Toward Networked Literacies

Toward Networked Literacies Literacy GAINS Summer Camp August 2010 Parry Sound Ontario

Dr. Alec Couros

me

my blog, my hub

microblogging

photosharing

videosharing

social networking services

content sharing

open teaching

- our point of perspective as a learner, where our knowledge & experience is situated (to reveal what I am blind to or able to see).

- our point of intersection through multiple contexts, world views, personal & professional relationships.

- our point of privilege and access to knowledge & experience.

- our point of power when forming, managing, and maintaining relationships.

- our point of personalization as learning & memory are tied to emotion (my attempt to build my rapport and connection with you).

why begin at “me”?

(short version)

“People donʼt buy what you do, they buy why you do it.”

(Simon Sinek)

shift

“Tell me ... what it is I am educating and what sort of world we live in, and I will tell you what I

am aiming at.”(Garforth, 1962)

Knowledge

• what is k?

• how is k acquired?

• how do we know what we know?

• why do we know what we know?

• what do humans know?

• who controls k?

• how is k controlled?

Questions

Free/Open Content“describes any kind of creative work in a format that explicitly allows copying and

modifying of its information by anyone, not exclusively by a closed organization, firm, or

individual.” (Wikipedia)

Media

connected reality

Stats as of March 17/10 via Mashable

Stats as of Jan 22/10 via Royal Pingdom

media stats (2009)

• 90 trillion emails sent annually from 1.4 billion email users

• 234 million websites

• 1.73 billion Internet users

• 126 millions blogs

• 350 million Facebook users

• 4 billion images on Flickr

• 1 billion Youtube videos served daily.

Networks

“Understanding how networks work is one of the most important

literacies of the 21st century.”(Rheingold, 2010)

• redefine communities, friends, citizenship, identity, presence, privacy, publics, geography.

• enable learning, communication, sharing, collaboration, community.

• networks form around shared interests & objects.

social networks

crowd sourcing content

real time collaboration

issues

Inappropriate Content

http://www.dogpile.com/info.dogpl/searchspy

“Some of the comments on Youtube make you weep for the future of humanity, just for the spelling alone, never mind the obscenity and naked hatred.”

(Lev Grossman)@leverus

Verifiability

Identity

“You are not Facebookʼs customer. you are the product

that they sell to real customers - advertisers. Forget this at your

peril.”(Greenberg, 2010, via tweet)

Citizenship

Kyle Doyle is not going to work today, f*** it, I’m still

trashed. SICKIE WOO

Cisco just offered me a job! Now I have to weigh the

utility of a fatty paycheck against the daily commute to San Jose

and hating the work

strategies/practice

“...the set of abilities and skills where aural, visual, & digital overlap. These include the ability to understand the

power of images & sounds, to recognize & use that power, to manipulate &

transform them pervasively, & to easily adapt to new forms.”

(New Media Consortium, 2005, on ʻnew literaciesʼ)

- new media are texts

- information is abundant

- surge of multimodal/multimedia expression

- authorship increasingly complex

- social contexts collapsing

- potential audience expanding

- social connections important

- technology tends to be deterministic

- digital reputation management vital to citizenry

- wayfinding, sensemaking, curation, participation, production vital to literacy

assumptions(short version)

pay attention to ...

•Properties: persistence, replicability, searchability, scalability, (de)locatability.

•Dynamics: invisible audiences, collapsed contexts, blurring of public & private spaces @zephoria

danah boyd

coding competence(the ability to decode texts)

(Adapted from Four Resources Model, Freebody & Luke, 1990)

semantic competence(the ability to make meaning)

(Adapted from Four Resources Model, Freebody & Luke, 1990)

pragmatic competence(functional literacy)

(Adapted from Four Resources Model, Freebody & Luke, 1990)

Professional Identities

http://mediagirl.org/node/1535

critical competence(ability to select, analyze & participate in texts)

(Adapted from Four Resources Model, Freebody & Luke, 1990)

“Education ... has produced a vast population able to read but

unable to distinguish what is worth reading, an easy prey to

sensations and cheap appeals.”(Trevelyan, 1942)

human literacies

“Literacies nourish each other. One literacy helps another to grow. Literacies contain each other and require each other.”

(Sheridan, 2000)

• As we “move toward an environment of instant & infinite information ... we need to move from bring simple knowledgeable to knowledge-able.”

• Youtube & other social media mitigate “connection without constraint”. In many cases this leaves to “tremendously deep communities”.

@mwesch

Michael Wesch

“Heroes for our Mediated Culture”

“... the practice of freedom, the means by which men & women deal critically and creatively with

reality and discover how to participate in the transformation

of their world”(Freire, 1970)

web: couros.catwitter: courosagoogle: couros

couros@gmail.com