Week+13+-+Classroom+Integration+-

What are new literacies? (revisited)  The Internet and other information communication technologies (ICT's) reach across time and space, and connect people from all over the world in real-time. ICT's are vast, sprawling and ever changing, and yet they give each person his/her own private window to the world. From Instant Messaging, Blogging, Wikis, online roleplaying games, and social networking sites, new technologies have revolutionized everything from commerce to work to education to social practices. Today’s generation of “digital natives” (Bennett, Maton and Kervin, 2008) have grown up with the Internet and other ICT’s and it is becoming increasingly difficult for teachers who are unfamiliar with technology (“digital immigrants”) to reach these students through a traditional lecture or printed textbook approach. "Our students have changed radically. Today's students are no longer the people our educational system was designed to teach (Prensky, 2001)." In order to keep up with this new generation and to teach effective and responsible use of these technologies, new literacies need to be taught in schools. In order to do this, it is necessary to understand what is meant by new literacies, understand why they are needed, and how it will affect teachers. 

Since technology is developing rapidly and constantly changing, it is difficult to identify exactly what new literacies are. Leu, et al. (2004) argued that no single theoretical position exists to define or explain new literacies, but that adopting a "new literacies perspective" should include the following principles:  New literacies don't only stem from the need for specific skills to effectively use the Internet. They also have to do with how people build and participate in literary practices that involve different kinds of values, sensibilities, norms and procedures and so on from those that characterize conventional literacies (Lankshear & Knobel, 2006). Lankshear and Knobel (2006) defined “New Literacies” as having both new “technical stuff” and new “ethos stuff”. New “technical stuff” is viewed as the use of new digitally electronic technologies. For example creating multimodal text, or creating an animated Christmas card. Technology used to do things that we have previously known but in new ways. “Ethos Stuff” means that “new literacies are more “participatory, collaborative, and distributed in nature than conventional literacies.”… More of the mindset of Web 2.0 - making something new out of remixed components, in other words becoming active users. Technical literacies include an increased level of critical thinking and cognitive manipulation that requires students to use expository text, real-time video, global mapping, and shared work environments to learn, produce work and create new queries. There is a need for more collaborative information. People create, share, edit, and modify information using a variety of digital devices. This desire drives the new literacies necessary to edit photographs, create videos, mix music, and share the creations with a wide variety of people. Important to consider is the cultural impact that these literacies present. When students are working within shared platforms, in the same school, town, or state there will be limited social cultural discrepancies, however, once the shared learning platform is expanded throughout the United States and the World, technical literacy will require cultural understandings, morals and values. This will also be necessary to evaluate the reliability of text, studies, and from the world wide platform. 
 * 1) The Internet and other ICTs are central technologies for literacy within a global community in an information age.
 * 2) The Internet and other ICTs require new literacies to fully access their potential.
 * 3) New literacies are [|deictic].
 * 4) The relationship between literacy and technology is transactional.
 * 5) New literacies are multiple in nature.
 * 6) Critical literacies are central to new literacies.
 * 7) New forms of strategic knowledge are central to new literacies.
 * 8) Speed counts in important ways within the new literacies.
 * 9) Learning often is socially constructed within new literacies.
 * 10) Teachers become more important, though their role changes, within new literacy classrooms.

Approaches to new literacies reflect a wide range of specific theoretical preferences and more generally, theoretical perspectives. We believe that "new literacies" aren’t really new at all. The skills necessary to use the Internet and other information communication technologies (ICTs), are essentially the same skills used to acquire information from print resources combined with the new strategies and dispositions, required by the Internet. These include being able to identify important questions, locate relevant information, critically evaluate the usefulness of information, synthesize information and communicate the answer (Leu, Leu, &Coiro, 2004). What makes new literacies “new” is that these skills are now being applied to digital information which requires specific knowledge on navigating and accessing information on the Internet and other ICTs. New literacies build on foundational literacies, they don’t replace them. These new literacies regularly change – “it may be that learning how to learn new literacies is more important than learning specific new literacies themselves (p.29)." We need to connect the gap between the way our students are living and how they are learning.

The Internet and other ICT's provide information that improves the quality of our personal, civic, and professional lives. Access to this information requires new reading, writing, and communication skills, in fact a new field of technical literacies has emerged. That is why we believe it is so vitally important to integrate the Internet and other ICT’s into the classroom. By incorporating these emerging technologies and new literacies into the classroom, students not only learn technical skills, but they also learn how to use them appropriately and responsibly. These new technologies enable students to fully participate in our society and lead more productive personal, civic, and work lives. The skills that our students will need to join the workplace are continually being redefined, and equally important is the world in which they live is an expansive social network. The emergence of the Internet as an important new information and communication tool demands that we think in new ways about what it means to provide effective literacy instruction (Coiro, 2003; Leu.2000a; 2000b). We must also keep in mind that the definition of literacy, the ways in which we read, write, view, listen, compose, think and communicate information, is constantly evolving. The Internet has allowed for the wide and rapid spread of new technologies (blogs, wikis, massively multiplayer online games, social networking technologies, etc.), and each comes with additional new literacy forms and functions that are reshaped by social practices. Even older technologies such as word processing software, instant message (IM) software, email, etc. have newer versions which require new literacies.

Many educators have made the assumption that online and offline reading comprehension are fully isomorphic, despite evidence that online reading comprehension differs from offline reading comprehension in important ways (Coiro, Knobel, Lankshear, and Leu, 2008.) One way online reading is significantly different is that electronic texts incorporate features that are not usually found in traditional written documents. Electronic texts are interactive and malleable; they incorporate audio visual aids which communicate through the use of animated graphics, video, digitized pronunciations, and hyperlinks; are easily connected to related texts; and produce alternative text structures (Karchmer, 2001). It is important for students to learn about these new literacies in order to be prepared for their digital futures. Changes and restructuring in the workplace have given lower leveled employees more power to make important decisions related to their work, and it is expected that members of the workforce will use their reading, problem solving, evaluation and communication skills to successfully and efficiently complete tasks (Leu, et al., 2007). In addition, Karchmer, (2001) also stated that global economies will require students to become proficient in using these new literacies of the Internet. However, the incorporation of new literacies into daily classroom activities has met some resistance. The pressure to prepare our students to perform on standardized tests and assessments has put many educators in the position of “teaching to the test.” State assessment practices currently only focus on testing foundational literacy skills. Technology literacy skills are not yet included on any state standardized assessment, and unfortunately, are not a top priority in many districts. Beginning in 2012, technological literacy will become part of the National Assessment of Educational Progress, also known as the nations report card. This will be the first time that students' technology literacy will be assessed on a national level. But we feel that as educators we just can’t wait until then. We must start integrating these new literacies now. These are vital skills for students’ future success.

Some teachers also believe that since so many students are using technology outside of school for communicating, gaming, and blogging, that we simply need to give them the tools and they will be able to figure out how to use them on their own. Why waste classroom time if the students are more knowledgeable than the teacher? However, just because students can use some of the tools, it does not mean that they are using them effectively or efficiently (Zawilinski, in press). Howard Reingold (2006) supported the importance of teaching new literacies when he described our students in this way, "This population is both self-guided and in need of guidance, and although a willingness to learn new media by point-and-click exploration might come naturally to today's student cohort, there's nothing innate about know how to apply their skills..." (as quoted in Zawilinksi, in press, p. 4). The need of guidance is the primary reason new literacies need to be taught in the classroom. By using ICT's to support student learning, teachers are able to teach effective and responsible use of the technology.

The incorporation of new literacies into classroom teaching will change the role of the teacher. Leu et al. (2004) remind us that “it is simply impossible for one person to have all the new skills and strategies required to be literate in the Internet and other ICT and then to teach these directly to others” (p. 27). In some cases, students may know more about these new technologies than teachers do. The educational process will then be more collaborative, in that each individual will have different knowledge that they can share with their peers and teachers. Learning often is socially constructed within new literacies, because of the varying strengths and interests of each member of the group. it will be the teacher’s responsibility to guide students in this collaborative construction of knowledge so that “all of the students can bring their special insights about new literacies to the learning task” (Leu et al, 2007). Teachers will need professional development to assist with this technology use, "it is one of the most serious obstacles to fully integrating technology into the curriculum" (Fatemi, 1999). To prepare teachers to effectively integrate technology into their classrooms school districts need to provide teachers with the appropriate professional development. We believe that integrating technology is important for preparing our students for their literacy future. Because technology is a process, the integration of technology and the new literacies must be targeted, purposeful and aligned with the content being taught and at its core used to support the critical new learnings that the curriculum is presenting. Teachers have a responsibility to prepare students for the future and that future includes the use of the Internet and other ICTs. Incorporating these into the classroom so that students can learn the new literacies necessary to effectively and responsibly use these technologies is vital. To ensure that this will happen, teachers must understand what new literacies are, why the are needed, and teachers must receive the necessary training so that they can effectively integrate them into the classroom.

__Additional Resources__ To help begin the incorporation of new literacies into your own classroom and to help teach your students the importance of critically evaluating the information they find on the Internet, we recommend that you visit the following sites: References Bennett, S., Maton, K., & Kervin, L. (2008). The ‘digital native’ debate: A critical review of the evidence.
 * 1) [|www.internet4classrooms.com] - A variety of resources to help teachers use the Internet more effectively in their classrooms
 * 2) [|**The ABC's of Web Site Evaluation**] (presented by Kathy Schrock) - Ready-to-use materials for website evaluation
 * 3) [|**Evaluating Web Pages**] - How to evaluate websites and why it is important to do so
 * 4) Effective Instructional Models - How to incorporate Internet Workshop, Internet Project, Internet Inquiry, and WebQuests into your teaching
 * 5) Inclusion Technologies - Types of inclusion technologies for students with special needs

Fatemi, E. (1999). Building the digital curriculum. Education Week on the Web: []

Karchmer, R.A. (2001). The journey ahead: Thirteen teachers report how the Internet influences literacy and literacy instruction in their K-12 classrooms. //Reading Research Quarterly,// 442-466.

Lankshear, c., & Knobel, M. (2006). A New Literacies Sampler. Sampling "the New" in New Literacies.

Leu, D. J., Leu, D.D., & Coiro, J. (2004). Teaching with the Internet K-12; New literacies for new times (4th ed.).

Leu, D. J., Kinzer, C. K., Coiro, J., & Cammack, D. W. (2004). // Toward a Theory of New Literacies Emerging From the Internet and Other Information and Communication Technologies. //

Leu, D.J., Zawilinski, J. C., Banerjee, M., Housand, B. C., Liu, Y., & O’Neil, M. (2007). // What // // Is New about the New Literacies of Online Reading Comprehension //

Prensky, M (2001). Digital natives, digital immigrants. On the Horizon, 9(5). Retrieved February 2, 2009 from []\%20Digital%20Natives,%20Digital%20 Immigrants%20-%20Part1.pdf

Zawilinski, L. (in press). Hot Blogging: A Framework for Blogging to Promote Higher Order Thinking. In //The Reading Teacher.//