Session Information
06 SES 09, E-learning 2.0
Paper Session
Contribution
The challenges of the “New literacies” (Web 2.0) for education and innovation are discussed. Examples of Web 2.0 interactive Internet applications are blogs, wikis, Facebook, Flickr and Twitter. The importance of framing their use as a literacy issue in education rather than a technological issue is maintained. The first results of research on the experiences of teachers, students and entrepreneurs of using the new literacies in education, innovation and democratic action are presented. The findings suggest a very positive attitude to their use in innovation, networking and democratic action. In education, in spite of positive examples, their use is controversial because of various possibilities of abuse, around identity theft, information inaccuracy and copyright infringement. The greatest challenge for education is to prepare our students to read, manipulate and produce all the kinds of texts needed for them to function effectively in modern society. Suggestions are made for further research and educational policy.
This paper is on Internet use where the focus is on interaction, with an emphasis on social networking sites. This topic is taken up recently in the Educational Researcher (2009) as an urgent policy issue for educational research, with a leading article by Greenhow, Robelia and Hughes (2009) and several responses by other researchers. This discussion shows that there are debates about the use of key concepts, what is new about Web 2.0 and whether the use of these media should be framed as a literacy issue or a technological issue in schools or education. Leu, Kinzer, Coiro and Cammack (2004) suggest that no single theoretical perspective can explain the full range of changes to literacy brought about with the Internet and other ICTs. They propose a dual level theory a “New literacies” perspective, to understand how reading, writing and communication are being fundamentally transformed and how to proceed in the classroom. New literacis theory works on two levels, uppercase (New literacies) and lowercase (new literacies). Each research on the multiple new literacies contributes to the larger, changing theory of the New literacies.
In this paper the concept of new literacies will be used which is in agreement with the view of framing the use of these interactive applications as a literacy issue.
The main aim of this paper is to report the findings of a qualitative study of the experiences and attitudes of a selected group of teachers, students and entrepreneurs with respect to their use of the ”new literacies” and their challenges in modern Iceland during the present economic recession. The main research question in focus is:
What are the experiences and attitudes of teachers, students and entrepreneurs with respect to the ”new literacies” or Web 2.0 in education, innovation and democratic participation?
This research is part of a larger research project on cultural literacies , a cooperation between the author and Sergio Morra, from Genoa Italy. Here the focus is extended to the new literacies and to innovation besides education.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Anderson, P. (2007). What is Web 2.0? Ideas, technologies and implications for education, JISC Technology and Standards Watch, Feb., 1-64. Retrieved on September 15 from http://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/techwatch/tsw0701b.pdf. Alexander, B. (2006). Web 2.0. A New Wave of Innovation for Teaching and Learning? Educause Review, 41(2): 32-44. Bogdan, R. C. and Biklen, S.K. (2003). Qualitative research for education: An introduction to theory and methods (4. edition). Boston: Allyn og Bacon Carrington, V. (2005). Txting: The end of civilization (again)? Cambridge Journal of Education, 35(2): 161-175. Dede, C. (2009). Technologies that Facilitate Generating Knowledge and Possibly Wisdom. Educational Researcher, 38(4): 260-263 Greenhow, C., Robelia, E., & Hughes, J. (2009). Web 2.0 and classroom research: What path should we take now? Educational Researcher, 38(4): 246-259. Guðný Guðbjörnsdóttir and Sergio Morra.(1997). Social and Developmental aspects of Icelandic Pupils’ Interest and Experience of Icelandic Culture. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, 41(2): 141-163. Guðný Guðbjörnsdóttir and Sergio Morra. (1998). Cultural Literacy: social and developmental aspects of experience and knowledge of Icelandic culture. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, 42(1): 65-79. Lankshear, C., and Knobel, M. (2007). Sampling "the New" in New Literacies. In M. Knobel & C. Lankshear (Eds). A new literacies sampler, pp.1-125. New York: Peter Lang Leu, D.J., O'Byrne, W. I., Zawilinski, L., McVerry, G., and Everett-Cacopardo, H. (2009). Morra, S. and Guðný Guðbjörnsdóttir. (2009). Mental representation of literary characters as a distinct aspect of response to literature. In Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, 53(6): 589–613. OECD (2007). Participative Web and User-Created Content. Web 2.0, wikis, and social networking. Retrieved on August 15, 2010 from http://213.253.134.43/oecd/pdfs/browseit/9307031E.PDF Zhang, J. (2009). Towards a creative social Web for learners and teachers. Educational Researcher, 38(4): 274-279.
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