Digital spaces and young people's online authoring: challenges for teachers

Abstract

The digital spaces that young people inhabit are rapidly changing as the technologies and tools of the Internet evolve. As online environments reshape, so too do the identities of the content creators and the texts they produce in community spaces such as Facebook and MySpace. Outside of the school environment, many young people are avid online authors of multimodal texts (Lenhart & Madden, 2005) while, in school, these same students may show a reluctance to engage in paper-based authoring (Witte, 2007). Furthermore, online texts produced by these young authors vary in sophistication and quality (Jenkins et al., 2006; Kimber & Wyatt-Smith, in press). This paper explores current research about middle years students' online authoring and engagement with digital spaces. We will then discuss the curriculum, assessment and pedagogical challenges for us as teachers as we endeavour to engage students and support them in becoming proficient creators of new texts in this new literacies environment.