As the snow is swirling outside my mind too is trying to make sense of how and when we can label something a new literacy. Lankshear and Knoebel (2007) argue that in order to be labeled as such there needs to both new "technical stuff" and "ethos stuff" (p. 7).
The technical stuff side makes more sense to me, I can understand and appreciate new technologies that promote user generativity. The ethos side of things for me is not more difficult to understand, but rather it is more difficult to accomplish and promote in an academic setting. As Lewis (2007) in a different chapter of the same book points out, schools have not moved beyond the technology or technical stuff for the most part (p.230). As I was reading about the new ethos stuff, and the social and relational aspects of new literacies - I am struck by the parallels with Type I and Type II technology integration. Type I is focusing on the tool, whereas in Type II the tool enables a new experience or learning environment that is not possible previously. The movement from an Internet focused on "use, reception, consumption" to one that allows for "participation, interactivity and agency" (Lankshear and Knoebel, p. 16) is a wonderful shift, but one that still is largely taking place in the private lives, not in the educational lives of students.
Why is this the case? Does it have to do with trust in schools? Power ideals of teachers? Outdated policies of Internet use? Lack of guiding standards for education?
Reading the new 21st century Skills Map it is clear that there are those organizations trying to push these new ideas through the standards-based channels. Talking with teachers it is clear that individuals are working to make these changes in their classrooms, but there still seems to be little comprehensive movement to align personal and academic understandings in the 21st century school. I hope this change is coming...
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Actually, I am more than a little disappointed by the English 21st Century Skills Map. Most of the suggestions seem to be digital translations of coffee table books (from my childhood) or good kid literary publications. What is missing, from my point of view, is creativity - a literacy that we seem to be killing, even in laptop classrooms. It is interesting that the new 2.0 literacies can be just as limiting as they can be expanding. Enter the teacher/bar-setter (which can also be student peers) and the platform for creative ideas to be showcased. Are teachers afraid of that? Yes, I think they are. How many history teachers would let students immerse in Vietnam without learning about other 20th century wars? How about just immersing in "war" as a concept, with facts and documents gathered and organized and shared for emotional rather than academic messages? Confining technologies to facts and outcomes has to go if we are to reach those higher, newer, levels of use.
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