Adapting to Literacy in the 21st Century

Growing up I would watch my parents with almost a sense of admiration as they paid bills, sent e-mails for work, and got on the phone for conference calls. I would always think of how difficult these concepts must be to grasp and I wondered if I would ever be able to have responsibilities similar to those. I never expected to be looked at in the same way by them only a few years later-manipulating technology in the form of social media, educational resources, and countless other purposes.

Over time, as technology shifted, I became more knowledgeable or literate in technology. Despite literacy’s dictionary definition of having the capability to read and write, it’s truly one of the most diverse words in the English language. Literacy to me can be defined as having a full understanding of some life concept. One can be literate financially, technologically, civically, or in countless other aspects of life. “When it comes to the overarching question of what does it mean to be literate in the 21st century,” I believe in a very simple definition. Only one quality is truly needed to be literate in our current time period and that’s the openness to change and the capability to adapt as time goes on and technology progresses. While some may argue that 21st century literacy can have some concrete definition or a set of requirements to be called literate, it’s impossible to know these listed qualities won’t be obsolete in just a matter of years much like the changes that occurred to my parents as I grew older.

Although technology has driven an enormous shift in our society, especially in the workplace, our education system has done little to match this. As employers are looking for new skills such as communication, collaboration, and problem solving, our school system seems to reinforce the same skills from hundreds of years ago like regurgitation and memorization. Ken Robinson discusses this asymmetry between modern society and modern education in depth in the video below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U

When educating, it seems that we too often miss the mark of giving kids quality life skills that they will learn and utilize. I believe this shortcoming primarily stems from us as educators. I think we become so insecure about our own modern literacy that we reject all forms of technology in the classroom thinking only the methods we are familiar with are functional in the classroom. This couldn’t be farther from the truth and we fail students when we see technology as something that is taking over our work rather than a tool that can help us facilitate learning. If we don’t adapt to meet the needs of our students, we fall short of being literate in the 21st century. Some applications of technology and the skills that they enhance in students are depicted in the following link.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SK8InwlWkYg

Although technology in the classroom does move both teachers and students closer to the goal of literacy in their subject and literacy in the 21st century, it’s not the only effective method. Too much of any type of instruction isn’t effective for students. For optimal results, students should interact with a variety of texts when learning a concept. This could be traditional print texts, visual texts, or the combination of both forms in a multimodal text. Each of these forms of text has its own benefits described by Alvemran and Wilson (2011) “photographs may afford the visualization of spatial relationships more fully than written or spoken words because photographs simultaneously display multiple objects in a given space.” One of the most ignored forms of text is going out and having real life experiences with the concepts that you’re engaging with in class. This is also discussed in Alverman and Wilson’s 2011 article when they discuss a middle school earth science teacher using their own campus grounds to learn about erosion when there was year of heavy rainfall that took place. Giving students examples of material that involves things that they relate to can greatly enhance learning. Math could be taught through sports statistics if a student was interested in a certain team or player while science can use local examples of geographic landmarks students are familiar with. It has been proven that in reading students are able to retain and learn information the most effectively when they are actively involved, and have background knowledge in a given subject (Buehl, 1995).

Literacy is a unique word due to the fact that its definition varies not only over the course of time, but over different aspects of life. Because of its shifting nature, there can be no concrete definition for literacy in the 21st century other than a willingness to constantly be able to adapt and recognize when new methods or technologies arise that allow you to accomplish goals easier than previous techniques. As educators, we have to reach students and prepare them for a society that is constantly remodeling itself by keeping their minds open to different texts, and not letting fear prevent of us from modernizing our classroom. By changing how literacy is viewed in the 21st century, we can make small steps and alterations in the way we think that can change the way we teach students and prepare them for the rest of their lives.

Works Cited

Alvermann, Donna E. and Wilson, Amy Alexandra(2011) ‘Comprehension Strategy Instruction for Multimodal Texts in Science’, Theory Into Practice, 50: 2, 116–124

Buehl, D. (2017). An Interactive View of Reading and Learning. In Classroom Strategies for Interactive Learning (pp. 8–13). Stenhouse.

Pietila, N. (2017, March 12). The Top 10 Literacies in Education Today. Retrieved from https://www.skyward.com/discover/blog/skyward-blogs/skyward-executive-blog/march-2017/the-top-10-literacies-in-education-today

Robinson, K. RSA Animate: Changing Education Paradigms. (2010, October 14). Retrieved September 7, 2018. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U

S. (Director). (2015, June 17). Collaborative Classroom Technology: Naturally SMART [Video file]. Retrieved September 22, 2018, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SK8InwlWkYg