Digital Literacies--4 Sources

As the Internet and other technologies grow with increasing popularity among students, it is important that all educators address technology (both its merits and its pitfalls) in the classroom. The multi-faceted prior knowledge that students bring to a classroom about technology is called their "digital literacy," a far-reaching literacy term that can mean anything from knowing how to make a call from a cellular phone to knowing how to create and post your own blog or web page.

As a Secondary English Education major, I am most interested in the digital literacies that students use outside of school on a daily basis. How do they use language in their everyday lives? How is language evolving as a result of technology? Has texting language made kids "lazier" or "less smart" somehow? To address that last point, I honestly believe that students have a fascination with creating language and molding it to suit their needs, and that fascination is directly connected to the digital age. Much of the texting and technological jargon of today came from adolescents. When I say jargon, I do not mean words like web browser, URL, flashdrive, or other so-called "expert" jargon; rather, I am referring to the rich abbreviations that pepper students' emails and instant messages: things like emoticons (^_^ :D :'( :P ), lol, ttyl, rotflmao, and other shorthand expressions or phrases.

I guess that what I am ultimately trying to say is that we need to give our students real-world applications for technology in school because not doing so would be a disservice to them. After all, they already use technology as a means of communication and as a way to connect with others from around the globe via social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, or MySpace. As educators, we need to have a dialogue with our students about the benefits and pitfalls of technology; we need to equip them with the 21st-century technology skills that they will need to be successful through their schooling and beyond.

To this end, I would now like to bring in the opinions of four authors, many of whom comment on the same points, though their topics and specific research may vary considerably. I would like to do this through a peppering of quotations that I found especially poignant as I was reading these articles for my EDUC-M464 class, Methods of Teaching Reading. The article titles are as follows:

1. "Making meaning on the screen: Digital video production about the Dominican Republic" by Jason Ranker
2. "SEARCHing for an answer: The critical role of new literacies while reading on the Internet" by Laurie A. Henry
3. "The Importance of Deep Reading" by Maryanne Wolf and Mirit Barzillai
4. "21st Century Skills Map" designed in cooperation with The National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE)

I have organized the quotations under specific sub-categories that I think show not only the continuity between each of the four articles, but also their inconsistencies or alternate viewpoints as well.

Digital Literacy According to 4 "Experts"

The Times They Are A' Changin'

• "It is clear that the advancement of technology will remain an integral part of our society and that our education system is expected to address these changes directly through classroom instruction" (Henry 625).
• "The fluid, multimodal nature of digital information enables online readers to become immersed in a subject, both visually and verbally" (Wolf and Barzillai 35).
• "...reading on the Web not only involves print but also images and sound. Digital media have created new types of reading practices" (Ranker 410).
• "It is no longer possible to think about literacy in isolation from a vast array of social, technological and economic factors...the broad move from the now centuries-long dominance of writing to the new dominance of the image...the move from the dominance of the medium of the book to the dominance of the screen (Kress, 2003, p.1)" (Ranker 410).
• "The new medium (digital video) structured a dialogic relationship between text and image" (Ranker 421).
• "...individuals interpret messages differently...values and points of view are included or excluded...media can influence beliefs and behaviors" (NCTE 10).

Proceed with Caution: A Call To Change The Way We Teach

• "Students are often unable to evaluate whether links will be useful or simply distracting (Kamil & Lane, 1998)" (Wolf and Barzillai 35).
• "An early immersion in reading that is largely online tends to reward certain cognitive skills, such as multitasking, and habituate the learner to immediate information gathering and quick attention shifts, rather than to deep reflection and original thought [emphasis mine]" (Wolf and Barzillai 36).
• "Students require new reading comprehension strategies to effectively use the Internet and other information communication technologies (ICTs)...For example, instead of reading the short descriptions provided in the most search-engine results, students are most apt to begin with the first link provided and systematically work their way through the list" (Henry 615).
• "...teachers are discovering that many students do not possess the new literacy skills required to successfully read and write with the many new technologies that regularly appear in today's world" (Henry 615).
• "Teaching students how to search and how to read on the Internet needs to be a focus of classroom pedagogy for the future" (Henry 624).
• "It is imperative that teachers of today understand the new literacies evolving in their classroom so that all students are prepared for life in the 21st century; let's not leave them trapped on the Internet searching for an answer" (Henry 625).
• "...including multiple modes of meaning making in the curriculum promises to bring school-based literacy curricula "in sync" with the changes in public communication that surround the school in the broader society" (Ranker 411).
• "...struggling students--as much as other students--will need to develop digital literacies for a rapidly changing society in which new ways of using literacy and technology are a necessity" (Ranker 412).
• "Not all uses of digital technology bring something new to the literacy curriculum. Just like any other curricular component, digital technologies can be used in limiting and uncreative ways (Knobel & Lankshear, 2006). It is in the quality of the uses of digital technologies that create the potential for something new to happen (Sefton-Gree, 1999), allowing for a new meaning-making process to emerge rather than acting as an addendum." (Ranker 420).
• "Students could celebrate their collective accomplishments with a 'publication party' to which parents and school leaders are invited" (NCTE 6). --quote follows the suggestion of having students create a survival guide with tips for younger students about surviving high school using a series of podcasts, videos, or online booklets
• "[Use technology to] bridge cultural differences and use differing perspectives to increase innovation and the quality of work" (NCTE 14).

Key Terminology

• "By deep reading [emphasis mine] we mean the array of sophisticated processes that propel comprehension and that include inferential and deductive reasoning, analogical skills, critical analysis, reflection, and insight" (Wolf and Barzillai 33).
• "...an information literate student [emphasis mine] is an effective strategy for searching on the Internet" (Henry 618).
• "...identified access [emphasis mine] as a critical component of ICT (Information Communication Technologies). Access is defined as "knowing about and knowing how to collect and/or retrieve information" (Henry 615) .
• "The concept of multimodality [emphasis mine]--or the idea that meaning can be represented and communicated through multiple channels--has drawn increasing attention from literacy scholars in recent years" (Ranker 411).