Jeff Utecht's Bookmarks

Literacy has always been a collection of cultural and communicative practices shared among members of particular groups. As society and technology change, so does literacy. Because technology has increased the intensity and complexity of literate environments, the twenty-first century demands that a literate person possess a wide range of abilities and competencies, many literacies. These literacies—from reading online newspapers to participating in virtual classrooms—are multiple, dynamic, and malleable. As in the past, they are inextricably linked with particular histories, life possibilities and social trajectories of individuals and groups. Twenty-first century readers and writers need to

• Develop proficiency with the tools of technology
• Build relationships with others to pose and solve problems collaboratively and
cross-culturally
• Design and share information for global communities to meet a variety of
purposes
• Manage, analyze and synthesize multiple streams of simultaneous
information
• Create, critique, analyze, and evaluate multi-media texts
• Attend to the ethical responsibilities required by these complex environments

it is easy to feel that your personal learning network/social network is becoming a NASA Control Center. For that matter, we can easily come to feel that we’re trying to land our students on the moon. It’s not that much of an exaggeration. But it is essential that we learn not only to grow our personal learning networks, but also to control them.

Controlling my PLN is not something that I’ve learned to do, but it is something that I’ve been thinking about. Here are a few ideas that occur to me.

Pick up the remote, turn on the television and watch YouTube.

The blurring of the television and the computer, envisioned by technology enthusiasts for years, advanced another step on Wednesday when TiVo, the popular maker of digital video recorders, announced an agreement with YouTube that will deliver millions of Web videos directly to users’ TV screens.

A poll carried out for electronics retailer Plantronics showed 63 per cent of managers saying new graduates communicated less vocally than their colleagues.

"The way this new generation wants to work is different and that's no surprise," said Plantronics UK general manager Paul Clark. "Graduates today have grown up with newer forms of communication."

Only 16 per cent of managers attributed the reluctance to pick up the phone or talk face to face to a lack of interpersonal skills.