Literacy

Just finished an article on literacy by Donald Leu Jr. called Toward a Theory of New Literacies Emerging From the Internet and Other Information and Communication. In it he described the necessity of teaching students about communities on the Internet, and the skills needed to take advantage of this ‘new’ way of utilizing technology.

While the article was nearly a year old, he already is asking why we aren’t teaching students to read and write with online tools? More specifically he details that effective learning experiences will be dependent on social learning. All the Web 2.0 mechanisms that are now so in vogue are outlined to one extent or another. The construction of knowledge, as he writes, will become increasingly collaborative in nature.

Today’s schools and teachers are not prepared, nor committed to this kind of change. Our educational leaders, both local and national have not committed to training teachers in how to use technology, let alone this new form.

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