Literacy in
the Web 2.0 World
(New Literacy)
Daniel Churchill
This work is licensed under Creative Commons
Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 Hong Kong
License
Background image source: Flickr by Noah Sussman

Welcome!
Dr. Daniel Churchill
Room 116, Runme Shaw Building
The University of Hong Kong
Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong
Email: dchurch@hku.hk
Web: http://www.learnactivity.com
Tel: +852 28591141

20 Year Ego
► No Internet
► No Windows
► No many computers around
► No MP player
► No Digital Cameras
► No PNP, no Nintendo
► No Blogs, Youtube, Facebook
► No many other artifacts that are part students’ life
today
Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/futurestreet/

Central Thesis
• Emerging technologies create new
possibilities, practices and demands
• These challenge traditional conception of ‘a
literate person’ while making outdated what is
traditionally taught in schools
• ‘Literacy’ as in the ‘new literacy’ is a metaphor
for essential abilities required today to shape
and communicate meanings, develop oneself,
and participate in a society.

Other Emerging Literacies?
• Health Literacy
• Economic Literacy
• Multicultural Literacy
• Environmental Literacy
• Human Conditions Literacy

Levels of New Literacy

What is Web 2.0?
Web2.0 as a metaphor,
a paradigm shift,
a new popular culture
(cyberculture)
Blog Wiki Podcast RSS Feeds Video Sharing
Social Bookmarking Social Networking Workspaces
Portfolios Mobile W2 Google Docs Flickr Youtube
Twitter Ning Facebook MySpace Zoho Blogger Technorati
Bloglines Diigo YakPak Teacher Tube Delicious Hi5 Picasa
Wikipedia Google Earth Skype Ebay Amazon Odeo …

Web 2.0
• User control of information
• Web as a point of presence
• Web as a social environments
• Web as a platform
• New forms of expressions
• Read more at
http://docs.google.com/View?id=dcvb5vzv_571dtmscxhp

Important Areas
• Managing Information – harvesting, searching,
digging, leveraging collective intelligence,
community plumbing, bookmarking, tagging,
subscribing
• Consuming information – visual, multimodal,
interactive, using tools
• Designing information – blogging, digital
storytelling, copyright awareness,
representing, authoring, mashing
• Social Networking Literacy

Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/will-lion/

Growth of Information
• Google trillionth addresses
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/23/technology/internet/23search.html?_r=2
• Millions of:
– Your tube videos
– Blog posts
– Wikipedia articles
– Flickr Images,
– Bookmarks, Slides, Voicethreads
– Other stuff (podcasts, mindmaps, cartoons, items for sale)
• Over 1b Internet users (300m in China, 170m mobile
internet users)
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/15/world/asia/15beijing.html?_r=3&ref=technology

Information Seeking Strategies
– Google classroom posters:
http://www.google.com/educators/posters.html
– Google lesson plans:
http://www.google.com/educators/activities.html
– Other Google Searches: Blog Search, Books and
Scholar
–

http://risal.cite.hku.hk

Information Seeking Strategies
• And there is more, e.g.,
• Visual Search http://www.eyeplorer.com/
• Wiki search engine: http://www.qwika.com/
• Search for mind maps: http://www.mindmapsearch.org/
• Search with other devices

Managing Information
Profiling and subscribing for information…
Product
Podcasts
Information
News
Aggregator
Music
Something
Video
Else

Multimodal Information
• Traditional literacy focuses on R-W-S-L
(Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening)
• New literacy expands this to include Viewing
and Representing through ‘multimodal text’

Multimodal Text
Source http://www.albertocairo.com/jomc/projects/lindsay1.html

META INFORMATION Source: http://newsmap.jp/

Pop-up Books
http://www.robertsabuda.com/

WebQuests and ActiveLessons
• http://projects.edtech.sandi.net/grant/oceanpollu

Minard’s Map

Minard’ Map – Interactivity and
Visualization

Interactivity
• Contemporary technology brings visualization
to much higher level by enabling interactivity
• In addition, through technology it is possible
to create dynamic and animated displays and
to add other modalities such as audio.
• Also, meta-information extends meanings

Growth of Digital Information

Creating Digital Content
• Blogs (e.g., Blogger)
• Wikies (e.g., Wikispaces)
• Web-as-a-platform applications (e.g.,
GoogleDocs)
• Podcasting (e.g., Gcast)
• Digital Storytelling (e.g., Voicethread)
• Mashing -- Mixing and re-mixing existing
resources and media to create new resources

Remixing
• Why is the Rum Gone? – Remix
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JImcvtJzIK8&feature=related
• The Dark Night (Batman)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8sYBqhOEdRQ&feature=related

Copyright in Digital Age
• Traditional copyright?
• Why is copyright important in the digital age?
• Creative Commons

Social Networking Literacy

Source: Gauravonomics from Flickr.
Data from Wave 3 of the Power of the People Social Media Tracker by Universal McCann

Mobile Phones
Source: https://digitalcommons.georgetown.edu/blogs/isdyahoofellow/category/bric/page/2/

Bullying
• Name-calling, spreading rumors, excluding
people and turning someone’s friends against
them, abusive messages, racist comments,
gender and sexual orientation comments
(e.g., calling someone a homosexual), etc…
• Last year 69% of young people said they'd
been bullied… but
• In a survey 83% of teachers said they hadn't
seen bullying in the last 12 months Source:
National Bullying Survey 2006

Example
• Thirteen-year-old suffered from cyber bullying for six months.
She said:
\"They were making me feel alone, like I had nobody, making
me feel worthless. They dedicated whole web pages about
how much they hated me and a couple of hate mail sites… I
even thought about taking my own life because I thought I
had nothing to live for.”
Source BBC News:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/hi/health/newsid_7921000/7921

Let’s check these…
• You newer know who you are chatting to:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZHq4CQekTY
• Also check Megan Meier Story
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cw2FG-Fwpek&feature=related

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4961768.stm

Social Networking Literacy
• Ability to interact with other is cyberspace in
specific ways that are ethical, beneficial to
other and beneficial to self.
• Developing strategic alliances and engaging in
uses of collaborative tools
• Awareness of dangerous as well as
responsibilities, knowledge of socially
acceptable behavior in cyberspace
• Understanding privacy issues

Modified image from : http://www.cameraposition.com/archives/77

21st century learning

Focus Questions?
• What are roles of
teacher librarians in
promoting
integration of new
literacies in the
curriculum?
Source: http://bivdu.blogspot.com/2009/03/english-is-
based-on-26-characters.html