Tag Archives: literacy

Literacy in Context

21st Century Skills, literacy, reading, technical skills, technology, writing

There’s been an interesting back and forth in Twitter about 21st century literacy.  Tomorrow, it will spill over into an Elluminate session that I am sorry I will have to miss.  I’ve written about 21st century skills in the past, equating them with leadership skills and suggesting that Ben Franklin possessed most of the skills that we now label “21st century.” So, Ben Grey’s eloquent post about 21st century literacies resonated with me:

I believe this is where the whole notion is lost on me.  If we’re talking about literacy, let’s talk about literacy, as in reading, writing, speaking, and listening.  If we’re talking about other skills that people need to be successful in the modern era, then we’re probably talking about skills rather than literacies.  If we’re being specific about these skills applying uniquely to the 21st century, we should probably call them such.  Although, are there really any skills that are being called 21st Century Skills that are new in the 21st century?  Think about it.  The Partnership for 21st Century Skills believes demonstrating originality, communicating, being open and responsive, acting on creative ideas, utilizing time efficiently, accessing information, etc. are all 21st Century Skills.  I’d retort that in reality, these skills have always been in existence and of the utmost importance.  They don’t need to have the 21st Century moniker on them to make them significant.

In another post, he describes how his ideas about literacy relate to a tool like Voice Thread:

The real essence of using VoiceThread, however, is in engaging the true process of literacy.  First, I must either read or listen to the original idea being posted.  Once I’ve gathered meaning by doing so, I can formulate a response.  To respond, I will either speak or write my thoughts.  If I can’t do these core tenets of literacy effectively, VoiceThread will be useless to me.  It is the very act of engaging literacy that makes this process meaningful.

Certainly, Voice Thread relies on what some might consider “traditional” literacy skills: reading, writing, speaking and listening.  But there is another component that puts pressure on that definition: the use of images.  These might be the static images we choose to illustrate blog entries or they might be compiled into slide shows and videos, integrated with audio and text. Both choosing the images and then being able to read them seems to demand adding “viewing” to the definition.  I didn’t really understand visual literacy until I began making movies.  Learning how to let images help carry some of the story was an important lesson for me.

Literacy also has to do with knowing how to use available tools effectively and efficiently.  Learning to write across technologies is something I’ve considered before. Dean Shareski provides a perfect example when he writes about his frustrations with trying to use Twitter for deep conversations:

Certainly a great link can be posted but the minute a tweet engages people in a meaningful way that requires any degree of unwrapping, my immediate thought is “get a room”.  Frustrations mount as complex ideas are squeezed into a simple text messaging tool.

He recommends that people move into new spaces that allow more in-depth reflection:

Many newcomers to social media are trying to cram all forms of thinking and sharing into a single space such as Facebook or Twitter. I don’t think that’s a good idea.  While I always encourage people to start somewhere, I don’t mean for them to stay in one space.  So if you’re new to social media you might want to think about adding another space to your identity.  Take the idea tossed around in twitter and take it deep in your own space. Even if you only decontruct it yourself or have a couple of comments I think you’ll find that a more satisfying experience that trying to follow short snippets of insight. Twitter is great but a steady diet of twitter is like only ordering appetizers. At some point, you’ll want a main course.

His metaphor prompted me to think of one of my own: for me, Twitter is like a cocktail party.  We’re all sort of generally chatting and then a serious conversation takes off in the corner and we can eavesdrop and even got involved.  It dies down and may or may not be preserved but each person can take their bits and pieces and do something with them.  For bloggers like Dean, it might be a blog post.  For someone else, it might be a conversation in the teachers’ lounge. But the point is that different communication media have different languages and purposes and being able to navigate them effectively should be part of the definition of literacy.

And, once again, I reach into history to think about two people who were quite literate: Abigail and John Adams.  Like Ben Franklin, they used the communication media of their time more effectively than most people and their letters are a pleasure to read.  (And thanks to the Massachusetts Historical Society, you can not only read them but also view the originals!)  They hashed over the most petty domestic problems in the midst of conversations about revolution.  Since they spent much time apart, those letters were an important place for them to build their relationship, with over 1100 letters exchanged.  The pace is glacial when compared to our instantaneous world.  Talk about slow blogging!

Adams thought about literacy in his own time.  In a letter written just days after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, John Adams reflected on how different types of writing require different styles of language:

It is worth the while of a Person, obliged to write as much as I do, to consider the Varieties of Style …. The Epistolary, is essentially different from the oratorical, and the Historical Style …. Oratory abounds with Figures. History is simple, but grave, majestic and formal. Letters, like Conversation, should be free, easy, and familiar.

Abigail seems to take him at his word and her reply shows the easy familiarity of a long-married couple as she chides him for not providing the personal details she longs to hear:

I received a Letter from you by wedensday Post 7 of July and tho I think it a choise one in the Litterary Way, containing many usefull hints and judicious observations which will greatly assist me in the future instruction of our Little ones, yet it Lacked some essential engrediants to make it compleat. Not one word respecting yourself, your Health or your present Situation. My anxiety for your welfare will never leave me but with my parting Breath, tis of more importance to me than all this World contains besides.

Amidst all the lofty thoughts and big ideas, there is the need for simple human connection. How are you doing, she asks?  Whether we’re writing 140 character haikus or multi-paragraph blog entries, we are connecting with others as we do so.  Literacy facilitates that connection and children must be given experiences with all the various communication media so they can make smart choices about how best to make connections.

But, as Ben suggests, there is a difference between being literate and having the skills to manipulate the media.  As part of his contribution to the conversation, Gary Stager provided a link to an article by Seymour Papert from 1993 in which Papert discusses the changes that will take place in the way we communicate.  Papert writes:

But looking forward, we can formulate new arguments beyond the imagination of 19th century thinkers, who could hardly have conjured images of media that would provide modes of accessing and manipulating knowledge radically different than those offered by the Rs. Nor could they have formulated what I see as the deep difference between education past and future: In the past, education adapted the mind to a very restricted set of available media; in the future, it will adapt media to serve the needs and tastes of each individual mind.

He’s right: Abigail and John wrote letters because that was very restricted available media to them.  We face a plethora of media available to us and yet, I’m always struck by the fact that even though I’m staring at a computer screen, I’m doing a lot of traditional reading and writing.  There is some listening and viewing but it’s mostly text-based communication.

So, reading and writing still form the foundation of what it means to be literate.  But technical skills seem to loom larger now since we have to put those basics to work in a complex media world.  We can’t forget that part of literacy is related to navigating that media.  If we too narrowly define literacy, it’s easier to justify the fact that some 50% of Americans don’t have sufficient broadband access to watch Barack Obama’s weekly addresses on YouTube.   As this article from Business Week reminds us, defining literacy is less important than ensuring that everyone has access to practice those literacy skills.   In order to ensure access, we need to make it clear that knowing how to read and write with contemporary communications media does rise to the level of a literacy.  You can apply whatever adjective you wish–media literacy, digital literacy, 21st century literacy–what matters is the understanding that such literacy is the right of every citizen.

Digital Literacy: Reading the Paper Online

21st Century Skills, Media Literacy, Paradigm Shifts, technology, , ,

This post was supposed to discuss Chester Finn’s editorial about No Child Left Behind, which appeared in The Washington Post on Sunday. He outlines five myths about the law, taking both Republicans and Democrats to task for the way they mischaracterize the law, while providing some insight into the history of national educational reform.

I think the most important one of those myths–that standards will fix the schools–must be addressed at both the federal and the state level if the standards movement will ever have a positive effect on our schools. Finn writes, “For this to work, of course, good standards have to be in place, and NCLB doesn’t address the problem of mediocre or even downright silly standards.” How much of what our students are learning is about snippets of information that can easily be found when needed? Isn’t it more important that our students know how to use those snippets to develop understandings of larger issues? That rather than knowing Thomas Jefferson was the third President of the United States, they grapple with how someone like Jefferson could write that all men are created equal even while owning other human beings? That even as the country was being put together, the seeds of the Civil War that would threaten to rip it apart were being sewn? (I had this sudden flash to the musical 1776, where Rutledge of South Carolina sings about the link between molasses, rum and slaves. I saw that musical numerous times in the theater where I worked as an usher and sometimes think I learned more about American history that summer than in my high school course.)

While I focused on the content of the article, I was also intrigued with its format. The article is littered with hyperlinks that take the reader to lists of articles, videos and audio related to the link. Here’s an example for President Bush.  What a great example of how online newspapers can take advantage of technology to expand the focus of its readers.

However, one of the links on the Bush page also reminded me of the importance of helping our students become discerning readers.  For instance, I couldn’t help but click on the headline Bush to Phase Out Environment by 2009.  It’s a very funny piece from Andy Borowitz, originally published at Creators Syndicate.   It’s clearly a parody despite its third place ranking in the list of articles related to the President.  It would be a great discussion starter with students about the kernel of truth that makes it funny.  And, it might lead to reading and discussing other famous parodies such as Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal.

The bottom line for me is that we need to be helping our students navigate this sometimes confusing world of digital publishing.   Susan Jacoby, in her current book The Age of American Unreason, takes on Steven Johnson (Everything Bad is Good for You) for suggesting that somehow Internet culture and gaming may be making us smarter.  I think here’s a good example of how Johnson may be right.  It takes a pretty smart reader to move from a serious news piece to a parody and be able to read both intelligently.  What we need to ensure is that they can make that move.