Technological Literacy Gap Analysis

We carry our cellphones with us at all times, and with all this online connection, you would think that stepping back and disconnecting is a huge achievement. But this is a new way of life. Nathan Jurgenson, in his article “The IRL Fetish” says, “We have come to understand more and more of our lives through the logic of digital connection. Social media is more than something we log onto; it’s something we carry within us. We can’t log off.”. He explains how we are so deeply connected with technology that it is nearly impossible to stay ‘old-fashioned’. We are learning to accept technological advancements because they are inevitable. In other words, to adapt to this new form of literacy is much easier than avoiding it. In recognition that texting truly is literacy, one English teacher had her students put excerpts of Richard III into “text speak” to show that they fully understand the material. Educators are embracing texting as a new form of learning because it clearly is not going away. Students enjoy texting as a way to escape reality and fail to recognize the literary benefits. Texting will continue to encourage students to read and write as well as improve spelling with phonological

I have learnt that as adults, we already have the skills for reading but using illustrations, sounds and words is a multimodality tool. I tend not to use these different strategies and I think at first, this made my writing in Storybird difficult. I had plenty of ideas but had trouble finding images. I learnt children have far more of a free flowing attitude than adults do, and it took me a while to focus on writing around the images rather than finding an image to match my writing. Children already know much about multimodal texts from their home experiences. As teaching assistant’s it is our responsibility to build on these experiences and the children’s knowledge, recognising the relationships between different modes and use this in our teaching. The future of reading and writing is interwoven with the future of digital technology (UKLA 2005).

Online media is pushing literacy in different and cool directions. Kids and teenagers today are coming up with new ways of writing. Clive tells us in The New Literacy,¨The brevity of texting, and status updating, teaches young people to develop haiku-like concision.¨ When kids text they write short and fast things and don't go into much detail. Since we are changing the way we write, in four years from now when we have even more new technology imagine how many more ways of writing there will be. He also says that, ¨For Lunsford, technology isn't killing our ability to write. It's reviving it—and pushing our literacy in bold new directions.¨ But still most people think

There is no set amount of technology there should be allowed in schools. But today it is becoming more and more common to have technology such as computers, phones and tablets in the classroom, but we do not know how much is too much technology. “The first step is understanding what is meant by ‘technology’. Then we must try to reach the broadest possible audience.” (1) this came from the article “Improving Technological Literacy by Thomas A. Young. Young does a great job of raising this question between knowing technology and using technology. Which generalizes into how much technology such as phones should be allowed at school?

Fortunately, with the growing presence and accessibility of computer technology, ethnography and the digital media have become increasingly intertwined in their use. Arguably, the most effective ethnographic research incorporates new media and technologies into how its narratives are portrayed. According to Underberg and Zorn, “ethnography that uses a diverse set of media such as videos, photographs, or digital media to communicate multisensory experience[s] and knowledge” is known as “multisensory ethnography” (Underberg and Zorn, 18-19). In using various media to present research, not only are ethnographers able to have more control over how their audience perceives their findings, but they also make those findings more accessible to audiences of all ages. For example, a two hundred page book documenting a year spent in the villages of sub-Saharan Africa is largely appealing only to those in academia, but an interactive exhibit

Given the prevalence of books, magazines, and newspapers in everyday life today, it is difficult to imagine a world without print. The transition from the essentially oral culture of the late Middle Ages to the print culture of the Renaissance fundamentally changed human interaction. In Western society, the invention of the printing press and subsequent widespread literacy signaled the shift away from a primarily oral culture to a literate, print culture. Many scholars, including Plato and Harold Innis, have suggested that the advantages of an oral culture exceed those of a print culture. Even further, the past few decades have seen calls to orality, or propositions that we must return to oral culture to balance print culture. As seen through a lens of the history of print culture, the benefits of literacy and a predominantly print culture outweigh the benefits of an oral culture because of the impact print has had on standardized language and national consciousness, the field of science and accuracy, and the quick dissemination of information and dialogue. Through a comparison of advancements during the Print Revolution and current features of modern society, I will argue that there is no need to re-embrace orality because elements of oral culture already exist in our modern print culture.

Reflecting on Olson’s argument allows us to make a few parallels with the current rapid shift from paper to screen in the context of reading and literacy and look how it might affect it. The general idea of reading in this chapter can be understood as an act of recognizing graphic symbols, no matter where these symbols are, as almost anything can be “read”. The challenging fact is that literacy is the ability to read but not just to read the words, but to make sense of them, while understanding cannot be graphically represented at all. Thus, reading requires a certain level of competence that one must acquire in order to be called literate in reading. Even if one is

“Text” is an interesting lens to look at writing through. There are literally brand-new spaces for writing being created by new technology and innovations still to be made in existing spaces.

Social media accounts, emails and text messaging all call for their own style of writing that is more flexible than formal writing, allowing for rapid changes. As a result, from the time children are born, they are learning a ‘system of meanings’ (Halliday, 1975), allowing them to engage and participate in the world around them. As described by Halliday (1975) much of children’s early language learning is ‘content-expression’ based, it has no grammar or vocabulary it relies on meaning and sound, which sets the scene for future language learning. Once children reach primary school, they are introduced to the different modes of language and are encouraged to explore the diversity of language. In addition, the ACARA links literacy learning to the development of language and communication skills (ACARA, 2016, p. 15) allowing multi-language learning to have the potential to benefit all students. As a result, the diversity and multi-dimensional features of language allows it to be a central

Digital literacy is the capability to use technology to locate, use, or create information. The digital age we are in now is drastically changing the way we write. There is no limit or template for writing online making it open to anytime of interpretation. Some believe that this is not constructive in moving forward but others accept the change and grow with it. This makes digital literacy such an interesting topic to debate and to understand. Finally, online writing can be used for so many different purposes making it a universal tool.

Writing as a digitally networked environment enriches the experience of the reader by allowing them to interact with new technological forms. The ability to engage in multimodal writing spaces exceeds traditional alphabetic text by drawing upon the audience’s sensory responses. New multimodal media explores still and moving images, music, colour and sound that entices and interacts with the responder. Snowfall is an example of this as it discusses the affects an avalanche had on the town of Tunnel Creek. Its interactive form produces an interesting layout, which gives the reader a more active and dynamic experience in contrast to traditional and more restrictive written text. By using a

Visual literacy can be considered a universal language because unlike spoken words that have different languages, dialects, and jargons that create difficulty in cross language communication, a picture of a cat is a picture of a cat regardless of the spoken language. Brain Kennedy discusses informative dance and mime as a form of visual literacy that outlines the relevance of visual literacy as a universal language.

This is in relation to both medium and meaning theories. The medium theory discusses how a media can be influential in information growth, both physically and psychologically with technological changes occurring (Ellis 2009). Printing technology and orality’s are both in relation to the medium theory. The medium theory relates to printing technologies and orality’s as firstly, printing technology particularly relating to the printing press has changed communication in society as the technologies have caused an impact on human communication when they were introduced. Secondly, orality’s or oral traditions relate to the medium theory as the oral traditions by the indigenous Australians have been passed down and changed from one generation to another, which is still occurring in todays society. The meaning theories relate to oral culture and tradition, the theory states the act of speaking is communal, almost magical and the meanings are inspirable.

Visual communication has made a massive impact around the world. Since the birth of the internet, computers, smartphones, and tablets, visual images are readily available from just about anywhere. Communication can be read or looked upon and can take place in different forms. Visual communication offers several benefits including the ability to express our thoughts, feelings, and actions in the shape of an image. Furthermore, communication reached new heights over the last several decades, causing verbal communication to decrease due to social media, emailing and texting. With the amount of time that people spend on their mobile devices, verbal communication will continue to decline and could end up being almost non-existent, while today visual communication dominants nearly all communication forms leaving our younger generation to suffer from a lack of social interaction. Therefore, visual communication has its advantages and disadvantages, impacting all aspects of our life. It supports oral communication, tells a story, and quickly captures attention. However, it also has ethical and legal implications if one elects to use media that does not belong to them.

En ese sentido, en la producción investigativa del programa de la Maestría en Lingüística de la Universidad Pedagógica y Tecnológica de Colombia, se observa que desde el año 2011 solo ha habido dos investigaciones que parten de la preocupación por hacer un análisis de tipo multimodal. Una de ellas, es la que las autoras Rodríguez y Velásquez (2011) llevaron a cabo bajo el título de “Análisis crítico del discurso multimodal en la caricatura internacional del periódico The Washington Post”, en donde analizaron cuáles son los significados contenidos en las caricaturas internacionales