After reading Kerri’s post on Digital Literacy and her struggles with learning how to operate Twitter, I thought back to when I was finally allowed to have a MySpace and how I had really no idea what I was doing.  And so, my sister became my sponsor for MySpace as she taught me how to acquire the cool zig-zag background, the music player that played your favorite song, and most importantly how to organize your top friends.  Looking back on it now, I never realized how big of a sponsor my sister was in my learning to navigate and communicate correctly through MySpace.  However, after having one sponsorship like that, I was able to figure out Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter and Tumblr all on my own because I had been sponsored from the correct source and I learned enough to push me into new realms of digital literacy.

In the life of digital literacy, I think that there are many more sponsors available than with print-based documents.  The internet has allowed for millions, maybe billions, of people to become sponsors of people all around the world.  Because of this, I think that when I was growing up reading books and articles from hard copies I was learning, but I had nowhere else to really go to get more sponsorship other than people I knew like my mom or teachers.  Thus, when you consider the opportunities the internet has to offer with sponsorship, I think the possibilities are endless.

As I discussed with my group in class, I think that my main sponsors at this point in my life are my professors and my bosses.  I am sponsored by my teachers because they are the only people who I would really come to with questions at the collegiate level, especially my English teachers.  Sponsors are all around.  Don’t get me wrong, movies, music, books, magazines, art, and dance are all sponsors for me as well, but I feel most heavily sponsored through my education practices.

I had such an amazing conversation with my mom on a topic that I never thought would bring up so many memories.  When I was talking to her about what she remembered from when she was young, she told me about my grandfather who I was never able to meet.

She said, ” I always will remember my Dad, an attorney, with his yellow legal tablets writing out notes, letters and briefs.  There wasn’t a night that he didn’t sit and write something on those tablets.”

And for me, that was such an interesting thing to imagine.  My dad always caved up in an office, but my mom and her family had a 2 bedroom house growing up, and the space was limited, so any work my Poppy (grandpa) had to do, was out in the open for my mom and uncle to see.  I really enjoyed this assignment and I hope there are more like this!

Hi friends!  My name is Meghan Cole and I am 19 years old and a Sophomore here at Chico State.  I am on the Chico State Dance Team, Expressions and I also work Front Desk at the WREC, so come say hi!  I came to Chico knowing that I wanted to be an English Education major, in fact, I have known I wanted to be a teacher ever since I was in 8th grade.  I’m sure we can all relate to having that one teacher who we LOVED and admired so much, but for me, my 8th grade English teacher was the reason I decided I wanted to teach.

THEN, come my junior year of high school when I was in Honors Spanish 4, I realized how much I loved the Spanish language.  I loved it enough to give up every Spring Break I had in high school to travel to Mexicali, Mexico where I volunteered at local churches with children anywhere from 6 months old to 17 years old.  I cannot even begin to tell you how much I love being around such humble and loving people who truly want to learn the English language.  It was during my senior year of high school that I decided I would minor in Spanish and get my TESL certificate so that I can teach both English speaking and Spanish speaking students all around the world. Which leads me to my next point… studying abroad.  I plan to travel to Costa Rica next Spring and finish my minor in Spanish while I’m abroad, and I am so excited about it.

As for Szwed’s article, I think this was a great opening piece for us as a class to read.  I read Brett’s post before I came on to write mine, and I totally agree with him that times are changing and so are the ways we communicate.  I know from personal experience that my mother will continually comment on my texting by saying, “you and your generation are not going to know how to communicate once you are older because the only way you communicate is through text.”  And yes, we do text a lot, but that does not mean that I am unable or afraid to have a conversation with another person face to face.

I know that I personally should try to read more, because with all I have going on in my life, I tend to forget, but I write all the time.  Writing is like my getaway and I feel as though I can express myself in the best ways when I’m writing.  However, there are times when I will send a text that says “hey whats up? u wanna grab lunch?” and I don’t feel as though that makes me any less of a literate person.  When I need to write with formality, I am totally capable of doing so.  Overall, this article is very relevant to our society today, and I am excited to see where our class takes this conversation as a whole.