, blogs, books, etc. am I blinkered/ limited in my understanding by my background and/ or personal world view? How able am I to take an objective viewpoint if something doesn't fit neatly into my knowledge-base, or calls what I "know" into question?
• Do I gravitate towards discourse that I feel supports my point of view and shy away from or dismiss things that don't?
• In dealing with communications from parents and students am I sometimes "mis-reading" the intention or only seeing it from my side of the fence?

All these questions I have asked myself and, in all honesty, I cannot, yet, answer them!

I like to think that I am open to, and understanding of, other people's differing backgrounds and take care, when writing letters or emails, that I consider the language that I use and the variety of people I am trying to communicate with. I know that for a lot of my parents, english is not their mother-tongue - do I communicate effectively or is a lot of what I write unintelligible? Is there a better way for me to communicate information? Perhaps I can find a way to present it in several different forms...

I'll definitely think more about literacies when writing in the future and will hopefully be able to answer a few more questions as I go along.

I'm really looking forward to carrying on with my post-campus-session session!