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Digital Literacy

A Peek at Digital Literacy#

This morning I begin to take a look at digital literacy.  The source I begin with is: Teachers and Technology:  Digital Literacy Through Professional Development by Evangeline S. Pianfetti As Pianfetti describes and defines digital literacy ("...the ability to learn, comprehend, and interact with technology in a meaningful way...") she also introduces five key concepts associated with digital literacy (from Labbo, Reinking, and McKenna).  Digital literacy (according to Labbo, et al.): produces the ability for lifelong learning often occurs in pursuit of other goals occurs in a social context requires strategic competencies requires critical knowledge of assembly and production This list has me intrigued, so I move past the Pianfetti article and locate the original source for the list.  These characteristics of digital literacy are presented in:  Technology and Literacy Education in the Next Centruy:  Exploring the Connection Between Work and Schooling by Labbo, Reinking, and McKenna.  This article immediately captures my attention because the very second reference in the paper is Seymour Papert.  The introduction to the article is comfortingly familiar.  The authors introduce readers to the idea that technological advancements have created conditions that challenge our traditional notions of literacy and, I might add, our traditional notions of education.  No longer can we rely upon our ability to read and write (things we may not be doing all that well either) to be literate.  No longer can we rely upon our ability to read and write in order to participate fully in society.  Now we have to be able to communicate in different ways, research in different ways, and work in different ways.  And these new ways go far beyond being able to read and write.  It occurs to me that another, possibly overlooked, aspect of the technology-education relationship is the source of the change.  Historically, changes in educational practices were controlled in a top-down manner.  When the priests needed converts to the Catholic Church they instructed those converts in the catechism.  Hundreds of years later, when industries needed millions of workers who were albe to read and write and who had a vocational skill set, education was delivered to more people for the express purpose of filling society's needs.  As technological advancements have pushed society into an information age, the educationl system has failed to respond in a timely fashion.  At a time when new technologies are almost always obsolte in 5-10 years (and some obsolete in 1-2 years), the educational system has failed to respond appropriately to the needs of society.  At a time when so many businesses and home already have computers, educational institutions are scrambling to barely keep up.  For possibly the first time in history, students know more than their teachers and educational practices are being modified from the bottom-up.  While initial attempts to utilize computers in the classroom were sufficient in placating those who wished students to become more computer literate (which means something different from digitally literate), we basically saw teachers using new tools in old ways.  The example given in the article is how a surgeon uses a scalpel to perform delicate eye surgery and an expensive piece of laser equipment to cut bandages instead of to make incisions.  The authors say that practitioners continue to approach their work in traditional ways that reflect their training,  suggesting that not only do we have to learn how to use new tools, we have to learn how to use them differently which means we have to learn different ways of working. In this article, the authors make important distinctions about digital text; pre-requisite to understanding, I suspect, the key concepts associated with digital literacy.  These distinctions are based upon the notion of the non-linear nature of digital text and suggest that: because digital text is non-linear, readers are required to construct their own meanings of the text as they navigate and negotiate that digital text because digital text is non-linear and dynamic, it can be altered, creating a situation where the reader can interact  and engage differently with the text - have a conversation with the text - and this requires that readers adopdt new ways of working, specifically, new ways of reading.    Having given the preview, tomorrow I'll pursue the first concept associated with digital literacy:  Digital Literacy Requires the Abililty to Be a Lifelong Learner.

Posted by Karen McComas on 9/25/04; 8:46:48 AM to the Digital Literacy Department
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