New Forms Of Literacy Research Articles

New Science Curriculum Based on Inquiry Based Learning - A Model of Modern Educational System in Republic of Macedonia

The process of globalization, more progressive development of the scientific findings, new technology and the way of communicating with the new forms of literacy in which the most secure spot has been taken by the development of natural sciences in the spirit of sustainable development have been the reasons that make science and sustainable development an educational imperative. The development of natural sciences in the educational processes in Republic of Macedonia has become an essential process which is being permanently improved with the goal to find the best solutions for its improvement. Currently, all of the elementary grade teachers have to face this process. One of the most recent changes is the study of natural sciences according to the adapted educational curriculum from the Cambridge International Examination Center. The goal of this reform is to lead the students on the right way of becoming future “scientists”. The programs include research that encourages students to ask questions and derive the answers themselves with the support from their teachers. This is a proven method with which natural science classes will become more interesting for the students and the findings will remain learned. The educational curriculum also allows the students to develop their critical thinking and to think and use the proofs. Students will easily learn that natural sciences are important and can help them in solving everyday life’s problems according to the principles of education for sustainable development. A very important part in the adaptation and realization of the adapted educational curriculum from the Cambridge International Examination Center is being played by the information and communication technology (ICT) that is a very useful resource for the development of the knowledge, skills and understanding among students. ICT needs to improve the quality of the teaching. The teachers will have the opportunity to choose and use the most appropriate and effective ICT resources.

A Material and Practical Account of Education in Digital Times: Neil Postman’s Views on Literacy and the Screen Revisited

In this article I deal with the impact of digitization on education by revisiting the ideas Neil Postman developed in regard with the omnipresence of screens in the American society of the 1980s and their impact on what it means to grow up and to become an educated person. Arguing, on the one hand, that traditionally education is profoundly related to the initiation into literacy, and on the other hand, that the screen may come to replace the book as the prevailing educational medium, Postman’s theses are worth reconsidering. Moreover I propose to develop further one strain of thought in Postman’s work, viz. the interconnectedness of technological inventions, material practices and ideas regarding what education is all about. As such I analyse in great detail the differences between traditional and digital literacy by looking from a material and practical perspective at how we relate to books and screens. This is not a normative analysis, but one that aims at fleshing out differences in spaces of experience. As such I wind up with suggestions regarding the affordances that a new form of literacy, no longer based on the model of the book, might bring about.

Adivasi children and the making of indigeneity in Jharkhand

Marginalized in Indian society, tribal children and youth in Jharkhand reformulate various forms of local knowledge, which they diffuse from one network to another through the activities of peers and youth volunteers. The corpus of knowledge has changed through schooling, colonialism, post-colonialism and tribal assertion, and youth have found new niches to express their agency as a group. Another recent influence on indigenous knowledge is the religious movement of Sarna Dhorom, the ‘return to the sacred grove’, promoted by various gurus since the 1960s, linked to the promotion of an indigenous script and a new form of literacy. Drawing on observation, as well as interviews with children in class, I argue that they are able to sustain their own symbolic autonomy, while participating in cultural reproduction. Children find out very early that experiences in the classroom belong to a realm of action they relate to textbooks and to the state, as opposed to village knowledge, which they perceive as the knowledge of the ancestors. Comparing the situation of children and youth in two rural villages – one remote, the other closer to an urban centre – the article shows that those who live in a remote area want to develop local projects in solidarity with adults, while those who study closer to an urban centre develop new aspirations of taking part in a globalized world.

This Is Not the End of the Book: A Conversation by Jean-Claude Carrière and Umberto Eco (review)

Reviewed by: This Is Not the End of the Book: A Conversation by Jean-Claude Carrière and Umberto Eco Jeffrey R. di Leo Jean-Claude Carrière and Umberto Eco, This Is Not the End of the Book: A Conversation Curated by Jean-Philippe de Tonnac. Translated from French by Polly McLean. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2012, xi + 336 pp. The past ten years have perhaps been the most transformational ones in the history of the book since the invention of the printing press. eBooks (electronic books) have eclipsed pBooks (printed books) in both sales and popularity; some libraries are now “bookless”; and bookstores are becoming just about as common today as liveries. The single major reason for these changes is the rapid assent of the eBook.1 In 1998, Umberto Eco complained in an afterword to a landmark collection of essays on the future of the book, that “[a]fter having spent no more than twelve hours at a computer console, my eyes are like two tennis balls, and I feel the need to sit comfortably down in an armchair and read a newspaper, or maybe a good poem” (Eco 300). Just fifteen years later, not only are computer consoles becoming antiques, but so too are printed newspapers—and the ones that have survived and thrive do the majority of their business online. The future of the book radically changed not with the invention of the microcomputer, but with the introduction and development of the eReader. Specifically, the history of the book changed on November 19, 2007, the day the first “Kindle Readers” were released by Amazon—and sold out in four and a half hours. For it was on this date that many of the major arguments in favor of pBooks over eBooks went out the window. For one thing, reading material on a Kindle for twelve hours did not leave your eyes like “two tennis balls.” While their screens were not as good as the next generation of eReaders such as the iPad, reading eBooks on them left your eyes in no better or worse shape than reading pBooks for twelve hours straight. Their screens were nothing like the “twitchy” little screens found on the computer consoles of the [End Page 339] 1980s and 90s, but rather very reader-friendly technologies. In fact, eReaders unlike pBooks allow everything from font size and type to screen contrast and resolution to be adjusted to best meet the individual needs of the reader. But better screens and different fonts are not the only reason for the rise in popularity of eBooks and eReaders. Portable eReaders now allow one to read wherever one wants, rather than read where one’s computer happens to be. One of the best arguments against eBooks was that you could not take them to the beach or curl up in bed with them. Not only can you do this now, but you can also annotate the books you read on your eReader, share favorite passages in them with others, and even determine the analytics of your reading habits. Nonetheless, a fancy eReader without the eBooks you want is about as useful as a radio that doesn’t get National Public Radio. While it has taken a few years, eBook availability now rivals pBook availability, particularly for new books. Furthermore, many older titles are now available through open access projects such as Google Books. Given all of these developments in the technology of books, book culture is in a period of radical change and transition. Whereas in 1998, Eco could say, “It seems to me that computers are diffusing a new form of literacy but are incapable of satisfying all the intellectual needs they are stimulating” (Eco 300), the same thing cannot be said today. So, where then does he stand on the future of the book fifteen years later? Sadly, in my estimation, at much the same place he did fifteen years ago. Originally published in 2009 in French by Éditions Grasset & Fasquelle as “Ne pensez pas vous débarrasser des livres,” Jean-Claude...

Digital literacy: A sociological analysis

This paper analyzes how sociological factors, access to literacy, and self‐sponsored digital literacy are interrelated. By reviewing New Literacy Studies literature and statistical analyses of digital communication usage, this paper gives a sociologicalreading to self‐sponsored digital literacy. Literacy as a whole is an important facet to modern society, but we must acknowledge the rise of digital textuality as a new form of literacy and recognize the profound relationship that exists between socioeconomic factors and writing. This paper demonstrates that digitally produced writing is textually valid, steeped in social capital, and is extraordinarily accessible regardless of social factors, especially socioeconomic status. Based on these conclusions, implications for pedagogical instruction are also explored.

A methodological approach to support collaborative media creation in an e-learning higher education context

This article outlines a methodological approach to the creation, production and dissemination of online collaborative audio-visual projects, using new social learning technologies and open-source video tools, which can be applied to any e-learning environment in higher education. The methodology was developed and used to design a course in the audio-visual communication degree at the Open University of Catalonia. It combines three pedagogical strategies in an e-learning environment: project-based learning, computer-supported collaborative learning and participatory culture as a new form of literacy. Here, we present the objectives, the different stages of development and an evaluation of the methodology.

Do EFL Saudi learners perform differently with online reading? An exploratory study

New forms of literacy and reading approaches are emerging as a result of the Internet’s increasing dominance as a major source of information. To foreign language learners, the Internet is a tool through which they can access authentic target language content. This study reports the results of a study conducted to explore the effect of reading on the Internet on Saudi EFL learners’ overall reading comprehension performance. The participating students were divided into two groups. The experimental group was asked to take a reading comprehension test in an internet format. The control group took the same test in its print format. The results indicate that the Internet has a positive impact on the overall reading comprehension ability. Students who are asked to take the Inherent-based reading test outperformed the other group. This finding comes in accordance with the results of some of the few studies carried out in this area within EFL contexts. Several factors could have contributed to this outcome. The assumption that the Internet raises the level of motivation among EFL learners can justify this conclusion. Another hypothesis is based on the form of strategies and skills involved in reading on the Internet. Online reading may encourage the proper use of the right strategies that meet the particular needs of reading comprehension among EFL learners. Whatever the explanation is, the study calls for more in-depth examination of the online reading strategies and skills.

Playfulness and Creativity: A Look at Language use Online in Malaysia

The emergence of the internet has created a popular avenue for discussion of various issues. One recent internet phenomenon involves the new web technologies or popularly known as social media. These new web technologies have opened up extraordinary avenues for rich human online interaction. The language phenomenon in online communication continues to cause vital linguistic interest as new communication technologies not only generate new forms and uses of language but also new forms of literacy which are related to the introduction and uses of new technologies. This research investigated the language used by Malaysians in their online communication particularly on two different platforms: Facebook and online discussion forums. In particular, it examined the types of homophones, abbreviations and emoticons that appear on both platforms.

The “Technological Good” in the Multiliteracies Processes of Teachers and Students

This article focuses on the importance of media literacy and digital skills play in strengthening the cultural profiles of the population. In particular, it considers the “technological good” as an element that is part of a symbolic system of culture that can create new forms of “thin inequality.” In this sense, the contribution examines the relationship between new forms of literacy and media skills in an attempt to explore how technologies are transforming the traditional literacy of teachers and students, as well as of the rest of the population, and how this will lead to new ways of thinking, acting and being the teaching and learning. The heritage technological, individual, and social, reshapes the culture and its size, inducing the education, at all levels, to building curricular activities most appropriate to the needs of a knowledge society and the profile of the literate of the 20th century.

Web-based-Research as Critical Pedagogy: A Reflection on its Application to Undergraduate Management Education.

In disciplines such as Management, where research capacity is not seen as an obvious workplace skill, it is difficult to get students to engage in research activities. They see them as too difficult and without value. However, research activities in undergraduate Management education are vital as tools for developing key learning attributes such as critical thinking and skills in analysis and argument. Convinced of the high value of integrating research activities into undergraduate Management Education, I took on the challenge to find alternative ways for students to develop their research capacity and engage in actual research. Drawing on reflections on my experience of teaching undergraduate management subjects with research components, in this paper I discuss how Web-based research can promote critical thinking and raise consciousness among management students. This experience included designing strategies to introduce a form of electronic literacy into undergraduate education, to assist students to learn how to use the Web critically for research purposes, while enhancing learning based on conventional resources. In the methodology I propose for researching contemporary issues by collecting and analysing data from the Web I adapt the critical pedagogy of Freire for adult literacy into new forms of literacy involving critical use of the new media of communication.

The millennium generation: Teacher-researchers exploring new forms of literacy

This article describes a collaborative teacher-researcher project exploring how 4—8-year-old children understood and worked with new forms of literacy at home and at school. Twenty-five teacher-researchers investigated young children’s home based multimodal funds of knowledge and then planned school or preschool curriculum based on these findings. The project revealed that children, independent of geographic location, had access to and could use information technologies far in advance of teachers’ expectations and had access to equipment beyond that available in many of the schools and preschools. In response to children’s use of and engagement with new literacies the teacher-researchers developed a framework known as the Multiliteracies Map. This framework was used in a state-wide early years professional learning programme to support curriculum planning for new forms of literacy. The teacher-researchers became the facilitators of the professional learning programme that took place in local districts and regions. A case study of one teacher-researcher shows how this literacy framework was used to plan and assess children’s learning with new forms of literacy.

Emotional Literacy to Emotional Intelligence - A Strategic Move of HR

Emotional literacy is the first step towards emotional intelligence. It is the ability to recognize, understand and appropriately express our emotions. It is an essential skill which we must work to develop. Once acquired, it gives us an alternative to violence, illness, drug abuse, dysfunctional relationships, and global societal conflicts.As we evolve and our cultures change, new forms of literacy are required to give us the proper tools to deal with a broad and ever-changing spectrum of issues. Today the need for Emotional Literacy is ever increasing, and is one of the best investments that we can make for ourselves and our generations.Emotions are an integral part of human nature and they are natural. Through them we respond to life in many different ways, such as with anger, happiness, fear, love and loneliness. Emotions influence our thoughts and actions; they inspire our needs; they affect our bodies and impact on our relationships.

Evaluating hypermedia structures as a means of improving language learning strategies and motivation

By providing access, data and new forms of literacy and communication practices, it is widely accepted that networked technologies have done much to promote learner autonomy. However, in practical terms, the lack of resources, expertise and research investigations into learner interaction have all too often meant that autonomous learning is conveniently likened to teacher-independent learning, largely relying on the success and assumed intuitiveness of the World Wide Web (web) for its learner driven delivery. This situation affecting foreign language teaching and learning has been further aggravated by the recent trend, at least in UK universities, to conceive languages solely as communicative tools, further severing them from their academic base and cultural roots, often reducing learner autonomy to poor repetitive interaction. On this premise, this paper proposes to focus on how to make better use of the interactive potential of the web in order to maximise independent language learning online. From a Human Computer Interaction (HCI) design perspective, it intends to shed further light on and increase our understanding of hypermedia and multimedia structures through learner participation and evaluation. On the basis of evidence from an ongoing research investigation into online CALL literacy, it will seek to identify crucial causalities between the user interface and learner interaction affecting the learners’ focus and engagement within their own learning processes. The adopted methodology combines a task analysis of a hypermedia prototype underpinned by an activity theory approach and participatory design based on user walkthroughs and focus groups. By looking at the relationship between action and goal as well as between activities and motives, it attempts to provide a framework for evaluating online hypermedia interactivity based on identified activities, design tasks and design criteria.

Children, Literacy and the Uk National Grid for Learning

This article presents a critical assessment from the standpoint of early childhood literacy of Britain’s ambitious and costly on-line learning resource, the National Grid for Learning. It provides an overview of the aims, scope and administration of the Grid, together with typical examples of content available for users in the early childhood age range (0–8 years).The authors argue that the Grid is headed in an unfortunate and counterproductive direction so far as young learners are concerned.The argument claims that in its current form the Grid is likely to generate boredom among young people in terms of Grid-promoted on-line literacy practices, and to foster mislearningof important new forms of literacy, such as email and interactivity. Furthermore, Grid activities and approaches dumb down literacy acquisition, particularly acquisition of ‘new literacies’, and impede development of personal responsibility for on-line actions. The authors claim that a major change in mindset will be necessary to reform the Grid in ways that are compatible with the official policy goals and aspirations behind its development. Examples are provided of more productive alternatives, together with concepts, principles and data supporting the judgments and suggestions advanced.

The future's digital, isn't it? Some experience and forecasts based on the Open University's Technology Foundation Course

The Open University has gained considerable experience in the use of computer-mediated communication (CMC) and similar techniques in distance education. The new media offer a wide range of opportunities for extending the educational experience of learners. In one large-scale application of CMC, involving some 3500 students, students became enthusiastic users of the medium, and regarded it as a major source of motivation. However, it is not clear what other academic benefits they gained from the activity. The strengths and weaknesses of electronic communication as an educational medium and the resulting consequences for universities are examined. It seems clear that while the short-term effects of the medium are relatively small, in the longer term they may entirely reshape the conception of a university. The role of the academic will change, and new forms of literacy will need to be developed. Issues of access and equitability will need to be addressed and learning methods adapted so that the medium gives high added-value. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

INFOMEDIA LITERACY: an educational basic for young people in the new information age

The aim of this article is to introduce the concept of infomedia literacy, which refers to the ability to process critically all kinds of written information, sound, images, graphics and values transmitted by the new technology. This article argues that when information technology merges with communication technology, there is a need for a new form of literacy. The article is divided into two parts. The first part uses empirical data from Hong Kong to illustrate the necessity of providing infomedia literacy training to young people in schools. Adopting the perspective of socially constructed technology, the second part attempts to conceptualize infomedia literacy and define its rationales, aims, scope, key components and characteristics. A socially participatory approach of infomedia education is proposed. It is suggested that infomedia literacy as a life skill in the new information age has several components: (1) an understanding of the nature and functions of infomedia and critical awareness of their impact on individuals and society; (2) the skill of critical analysis of information transmitted through infomedia technology; (3) the skill of efficient search and selection of information; (4) knowledge to use infomedia technology for self-expression; (5) aesthetic appreciation; and (6) social participation by influencing the development of infomedia technology.

Construction of new forms of literacy to the Internet

Construction of new forms of literacy to the Internet

School programming as literacy: the case for BOXER

Abstract This paper considers the role of school programming using the BOXER environment. It gives details of a two‐year research project in which a group of primary school children (aged 9 ‐ 11) developed their understanding of number through programming in BOXER. It argues that such programming should be regarded as a new form of literacy and as such, developed in concert with subject knowledge, and evaluated over the whole of schooling.

To be Hypermedia‐literate is to be Liberated: Reading, Writing, Arithmetic and Hypermedia Literacy as Basic Skills

Abstract This paper deals with the ability to access, analyse, create and evaluate information through a variety of media. This ability is considered part of different kinds of literacy The paper argues that the use of interactive hypermedia CD‐ROMs and networked services in society and in the classroom influences the way in which students acquire and retain both basic and high‐level literacy skills. Media and computer literacy are new forms of literacy which have arisen as the result of the increasing use of electronic mass media and computer technology. Currently, media and computer literacy are evolving into a new form of literacy designated ‘hypermedia literacy’. Hypermedia literacy is considered to be the ability to use hypermedia CD‐ROMs and networked services as versatile problem‐solving tools and as a means of communication.

Multimedia technology as the catalyst for a new form of literacy

Multimedia technology as the catalyst for a new form of literacy