Stop Integrating Technology! - 21st Century Literacy (Part 2)

Happy New Year from Create Readers!

As a follow-up to the earlier blog post, What is Reading in the 21st Century, here are some more ideas and information about 21st literacies, from some great thinkers on the topic.

"The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn"
Alvin Toffler

This is quoted in David Warlick's presentation Learning Literacies for the 21st Century.

He goes on to say that:

"For the first time in history our job as educators is to prepare our students for a future that we cannot clearly describe."

According to Warlick, being a reader today means being able to "find the information; decode it; critically evaluate it; and organise it into personal digital libraries."

Along with many NZ educators, who are working hard on Information Literacy or Inquiry Learning, David Warlick believes that "the best thing that we can be teaching our children today is how to teach themselves."

David concludes his presentation with some advice that has really got me thinking.

"Stop integrating technology, and instead redefine literacy and integrate that"

Judy O'Connell is an Australian educator and information professional, who blogs as HeyJude. She has created a great slideshow on this topic: "Literacy Remixed in a Web 2.0 World"

Judy refers to Thomas Friedman's book The World is Flat, quoting a flat world as "a global, web-enabled playing field that allows multiple forms of collaboration, the sharing of knowledge and work, without regard to distance or geography, and soon even language."

Judy belives that this flat world means that our kids need new communications skills. Not just reading and writing, but reading words, images, sounds, video, interaction simultaneously. Students need to learn new literacies about collaborating and networking, and to create, contribute, collaborate and connect.

Finally, have a look at this short podcast. Pay Attention was created by Darren Draper of Jordan District Schools, and referred to in Judy's slideshow. It takes the concept of our 21st century students and digital learning further. The statistics are from the USA, but if they don't apply to our students here yet, they soon will. Its well worth watching.