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Digital Literacy

Assembly and Production#

In Technology and Literacy Education in the Next Century:  Exploring the Connection Between Work and Schooling, Labbo, Reinking, and McKenna present five key concepts surrounding digital literacy in the context of the workplace and as a consequence, in the context of education as a way to prepare individuals for the workplace.  The fourth of these concepts is: Digital literacy requires critical knowledge assembly and production. The authors say that the Internet requires the "ability to be a critical consumer and producer of various forms of information."  I'm not quite certain I agree with the word requires and I'm not quite certain I even think tha tpeople have to produce information.  I am, at this point, quite firm in the notion that people using the Internet must be critical consumers of information (implying that this occurs as a result of a conscious decision on a user's part to engage in certain processes).  I know that this process requires me to craft an effective search, identify reliable sources, and organize their thoughts in a clear and organized manner.  This process is nothing more than the familiar research process (utilizing different resources and tools).  While I'm always enamored with processes, in this instance I'm more interested in the outcome(s) of that process. For me, research is a means to an end and that end is the production of knowledge.  I know of no other reason to engage in research and believe this is true of all research activities regardless of whether or not the investigator is even conscious of the outcome of the research.  And while the authors of this article suggest that the production of information is an important outcome, they also take care to say that information can (and should) take a variety of forms.  The knowledge itself is important but the knowledge in the most appropriate form becomes the most important part of the process.  This requires researchers to carefully consider the purpose of their research and the audience (or ultimate recipient of the information) in order to determine what form (and what symbol system) is the most appropriate for conveying the information.  No other person in the world has a greater responsibility to be a producer of various forms of information than a teacher does.  In fact, to say, "A teacher is a producer of information in various forms." is to state a linguistic truth.  To teach means to produce information.  We do this by creating curricula, extracting information to present to our students, engaging in research, and so forth.  The information we produce is local knowledge and given a wider audience has the capacity to influence on a broader scale.  Given the amount of influence teachers have, at just a local level, we should also be using the most approriate symbol systems to share the information we produce.  In this way we can teach by content and by example. There's another aspect to this that I may want to pursue at another time.  That is, what are our ethical and moral obligations to make our local knowledge more general?

Posted by Karen McComas on 10/29/04; 7:16:27 AM to the Digital Literacy Department
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