Literacy

Literacy is the ability to read and write. In modern context, the word means reading and writing in a level adequate for written communication and generally a level that enables one to successfully function at certain levels of a society.

Literacy in the 21st century

New Literacy Studies

A theoretical approach to understanding literacy that argues that literacy is not autonomous or a set of discrete technical and objective skills such as reading and writing that can be applied across context. Instead what counts as literacy is determined by the cultural, political, and historical contexts of the community in which it is used. Definitions of literacy are based on ideologies. Scholars associated with the New Literacy Studies include Brian Street, James Paul Gee, Allan Luke, Colin Lankshear and Michele Knobel to name a few. The New Literacy Studies draws across academic disciplines including cultural anthropology and linguistic anthropology.

Related Topics:
Brian Street - James Paul Gee - Allan Luke - Colin Lankshear - Michele Knobel - Cultural anthropology - Linguistic anthropology

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The importance of technological literacy

For the contemporary world, literacy now comes to mean more than just the ability to read, write and be numerate. It involves, at all levels, the ability to use and communicate in a diverse range of technologies. Since the computer became mainstream in the early 1990s, its importance and centrality in communication has become unassailable.

Related Topics:
Technologies - Computer - 1990s - Communication

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We should now, properly, speak of "literacies". These literacies always involve technology and the ability to use technology to negotiate the myriad of discourses that face us in the modern world. These literacies concern using information skillfully and appropriately, and are multi-faceted and involve a range of technologies and media. One such group of literacies that is growing in significance as personal computers become more powerful is multimedia literacy.

Related Topics:
Media - Multimedia literacy

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In sum, today's students need to cope with a complex mix of visual, oral, and interactive media as well as traditional text. People of lesser education or older people may see themselves falling behind as the informational gap between them and the people literate in the new media and technologies widens.

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