Blog Journal Post 1 - Literacy as Social Practice

"The distinctive contribution of the approach to literacy as social practice lies in the ways in which it involves careful and sensitive attention to what people do with texts, how they make sense of them and use them to further their own purposes in their own learning lives" (Gillen and Barton, 2010, p. 9).

As the world has witnessed a profound shift away from traditional pen and paper education, technology has evolved to become perhaps the most single important aspect of how cultures perceive literacy and communications.  With the advent of Web 2.0, the world has been provided great knowledge tools capable of offering vast arrays of stored documentation and knowledge.  Before the World Wide Web and broad-based Internet access, literacy education was conducted largely in "cookie-cutter" type class room environments, complete with a lesson plan, a teacher, and a very defined methodical approach to general education.  There was little room for innovation and improvisation.  In many ways, education and the pursuit of literacy was a very solitary venture, between school and teacher, teacher and student. 

Today, educators continue the need to embrace technology and have slowly begun to appreciate and adapt the Internet and all that it offers to help create rich and diverse learning environments.  As the world has become more globalized providing more access to people, languages, writings, and cultures, the classroom as previously defined is no more.  The old standards that defined literacy are rapidly fading away as the very concept of fundamental literacy is being challenged.  While governments continue to provide regulations, school districts create guidelines, and teachers their lesson plans, they still must recognize the the countless new tools and methods available in their quest to provide a meaningful education for children and adults alike.  Students raised in the digital age will no longer sit still and participate in the old learning methods of paper, pen and desks.  The very idea of education and literacy have been ripped apart and rocked by the advent of the Internet. 

The Internet has morphed rapidly from the technical database type tools that I used when I first started working in Information Technology.  Today, the entire world is available at the press of a few buttons on a computer, connecting learners to millions of websites, applications and electronic tools.  These machines have connected the world resulting in the creation of a new singular web-based society complete with all the nuances that come with such a diverse group.  Today, the Internet provides access to so much information that it is often overwhelming.  As computers have developed, so too has a new language of sorts, that being the language of the connected.  With so much information, it is important for people to be able to discern the truth from the lies. 

One of the greatest things that I see coming from the vast wealth of knowledge on the Internet is the fact that those nations, cultures, and societies that in the past had very little, if any, access to educational capabilities are now able to open up the entire world to their children and adults alike.  This access in itself is education.  Literacy takes on a very different meaning today compared to the early programs that required one to be able to merely "survive" within their societal norms, often thereby being compliant to the governing authorities.  literacy goes far beyond learning to read and write.  It is understanding people, learning to accept the differences between us, accepting each other, and offering our respective creative abilities to contribute to the collective greater good of all people.  A bit idealistic perhaps, but this is what defines literacy as a social practice.  We are all essentially the same people and survival is no longer enough.  

Thinking of my own children for a moment, as someone with 27 years IT experience, I think back to how my son, in particular, had so much trouble in school and eventually was diagnosed with ADD (in 9th grade no less).  But our home was on the forefront of technology and watching his little hands move around the cursor keys playing Putt Putt Goes to the Moon and Fatty Bear's Birthday Surprise (courtesy of EA Kids), and learning to read from book/games like Just Mommy and Me, and I realized from those early days that this was the future.  That one day this is how children would be taught, and adults would learn new languages, and be taken to new places.  Never in my wildest dreams did I think in my lifetime that it would come so far.  We still have much more room for improvement and I believe it will be the students themselves who will create how they want to be educated in the future, and business and society will simply have to adapt. 

References

Durrant, Cal & Green, Bill. (2000, June). Literacy and the new technologies in school education:  Meeting the l(IT)eracy Challenge?  Australian Journal of Language and Literacy.

Gillen, Julia & Barton, David. (2010, January). Digital Literacies A Research Briefing by the Technology Enhanced Learning phase of the Teaching and Learning Research Programme. Literacy Research Centre, Lancaster University, London, England.