Week 14

The 21st Century Literacy

The article, Toward a Theory of New Literacies Emerging from the Internet and Other Information and Communication Technologies, points out that in today’s business world we are getting away from the industrial-aged organization model and becoming more of a vertical, top-down model. Decisions were made at the higher level and then communicated down to the lower leveled workers.  Today, teams in the lower levels are created to make important decisions related to their functioning. “As collaborative teams seek more effective ways of working, they are expected to identify problems important to their unit and seek appropriate solutions.” (Leu et. al., 2004).

So, what does this mean in the education world?  As teachers, it is vital for us to make sure that our students are walking out of our doors and buildings with the skills that are needed and used in the 21sr century.   “We need to provide students with greater preparation in identifying important problems and then solving them, often in collaborative situations.”  In today’s society, and in today’s classroom, workers and students “must quickly identify important problems, locate useful information related to the problems they identify, critically evaluate the information they find, synthesize this information to solve the problems, and then quickly communicate the solutions to others so that everyone within an organization is informed.” (Leu et. al., 2004). In order to successfully make our students active participants in the 21^st century, we need to introduce, practice, and utilize new literacies with them in the classroom so that they can become active in the workplace teams that are bettering our economy, society, and world. 

“In just one year (August 2000 to September 2001), use of the Internet at work among all employed adults 25 years of age and older increased by nearly 60%, from 26.1% of the workforce to 41.7%” and now, being 2011 this number much be staggering.  It is essential that in the classroom, we allow our students to have access to new literacies, work in collaboration with their peers and work quickly and efficiently to solve problems and research material. 

“Moreover, this story will be repeated again and again as new generations of students encounter yet unimagined ICTs as they move through school and develop currently unenvisioned new literacies.”  (Leu et.al., 2004).  It is up to us, as educators, to make sure that we keep up with the new literacies of the world and adjust the ways that we teach which encourage the new literacies of the age.