July 14

From LIS 460 Summer 2007

1 Theme: Technology, Communication, and Literacy

Theme: Technology, Communication, and Literacy

Quotes from the podcast

1) "How you define literacy often depends upon your own personal perspectives. Much of the current confusion results from the word being used in a daunting variety of contexts, such as computer literacy, cultural literacy, numerical literacy, reading literacy, and financial literacy." Edward E and Elaine H Gordon. Literacy: A Historical Perspective. In Principal Leadership, Volume 3, 2003, pages 16 - 21.

2) "Most linguist believe that after 10,000 years no traces of a language remain in its descendants.... Languages are perpetuated by the children who learn them. When linguists see a language spoken only by adults they know it is doomed." Steven Pinker. The Language Instinct. Harper Perennial, 2000, page 262.

3) "You read a lot when you blog, and you use other people's words all the time, and instead of writing out a citation in a form that many students find complex, you link to the Web site where you found the words. This is a writing environment that can help students learn how to connect to the ideas of others while being explicit about the connections they are making." Jill Walker Weblogs: Learning in Public. In On the Horizon, 2005, pages 12 to 18.

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Readings

Messaging Shakespeare
Campus Cells
Should Schools Teach SMS Text Messaging
Baily, Irving et al. Dear Bob Kerrey: Six Middle Schoolers Tell How they Became Writers. The New England Reading Association Journal v. 40 no. 1 (2004) p. 18.
Williams, Bronwyn T. Leading Double Lives. Literacy and Technology in and Out of School. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy. 48 no8 702-6 My 2005

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Weekly Activitites

Read about Google text messaging and send a text message to Google using your cell phone.
Send me a text message on my cell phone (917-847-7804) with the message Google Success or Google mess after you text Google. Make sure to include your name or initials and something about what you texted/learned with Google. If you have trouble texting with your cell phone let me know.
Talk to someone not in the class about what their general thoughts are on how technology does or doesn't support reading and writing skills. Use your "findings" in the next activity.
With one or two other people in the class - your choice - have a conversation using one of the technologies we've used this semester (Skype, IM, Google Docs, wiki, blog, podcast, screencast, etc.) about the impact of technology on reading and writing. As a team submit your findings by linking to them here on the wiki page.
- Questions to consider while interviewing, talking, and collaborating:
  - What does reading and writing literacy mean?
  - What are the differences in the way that different people define reading and writing literacy?
  - How do definitions of literacy change over time?
  - How do people in different professions define reading and writing literacy differently?
  - What does a teacher or librarian's definition of literacy have to do with the way that she does or doesn't support technology?

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