Embedded Files
"Postman's perspective is interesting to ponder as we consider the significant impact of digital technologies in contemporary culture: 'New technologies alter the structure of our interests: the things we think about. They alter the character of our symbols: the things we think with. And they alter the nature of community.'"
([7.1] Literacy and Literacies: An Introduction: ETEC_V 540 65A 2024W2 Text Technologies: The Changing Spaces of Reading and Writing, n.d.)
"Thus far in this course, we have looked at how traditional definitions of literacy—the manner in which individuals code and encode language in order to communicate—seem inadequate to the task of accounting for the meaning-making practices of people who communicate using multiple modes and new media, or who use old media in seemingly new ways. This is reminiscent of Walter Ong's idea that the media of electronic culture, like telephones, radios, and television, were perhaps ushering in a new period of secondary orality, a phase not marked by a strict return to the condition of orality, but a new phase where orality is marked by our experiences of literacy over the last five hundred years. Traces of Ong's secondary orality can be found in recent attempts to redefine writing by critics like Lunsford and Diogenes (as cited in Lunsford, 2006):
Writing: A technology for creating conceptual frameworks and creating, sustaining, and performing lines of thought within those frameworks, drawing from and expanding on existing conventions and genres, utilizing signs and symbols, incorporating materials drawn from multiple sources, and taking advantage of the resources of a full range of media. (p. 171)"
([7.1] Literacy and Literacies: An Introduction: ETEC_V 540 65A 2024W2 Text Technologies: The Changing Spaces of Reading and Writing, n.d.)
A Summary of "Digital Literacy" by Teresa Dobson and John Willinsky (produced by Magic School AI)
The article discusses the evolution and implications of digital literacy in contemporary society, emphasizing its ongoing relationship with traditional print literacy. Here are the key points:
Definition and Importance: Digital literacy is characterized as the ability to read and write in a digital context, where information is often conveyed as binary data. This new form of literacy is essential for participating in the global information economy.
Historical Continuity: The authors argue that digital literacy is not a radical departure from print literacy but a continuation. They reference historical movements that democratized access to print literacy, such as public libraries, drawing parallels to the democratizing potential of digital literacy today.
Three Stages of Digital Literacy: The article outlines the transformation of literacy through three stages:
Word Processing (1980s): The introduction of personal computers allowed for easier editing and collaboration in writing, changing how students engage with writing.
Hypermedia and the Internet (1990s): The rise of the internet introduced nonlinear, interactive forms of reading and writing, expanding access to information and encouraging critical thinking.
Networked Information Economy (2000s): Digital literacy now encompasses collaborative knowledge creation through platforms like Wikipedia and social media, challenging traditional notions of authorship and knowledge dissemination.
Literary Hypermedia: Digital forms of literature have emerged, pushing the boundaries of conventional narrative structures and inviting new forms of reader engagement.
Hypertext Fiction: This genre allows readers to navigate through stories in a non-linear fashion, often creating different experiences based on the paths they choose. Examples include works like "afternoon, a story" by Michael Joyce and "Patchwork Girl" by Shelley Jackson.
Reactive Poetry: This form of digital literature combines poetry with multimedia elements, allowing for interactive experiences where readers can engage with the text in dynamic ways.
Collaborative Creative Writing Projects: These projects often utilize online platforms where multiple authors can contribute to the creation of a narrative or poetic work, blurring the lines between authorship and readership.
Blog Novels: These are novels published in serialized form on blogs, allowing for reader interaction and feedback as the story unfolds over time.
Computer-Mediated Communication: The rise of emails, texts, and social media has introduced informal and rapid forms of communication, which some argue may threaten traditional print literacy, though research does not conclusively support this.
The Digital Divide: The article highlights disparities in access to digital technologies, emphasizing the need for equitable access to ensure everyone can participate in the digital landscape. Gender disparities are particularly noted.
Economic Disparities: The article highlights that individuals in high-income countries are significantly more likely to be regular Internet users compared to those in low-income countries. This economic gap creates unequal access to digital resources and information.
Gender Inequality: Research indicates that women have historically been disadvantaged compared to men in both learning about computers and in computer-assisted learning. Although some studies suggest a closing gap in computer usage, disparities in access to advanced technology and training persist.
Geographical Differences: The article points out that the digital divide exists not just between countries but within them, where rural areas may lack the technological infrastructure available in urban centers, limiting access to digital literacy resources.
Access to Information: The digital divide also encompasses differences in access to scholarly work and research, where individuals in developing countries may struggle to access journals and articles due to high subscription costs.
Global Initiatives: The article mentions efforts in countries like India and Brazil to bridge the digital divide by providing affordable technology and training to underserved populations, highlighting the ongoing struggle for equitable access to digital resources.
Open Access and Information Literacy: The authors discuss the open access movement, which seeks to democratize access to scholarly knowledge, contrasting it with traditional publishing models.
Open Access Movement: The article discusses the rise of open access initiatives that seek to make scholarly research freely available to the public. Examples include:
arXiv.org: A repository established for sharing high-energy physics preprints, allowing researchers to access work without traditional journal subscription fees.
Project Gutenberg: This initiative provides free online editions of thousands of books, promoting increased literacy and access to literature.
Open Access Journals: Many academic journals now offer authors the option to publish their work as open access, making it available to a wider audience without the barriers of subscription costs. This shift encourages greater dissemination of knowledge and research findings.
Institutional Repositories: The article mentions that many universities are creating repositories where faculty can post copies of their published work, making research more accessible to the public and enhancing the visibility of academic contributions.
Information Literacy Skills: The authors emphasize that digital literacy entails not only the ability to access information but also the skills to evaluate and use that information effectively. This includes:
Navigating Digital Resources: Developing strategies for searching and locating relevant information among the vast array of digital documents available.
Critical Thinking: Evaluating the reliability and credibility of sources found online, particularly in the context of information overload and misinformation.
Library Community's Role: The article highlights how the library community has focused on promoting information literacy, helping individuals learn to locate, evaluate, and use information effectively in digital environments.
Collaborative Knowledge: The rise of collaborative platforms and social software allows for shared knowledge creation, enhancing public participation in literacy.
Wikis: These platforms allow multiple users to create, edit, and manage content collaboratively. They facilitate shared knowledge creation and enable communities to contribute to and refine information collectively.
Blogs: Blogging platforms enable individuals to publish content and engage with readers through comments and discussions. They can serve as spaces for collaborative writing projects where multiple authors contribute to a single narrative or theme.
Social Software: The article refers to various social media platforms (like MySpace and Facebook) that support collaborative communication and knowledge sharing among users, allowing them to connect and interact globally.
Folksonomy: This concept involves user-generated tagging systems where individuals collaboratively classify and organize online content based on shared interests, making it easier to find and connect related information.
Open Source Projects: The article mentions initiatives like Wikipedia, where thousands of contributors work together to create and maintain the world's largest encyclopedia, exemplifying a collaborative approach to knowledge creation and dissemination.
Conclusion: While acknowledging the challenges of digital literacy, such as economic disparities and the risks of surveillance, the authors remain optimistic about its potential to foster greater participation and democratize access to knowledge.
The article ultimately argues for a nuanced understanding of digital literacy, recognizing its complexity and the socio-cultural contexts in which it operates. It calls for ongoing research and public interest in the implications of digital literacy for education and society.
"[T]he New London Group observes,
pedagogy is a complex integration of four factors: Situated Practice based on the world of learners’ Designed and Designing experiences; Overt Instruction through which students shape for themselves an explicit metalanguage of Design; Critical Framing, which relates meanings to their social contexts and purposes; and Transformed Practice in which students transfer and re-create Designs of meaning from one context to another. (NLG, 1996; bold added)
The above-summarized article by the New London Group is one of the most cited in contemporary literacy research. Although the authors describe it as “open and tentative" and welcome debate and elaboration, there has been little critique of the ideas espoused. Rather, as Leander and Boldt (2013) observe, “More than any other document, ‘A Pedagogy of Multiliteracies’ streams powerfully through doctoral programs, edited volumes, books, journal reviews, and calls for conference papers, as the central manifesto of the new literacies movement” and is the dominant conceptual paradigm in new literacy studies. And yet, a design paradigm is certainly not the only way to conceptualize literacy studies and has some key limitations".
([7.3] Multiliteracies: ETEC_V 540 65A 2024W2 Text Technologies: The Changing Spaces of Reading and Writing, n.d.)
"[I]f we count the full range of print resources that have long existed, including the raft of ephemera circulated daily—leaflets, pamphlets, coupons, posters, flyers, to name but a few—we can only conclude that print, and our engagements with print, have always been fragmentary. Everyday literacies for people of all walks necessarily include a huge amount of fragmentary reading: we skim signs, advertisements, menus, recipes, newspapers, mail, instructions, from morning to night—glimpses of text here and there that guide, confuse, inform, distract. This was the case for literate peoples before the rise of the Internet, and it remains the case now."
"It is not our intention to support any particular position, but rather, to present a range of perspectives on the question of how technologies for writing are developed in response to and modify the way we orient to knowledge. Several years ago, in revising Writing Space post-Internet, Bolter wondered about the future of text-based modes of communication. Might they be usurped by audio-visual modes? Is this most recent technology for writing one of the last (i.e., will we revert to audio-visual modes of communication in accordance with Ong's notion of "secondary orality")? In the end, he pondered whether "the late age of print may also become the late age of prose itself" (p. 213)."
([7.4] The Educated Imagination in the Information Age: Redefining Our Understandings of Literacy: ETEC_V 540 65A 2024W2 Text Technologies: The Changing Spaces of Reading and Writing, n.d.)
Page References
7.1] Literacy and Literacies: An Introduction: ETEC_V 540 65A 2024W2 Text Technologies: The Changing Spaces of Reading and Writing. (n.d.). Retrieved February 25, 2025, from https://canvas.ubc.ca/courses/151736/pages/7-dot-1-literacy-and-literacies-an-introduction?module_item_id=7553226
[7.3] Multiliteracies: ETEC_V 540 65A 2024W2 Text Technologies: The Changing Spaces of Reading and Writing. (n.d.). Retrieved February 25, 2025, from https://canvas.ubc.ca/courses/151736/pages/7-dot-3-multiliteracies?module_item_id=7553228
[7.4] The Educated Imagination in the Information Age: Redefining our Understandings of Literacy: ETEC_V 540 65A 2024W2 Text Technologies: The Changing Spaces of Reading and Writing. (n.d.). Retrieved February 25, 2025, from https://canvas.ubc.ca/courses/151736/pages/7-dot-4-the-educated-imagination-in-the-information-age-redefining-our-understandings-of-literacy?module_item_id=7553229
Dobson, T., & Willinsky, J. (2009). Digital literacy. In D. R. Olson & N. Torrance (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of literacy (pp. 286-312). Cambridge University Press.
MagicSchool AI. (n.d.). MagicSchool AI. Retrieved February 18, 2025, from https://app.magicschool.ai/raina?thread=68892495
The New London Group. (1996). A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social futures. Harvard Educational Review 66(1), 60-92.
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse