Changing Dimensions of Literacy

IN A CHANGING WORLD:

...there is a need to embrace new ways of thinking about literacy to create life-long learners. The changes that challenge teachers are social, technological and economical, which will require new goals in literacy education.

The world continues to change
socially	technologically	economically
·         changing societal structures in a shrinking world ·         increasing social and cultural diversity ·         increased marketing of ideas and products through multimedia	·         globalisation of economies, cultures and workplaces ·         new information and communication technologies ·         literacy is no longer print-based ·         media influence reaching into homes, leisure sites and workplaces ·         increasing use of still and moving images and other semiotic systems	·         multiple occupations throughout one’s working life. ·         changing demands upon literacy skills and behaviours ·         knowledge economy

 (DET, 2010)

Literacy has been redefined to acknowledge multiliteracies as necessary for future societies.  The uses of traditional and emerging technologies, in social and diverse contexts, are required to equip students with the necessary skills to be active and informed citizens in a changing global community.

Literate Futures is about re-examining what we know about literacy by considering what is necessary to retain from past practices and what is not sufficient.  The Four Resource model is a framework that assists teachers in planning a balanced reading program to ensure effective teaching, learning and assessment.

Changing dimensions of school literacies

Conclusion

Rather than trying to `squeeze' the textual affordances of new technologies into familiar literacy education procedures, we need to attend to the reality of new and emerging literacies. But we also need to acknowledge that conventional, hard-copy forms of `linear' texts will continue to coexist with electronic hypertext for some time, and that old and new literacy technologies will frequently have complementary roles in a range of contexts. Technoliteracies are distinctive because of the particular affordances of computer-based and networked technologies for information and communication. However, technoliteracies are also sites for the integrative deployment of visual, verbal and acoustic semiotic resources and, in the foreseeable future will co-exist with multiliteracies required to negotiate contemporary hard copy texts. Teachers' work will clearly involve developing students' use of mulitliteracies in the composition and comprehension of texts in computer-based and conventional formats (Unsworth, 2011).