Blog Post One - Defining New Literacies and Why They Matter

     In all honesty, prior to starting my M.Ed. in Curriculum and Instruction with SUNY Empire State University, I did not have a strong understanding of what new literacies were and how literacy even was outside of academic English in terms of reading and writing. While we are only in the second module of CURI 6010: New Media and New Literacies I am already finding myself to have a growing understanding and more cohesive view of the importance of integrating new media and new literacies into students academic experiences.   

    When considering the idea of how literacy is relevant to me in my professional and personal life, it has now become very clear the high level of importance I must place on my understating of new literacies. From a professional standpoint it is vital that I, as an educator, am able to understand new literacies I and implement them into my classroom instruction for the benefit of my students. It can be said that “instead of placing trust in the latest gadget, faith must be placed in the expertise of teachers to sustain classrooms that reflect the contexts of learning that are encountered outside of schools and in the real world.” (International Literacy Association, 2018, 2) From this view it is vital that I am able to integrate new literacies into instruction for the purpose of creating a holistic education that prepares my students for their future experiences outside of k-12 education. For example, in preparing my students for their future goals and aspirations I should focus less on investing resources and energy into individual tools, and instead put more pressure onto the involvement of classroom technology that more clearly mirrors the kind of work environments I expect my students to eventually encounter (International Literacy Association, 2018). Furthermore, as a professional who is attempting to create more opportunities for the practice and development of new literacy skills in my classroom there are changes I need to make. I must pull my instruction away from being anchored in individual apps and devices while pushing my instruction towards generating the consideration and implementation of  how “todays professionals seamlessly produce, respond to, and coordinate work and personal activities across myriad devices, tools, and topics.” (International Literacy Association, 2018, 3) Additionally, in the pursuit of growing my understanding of new literacies for my students, I must also implement and address my usage of them in my personal life. By using my personal experiences with new literacies, and my newfound understanding of what new literacies are, I can supplement my instruction to create a more holistic educational experience for my students.

   Common misconceptions of literacy involve the idea that literacy is only the existence of reading and writing in academic English. I, admittedly, believed this to be the extend of literacy for far too long. New literacies have expanded the concept of what literacy means and how it must be taught to our students. The International Literacy Association (2018) highlights this need for a broader understanding of new literacies by explaining the extent to which literacy is now present in our lives by sharing the following quote. 

“In their professional and personal lives, many people today move fluidly across digital and nondigital resources: texts and tweets may be used to coordinate plans, whereas face-to-face meetings can yield multimodal products like Instagram posts and Facebook messages. Schedules are coordinated digitally, and groups of employees meet in person to produce digital texts for presentation to audiences in multiple formats.” (International Literacy Association, 2018, 2)

This paragraph quote represents the exact need of understanding of the true meaning of literacy in today’s society. If we are not developing and addressing new literacies such as digital and social literacy, as evident by the consistent exposure to digital texts and social media platforms, then we are not preparing our students for the experiences they will face in the real-world outside of a textbook. Understanding these literacies offers students more than an education, it creates a whole new space for communication and research with endless possibilities for personal development. When we create a narrow mindset for what new literacies are, we adversely neglect and deprive our students from truly understanding how to communicate and interact with society in the other forms of mediums that are explored through acknowledge what new literacies are. For example, digital literacy may often be written off as computer skills. However, digital literacy represents more than having proficiency with these discrete computer skills (Vanek, 2019). In fact, in this example, we ignore the fact that “the crux of what is meant by digital literacy is the recognition of these skills’ relevance in specific contexts and one’s ability to creatively apply them.” (Vanek, 2019, 1) By not truly understanding what this type of new literacy is, we minimize it to a form which neglects the expansive importance of what we can stand to learn and develop from it. By developing strong and concrete understandings of new literacies we replace these minimized understandings with broader views of literacy that help us to prepare our students more efficiently.

    When we incorporate these new literacies into our curriculum we can better support the holistic learning of our students towards developing the skills required to function within society. When we don’t acknowledge the expansive opportunities that come as a result of understanding new literacies, we do a disservice to our students by not preparing them adequately for life outside of school. 

This image, displayed in the article Multimodal and New Literacies (n.d.), can serve of a visual representation of the many forms of literacy that fall into the idea of “new literacy” which has been made possible by technology. (Multimodal and New Literacies, n.d.)

References:

Multimodal and New Literacies. (n.d.). Cultivating Creativity in Writing. http://cultivatingcreativityinwriting.weebly.com/multimodal-and-new-literacies.html

International Literacy Association. (2018). Literacy Leadership Brief: Improving Digital
Practices for Literacy, Learning, and Justice More Than Just Tools. International Literacy Association.

Vanek, J. (2019). Digital Literacy. The Skills that Matter in Adult Education. American Institutes for Research.