Literacy 2.0 - The baby or the bathwater?

”A million times a day someone tries some new social tool.: someone in Mozambique gets a new mobile phone, someone in Shanghai checks out the Chinese version of Wikipedia, someone in Balarus hears about the flash mob protests, someone in Brazil joins a social networking service. (Shirkey, 2008, p295)

Literacy is not a word that stands on its own anymore. Today we talk about many different literacy’s , such as math, music, research, science, and media literacy. Literacy is not just about reading, writing and doing maths any more. At the heart of the evolving nature of literacy is digital or web 2.0 literacy.

The quote from Clay Shirkey’s recent book reminds us that our students already are living in a digital world of online interactions. They live in a world where 2.0 media is part of their every day lives. The reality is that technology has shaped and is continuing to reframe our students literacy practices. Our challenge as educators is that we need to embrace both the pre and post digital traditions. We need to teach reading, writing, thinking, communicating and apply it to new contexts of web 2.0.

The communication tools of today provide authentic opportunities for students to collaborate, communicate, read, write, do maths, think, justify and persuade. However there is more emphasis on students being able to search, evaluate , summarise , interpret and think and communicate clearly.

As Jason Ohler states: “The pressure is on for students to think and write clearly and precisely if they are to be effective contributors to the collective narrative of the Web” (Ohler, 2009, p8). The implications for teachers of all curriculum areas is that it their lessons should include web 2.0 opportunities for students to utilise in their learning. Ohler writes, “What is the key here, is that these are now normal kinds of expression that carry over into the real world of work and creative personal expression beyond school”.

Students are already interacting online and they actually need their teachers to provide learning processes and guidelines to get the most out of their digital worlds.

Will Richardson, states, “ Teaching students to contribute and collaborate online in ways that are both safe and appropriate requires instruction and modelling, not simply crossing and fingers and hoping for the best when they go home and do it on there own.” (Richardson, 2008, p30)

Teachers should not be fearful about throwing the literacy baby out with the bathwater,. The traditional literacy skills are still needed as much as before, but they weave to facilitate learning of the new web 2.0 literacy’s. Our teachers need to embrace the challenge of engaging with students in traditional literacy’s and apply them to Web 2.0 literacy’s in their teaching and learning programmes.

References

Ohler, J. (2009, March). Orchestrating the Media Collage. Educational Leadership , 66 (5), pp. 8-13.

Richardshon, W. (2009, March). Becoming network-wise. Schools can do a far better job of preparing students for their connected futures onine. Educational Leadership , 66 (6), pp. 26-31.

Shirkey, C. (2008). Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations. New York: Penguin Press.