Embedded Files
Post date: Apr 25, 2011 7:16:21 PM
Some time ago, I was interviewed by Northwestern University's School of Education and Social Policy about my work on the World of Viruses project. Happily, it's recently been featured in the Spring 2011 issue of Inquiry Magazine.
In the article, Lisa Stein considers how new media has expanded our traditional concept of literacy to one beyond the written word. She mentions the virology comics series I used in my interviews with teenagers, in which I studied the interaction between medium, prior knowledge, and readers' developing understanding of the science content. She also discusses David Rapp's research on educational comics, and Eva Lam's work on Asian immigrant students' use of digital media to navigate cultural boundaries. Admittedly, new media such as comics, YouTube, and instant chat, are now so commonplace now that they hardly seem new. In fact, comics are a relatively old medium - ancient, even, depending on your definition.
The real issue, however, is that with new media as a decidedly established, albeit ever-evolving, presence in our everyday lives, we are rightly redrawing the boundaries of our definition of literacy. We are reconsidering former perspectives on how people learn, trying to understand the interaction between information and the multiple media by which it is transmitted, and re-evaluating our criteria for assessing what we call "literacy." No doubt, these are exciting times for education, in which we have the capacity to design environments that address both the challenges and opportunities new media present for learning.
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse