Social Literacies (Networked Literacies?)

When I started my master's degree a few years back, I spent a great amount of time arguing with my adviser over definitions of literacy. I wanted to do an examination of how technology was changing what it meant for someone to be literate. At this time (1998), computers had already exploded but no one was really yet looking at the effects of these machines on the literacy attitudes of kids and how their ability to read, interpret, critique, and process information was changing.

My adviser and  I went back and forth for two months with definitions of literacy that we found in papers and journals, trying to find a baseline understanding of what it means to be literate that we could agree on. One thing I always found annoying was the insistence of all of these definitions that being literate was a social act. I always found what seemed to be a tag line about literacy being social, often at the end of the definition, but I often ignored it. To me, this just didn't fit. Being literate was a personal act. It was about creating a personal understanding of the globe through text (and film, and animation, etc.). It was a personal constructivist act.

While my attitude towards this has massively changed over the past several years, last week sealed the deal.

Last week I was locked out of my del.icio.us account for two days. I had upgraded Flock, the browser I had been using and the defaults did not log me back into del.icio.us. I didn't have ten spare minutes to re- set it or figure it out, so I was locked out. I felt afloat and alone. I came to realize how much I have come to rely on social tools to make the net a much more educational, efficient, and interesting place to use. I often will click through other people's accounts and search for interesting links that I had not yet found.

As part of a community of professional learners, I realize how social the act of understanding and networking has become.  This is essential to me and my learning. I will find few things on my own, but having the opportunity and the time (have you noticed the few posts from this blog over the last week? I've been organizing a science fair which finally takes place today!) to learn with others has made a world of difference.

So back to my classroom.....

How much time do we give kids to explore, to think, to gather, to graze? We often look upon this time as unproductive when we see kids grazing across the information ecosphere, but yet that is when we often stumble  across a gem of some sort. We fill days with work, with projects, with as much as we can, but yet we give little time for reflection, for space, for thinking, for grazing. Just as with a conversation with friends, it takes time to build up a network of understanding, of relationships, of knowledge. Literacy is a social act of understanding, I get that now. How social is it when kids turn their work in the inbox on my desk for only me to see?

 

technorati tags: literacy, network

Comments

[Bronwyn G]

Very true!

Not very social. In fact I would say it creates a kind of antisociality.