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Much more than the mechanics of comprehension in reading and
writing, literacy is about the making and communicating of meaning.
With a changing world compelling us to rethink what we mean by literacy,
our views on how to define it are being forced to change.
The types of skills being demanded upon us now are increasing exponentially.
From knowledge of computer literacy to an adaptable understanding
of communications technology, we are required to employ multiple
literacy analysis and understanding on a daily basis as we navigate
from print to visual, virtual (the internet, interactive advertising
techniques) and aural (radio, television) mediums interchangeably.
The literacy needs of our century are diverse, ever changing and
on a learning curve that seems to never peak. It used to be possible
that experts could expect to have a working knowledge on everything
they needed to know in their area. The accelerated advancement of
science and technology - constantly challenging our assumptions
and adding more information – now means this is no longer
possible.
Ask an IT specialist or a computer programmer: to be literate in
his or her field, one must always strive to keep up to the technology.
A few months 'out of the game,' widens the knowledge gap and may
require more schooling or intensive skill upgrading to be considered
for hire again.
While only a certain percentage of the population may choose to
be professionals in the IT and technological industries, we are
increasingly becoming effected by this scenario in our own lives.
Simply on an every day level, for example, we are all required to
use more and more sophisticated levels of literacy just to filter
information. An important literacy skill in the information age
is the ability to isolate what is useful or meaningful, not just
in a narrow area of technical expertise, but across many different
areas of knowledge in order to understand their interdependence.
The workplace is reacting to these changes by requiring employees
to consistently enhance old skills and develop new ones as experts
in new digital forms of literacy. This is different from the industrial
and print-based economic eras, where people learned functional uses
of literacy that directly applied to workplace positions and stable
workplace environments. The business world is in flux to the changing
paradigm of a workforce whose career paths are more representative
of the Chaos Theory than the Newtonian view of the world as a machine
of moving parts which are managed by God. This shifting paradigm
involves more short-term but highly focused contract work, tele-commuting,
virtual global communication through email, web and tele-conferencing
and the prediction of four to six different career paths in one’s
lifetime.
To survive in this environment, literate thinking is extending
to become:
- The ability to decode information in a variety of forms -
written, statistical, graphic, kinaesthetic/simulation and new media
visual forms.
- The critical evaluation of information to explore the interconnectedness of different fields of knowledge.
- The use of computer-based services to analyse, synthesise, write, present, and communicate information.
- The use of information technologies to create local and global communities in the pursuit of knowledge and information.
As the way we communicate, and the tools we use to do it with, evolve,
our relationship to environment shifts. One thing to think about is that "the
map is not the territory." This popular statement by the “father” of
general semantics, Alford Korzybski, means that we should not confuse
the map of reality that we carry around in our heads with reality itself.
Let’s face it. Increased communications technology means an increase
in the number of ideas, perceptions and people who we come into contact
with. We are inundated with information. Becoming adept at navigating
it is an essential skill for our time. “New Literacy” skills
require us to be life-long learners, able to read, synthesize, translate
and communicate information using a range of media.
Editor’s note: This article is the
first in an exploratory series of what it means to be literate in a
changing, industrialised society and how the education system is evolving
to teach these skills.
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