Literacy in the 21st century

The definition of literacy in the Australian Curriculum is informed by a social view of language that considers how language works to construct meaning in different social and cultural contexts. This view builds on the work of Vygotsky (1976), Brice Heath (1983), Halliday and Hasan (1985), Freebody and Luke (1990), Gee (1991, 2008), and Christie and Derewianka (2008), who have articulated the intrinsic and interdependent relationship between social context, meaning and language.

This view is concerned with how language use varies according to the context and situation in which it is used. There are important considerations for curriculum area learning stemming from this view because, as students engage with subject-based content, they must learn to access and use language and visual elements in the particular and specific ways that are the distinctive and valued modes of communication in each learning area. They need to learn how diverse texts build knowledge in different curriculum areas, and how language and visual information work together in distinctive ways to present this knowledge.  (ACARA, 2015)

A common misconception I believe that many people have, is that literacy is just about reading and writing and understanding text.  However, it is much more than this.  As the above states, literacy is about the relationships between context, meaning and language. Therefore, each of these must be understood as a unique dimension of the broader topic of literacy.  When it comes to 21st literacies, the word takes on even more dimensions than the three above as the context is not only physical but also virtual, and the meaning is very ambiguous depending on the context and people in it.

Ernest Morrell (2012) unpacks 21st literacies in some detail in his youth literacy column. He terms it as ‘critical media pedagogy’ in the conclusions he makes that whilst our students are considered digital natives, they are limited in their understanding of the constraints of and affordances provided by the vast technologies available to them. Literacy is the marriage of context, meaning and language , however, 21st century students have invented their own language in many contexts, and it is not consistently implemented across all contexts.  Digital natives have gradually invented a SMS and screen language that is shorter than short-hand, however, when they speak to each other face to face, they don’t use the same terms as much.  It is a very weird culture sometimes that technology has become the catalyst for.

I have been contemplating for a number of years now, the role of a 21st library and librarian in developing literacy in an era of such diversity.  Morrell (2012) has inspired me to think about 21st literacies in more depth, as encompassing more of the following:

• interpreting and developing an understanding of all text types, e.g. written, imagery, audio, web-based and so much more.
• decoding and analysing texts, e.g. “television, film, music, the Internet, print media, magazines, murals, posters, t-shirts, billboards, social networking sites, and mobile media content” (Morrell, 2013).
• producing and reproducing knowledge in multimedia formats
• creating digital information sources
• discerning validity of digital information sources

And so much more…

REFERENCES

Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) (2015). ‘Literacy – Background – The Australian Curriculum V7.3’. Retrieved 9 March, 2015 from http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/generalcapabilities/literacy/introduction/background

Morrell, E. (2012). 21st‐Century Literacies, Critical Media Pedagogies, and Language Arts. The Reading Teacher, 66(4), 300-302.

What do you know, its the age of knowledge

I think I have chosen the best two courses to study together this semester for my Masters degree, Advanced Pedagogy and Leadership for Learning.  When I think about the foundations of teaching and learning, I think about pedagogy, but how often do we actually discuss, intentionally, pedagogy within our school contexts?  For most schools, I would hazard to guess that it is very little.  We get caught up in organisational structure, politics and curriculum requirements.  Well in my readings this week, in both courses, the same concept came up, and that is knowledge management.  This is not simply about information management, it is about a lot more than that.  Kalantzis and Cope (2012) write in their article, ‘New learning: a charter for a change in education’, that we are now a “new ‘knowledge society’ […] marked by a decline in the relative need for unskilled labour and the increasing economic significance of knowledge management systems” (p. 83).  They say that we need to be teaching “knowledgeability” (p. 84).

I discovered in my readings, that knowledge management is considered as highly important and significant in 21st leadership contexts.  There are both pedagogical and organisational implications to a quality knowledge management system, which has implications for expectations of educational leadership.  Dubrin, Dalglish and Miller (2006) define knowledge management “as the systematic sharing of information to achieve such goals as innovation, non-duplication of effort and competitive advantage” (p. 152).  They also quote Garvin (1993), who says that “managing knowledge well helps an organisation to learn.  A learning organisation is one that is skilled at creating, acquiring, and transferring knowledge, and at modifying behaviour to reflect new knowledge and insights” (p. 152).

These points made, emphasise the need for a leader to cultivate a sharing community and encourage both discussion and dialogue to begin the transfer of knowledge and modification of behaviour.  There are many different models of knowledge management (I have pinned some on Pinterest) that offer suggestions for processes that generate a learning organisation that shares knowledge, creates knowledge together and uses knowledge for the good of those around them.  In order to cultivate further, the ‘knowledgeability’ of teachers and leaders, Kalantzis and Cope (2012) share these five things we need to do:

• “be participant-researchers or action researchers”
• “become transformative leaders of change”
• “become good citizens” (autonomous and collaborative)
• “contribute to a productive diversity”, and
• “build a capacity for innovation”.  (p.84)

However, the question then is, what skills do our students need to be quality knowledge managers?  What is knowledge management for students?  Labbo (2006) begins answering the question by outlining the position that Osborne and Wittrock take in their Generative Learning Model (1985), which states that “the process by which learners acquire knowledge and then use that knowledge to keep learning” help students to learn how to generate new knowledge.  Therefore, teaching students about the processes by which they acquire knowledge and use knowledge will help them move towards quality knowledge management.

This is a topic area I have only just started to consider in light of pedagogy and leadership, but which has been on my radar under alternate terms, however, much more reading is needed for me to fully grasp this and apply it into my own context further.

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REFERENCES

DuBrin, A., Dalglish, C., & Miller, P. J. (2006). leadership: 2nd Asia-Pacific Edition.

Kalantzis, M., & Cope, B. (2012). New learning: a charter for change in education. Critical Studies in Education, 53(1), 83-94.

Labbo, L. D. (2006). Literacy pedagogy and computer technologies: Toward solving the puzzle of current and future classroom practices. Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, The, 29(3), 199.