The readings of the week highlighted the latest debates on different types of literacies (i.e. digital literacy and media literacy) and social scholarship. First, The New York Times article on Literacy Debates (basically on digital literacy) was an interesting and challenging piece. Through the example of Nadia and other students, as well as findings from variety of research, the author raised the question of even though students spend a lot of time reading things online in front of their computer screens, are they really read?
As Rich (2008) pointed out, traditionalists on the “digital literacy” warn that digital reading is the intellectual equivalent of empty calories which is a strong argument. They suggest that excessive number of pictures, words, games and videos are more of a distraction than a strength for readers. In such view, even though students read variety of online resources, simply reading online or subscribing to an eBook does not make them digitally literate students.
In the other side of the debate, literacy specialists are focusing on how reading on the Internet impact students’ reading skills. The number of studies shows that students are developing new sets of reading skills which are neither taught nor evaluated in school settings. Additionally, internet access provides a better opportunity for low-income students to reach out different reading resources. According to this debate, I believe even though internet platform leads a massive number of irrelevant reading resources and become distraction for students, it still provides an accessible and good quality of resources for readers. I think that reading a book online is not much different than reading a print book. It simply replaces words on a page with text on a screen. Overall, I also believe that scholar, teachers and students need to develop digital literacy/ media literacy in today’s world. In that way, they can be a critical consumer of existing communication and information technologies by finding, creating, and interacting both with technological, cognitive and social skills. As Greenhow and Gleason (2014) also pointed out through the notions of social scholarship and social constructivism (by extending the constructs of open and digital scholarship), there is a value of decentralized, accessible, and co-constructed knowledge resources (which can refer to online/digital resources for readers in this case), since they perpetuate new forms of inquiry, communication and collaboration among learners by supporting their cognitive and social development.
Hi Selin,
Thank you for your post. I’m wondering how what you have read relates to your interest and reading about artificial intelligence. You wrote: “I also believe that scholar, teachers and students need to develop digital literacy/ media literacy in today’s world. In that way, they can be a critical consumer of existing communication and information technologies.” Is it possible to be a “critical consumer” if these technologies, like those that employ artificial intelligence, are manipulating us, often without our knowledge? How can you be a critical consumer when it comes to artificial intelligence, do you think? Thanks for your thoughts!
Hello Chris, thank you for your spot-on question! The thing is that when I was reading these pieces and think about the digital literacy, I was also thinking about the potential biases and manipulations we encounter through AI systems and those digital platforms that we see in the articles. I think one of the important points here is that being a digitally literate citizen is also means being able to think critically on such questions: “What is the source of the knowledge that I have an access?”, “How this knowledge is produces and to what extent it is reliable?”, “In what ways, these digital resources represent diverse social and cultural contexts?”, “In what ways, do they perpetuate biases or discriminations that people have historically (for certain groups of people, context or culture)?”. I believe that learning to engage with such questions and being able to deeply think about ethical and societal problems of these digital resources are vital in order to be a critical consumer of knowledge (in digital/AI systems).
Hi Selin,
Wonderful post! You said that reading on a screen and reading a paper book aren’t different. I would argue there are some key differences especially in terms of distractions and cognitive overload that com from the affordances of technologies. Personally, I read more efficiently on paper. I don’t get lost in the features of the software or distracted by popup advertisements. Further, plain text in a book versus the rich (and often interactive) texts on a screen provide different ways of constructing knowledge. For example, books are written in a linear progression, with a beginning, middle and end. However texts on the internet can be filled with hyperlinks that can allow users to construct knowledge in varying ways. I can read two paragraphs and jump to related information in another site for more understanding using the internet; however, a book limits the ways in which information is explored and knowledge is formed. What do you think about this?
Hi Selin– You stated, “I think that reading a book online is not much different than reading a print book. It simply replaces words on a page with text on a screen.” This stood out to me because, in my experience, reading text from a screen IS much different than reading words on a page. This is a skill that I personally really need to work on as I find an added layer of challenge to reading online is not having the physical print copy in front of me. Even with software that allows me to mark up, highlight, and annotate text on the screen, I find it more time consuming and not as efficient in having information sticking in my brain and building connections the same way it does in print texts. I also think an added layer to this challenge is that I have vision problems and screen time generally hurts my eyes and gives me headaches, something in which the reality of spending days on zoom is proving to be exhausting in this sense. Additionally, you stated “internet access provides a better opportunity for low-income students to reach out different reading resources.” While I agree with this to some extent, I think that there is also a level of virtuality, internet access, and digital technology that works in tandem with systemic inequities, rather than combatting them. For instance, schools that are serve low-income students tend to be underfunded and lack the resources and access to technology than schools that serve more affluent students are afforded. Internet access is also a cost that some families cannot afford. Further, in many rural communities internet access is not even available to some families or households. For instance, I currently live in Owosso. While I live in the town and have accessible internet, my niece lives in the on the outskirts in a more rural part of the city where there are no internet providers that offer service to her home. Though school has moved online, the only options she and others in the community like her were given was to drive to the school parking lot and do their homework or find someone’s house to go to with internet access. Thinking about the ever-increasing role of technology in society and the increasing need and demand for developing digital literacies, how do we address issues of access to technology/internet wherein opportunities to develop digital literacies might be limited?
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