New Media and New Literacies Module 2: Literacy

What counts as literacy?  Any endeavor that requires remembering, understanding, applying, analysing, evaluating and creating counts as a type of literacy (Overbaugh, n.d.).   Early in the article, Literacy Debate: Online, R U Really Reading?, author Rich discusses the tasks performed by a fifteen year old girl each day after school (2008).  Nadia, a high school student, typically spend at least six hours a day in front of the computer, checking e-mail, visiting social networking sites, downloading videos and creating virtual characters for role playing games (Rich, 2008).  In addition, Nadia likes to spend time on “quizilla.com or fanfiction.net, reading and commenting on stories written by other users and based on books, television shows or movies” (Rich, 2008).

In order to navigate the Internet, and perform her tasks, Nadia needs to have a solid set of technology skills.  She needs to understand what she is doing, and why, and find ways to do that which she does not already know, and to disregard what she does not need to know.  Nadia applies what she learns to help her navigate through sites of interest, choosing the sites that appeal to her the most.  On a role-playing site, Nadia has created a character to represent herself in a virtual world.  Nadia is clearly meeting the scaffolding of Bloom’s Taxonomy.  She is engaged in remembering, understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluation and creating for the entire six hours that she spends online.  Nadia is a computer literate teen who is engaging in the types of activities that will help her to become a better independent learner.

How does literacy change in response to the new media landscape? For one thing, teens have proven that learning is more fun online, and this is a large motivator for them to spend so much time on the Internet.  Learning is more collaborative on the Internet, through posts, forums, the voice provided to each of us through social networking and gaming.

What value we should ascribe to the new forms of communication that continue to emerge and evolve online?  The value of online communication and emerging technologies cannot be underestimated from the standpoint of learning practitioners.  Online methods of teaching and learning are improving all the time, and they are not going to disappear.  Since online methods of teaching and learning are here to stay, it is of great benefit for educators to fully grasp the intricacies of online learning through study of best practices.

Reference

Overbaugh, R. (n.d.). Bloom's Taxonomy. Retrieved from

http://ww2.odu.edu/educ/roverbau/Bloom/blooms_taxonomy.htm

Rich, M. (2008, July 27). Literacy Debate: Online, R U Really Reading? The New York Times.