Web-Based Literacy
Dr. Laurel believes there are several components of web literacy: searching, critical thinking and evaluation, and self-publishing. The ability to search effectively is an important aspect for teenagers as well as adults. Noting that teenagers have the ability to find anything they want, but not everything they need, she argues that critical thinking and evaluation about the web must be taught. Questions arise in this area for Laurel, such as, who is the author? Is the information trustworthy? What is the viewpoint? She teaches that if one cannot find an “about us” page regarding whose website it is, then you must assume it is not reliable. And finally, individuals are able to learn to use expressive tools on the web. Powerpoint, Dreamweaver, Photoshop are all tools that help young adults (as well as older adults) learn to find their voices on the web. Dr. Laurel contends that web skills make for better citizens and that they help others to have and use their own personal power. Dr. Laurel’s April 2000 speech, Tools for Knowing, Judging, and Taking Action in the 21st Century, discusses ethical literacy and how to determine what is true, good and valuable.
Links to Brenda Laurel’s writing on literacy
1. Tools for Knowing, Judging and Taking Action in the 21st Century
2. How to Use What We Know About Teens
3. Making Better Media for Kids
Dr. Bertram (Chip) Bruce discusses web literacy as part of a discussion of the new media. He declares that new media are changing the way we communicate and relate to one another. From Kaufmann’s, The Art of Reading, Dr. Bruce explains possible responses to new media: the transformational response is one of “gee whiz,” the oppositional response is “it’s not for me,” and the interactional response is the “make it work” one. Bruce adds the utilitarian response that is how to use the media. So what is a literacy technology? Word processing programs, printers, etc. are just two examples of literacy technology. Technology and knowledge and technology and literacy are not easy to separate. Sometimes we must see technology in use. Then we use technology to solve a problem (such as using word processing), and finally there is a solution to the problem, yet this solution can then create new problems. He uses the example of problem 1 = technology 1, technology 1= problem 2, problem 2 then = technology 2. The cycle then continues. Dr. Bruce and his students created a timeline of the history of technologies for learning. He wrote an article entitled, Constructing a Once-and-Future History of Learning Technologies, about the investigation of the past and future of learning technologies.
Links to Bertram (Chip) Bruce’s writing on literacy
1. Constructing a Once-and-Future History of Learning Technologies
2. Credibility of the Web: Why We Need Dialectical Reading
3. Literacy Development in Network-Based Classrooms: Innovations & Realizations
Dr. Nicholas Burbules discusses web-based literacy in a different way. He examines the virtual and looks at the virtual classroom. He states that when we evaluate the virtual classroom, we need to evaluate it by asking different questions than what we use to evaluate traditional classrooms. He states that the virtual classroom has both advantages and disadvantages, that there are different ways of teaching and learning, and that framing our thinking in the form of dichotomies can be unfruitful. We should not ask questions like which is the better method of teaching, traditional vs. non-traditional. The fact is they both have advantages and disadvantages. For whom is this style a good one? For which students will we serve better and with which model? He discusses virtuality and states that, like technology, it is an element of all classrooms. We just have stopped thinking about some items as technology such as blackboards, chalk, books, etc. In the same way, virtuality escapes facile, everyday, definitions. It is a space where learning happens. Burbules, like Brenda Laurel, has dealt with one of the most debated topics about the World Wide Web: how users are able to access and determine the credibility of information they find on the web. His article, Paradoxes of the Web: The Ethical Dimensions of Credibility discusses this key topic.
Dr. Burbules delves into specific topics such as how to critically read web page elements such as hyperlinks. He explores this in detail in his article, The Web as a Rhetorical Place. He also examines the notion of getting lost on the web and basic hypertextual design of the web in his article, Aporias, Webs, and Passages: Doubt as an Opportunity to Learn.
Links to Nicholas Burbules’ writing on literacy:
1. Paradoxes of the Web: The Ethical Dimensions of Credibility
2. The Web as a Rhetorical Place
3. Aporias, Webs, and Passages: Doubt as an Opportunity to Learn
