Literacy in the New Information Landscape

My first assigned reading for my new Masters’ class is Literacy in the New Information Landscape by David Warlick. I was really excited about reading so much of his work because we just saw him speak in Birdville ISD a few weeks ago and he was really great! Okay…notes on the article..

I love the idea that the whole concept of literacy has to change as we swim in this digital ocean of information. Being a good user of information means becoming a BETTER user of information. We have to analyze, critically, and we have to ask questions. We no longer simply accept that what is written is so.

Math has moved beyond numbers. All those 1′s and o’s are now video, images, text, design, light, motion…multimedia. Gives a whole new set of relevant, real world applications for learning math, huh?

My favorite quote from this article is..

“As we become increasingly overwhelmed by information, we must work hard to decide which information we are going to use, and which information we are going to ignore. In other words, information must now compete for our attention in much the same way that products on a store shelf competed for attention in the industrial age. So merely being able to write a coherent paragraph is no longer enough to be a communicator. Students must learn to also communicate with images, with sound, with video. Students must learn to express their ideas compellingly.”

How amazingly relevant that statement is to education today! How can we, as teachers, ignore such a powerful message…we must teach our students to CREATE…to EXPRESS…and not on worksheets or essays (which all have their place – no flaming me please)…but with sound, video, digital imagery, and more. If we DON’T learn to teach this new literacy…WE WILL BE THE INFORMATION OUR STUDENTS CHOOSE TO IGNORE.

To quote Spiderman (the movie) – with great power comes great responsibility…and we have to teach our kids how to ethically move in this fluid informational environment. You can’t lock up information in a glass case – remove the books from the shelves – or cover their eyes so they can’t peek. With technology our kids have access to everything, every day, every minute. We have to teach our kids to police themselves, to be smart, and to make decisions with integrity.

David’s concept of expanding our notion of literacy to include technology skills just hits home. The idea of information as “raw material” and the fact that our kids need to learn not only how to manipulate it but why and whether or not they SHOULD. It’s a much more complex, holistic approach that goes so much farther than simple integration of some nifty tech tools.

So cool. Great article!

Literacy in the New Information Landscape ― David Warlick
Warlick, D. (2007). Literacy in the new information landscape. Library Media Connection, 26(1), 20-21.