Need for New Ways of Assessment | W8 Q2 | Forum

It is a reality of today’s world that children are exposed to technological devices even before birth, and the digital world becomes an indispensable part of their lives starting from very young ages. Therefore, it is not logical to the dismiss technological side of students in schools and concentrate only on paper-based literacies as if they do not develop any skills digitally. In my opinion, the cover picture in the New York Times article (Rich, 2008), in which children reading with laptops and parents reading books and newspapers, powerfully catches this reality. As proponents of Web say in the newspaper article, “But this is reading too” (Rich, 2008). However, if schools only focus on text-based literacies, then students who are competent in digital literacies might be seen as inadequate. Therefore, assessments in schools should not only rely on text-based literacy skills. As the New Literacy Studies advocates conventional indicators of literacy lack “life validity” (p. 262) and do not reflect authentic ways of literacy outside of school (Mills, 2010). Because of this, assessment considering digital literacies is an area that needs further research. There are also many areas as you listed in your question (critical media literacies, digital literacies for teachers or for young children, and digital citizenship literacies). However, Mills’s article helped me to think about a new area, assessment, that I have not thought of before.