Abstract
This paper offers a working conversation between the authors about the uneasy relationship between literacy studies and learning technologies. We come from the field of literacy studies but from contrasting perspectives: from academic literacies and work on literacies and technologies in higher education; from an interest in media theory and the implications of digital mediation for the contemporary university; from everyday literacies in informal settings and a concern for the gaps between policy and practice. We illustrate our perspectives through reference to post-compulsory education, especially higher education, but intend our arguments to be of broader value to all sectors of education and learning. We argue that it is probably inevitable that terms such as literacy/digital/network will be taken up by different arenas of scholarship and practice to mean different things, but what is important is finding spaces to make visible the embedded and implicit understandings, assumptions and ideological positions that are carried by these terms. In the paper, we attempt to lay bare some of the tendencies in the different approaches and argue the case for building on these differences in our work rather than seeing them as paradigm contests. We suggest that it would be more generative to the field to acknowledge the richness and diversity of these different traditions, rather than attempting the impossible task of forcing them into a superficial reconciliation.Keywords: literacies; digital; textual practices; learning landscapes; ethnographic(Published: 31 January 2014)Citation: Research in Learning Technology 2014, 21: 21438 - http://dx.doi.org/10.3402/rlt.v21.21438
Highlights
This article is a working conversation between the authors about the uneasy relationship between literacy studies and learning technologies
We come from the field of literacy studies but with different perspectives: Lesley Gourlay from an interest in the media theory and the implications of digital mediation for the contemporary university, Mary Hamilton from everyday literacies in informal settings and a concern for the gaps between policy and practice and Mary Lea from academic literacies and work on literacies and technologies in higher education
We illustrate our perspectives through reference to post-compulsory education, especially higher education, but intend our arguments to be of broader value to all sectors of education and learning
Summary
This article is a working conversation between the authors about the uneasy relationship between literacy studies and learning technologies. We come from the field of literacy studies but with different perspectives: Lesley Gourlay from an interest in the media theory and the implications of digital mediation for the contemporary university, Mary Hamilton from everyday literacies in informal settings and a concern for the gaps between policy and practice and Mary Lea from academic literacies and work on literacies and technologies in higher education. We illustrate our perspectives through reference to post-compulsory education, especially higher education, but intend our arguments to be of broader value to all sectors of education and learning This position paper grows out of the significant, exhilarating but sometimes uneasy and difficult conversations across disciplinary areas that are provoked when. We aim to review the key differences, tensions, problematics and debates between the two traditions of literacies and learning technologies research. The term ‘literacy’ (or ‘literacies’) itself needs to be carefully reconsidered in relation to these discussions since it is constantly being parted from its root meanings and used in multiple, confusing ways, as we illustrate in this article
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