Howard Rheingold's Library tagged literacy →  View Popular

"The Digital Literacy Contest
...a competition of database and Internet research skill.

We created the DLC as a summer project in 2007. We were undergraduates at Purdue University. Since then, we've helped major universities across the country host the contest. We've tripled in size each semester because students and libraries love the DLC.

University libraries host the DLC in university computer labs. Students logon to our web-based contest and compete to find information online using the internet and library databases. They must provide sources and the highest total score wins.
"

www.gnic.org/dlc - Preview

search literacy

"These are among the startling findings in the Stanford Study of Writing, spearheaded by Professor Andrea Lunsford, director of Stanford's Program in Writing and Rhetoric. The study refutes conventional wisdom and provides a wholly new context for those who wonder "whether Google is making us stupid and whether Facebook is frying our brains," said Lunsford.

The five-year study investigated the writing of Stanford students during their undergraduate careers and their first year afterward, whether at a job or in graduate school.

The study began in September 2001, when Lunsford invited a random sample of the freshman class to participate in the study. Of the 243 invited, 189 accepted the invitation - about 12 percent of that year's class.

Students agreed to submit the writing they did for all their classes, including multimedia presentations, problem sets, lab reports and honors theses. They also submitted as much as they wanted of what Lunsford calls "life writing," that is, the writing they did for themselves, their families, their friends and the world at large.

Lunsford was unprepared for the avalanche of material that ensued: about 15,000 pieces of writing, including emails in 11 languages, blog postings, private journal entries and poetry. The last, in particular, surprised her: "If there's any closeted group at Stanford, it's poets."

Only 62 percent of the writing was for their classwork.

While data analysis is ongoing, Lunsford said the study's first goal was "to paint a picture of the writing that these young writers do" and to portray "its richness and complexity."

Her conclusion: Although today's kids are "writing more than ever before in history," it may not look like the writing of yesterday. The focus of today's writing is "more about instantaneous communication." It's also about audience."

www.physorg.com/news174577580.html - Preview

literacy

OMG! Teachers say texting can be good for teens
By Jeff Elder
jelder@charlotteobserver.com
Posted: Monday, Oct. 26, 2009
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Texting, a favorite and seemingly instinctive activity for teens, has loomed over education and parenthood for several years. Many adults felt like it would mash proper English into the ground and was a distraction from serious learning.

The average number of texts by U.S. teens 13-17 has reached 2,900 a month, according to Nielsen, the media and marketing information company. And The New York Times reported in May that physicians and psychiatrists fear texting is taking a toll on teens' sleep patterns and ability to think for themselves.

But now some teachers in Charlotte and nationwide are seeking to harness its power and making peace with it. Researchers back this new approach with new evidence that texting teaches some positive language skills, and pragmatists argue that a war on texting is unwinnable."

www.charlotteobserver.com/...1020175.html - Preview

texting literacy

"Rick Prelinger and Howard Rheingold have a conversation at
PEOPLEOFTHESCREEN.org
A Project of The Institute for the Future (www.iftf.org).

They answer two questions:

Envision Your Future:
It's 6:30 a.m. in the year 2019.
How do video technologies affect your daily life?

Live the Screen:
Goodbye ink, hello pixel.
Will you ever pick up a book again? "

www.youtube.com/watch - Preview

video rheingold literacy

"The invention Gutenberg's printing press is dated to about 555 years ago -- repeated innovations have spread in waves to popularize mass media in bursts over the following 5 centuries
The initial burst was most directly felt in the Protestant Reformation. Note that it was not alone Gutenberg, but primarily Martin Luther who was responsible for inventing the written language which is today known as German. Therefore, this initial revolution took a very long time to spread throughout the population -- indeed: several generations. The fact that most of Europe was in turmoil for most of this time complicated the adoption of literacy as a technology. Fifty years after the first press, presses could be found in many European cities. Two centuries after the invention of the press, a quite small but nonetheless significant portion of the population could read. Three centuries after the invention of the printing press, the literate portion of the population was large enough such that when Tom Paine wrote "In America, law is king" people understood what that meant: the basis for democracy was (and is) written laws. By the beginning of the 19th Century, the literate portion of the population was quite sizable in most industrialized countries -- and what is more: public schools further promoted literacy."

esh.it/ttechnologyculture-abreast-ref - Preview

literacy technology media

"The definition of ‘computer skills’ is changing, but are employers and HR keeping up with the times? David Binning takes a look.

The term 'computer skills' used to imply an ability to switch on a machine and navigate through a few Microsoft Office applications beyond basic Word. But with today's emphasis on internet communications, multimedia presentation and mobile technology, the average worker boasts a much broader skillset.

The challenge for employers is properly identifying and managing these skills and technologies to their advantage, although with the rapid development and evolution of new products and applications, there is uncertainty about exactly how to achieve this.

"Many staff have acquired these skills in their own time, but lack proper instruction," says Lars Hyland, director of learning services with e-learning specialists Brightwave. "

www.personneltoday.com/...ing-the-web-2.0-workplace.html - Preview

literacy Mel_Blake@Monitor.com

"A Writing Revolution

Analysis / by Denis G. Pelli & Charles Bigelow / October 20, 2009

Nearly universal literacy is a defining characteristic of today’s modern civilization; nearly universal authorship will shape tomorrow's.

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Nearly everyone reads. Soon, nearly everyone will publish. Before 1455, books were handwritten, and it took a scribe a year to produce a Bible. Today, it takes only a minute to send a tweet or update a blog. Rates of authorship are increasing by historic orders of magnitude. Nearly universal authorship, like universal literacy before it, stands to reshape society by hastening the flow of information and making individuals more influential.

To quantify our changing reading and writing habits, we plotted the number of published authors per year, since 1400, for books and more recent social media (blogs, Facebook, and Twitter). This is the first published graph of the history of authorship. We found that the number of published authors per year increased nearly tenfold every century for six centuries. By 2000, there were 1 million book authors per year. One million authors is a lot, but they are only a tiny fraction, 0.01 percent, of the nearly 7 billion people on Earth. Since 1400, book authorship has grown nearly tenfold in each century. Currently, authorship, including books and new media, is growing nearly tenfold each year. That’s 100 times faster. Authors, once a select minority, will soon be a majority. "

seedmagazine.com/...a_writing_revolution - Preview

literacy

"Your school will try to teach you facts, which you'll need to pass the test but which are otherwise useless. In passing you may learn some useful skills, like literacy, which you should cultivate.

But Guy Kawasaki is right in at least this: schools won't teach you the things you really need to learn in order to be successful, either in business (whether or not you choose to live life as a toady) or in life.

Here, then, is my list. This is, in my view, what you need to learn in order to be successful. Moreover, it is something you can start to learn this year, no matter what grade you're in, no matter how old you are. "

www.masternewmedia.org/...w_to_be_successful_stephen.htm - Preview

literacy learning

"Finding Kermit was the inspiration for one of the first Internet Search Challenges created by Dr. Carl Heine. The task is to track down a picture of Kermit ready for graduation in the least amount of time.

Many teachers use this as a whole class lab activity. Put up a search challenge and then it's off the races! This game is live, just click Google to start the timer.
"

21cif.blogspot.com/...mit-frog-search-challenge.html - Preview

search literacy

"A unique study of former guerrillas in Colombia has helped scientists redefine their understanding of the key regions of the brain involved in literacy. The study, funded by the Wellcome Trust and the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science, has enabled the researchers to see how brain structure changed after learning to read."

www.sciencedaily.com/...091014130704.htm - Preview

literacy neuroplasticity

Connectivity may be rising rapidly up the political agenda, but it has been high on the Digital Business agenda for some time and today we pull together the strands, analysing the implications of a connected planet in this Connected Lives Digital Business special report.

It considers the effects on business of mass collaboration; the change in working behaviours that mobility introduces; and the spotlight it places on skills and generational differences.

www.ft.com/...e-9316-00144feabdc0,s01=1.html - Preview

collaboration literacy ict

Given the discrepancy between the actual research study and the generalizations being made based on that study, we need to ask why scientists (or popular science writers) of our era are hard-wired not to understand how little in the human brain is actually hard-wired? Or, to be more accurate, how much of the brain's hardwiring is actually from what it does and how much of what it does is cultural, is based on what it/we learn.

That is, and I'll repeat this later, what we learn actually changes what the brain is and how it works. As many dyslexia (and stroke) studies have shown for at least two or three decades, Chinese-language-learning brains distribute linguistic and even motor functions differently than alphabetic-language-learning brains. Surprise! Brains don't exist independently of the people who possess them and people don't exist independently of their culture. Brain determinism forgets this crucial fact and wants to reduce neurobiology to genetics. That actually doesn't tell us very much in the end about brain function.

www.hastac.org/1294 - Preview

neuroplasticity literacy

The focus of this web page is on the portion of the Computer Literacy courses that deal with information literacy skills and with responsible and ethical online behavior. (syllabus for high school students)

www.uni.illinois.edu/...computerlit - Preview

literacy search credibility

while it is necessary (and possible) to teach facts to people, it comes with a price. And the price is this: facts learned in this way, and especially by rote, and especially at a younger age, take a direct root into the mind, and bypass a person's critical and reflective capacities, and indeed, become a part of those capacities in the future.

When you teach children facts as facts, and when you do it through a process of study and drill, it doesn't occur to children to question whether or not those facts are true, or appropriate, or moral, or legal, or anything else. Rote learning is a short circuit into the brain. It's direct programming. People who study, and learn, that 2+2=4, know that 2+2=4, not because they understand the theory of mathematics, not because they have read Hilbert and understand formalism, or can refute Brouwer and reject intuitionism, but because they know (full stop) 2+2=4.

I used the phrase "it's direct programming" deliberately. This is an analogy we can wrap our minds around. We can think of direct instruction as being similar to direct programming. It is, effectively, a mechanism of putting content into a learner's mind as effectively and efficiently as possible, so that when the time comes later (as it will) that the learner needs to use that fact, it is instantly and easily accessible.

halfanhour.blogspot.com/...operating-system-for-mind.html - Preview

literacy knowledge critical_thinking

esterday I had the wonderful opportunity to learn from Dr. Allison Clarke -- she is a Research Scientist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and currently spending some time at Duke as the Distinguished HASTAC Scholar in Residence. She presented her new work-in-progress, called The Access + Digital Literacy Research Project. Her project looks at the digital divide and its complicated articulations - whether it's about literal hardware and broadband access, or more about the social possibilities, literacies, and inclinations for some populations to get engaged with digital media. Her presentation levereged her insights into her own (and familial) experiences, theoretical approaches, historical data, and discussed the deep implications of the digital divide. Some of the questions and points she emphasized were:

- why claiming the mere availability of computers at local institutions like libraries is not the same as digital access in your own home, on your own timeframe

- the history of the digital access movements and their complicated implementation strategies (or lack thereof) in the US

- the defeating realization of how many job applications that require a computer and/or an email address

- the shuttering of local newspapers and some of that information moving solely online

- digital literacy / literacies and the importance of developing good internet practices

- youth practices and tendencies of engaging with different kinds of technology (cell phones vs. computers, etc.)

- the ongoing legacy that the digital divide pepetuates, and the importance of community based technology centers

www.hastac.org/...ing-or-collapsing-or-both-once - Preview

literacy

Technology addiction among young people is having a disruptive effect on their learning, researchers have warned. The BBC reports.

quotemarksright.jpgThe study - Techno Addicts: Young Person Addiction to Technology - was carried out by researchers at Cranfield School of Management, Northampton Business School and academic consultancy AJM Associates.

They used a written questionnaire to examine the nature and the volume of mobile phone calls and text messaging as well as computer use including e-mail, instant messaging and accessing social networking sites. quotesmarksleft.jpg

Read full BBC article.

The full report, Techno Addicts: Young Person Addiction to Technology is published by Cambridge-based Sigel Press as an electronic whitepaper download and is available at www.sigelpress.com.

www.textually.org/...024487.htm - Preview

literacy technology attention

Mindmap of teaching and learning in the digital world, including 21st century skills, learning and innovation skills, life and career skills

www.mindomo.com/view.htm - Preview

literacy

The theory of Radical Change, which is based on the digital age principles of interactivity, connectivity, and access, is suggested as a lens to reexamine existing research on youth information-seeking behavior in the digital environment. After a brief review of research meta-analyses, which often point to deficits in youth information-seeking behavior, questions that emerge from this research are suggested. Meta-analyses of gender and information behavior studies find that some recent research disputes former conclusions. Radical Change is applied to an examination of specific facets of contemporary research in order to demonstrate how new perspectives can be gained. This analysis addresses commonalities between information-seeking behavior related to the handheld book with hypertextual qualities and digital materials, the social nature of information seeking, and emerging issues of access. It is noted that the public library as a setting for research has rarely been used, even though its less structured nature might provide insights that do not surface in schools. A look at directions for youth information-seeking behavior research in the future proposes how brain research might shed further light on behavioral observations. Conclusions note existing research and summarize some new points of view and areas for investigation.

www.thefreelibrary.com/...PrintArticle.aspx - Preview

search literacy digital_natives

The online-safety messages most Americans are getting are still pretty much one-size-fits-all and focused largely on adult-to-child crime, rather than on what the growing bodies of both Net-safety and social-media research have found. Online safety 2.0 began to develop messaging around the peer-to-peer part of online safety, mostly harassment and cyberbullying and, increasingly, sexting by cellphones, but it still focuses on technology not behavior as the primary risk and characterizes youth almost without exception as potential victims. Version 2.0 fails to recognize youth agency: young people as participants, stakeholders, and leaders in an increasingly participatory environment online and offline. Though its aim is certainly positive, its message, like that of Version 1.0, is largely negative, lacks context, and is largely irrelevant to youth.

To be relevant to young people, its intended beneficiaries, Net safety needs to respect youth agency, embrace the technologies they love, use social media in the instruction process, and address the positive reasons for safe use of social technology. It’s not safety from bad outcomes but safety for positive ones.

Think about playgrounds. Certainly they have to be safe, but do we want our children to play in places that are only safe? As educator Barry Joseph asked recently in the Global Kids blog, don’t we want them to be really fun and compelling, to stimulate and enrich our kids’ physical and social development? Safety is essential but only part of what we want for the people who are going to run this world!

Online Safety 3.0 enables youth enrichment and empowerment. Its main components – new media literacy and digital citizenship – are both protective and enabling.

www.connectsafely.org/...ring-and-protecting-youth.html - Preview

literacy digital_natives

As a result of this fact the real focus needs to be on filtration not, "I cant handle all this information!" Part of information literacy for our generations will certainly be how to manage the various stream of information coming at us. Designers and engineers will continue to come up with amazing ways to filter information, but what is of most interest to me are the techniques and methods "normal" individuals start to develop as information overload begins to be seen less as problem that needs to be fixed and more of state of being. To quote Shirky we need to ask ourselves...

"what filter just broke?"

www.justinbaum.com/...broken-filters.html - Preview

rss literacy filter