Technology Literacy Challenge

Just finished reading C. Selfe's Technology and Literacy in the Twenty-First Century (1999) which reviews the goals of Clinton Administrations' Technology and Literacy Challenge. A fascinating book about this ambitious project; it's intended outcomes and potentially unintended outcomes. This book really helped me see how technology and literacy have become joined through many different twists and turns. I think this helps me see where the rise of new media and new literacies has come from.

In the book she calls for teachers of English, language arts and composition to be aware and pay attention to initiatives such as this because while this began about students learning to use computers, the complex definition of literacy is complicated by social constructs, and as technology has crept into the definition of being literate, we as teacher need to be aware of the power and privilege issues that are associated with being literate today.

The legislation in this case was aimed at making every student 'technologically literate' which referred to the ability to use computers for "learning, productivity and performance" (p. 10). At this time the push was not to build, or redefine literacy as including new media, but rather focused on the tools of technology. In an interesting twist the relationship between technology and literacy was further joined with the rise of the standards based educational reforms. As states began to write state wide standards and curriculum these technology and literacy became further entwined (Selfe, p. 77)

As I read this book I guess I was struck by a number of things - biggest of all how conscious the effort to bring computers and technology into schools has been as a governmental initiative to drive our global competitiveness. While I can understand this perspective, I guess I also wonder why educational initiatives have to be linked to global productivity. Even here in Maine MLTI was linked to these same goals.

I also think that because I was a student during the years of this push I guess I just saw the increasing arrival of computers in learning environments happening because they fulfilled a need. I did not see, and did not realize until reading this book how systematically deployed computers and educational technology were as a part of a federal initiative.

Her book follows this initiative to see how to it appealed to business, government, education and families. Although I think her she oversimplifies how this transformation has occurred, I do believe she helped me better understand the very complex forces that have brought technology into new definitions of literacies and how these shifts are and are not impacting practice in schools.

Her call to critical consciousness also was an important part of this work. She outlines the two camps of teachers - those that have embraced using technology and those that have ignored it. However her conclusion that these two groups both ignore the critical issues of what technology means in our culture was fascinating - since I have always thought that those that embraced technology were doing the 'right' thing. As she points outwith discussing how privilege and access and uneven resources in schools are impacting the new definition of literacy we will replicate the same patterns of literacy that are heavily aligned to patterns of race, gender and socio-economic status. She encourages us, wisely in my belief, to make technology visible in a manner which helps us think about how it impacts the learning environment and the wider world.