Literacy and Technology: Skills for 21st Century Students

The Age of Technology

Students today live in an unconventional age in which technology has transformed the way we produce, distribute, and receive information. The concept of text has changed from traditional print materials to a variety of media, including television, film, and the Internet. The ability to share and access media on such a grand scale challenges our understanding of what it means to be literate. As globalization demands social and economic technologies more than ever before, it becomes clear that students need to be taught these new and emerging skills in order to meet the demands of the market. For 21st century students to adapt to this new Age of Technology, they must possess the literacy skills to process and analyze many different forms of media. The traditional educational system leaves little room for this type of instruction. Educators must adapt to this new climate and change perspectives if they are to reach their students, who bring to the classroom a host of skills that often remain unstimulated and unappreciated.

The New Millennials

Children who have grown up since the emergence of the World Wide Web and an assortment of digital technologies, including cell phones, text and instant messaging and video games, are now referred to as the New Millennials. This generation is special in that it is the first to be completely immersed in Information Communication Technology (ICT) for their entire lives.

Last year, Diane Hansford and Rachael Adlington (2008) of the University of New England compiled information on global teen Internet use to prove the results of this phenomenon. Currently, in Australia, approximately 90 percent of teenagers use the Internet daily or at least several times per week. In the United Kingdom, 75 percent of 9-19-year-olds have accessed the Internet at home, and 92 percent have accessed it at school. American teens get online just as often - 87 percent of 12-17-year-olds use the Internet daily or at least several times per week. As a result, the net-savvy adolescent knows that he is able to produce texts and publish online just as easily as any adult.

Many young people are avid online authors of multimodal texts. Because New Millennials are so adept at absorbing and responding to a consistent churn of new media technologies, they are able to store, analyze, and recreate media in powerful new ways. Also, many young people are excellent at multitasking when using the Internet and computer based programs. However, according to Hansford and Adlington (2008), in the school setting, "these same students may show reluctance to engage in paper-based authoring."

It is evident that a dissonance exists between the home and school worlds equally occupied by today's students. Because of the availability of digital technologies, today's teenagers bring a rich and new set of literacy practices to the classroom that is often disregarded by educators. It must be recognized that drawing from and building on students' prior knowledge and experiences will be paramount to student success.

Media Literacy

Media literacy has been defined as "the ability to access, analyze, evaluate, and effectively communicate in a variety of forms including print and nonprint texts." These "nonprint texts" have exploded into multiple forms of literacy including information literacy, visual literacy, and computer or digital literacy (Considine, 2009, 471-472). Media literacy has become vital to manipulating the technological landscape of the world today. It helps students develop their abilities to analyze and evaluate the multitude of information they are exposed to. Exposure to mass amounts of literature is not enough. Students need to be taught what to do with the information once they have it.

Literacy for the Future

There is mounting evidence for the importance of media literacy instruction for the futures of today's students, and educators would be wise to pay attention to it. For example, the 21st Century Workforce Commission suggested that “the current and future health of America’s 21st century economy depends directly on how broadly and deeply Americans reach a new level of literacy―‘21st-Century Literacy’” (Black). Furthermore, the Carnegie Council on Adolescent Development has written that developing media literacy skills deserves "widespread consideration in schools and community organizations as an essential part of becoming a well-educated citizen” (Considine, 2009, 474). Many New Millennials have lived through the ICT boom without access to modern technologies. While some students today are digitally literate, others need instruction. Most New Millennials are self-taught, but not well-taught. If given the proper tools and instruction, these students could excel in ways that students before never had the opportunity to.

The Educational System

The educational system today is failing 21st century students in a variety of ways. First of all, it generally avoids new technology in the classroom. Most New Millennials enter formal classrooms that are not prepared to take advantage of the technological skills they bring with them. Public schools have complicated filtering systems that prevent students from accessing sites like MySpace, Facebook, and YouTube, which allow them to utilize their online literacy as a means of social interaction.

Secondly, the system today fails because it employs digital immigrants to teach digital natives. A digital native is a New Millennial, essentially – one who has been immersed in ICT their entire life. A digital immigrant is a person of an older era, when modern technologies did not exist. This person has to be acclimated to the world of technology. Many times, these digital immigrants avoid new technology altogether. In the classroom, this is unfortunate, because many digital natives use a wide array of new technologies in their daily lives. They use instant messaging and chat, trade media, sometimes via peer-to-peer file sharing software, and establish their own online reputation and take part in evaluating the online reputation of their peers. They play games, read news and blogs and search for knowledge all across the Internet. All of these skills could be utilized as methods for literacy instruction.

The challenge for today's educators, mostly digital immigrants, is to continue to provide the richness of old curriculum alongside new and emerging content to prepare students for 21st century life. As Lotta C. Larson states, “It is imperative that today's preservice teachers know how to teach and facilitate the new literacies” (125).

Teaching 21st Century Digital Students

In 2007, the National School Boards Association argued that students utilize words, music, photographs, and videos to express themselves creatively online. They recommended that “school districts may want to re-examine their policies and practices and explore ways in which they could use social networking for educational purposes” (Considine, 2009, 475). Because New Millennials have been reared in a climate different from their teachers', it is important for teachers to find ways to connect with their students. Teachers today who utilize technology in the classroom are often the most memorable. The authors of the article, “Stories About Struggling Readers and Technology,” claim that “even professional reading teachers tended to treat technology as having almost magical effects on children” (Anderson, 2009).

During the past three years, as I have pursued my English degree in hopes of one day teaching literacy and technology, I have encountered several effective teaching techniques that have proven successful with New Millennials and other ICT children. For the remainder of this essay, I will outline some of these techniques.

Popular Culture

Today, small children learn to read with books by Dora the Explorer. Hotwheels and Barbie offer personalized web spaces and online chat rooms for children. Popular culture is finding its way into literature everywhere, and modern students love it. New Millennials and their younger siblings have grown up on television and films. It takes more than textbooks and lectures to grab their attention.

During Winter Quarter 2007, I took a course with Dr. Kathleen Davies at Ohio University – Chillicothe. The course was English Special Topics: Gender. On the first day of the class, I was surprised to see Buffy the Vampire Slayer on the syllabus. We watched a few episodes, read a book of literary criticism on the show, and did our own research on gender roles throughout the series. We also watched films like Pan's Labyrinth and Chocolate, following them up with research and peer-reviewed writing. The course was very engaging, as everyone in the class enjoyed reading and writing about entertainment that they had either already seen or would have likely watched on their own at some point in time. Since this was a freshman composition course, I felt the pop culture integration was extremely appropriate.

The following quarter, I took another Special Topics class with Dr. Davies, this time, Rebels. We viewed films like Rebel Without a Cause and Foxfire and read books such as 1984 and Into the Wild. The course concluded with presentations on students' favorite historical rebels or acts of rebellion. Students gave presentations on John Lennon, the Quakers, illegal piracy, animal rights and a variety of other subjects. Once again, pop culture integration proved highly successful, as all of the students were highly interested in the subject matter.

Multimodal Authoring

Students today utilize web sites like MySpace and Blogger to create their own online texts. These sites are used for creative expression, much like the journaling teens of yesteryear. Young people today write volumes on their blogs, using both text, graphics, movies and music to express themselves. Teachers can capitalize on these multimodal authors, who are efficient enough online to handle such a challenge.

I have taken many online classes with English professor Dr. Jan Schmittauer, also from Chillicothe, who utilizes online literature ladders to engage her students in multimodal authoring. A literature ladder is a tool to help teach various aspects of a certain topic. For example, a novel may be assigned. After the novel is read, the student participates in several “rungs” of the ladder, which elaborate on the book's components. The first rung might be a historical overview or a wiki entry, the second rung a character analysis, the third rung a personal reaction to the story written as a blog post, etc. The purpose is to engage the student through a variety of media while personalizing the content so that it means the most to them.

At the end of Dr. Schmittauer's Young Adult Literature class, I created a literature ladder myself. It is intended for a junior high to high school age audience and is to be utilized for teaching Red Scarf Girl, a novel about the Chinese Cultural Revolution. It incorporates multimodal activities that will encourage the students to make personal connections with the novel. It can be viewed here: http://redscarfgirlitladder.blogspot.com/.

Literacy Outside of the Box

Because new technologies are constantly emerging and the definition of literacy is changing daily, it is important that educators keep their minds open when determining the methods of instruction which they utilize to reach students. I have found that, sometimes, unconventional methods can be quite successful to develop literacy skills. For example, video games are often blamed for poor behavior in children. However, I can testify that, with proper instruction and management, video games can be a magnificent tool to teach literacy.

I have never been a gamer. Like every other kid I knew, I had a regular Nintendo, but I've just never had the patience for video games. Now, I have a five-year-old daughter, and she's already become more of a gamer than I ever was. About a year ago, she started expressing an interest in games, and since my husband and I already owned an XBox, we bought her “Lego Star Wars.” I watched in amazement as she picked up on the controls, how easily she understood the language of the game. It came natural to her. Now, the games are very 3-dimensional, and since I'm used to older, 2-D games, I have a hard time catching on. Gracie is usually giving me orders so that I can keep up with her on screen.

Now, a year later, Gracie has defeated dozens of video games all on her own. She's learned words like, “save,” “loading,” “exit,” “next,” because of the visual repetition. We most always read the stories on screen with her, and she often picks up on words all on her own. What's most important is that we are playing the games with her. If we accept gaming as a tool for literacy, we have to manage all aspects of the technology. I'm very cautious when I purchase games for Gracie. I do a lot of research to determine which games she will best benefit from, and which games promote the values I agree with. And when we crack open a new game, I always sit down with her as she starts playing it. Gracie appreciates this most of all; she wants someone to recognize her achievements as she plays. I think it's very important that we reward children for their gaming accomplishments, especially when they know they've put a lot of brain-power into the puzzles the games offer.

As Gracie's literacy began developing through gaming, my husband Nick had the opportunity to spread the technology to our community. A librarian at the Garnet A. Wilson Public Library in Waverly, Nick was keenly aware of the large population of teens coming to the library, especially for technological resources like Internet use. Assuming that there would be teens in the community who would appreciate gaming at the library, he introduced Game Night. The library invested in a Wii, and Nick donated his old PS2. For nearly a year now, Nick has been hosting the event each Thursday night, and faithfully, twelve to fifteen children, teens and adults show up. One evening, after one of the initial Game Nights, Nick told me about a boy who had come to the event. At some point, he became bored with the games. “Let's go upstairs and look at some books!” he exclaimed. Nick said he thought, “Mission accomplished.” Since, Nick has payed particular attention to the Young Adult selection at the library, beefing it up with graphic novels and anime as well as Honor List books. And everything is getting checked out.

Conclusion

Every individual has a unique design, a unique way of absorbing information. We must expand literacy media to encapsulate all types of learners and to offer a variety of ways to learn. The New Millennials and even younger generations will inherit the future, which will be filled with a vast array of technologies. New methods of teaching and learning are now required to meet the educational needs of every individual. By paying attention to new technologies and widening the definition of literacy, educators can successfully reach their 21st century students, who are patiently waiting for someone to take advantage of the vast array of technological skills they bring to the table.

References

Anderson, R. & Balajthy, E. (2009). Stories about struggling readers and technology. The Reading Teacher, 62(6), 540-542. Retrieved from Academic Search Complete database.

Black, R. (2009). English-language learners, fan communities, and 21st century skills. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 52(8), 688-697. Retrieved from Academic Search Complete database.

Considine, D., Horton, J. & Moorman, G. (2009). Teaching and reading the Millennial generation through media literacy. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 52(6), 471-481. Retrieved from Academic Search Complete database.

Hansford, D. & Adlington, R. (2008). Digital spaces and young people's online authoring: Challenges for teachers. Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, 32(1), 55-68. Retrieved from Academic Search Complete database.

Larson, L. (2008). Electronic reading workshop: Beyond books with new literacies and instructional technologies. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 52(2), 121-131. Retrieved from Academic Search Complete database.