Week 14 - Toward a Theory of New Literacies Emerging From the Internet and Other Information and Communication Technologies

Right from the beginning of this article, I enjoyed how it commented on how reading and reading instruction are changed ideas in our world.  The authors write about how teaching a student to read opens them to experiences, journeys, and helps to change the world. Yet the authors leave reminders to the importance of understanding how new technologies create new forms literacies and uses for community based internet use that will need to be understood and instructed.  The authors go on to expand on the idea that it is very difficult to create a concrete definition for new literacies.  A part of what makes new literacies so distinct is that the material they associate with are ever adapting, growing, and changing.

The next chapter of the article reminds one about the importance of social drives on literacy throughout history.  For example, tax records in Summary, to the spread of religion via printed Christian Bibles in the Middle Ages.    The United States of America, was formed to be a democracy with educated and informed citizens voting for those to represent their needs best.  As the definition of literacy changes we need to be prepared to educated future citizens to best utilize resources to be informed.   As a literate nation we have come from reading for religion, to politics, through change, and now we read for information, it is an educators job to prepare students to read for content throughout all forms of media.

In the highly competitive fast paced workplace today, skills such as knowing how when and where to locate information, evaluate its validity,  and utilize it, are mandatory to success. Being able to communicate, network, and collaborate via the world wide web is critical.   As governments around the world are realizing that these new literacy skills are necessary to excel in the work place, many are taking measures to increase technology access and education in public schools. 

I liked how well this article summarizes many of the over viewing issues we have discussed over the semester.   It puts the information is a broad context which offers insight as to why new technologies and new literacies are important on a world wide scale.   The grander skills are information location and evaluation as well as communication, which to be honest is not that far away from passed intentions of literacy skills, it is just that now the view finder has been expanded to include modern medias which are being utilized in the 'real world'.