The new literacy of the 21st Century extends beyond reading, writing, and cogent arguments on paper, it has developed or evolved into a "language of screens"( Barish 2002). Now I understand that literacy means community involvement. To us Baby Boomers, community involvement means something entirely different. Community to us is a physical area people where people live, work, play and learn. When we refer to community involvement, we think of those people in the community involved (gathered for a common purpose) or gathered to work on a common project or purpose.
Since, this new literacy has skills involving technical collaboration, does that place most of the older generation into the illiterate classification? And if there is not a requirement to contribute, then what skills are taught without conflict? Most will agree we humans grow, mature, better understand, when we are forced to work through a crisis or conflict. Even if the conflict is a mere debate or argument. Where is the sense of value you get if nobody contributes to what you write?
Henry (2008), describes the usage of these new skills as play by play, problem solving by experimenting. He refers to using these skills through trial and error play in the virtual world not the real world. I see where it provides a safe environment but where's the accountability? consequences for our actions? Lessons of Hard Knock?
Goals or purpose to playing games in the 21st century to me are not justified. Sure, if you want to accept a social environment of utopia as reality. Now, gaming and simulations can become useful for the purpose of training and practice, but as there becomes more and more ease and access to information, remixing of media, reading others comments without being required to comment, or tapping in on others creativity or ideas. This type of openness without boundaries creates not only copyright violations, but stolen ideas, inconsideration for others, a lack of ethics, plagiarism, and the loss of an individual to find their own creativity from their own work.
I don't agree with nor do I understand how they say that the 21st century multitasking is different from multitasking in earlier years. This is hard for me to accept as a true statement. I feel it may be used as an excuse to explain the youth of today.
If Distributed Cognition theory says that, "other people's environments and situations effect our intelligence." I am not convinced that this theory can be applied 100% to the environments created through web 2.0 tools. However, I feel Collective Intelligence, as Levy (1999), "stared or group intelligence that emerges from the collaboration and competition of many individuals", can be an applicable statement regarding the Web2.0 tools and the learning environment.
I highly agree with the fact that critical thinking skills need to be taught, and if Transmedia information is the way to accomplish the training of these skills for the 21st century I encourage that as well. The Arts hold a special interest to me, because I know that it increases our understanding of the world. I don't foresee the arts totally converting towards the 21 century tools and becoming immersed in the new definition of literacy, but I have seen the virtual world embrace art and attempting to create, display, and promote works of art to it's truest form.
My final area I would like to comment on is in the area and skills of public speaking, presentations, storytelling, all with Web 2.0 tools and how effective these means can become in education. It was appropriate to focus on the literacy term as to become knowledgeable about the usage of digital technologies rather than focusing on the individual who is or is not literate. Each one of the above areas has enabled educators to engage their students effectively with the use if web 2.0 tools. Thus, I can agree with the term Digital Literacy as a whole entity of its own.
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