|
|
Comparison of Digital
Literacy Development Between Children and Adolescents
By: Christopher Ruckdeschel
The conversion from elementary school to the upper levels is multi-faceted.
In addition to the organization of schedules, increased and more complex
social pressures, and physical changes, students have many challenges
to surmount in order to continue the development of literacy skills. One
alteration that exists outside of elementary school involves the predominance
of teachers who concentrate in one content area: "secondary students tend
to regard their teachers as experts in their field, with specialist knowledge
to impart. Correspondingly, secondary school teachers, apart from those
in the English faculty, were less likely than their primary school colleagues
to foreground their role as teachers and models of literacy" (Cairney
et. al., 1998). This truth means that when students begin receiving assignments
involving mental tasks of greater difficulty and complexity, their literacy
instruction contracts to the interaction they have with one teacher. Dependent
upon the English teacher's ability to convey that the complex literacy
skills learned in English can translate into the communication outputs
present in other subjects, students may have difficulty generalizing and
thus creating literate work in other subjects. Moreover, with the compartmentalization
of literacy skills, teachers may favor certain literacy endeavors more
than others: "the literacy practices of schools may in fact privilege
certain academic procedures and randomly promote certain social expectations"
(Cairney et. al., 1998). This insight comes to the forefront in later
years as students begin to spend larger amounts of time with friends and
with technology.
It is clear that a great transition has occurred in the literacy activities
of American youth. "Results from a national survey suggest that in 1999,
children between ages 2 and 17 were spending approximately 1 hour and
37 minutes per day using the computer and/or playing video games, about
24 minutes more than 1998" (Subrahmanyam et. al., 2000). In addition,
"children and teens frequently use home computers and the Internet for
their schoolwork, and parents generally believe that computers are an
important educational resource" (Subrahmanyam et. al., 2000). Likewise,
"among teens ages 13 to 17, schoolwork has surpassed games as the most
frequent online activity" (Subrahmanyam et. al., 2000). One study noted
that "attention to literacy development in the transition years will not
only assist students educationally, but can help them make sense of the
transition process, serving to encourage confidence in the present, and
understanding of coming life situations" (Cairney et. al., 1998). This
statement possesses a great deal of truth if taken to mean that literacy
educators can help students better understand the digital world around
them as they become more independent by encouraging and refining the digital
communication skills that they need to participate in both social and
educational interactions successfully. Schools, however, that focus on
traditional literacy skills, thus ignoring digital literacies, hurt their
students due to the lack of applicable skills. "Educators of new-century
schools . . . need to examine nonschool literacy practices to find connections
between local literacies and the dominant, academic literacies" (Morrell,
2002). Considering the wide spread use of technology for communication
purposes among children and adolescents, an examination of the benefits
of technology on students are appropriate.
Recent research indicates that time spent using technologies such as
computers can benefit the development of students. "Playing specific computer
games has been found to have immediate positive effects on specific cognitive
skills, and the use of home computers has been linked to mildly positive
effects on academic performance" (Subrahmanyam et. al., 2000). In the
same way, the use of the Internet supports inquiry based literacy development.
One innovation, known as "The Inquiry Page," allows students the venue
to research and create authentic outputs: "users contribute to all of
the various resources on the site, but more importantly they are its designers
- through e-mail, electronic bulletin board discussions, and workshops"
(Bruce, 2002). This inquiry-based foundation also offers students the
possibility to explore beyond the pages of the school's books and beyond
the school's walls. "Instead, they can use these as starting points from
which to extend and refine their explorations" (Owens et. al., 2002).
Another benefit of technological literacy development lies in the truth
that critical literacy develops as students utilize information technologies.
Critical literacy is the "ability to recast our thinking through metacognitive
processes . . . [that] enable us to shift our mental modes of what is
to what can be as we hone the skills necessary to differentiate between
fact and opinion, examining extrinsic and intrinsic assumptions, remaining
focused on the big picture while examining the specifics" (Langford, 2001).
These very skills, so essential when considering the importance of critical
thinking present in both the state and national standards, are encouraged
in the use of technological inquiry because they are the foundational
skills and actions required to conduct technological inquiry. With the
freedom that such wide ranging research allows students, one researcher
aptly noted that corresponding 'literacies of responsibility' must be
tied to Internet research (Leu Jr., 1999). He explains, "As teachers,
we need to assume new responsibilities for our students' safety. In addition,
our students need to assume new responsibilities for the appropriate use
of these powerful technologies" (Leu Jr., 1999). Though Leu notes that
Internet filters and acceptable practice agreements may help students
develop responsibility, it is important to remember that students need
to develop a personal ability to sort through a variety of information
and choose appropriate and relevant source material. This notion is supported
by the national technology learning standards which state that students
should "routinely and efficiently use online information resources to
meet needs for collaboration, research, publications, communications,
and productivity" and "make informed choices among technology systems,
resources, and services" (Profiles of technology literate students, 2002).
> Next
|
View the teacher message board: