New+Literacy

Clearly, educators play a vital role ensuring that students are prepared to be productive in the 21st Century. Discuss the challenges educators will have in making sure their students have the literacies they will need to reach this goal. How will educators have to re-think about content and curriculum in order to promote literacy? The task is not simple and light. It is rather revolutionary; it requires input from all: our government, our states, practically everyone. At present, the overwhelming presence of technology in our every-day life does not allow anyone to minimize its impact. We are quite happy with our mobile phones; we enjoy our HDM TV; our GPS allows us to navigate anywhere with precision, we “google’ for any information and so on. How does this Niagara of information affect our youngster’s learning? They are integral parts of this technological society; they cannot escape this avalanche. Their brain’s response to keyboard clicks, to flashing giant screen, to multi-format information is still unknown to experts. The speed of information delivery is literally at light speed with even some time warp involved in the process. The question is about controlling such volume. Is there a natural filtering process taking place at all times? Or sometimes? How much? How much information stays in the brain? For how long? As educators, we must put together systems to help our students search, discriminate, and discard before accepting. At one time, information was one-way traffic, but not anymore. The information technology has reached its apogee through the internet. The internet with its new tools does not just provide information; it empowers all to interact, share and create new deductive knowledge. The question is about the reliability, the validity of such knowledge. Our job is to ensure that our students become productive and proficient in using this interactive knowledge. What is available to us in order to perform such task? Unequivocally, we think of the Web 2.0 tools: blogs, wikis, podcasts, RSS, social networks and many others. It sounds so simple; but it is not. Firstly, we need an infrastructure: Internet provider, a fast and reliable communication system. Secondly, we need decent computers that can take advantage of the speed and broadband available. Most importantly, we must ensure that all students have access to that system. If one considers this need from a global aspect, we need laws and standards, incentives, mandates, tax breaks for parents and so on. Unless we start every school on the same footage, we are simply restricting the size of our pool of knowledge. We must include the whole student body. At that point, we may consider the next step of re-thinking content and curriculum. Let’s say that we have everything in place, what is awaiting the educators who are ready to embrace the new trend? I believe the first step is to inestigate the tools that already exist. In this case, I am referring to the Web 2.0 tools. The next move is to acquire expertise in using these tools. Then one can identify a purpose and select one tool over another. With all that in mind, there are two factors that need to be considered: safety and time. There is a curriculum to cover and there are papers to grade, lessons to prepare and curricula to review and align, not counting the social aspect of education. I have chosen to use blogging as a tool for now. So far, the results are promising. I make time to develop great conversations about some of the entries. I have introduced my students to the wiki I set up. I plan to extend its use when I start a new unit in about a week. I plan to lead them into editing and generating new text on the wiki. Is this literacy at that point? By incorporating technology in my teaching methodologies, I believe that I am helping my students build a strong foundation that will serve them in the times to come. Critical thinking, independent learner, make a difference in the lives of others, global citizen, accepting others’ culture, being part of the global communication network are just some aspects of the literacy I envision for my students.