Revelations in New Literacies

Over the span of the last two months I have been looking into the new literacy skills that students need to be taught in conjunction with the regularly scheduled barrage of information deemed important by persons more influential than myself. My gut reaction, when looking at the compiled list of "New Literacies" by Ian Jukes and Bruce Macdonald (2007) was that the sheer number of new technological information that students needed to be taught was simply too much for anyone to tackle at once. Once, though I took the time to scan through the lengthy list, I found that many of the literacies are easily taught, and the students already know. I also realized that for students to effectively use the 21st century literacy skills, they have to be consistently taught them, and they need to become a coinciding part of school house curricula.

Now knowing that students need to be continuously taught the new literacies, I will plan future coursework with these skills in mind. I have already began taking my classes to the computer labs with more confidence in my own teaching of the skills. and have already taken students through a crash course in basic internet searching skills for them to be able to research for a social studies essay. I'll continue to look back at the new literacies and add in new components within the classroom, so that students will begin leaving my classroom with a larger assortment of new literacy skills in their educational arsenals.

One place I would like to continue to do to hone my own new literacy skills is in the realm of copyright law and intellectual property laws in order to teach students how to more ethically (and legally!) be able to use the information they find on the internet. I have already contacted the school media specialists to discuss the matter, and have also spoken with a fellow teacher who specifically teaches this subject at a local high school. I have, and will continue to, look for a community school class that I can take to help further my understanding of intellectual property rights and copyright laws to further gain insight that can be passed onto students.

Jukes, I. (2007). 21st century fluency skills: Attributes of a 21st century learner. Retrieved from http://www.committedsardine.com/handouts/twea.pdf