This is the capstone course for the Information Technology Studies minor. The seminar explores what it means to be information literate in today's world. Students examine a number of information literacies, from print to multimedia, from stand-alone to networked, and discuss a variety of themes that have been affected by new communication and information technologies, such as community, the political sphere, and education.
We don't notice the technologies of literacy because we treat our literacy technologies as natural and inevitable: How else could one write except with a pen and paper, or a typewriter? But when we look at literacy cross-culturally, or historically, it becomes difficult to ignore the means and the media by which people communicate. That we often conceive literacy without mentioning its technologies tells us mostly that these technologies are deeply embedded in our daily practices. --Bruce, 1998, "New Literacies"
What then are we doing when we teach children to read and write? We have taken this for granted for so long that it seems strange to question it. --Martin Hoyles, The politics of literacy, p. 22.
As we enter the twenty-first century, we see literacy practices evolving as well as becoming more central in our lives. The nature of texts is changing, as they are re-presented through online communities, web sites, video, hypermedia, virtual reality, and other new technologies. These changes call on us to re-visit enduring questions about readers, writers, and texts, whether these texts be oral, traditional books, or new media. We also need to consider the impact on young people: how they make meaning as they both respond to and create texts; how cultural meanings are re-created within each new generation.
The advent of video, the web, online communities, virtual reality, and other new technologies has given rise to the concept of new literacies such as computer literacy, visual literacy, and information literacy. This course explores these literacies and their relation to traditional concepts, with a focus on literacy as situated practice. Major themes include emerging media, historical perspectives, personal meaning, ethical and policy issues, learning opportunities, and community.
In the course, students ...