 Image Source: freepik.com I recently finished reading Redefining Literacy 2.0 by David Warlick. The power of this book is how he is able to break down digital literacy skills into 3 (although I would argue 4 ) main areas. When I read Blogs to Bombs the list of literacy skills was quite daunting, and although both books are important when thinking about and framing digital literacy skills, Warlick’s book provides a simpler framework though equally powerful. The main premise of this book and the reason for the need to redefine literacy is as he states:
“In the 21st century, literacy involves not just reading and comprehending the text in front of you. It now includes a range of skills to find, navigate, access, decode, evaluate, and organize the information from a globally networked information landscape” (p. 17). He goes on to say, “if all our children do is learn to read, they will not be literate.” (p. 18.) Warlick notes that even the act of reading is fundamentally different. Print reading is two-dimensional while reading on the web is 3 dimensional. You have to navigate and make choices as you read online. Warlick’s four core features of 21st Century Literacy which are divided as chapters of the book are as follows:
This first skill involves finding the information you need for any given task and assessing it for validity and usefulness. Warlick includes the following investigative strategies as a part of this skill:
This skill refers to dealing with the incredible increase in capacity of the way we handle information and the sheer amount of information available. Warlick argues, “In a rapidly changing world, where the answers to questions are going to be changing, then what our children know will be less important than what they know how to do with it. Rather than being the end product for students to simply memorize, information should become a raw material that students learn to do something with” (p. 69) Digital content can be manipulated in ways that is much more cumbersome than with print content. There are powerful databases at work that can index, display, and leverage information in endless ways. Warlick details a number of skills that will be required to employ and even remix this information including working tabular data and employing web content, images, video, audio, RSS feeds and mashups. Expressing Ideas Compellingly Here Warlick argues that students will need to have powerful communication skills. Just as various websites and corporations vie for the attention of students. Students will also be required to express their ideas compellingly so the stand out in the world of work using a variety of web tools. It’s not just enouqh to write an essay well. Expressing ideas compellingly in a digital age involves:
Although not included as a literacy skill…I think it should be and I believe Warlick would agree as he states on page 137 of the book, “literacy is described as the skills involved in using information to accomplish goals. But literacy also should describe behaviors related to how we leverage our information environment to accomplish goals.” The landscape of copyright and intellectual property is dramatically changing as a result of the shift from being solely consumers of information to being both consumers and producers of information and the muddied water this shift produces. As Warlick notes there is “a major divide between the way that my generation thinks about information and my children. For us, information is a product that we purchase and consume, i.e., a book to be read, a CD to be listened to, a DVD to be watched. For my children’s generation, information is a raw material. At least part of the value of the information that they encounter is in what they can do with it–how they can remix it with other content” (p. 141). It is important to make students aware of how to ethically use information and to pay attention to the context of information and whether it has been removed from its original context. This includes the knowledge that information is property and the copyright laws that go with this as well as understanding information as infrastructure that can cause benefit as well as harm to society. He calls for educators to teach students how to attribute information appropriately to their rightful owner and highlight when it is not appropriate to use the work of others. Warlick suggests making students property owners to learn this lesson and to make them aware of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 which assumes that all information is copyrighted unless explicitly stated otherwise. He encourages teachers to have students add the copyright symbol to their work and also to explore alternative means of copyright through an exploration of Creative Common. Warlick ends by encouraging the use of a Teacher and Student Code of Ethics related to using information. Even though Warlick has laid out the 21st Century Skills a student will need to succeed clearly and efficiently, it still remains a daunting task…he ends the book with a chapter on implementation where he urges educators to adopt learning as the main goal of literacy that educators must model for students. He states on page 160-161: “If we accept that learning is a predominant part of today and tomorrow’s work and lifestyle, then perhaps we should rethink literacy and start to explicitly talk about literacy for learning, or learning literacy. If learning becomes the clear aim of literacy, and not focused so exclusively on literacy skills to be taught and checked off, then literacy habits practiced every day in every lesson, will become the outcome of our classroom experiences, and we and our students will embrace a learning lifestyle.” He encourages educators to prune and develop a personal learning network and to model this for students so they can do so. This book is a thoughtful gem in how we need to rethink education as our purpose as educators has dramatically changed. I also recommend Warlick’s Blog, 2 Cents Worth and his companion wiki for the book, Redefining Literacy. Comments are closed.
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AuthorYvonne Caples is a Learning Experience Designer who is passionate about making learning meaningful and engaging for all. Posts
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