New Literacy Skills: Reflection

This is a fascinating, exhilarating, perplexing time for educators and students. We live in a world defined by technical transformation and social challenge. Today’s teachers are asked to prepare students for a future world whose citizens will have to combine old and new skills and old and new knowledge in ways we cannot fully imagine. The internet and multimedia software offer us new teaching and learning tools that change even as we learn to use them (Laureate Education, Inc., 2009). Like any powerful new technology, computers not only help us do things, they change what we do; they simultaneously offer new ways to teach literacy and redefine what literacy is.

Warlick defines literacy as “skills involved in using information to accomplish goals” (Laureate Education, Inc., 2009). Since technology is always changing, Warlick contends that learning how to learn new strategies when new interfaces and new tools emerge is really the most valuable skill our students and teachers need (Laureate Education, Inc., 2009). The new literacies are deictic, or regularly change as defining technologies change every year (Leu, Kinzer, Coiro, & Cammack, 2004). This makes it imperative that teachers keep up with the changes, and actively teach students what they need to be successful in the 21st century.

Throughout the course EDUC-6712I-1 Supporting Information Literacy and Online Inquiry in the Classroom, I created a guided inquiry unit on the political, social and economic causes of the American Civil War. It addressed 21st century skills as well as Georgia fifth grade language arts and social studies standards. The unit explicitly teaches skills and strategies students need to develop essential questions that guide their inquiry projects. Throughout the unit, students ascertain effective ways to search the Internet to find reliable resources and avoid biased or inappropriate content. Students learn to synthesize information from multiple sources and cultivate their critical thinking skills that enable them to effectively communicate what they have learned based on their research. They explore copyright and trademark laws they could be in violation of as they create products, as well as how to write a basic bibliography. Students learn and apply the criteria they need to consider when determining what form of representation they will create to exhibit their learning. The most striking revelation I had about the teaching of new literacy skills to my students as a result of this course was how easy it is to infuse these skills across content areas.

A personal and professional goal of mine is to help quell some of the concerns that many of my colleagues have about the uses of technology, especially the internet. I plan to share what I have learned about the new literacies with my faculty. It is my belief that any teacher, with good professional development and collegial support, can learn how to teach with technology and avoid many of the pitfalls that they think it will cause; if they understand what students need to know in order to be successful. Once I am able to introduce the new literacy skills, more teachers will be successfully modeling and teaching them to their students- it’s a win-win situation.

Will Richardson (2009) proffers, “Before the students leave us, we can let them design and deliver their own curriculum built around the passions that they want to pursue, showing us their network-building prowess in the process” (p. 31). This course has pushed me in the direction to do just that, and I am thrilled to push my colleagues.

References

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2009). Program One. Skills For The Future [Motion picture]. Supporting Information Literacy and Online Inquiry in the Classroom. Baltimore: Author.

Leu, D. J., Kinzer, C. K., Coiro, J. L., & Cammack, D. W. (2004). Toward a theory of new literacies emerging from the internet and other information and communication technologies. In Ruddell, R.B. & Unrau, N.J., (Eds.), Theoretical models and processes of reading (5th ed.). (pp. 1570–1613). Newark, DE: International Reading Association.

Richardson, W. (2009, March). Becoming network-wise. Educational Leadership, 66(6), 26-31.