21 Century

st

Literacies

Re-defining basic educational goals for a
globalized world.

Paul Treadwell, March 2011

 Why Talk About Literacy?

 “Acquiring literacy does not involve memorising
sentences, words or syllables … but rather an
attitude of creation and re-creation, a self-
transformation producing a stance of intervention in
one's context."  Paulo Freire, Education: The Practice of Freedom
(1973)
 Expanding Literacies

 New literacies for a new world:
 Technology is becoming increasingly pervasive
 Webs of interconnection are being woven around the
world
 What happens in Egypt affects what happens here
 Distance is contracting, and expanding, at the same
time
 Being Literate

 If we accept the definition of literacy as:
 “(involving) a continuum of learning … enabling
individuals to achieve their goals, to develop their
knowledge and potential, and to participate fully in
their community and wider society.” (UNESCO 2003)
 Fluency in multiple literacies becomes an essential
need for survival in the 21st century.
 Todays Literacies

 New Literacies encompass a range of learning:
 Multicultural
 Informational
 Digital
 Agricultural
 Scientific
 + Civic
 Literate Necessities

 Currently in New York State 24% of adults fall below
basic (traditional) literacy achievement.
 Given that, how do we embrace all the other
literacies as important?
 Are literacies stacked, or overlapping?
 The MIDAS+ Touch

 Providing educational programming to support the
development of these literacies is “golden”
 Pardon me, couldn’t resist….
 It is also a challenge – who among us is MIDAS+
literate?
 Start where people are

 If we accept the challenge of a redefined suite of
literacies, what does that imply?
 Integration of these elements into existing programs
 Exploring new programming to fill in gaps
 Partnering in new ways
 Making skillful use of technology
 The Meta Level

 Not to get too philosophical but:
 Some literacies are “meta” literacies
 Supporting the development of other literacies
 We can’t teach what we don’t know
 Role of Technology

 Technology can be a meta literacy
 It can support efforts to educate
 It, in itself, demands a literacy of it’s users
 Interlocks with and is dependent upon “traditional”
literacy
 A Broad View of Tech

 If technology is used as a method to increase
literacies, we need to expand our view of technology.
 Revive audio as a delivery form
 Explore games as learning
 Unite what is learned online with what is enacted
locally
 Creatively engage in a variety of bandwidths
 Not just desktop or videoconferencing
 Text messaging, audiocasting for mobile phones
 Near and Far

 While technologies may “collapse distance”, we still
live in a particular place at a specific time
 Balancing literacy educations to respect both the
interconnectedness, and locality, of life is the
challenge facing us today.
Challenges for Extension

 New literacies bridge local and global knowledge
and concerns
 We already participate in some facets of this work
 Is new literacy education consistent with our
mission?
 Contact

 Paul Treadwell
 pt36@cornell.edu
 @ptreadwell
 http://pt36.posterous.com/