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Critical Reflection on New Literacies1. Changing literacy and culture: New skills and literacies required for the 21

century

Literacies are mutating (Mackey, 2003). Young people today make sense of the world aroundthem as they find it and most of the time they do not perceive print as the primary source of cultural meaning even though the schools and adults in their lives continue to persist on it.This raises the question if the value of traditional reading and writing literacy is going to bediminishing in the future.

According to Warschauer (2001) the widespread use of computersand the internet raises rather than diminishes the profile of writing and the need to be able tocommunicate effectively in writing. Hi defines that effective writing in the 21

century in anetworked and technology empowered environment requires new type of writing andauthoring skills such as: ability to integrate texts, graphics and audio-visual materials intomultimedia presentations; write effectively in hypertext genres; deploy internal and externallinks using digital rhetorics to effectively communicate a message; use effectively computer-mediated communication, including email, discussion forums and lists, and real time onlinecommunication (Warschauer, 2001;Unsworth, 2001).Many researchers and educators already see innovations and changes in technology asuniquely positioned to transform and empower learning, fostering critical thinking, creativity,and innovation, preparing learners to thrive in a global and networked economy. Engagedwith digital technologies, today’s learners are able to acquire and apply content knowledgeand skills through active exploration, interaction, and collaboration with others across theglobe, challenging them to construct their own knowledge and

design the future

(NJDepartment of Education, 2009).

Culture is also changing from passive to participatory and from individual to communityvaluing collaboration and sharing. In many cases children and young adults are activelyinvolved in the so-called participatory culture. Jenkins (2006) defines participatory culture asculture with relatively low barriers to expression and engagement, strong support for creatingand sharing one’s creations, providing informal mentorship whereby what is known by themost experienced is passed along to novices. A participatory culture fosters a degree of social connection between members who believe their contributions matter and are valued byothers.

Participatory culture also shifts the focus of literacy form one of individual expressionto community involvement (Jenkins, 2006).As the internet and other emerging technologies continue to evolve and change they areimpacting our personal as well as professional lives and becoming central if not critical toliteracy, requiring new skills and literacies in order to effectively take advantage of their potential (Leu, 2004; Bruce, 1997;Babette,1993). There is a growing number of ‘provisionaryskills’ needed for full engagement in today's participatory culture and 21

century literacypractices. Jenkins (2006) identifies the following list of twelve:

Play

The capacity to experiment with one’s surroundings as a form of problemsolving.

Performance

The ability to adopt alternative identities for the purpose of improvisationand discovery.

Simulation

The ability to interpret and construct dynamic models of real-worldprocesses.

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Appropriation

The ability to meaningfully sample and remix media content.

Multitasking

The ability to scan one’s environment and shift focus as needed to salientdetails.

DistributedCognition

The ability to interact meaningfully with tools that expand mentalcapacities.

CollectiveIntelligence

The ability to pool knowledge and compare notes with others toward acommon goal.

Judgment

The ability to evaluate the reliability and credibility of different informationsources.

TransmediaNavigation

The ability to follow the flow of stories and information across multiplemodalities.

Networking

The ability to search for, synthesize, and disseminate information.

Negotiation

The ability to travel across diverse communities, discerning andrespecting multiple perspectives, and grasping and following alternativenorms.

Visualization

The ability to interpret and create data representations for the purposes of expressing ideas, finding patterns, and identifying trends.Fostering such social skills and cultural competencies requires a more systemic approach toliteracy instruction and education. To be able to do that educators today are expected notonly to keep up with the constantly changing new technologies and literacies emerging withthem but also to integrate them into their teaching practice and curriculum in a systematicand pedagogically sound way.The role of educators is changing and evolving as well. They are becoming even moreimportant to the development of new literacies in a world that is constantly changing. Rapidchanges in technologies require new literacies and skills to effectively use them thereforegreater attention and focus need to be placed on educators’ professional development andtraining, which is the main reason why I enrolled in this course (Leu, 2004; QueenslandStudies Authority, 2007).

2. The learning journey: From introduction to analysis, design and reflection

I just completed a course in New Literacies and Multimodal Texts that confirmed my belief that we live in a world increasingly mediated by information and communication technologiesthat impact every aspect of our lives and have changed and will continue to change our literacy practices. It is now more than ever critical for us as educators to understand thechanges so that we can learn how to use the new technologies effectively,‘ efficiently,ethically and responsibly with a view to tapping their educational potential’ (Synder, 2001).When new topics or issues were introduced in the course, the first readings and learningactivities served as an introduction. When new literacies were introduced with readingactivities 1.1 and 1.2, the focus was on defining the new literacies, allowing for hands-onopportunities to examine my current use of technologies and literacy practices and developmy initial framework of understanding about the role technology plays in shaping literacy.Once I had developed the important initial framework of understanding I was able to share itwith other course participants via the discussion forums, where further analysis was triggeredby reading reflections and responding to questions posted by other participants, providingopportunities to evaluate new resources or ideas, contributed by others, with a critical eye.

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At that point I was able to start making connections to my personal objectives for this courseand commenced drafting ideas for a project related to my work context. The discussionforums also allowed for conversations to evolve and focus on specific issues of interestbetween learners with similar background or teaching context. I was able to explore further with another participant the challenges tertiary institutions are facing with developing the skillsof their academic staff to meet the challenges technology introduces in their practice. As weall engaged with the new concepts, in a constructivist, social learning environment, deeper analysis led to creation of new understanding and meanings and the focus of my learningstarted to shift to possible applications of the new concepts into my professional practice. The‘structured reflection’ approach taken in this course helped me as well as other learners tosee alternative ways of interpreting the concepts of multiple literacies and multimodal textsthat we were introduced to and relate them to our personal educational experience and workcontext (Colby et al., 2009).It became clear to me from reviewing the research published in the field of literacy that aseducators we need to move beyond the narrowly defined explanations of literacy to new oncecapturing the complexity of real social literacy practices in 21

century society (Synder,2001). Many scholars have written on the subject of literacy, and attempted to describe thecomplexities of the individual who is literate in the 21

century.

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Most of the definitions or explanations of literacy imply that literacy enhances the ability to learn faster, more quickly,and better, that it is an activity and a way of thinking, that could be defined in time, rather than just a set of skills. If such positions are accurate and applied to technological literacy, then itappears that, such literacy posses the attributes of a catalyst, stimulating and advancing thedevelopment of change (Gagel, 1997).After reflecting on and discussing further the course readings with other course participantsthere were few issues and questions that I believe need to be addressed by educators. Theone that is most critical to my professional context and practice is: How we address the newtechnological literacy defined by Luke (1997) and Leu (2004) as the ability to understand andeffectively use emerging and converging technologies in the current curriculum if suchliteracy is not present amongst the educators themselves?That question motivated me to explore technological literacy further and try to define it andfind out what it entails. I decided to search the Internet for definitions and published researchin that field as well as tap into my networks on LinkedIn, Ning and Twitter. I received quite afew replies from my networks but those are the once that intrigued me the most:

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Technological literacy is the ability to

use modern tools to be more productive

(Jeremy, HigherEd Training and Development Professionals Group on LinkedIn) – thishighlights the pragmatic nature of the benefits of such literacy and puts the emphasison praxis similar to Hayden’s (1989) position that technological literacy is havingknowledge and abilities to select and apply appropriate technologies in a givencontext.

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Technological literacy is

the same as Information literacy

, best defined as the abilityto effectively and efficiently access information through technological means, criticallyevaluate the source of the information, and analyze the usefulness of the information,and appropriately attribute the material to its originator (Hanna, eGuild Group onLinkedIn) – this response I believe is a common misconception and the way many