Online Chitter Chatter

In terms of print literacy within a digital era, I think it is a matter of adapting the way we would have tackled this area 10-15 years ago versus the way kids interpret print literacy now. Just look at the number of books that are now sold with CDs/DVDs telling and illustrating the story. The position of print literacy within the classroom has not changed, what has changed is how we use it and ask the students to relate to it. We still have to teach the principles of it in terms of text structure, grammar, skills, etc., but now we need to adapt the way we were taught to the way students now interact print literacy. When I read that in 2004, Google stated that "it would digitally scan the books of five major research libraries to make their contents searchable" , we need to come to terms with the fact that this is the way of the future. To be honest, I believe it is the way of now, considering I do most of my article searches from the comfort of my own desk in my own house.


However, I believe books will exist in classrooms for another few years so students will be fortunate enough to hold and savour a book as we did when we were younger.

I found it very interesting to hear that research now indicates that text speak benefits literacy, particular when one considers the "poor" spelling element that seems to permeate the phenomenon. However, the point with regard to a person needing to know how to spell the word in order to play around with it sufficiently so that is understood makes logical sense. In essence the literate classroom is benefitting from the practice of sending texts, therefore why disparage it? It is also one of the main modes of communication for all ages so we need to incorporate it and ensure that students are fully aware of it's position in their lives i.e. whether it is appropriate speak for the classroom. We also need to ensure that we understand the abbreviated versions even for the purpose of duty of care.

Hypertext literacy wasn't even something I was aware of until our lecture today. Now however, I can see the importance of how we look at pages that contain a number of hyperlinks and the credibility of same. It is a little concerning how ignorant we can be of a large element of these online services/features especially when we have a lot of responsibility in informing the students how to use them responsibly while gaining the most advantage.