Digital literacy in theory, policy and practice: Old concerns, new opportunities

The increasing ubiquity and use of digital technologies across social and cultural life is a key challenge for educators engaged in helping students develop a range of literacies useful for school and beyond. Many young people's experience of communication and participation is now shaped by almost constant engagements with digital technologies and media, as well as with global digital cultures. This increasing access and use has given many young people the opportunity to engage deeply with global media cultures via popular music, television and film franchises, the worldwide computer games industry, or countless other subcultures that connect fans and interested others from around the world via the internet. 'Digital literacy' is often the term associated with the ability to traverse these, and other, online and offline worlds; the notion has long been synonymous with the idea that digital technologies now mediate perhaps a majority of our social interactions. These forms of engagement with the world have important implications for educators and school systems which have historically recognised only a very narrow set of legitimate literacies.

Using children's picture books and process drama to develop students' critical literacy responses

This workshop introduces a range of process drama activities to develop students' critical literacy responses. Whilst children's picture books and process drama strategies have not traditionally been seen as sophisticated resources and strategies for developing students' critical literacy responses, this workshop shows teaching strategies that can be used in language instruction in primary classrooms with diverse student groups. The teaching activities include ‘attribute lists’, ‘sculptures’ and ‘freeze frames’.

Secret Squirrel Stuff in the Australian Curriculum English: The genesis of the ‘new’ grammar

In much the same way that a squirrel stores a range of food in a range of places, the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority’s (ACARA) Australian Curriculum: English (ACARA, 2015) stores references to grammar in a range of places. This paper explores some seemingly ‘hidden’ grammars within the AC:E to (re)discover their genesis and how they unfold across Foundation to Year 6. The first ‘Secret Squirrel’ moment centres on the introduction of a new grammar which weaves traditional Latin-based and Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) theory. The second ‘Secret Squirrel’ moment centres on the use of one sub-system of SFL Theory, the System of Appraisal, and its potential to provide an analytical lens for ‘reading’ the interpersonal meaning within narratives. The remainder of the paper draws on Goodson’s (1990) notion of curriculum as a social construction, paying attention to the levels of processes and (potential) practice. This part of the paper focuses on the System of Appraisal as it is introduced in the AC:E and then translates the Content Descriptions to an example analysis. One stimulus text, Melanie Watt’s (2012) children’s picture book ‘Scaredy Squirrel at the Beach’, is introduced then analysed using the System of Appraisal as an analytical lens for identifying how language choices ‘go to work’ (Macken-Horarik, 2003, p. 285) on readers, that is how Watt’s language choices are crafted so a ‘compliant’ child reader (Martin & White, 2005, p. 62) has the opportunity to ‘feel with’ and thus ‘adjudicate’ the behaviour of characters in particular ways (Macken-Horarik, 2003, p. 285).

Literacy, security, governmentality: Defining spaces, managing populations – How has education become part of whole of government security strategy?

In this paper I conduct a Foucauldian discourse analysis of a political speech given by Brendon Nelson in 2006 when the Australian Minister for Defence in the Howard Coalition Government. The speech connects conceptualisations of terror, globalization, education and literacy as part of a whole of government security strategy. The analysis examines this speech as an example of a liberal way of governing the conduct of diverse and unpredictable populations. My analysis suggests that the apparatus of government has been strategically used in order to biopolitically contain the rise of complex social forces and protect a set of homogenous cultural values. The purposes of education and uses of literacy are seen as instruments for the inscription of a coded set of values understood to be synonymous with civil society.

Crossing literacy and informed learning boundaries with Manga

This research investigated high school students’ experiences of informed learning in a literacy development workshop. It was conducted in the library of an Australian high school with a low socio-economic population. Building upon students’ fascination with Manga fiction and artwork, the workshop was part of a larger university-community engagement project Crossing Boundaries with Reading which aimed to address widespread literacy challenges at the school. The paper first provides a brief literature review that introduces the concept of informed learning, or the experience of using information to learn. In practice, informed learning fosters simultaneous learning about using information and learning about a topic. Thus, information is a transformative force that extends beyond functional information literacy skills. Then, the paper outlines the phenomenographic methodology used in this study, the workshop context and the research participants. The findings reveal three different ways that students experienced the workshop: as an art lesson; as a life lesson; and as an informed learning lesson. The discussion highlights the power of informed learning as a holistic approach to information literacy education. The study’s findings are significant as students from low socio-economic backgrounds are often at risk of experiencing disadvantage throughout their lives if they do not develop a range of literacies including the ability to use information effectively. Responding to this problem, the paper provides an empirically-based example of informed learning to support further research and develop professional practice. While the research context is limited to one high school library, the findings are of potential value for teacher-librarians, educators and information professionals elsewhere.

I-Spi: innovative shared practical ideas: a support guide for literacy and numeracy in the early years of schooling, for home tutor/supervisors in distance education

Innovative Shared Practical Ideas (I-Spi) is a guide to help you and your children learn together. It is designed to affirm, support and strengthen your role as home tutor/supervisors in your daily learning sessions with your children. In this guide particular emphasis is given to the value of talk, formal and informal early literacy and numeracy practices (including ideas from distance school lessons, from home tutor/supervisors, research, and beyond), assessment of these practices together with informal assessment ideas for gauging your children’s literacy and numeracy progress, and stepping in and building on strategies

EDUCATING THE PUBLIC THROUGH NEWS MEDIA: CASE STUDIES OF NEWS LITERACY IN THE NEW MEDIA LANDSCAPE

Two decades of unprecedented changes in the media landscape have increased the complexity of informing the public through news media. With significant changes to the way the news industry does business and the way news consumers access this information, a new set of skills is being proposed as essential for today’s news consumer. News literacy is the use of critical thinking skills to assess the reliability and source of the information that people consume on a daily basis, as well as fostering self-awareness of personal news consumption habits and how it can create audience bias. The purpose of this study was to examine how adults experience the news in their everyday lives and to describe the nature of the news literacy skills people employ in their daily news consumption. This study purposefully selected four adults who have completed high school, and who regularly consume news information across a number of platforms, both traditional and digital. Two of the participants, one man and one woman, were over 50 years old. One other male participant was in his 30’s and the final participant, a young woman, was in her 20’s. They all utilized both traditional and digital media on a regular basis and all had differing skill levels when using social media for information. Their news experiences were documented by in-depth interviews and the completion of seven daily news logs. In their daily logs the participants differentiated news information from other information available on-line but the interviews revealed a contradiction between their intentions and their news consumption practices. All four participants had trouble distinguishing between news and opinion pieces in the news information realm. In addition all but one seemed unaware of their personal bias and any possible effect it was having on their news consumption. Further research should explore the benefits of an adult-centered news literacy curriculum on news consumers similar to the participants, and should examine the development of audience bias and its relationship to the daily exposure people have to the torrent of information that is available to them on a daily basis.

Making sense of an everyday science text : linguistic, visual and spatial design

In this article, we take a close look at the literacy demands of one task from the ‘Marvellous Micro-organisms Stage 3 Life and Living’ Primary Connections unit (Australian Academy of Science, 2005). One lesson from the unit, ‘Exploring Bread’, (pp 4-8) asks students to ‘use bread labels to locate ingredient information and synthesise understanding of bread ingredients’. We draw upon a framework offered by the New London Group (2000), that of linguistic, visual and spatial design, to consider in more detail three bread wrappers and from there the complex literacies that students need to interrelate to undertake the required task. Our findings are that although bread wrappers are an example of an everyday science text, their linguistic, visual and spatial designs and their interrelationship are not trivial. We conclude by reinforcing the need for teachers of science to also consider how the complex design elements of everyday science texts and their interrelated literacies are made visible through instructional practice.

A multiliteracies project in the middle school : Parents as coteachers

This paper examines the experiences of one middle years’ English and Studies of Society and Environment (SoSE) teacher who adopted a multiliteracies project-based orientation to a unit on War and Refugees. It details the multiliteracies teaching and learning cycle, which is based on four non-hierarchical, pedagogical orientations: situated practice, overt instruction, critical framing and transformed practice (New London Group, 2000; Kalantzis & Cope, 2005a). Following the work of Kalantzis and Cope (2005a), it draws out the knowledge processes exacted in each of these four phases: experiencing the known and the new; conceptualising by naming and theorising; analysing functionally and critically; and, applying appropriately and creatively. Two parents were invited to enter the study as coteachers with the teacher and researcher. Using Bourdieu’s (1992) construct of capital, the findings report on how the multiliteracies approach enabled them to engage in school-based literacy practices differently than they had done previously in classrooms. An unexpected finding concerns the teacher’s altered view about how his role and status were perceived by the parents.

Making visible the coding process : Using qualitative data software in a post-structural study

Qualitative research methods require transparency to ensure the ‘trustworthiness’ of the data analysis. The intricate processes of organizing, coding and analyzing the data are often rendered invisible in the presentation of the research findings, which requires a ‘leap of faith’ for the reader. Computer assisted data analysis software can be used to make the research process more transparent, without sacrificing rich, interpretive analysis by the researcher. This article describes in detail how one software package was used in a poststructural study to link and code multiple forms of data to four research questions for fine-grained analysis. This description will be useful for researchers seeking to use qualitative data analysis software as an analytic tool.

Negotiating multiple identities between school and the outside world : A critical discourse analysis

This article examines interview talk of three students in an Australian high school to show how they negotiate their young adult identities between school and the outside world. It draws on Bakhtin’s concepts of dialogism and heteroglossia to argue that identities are linguistically and corporeally constituted. A critical discourse analysis of segments of transcribed interviews and student-related public documents finds a mismatch between a social justice curriculum at school and its transfer into students’ accounts of outside school lived realities. The article concludes that a productive social justice pedagogy must use its key principles of (con)textual interrogation to engage students in reflexive practice about their positioning within and against discourses of social justice in their student and civic lives. An impending national curriculum must decide whether or not it negotiates the discursive divide any better.

Floating on a sea of talk: Reading comprehension through speaking and listening

Talk is the foundation for thought and understanding, and the key to literacy learning. Research demonstrates that powerful meta-cognitive strategies can be taught to help students self-monitor their comprehension when reading print and digital texts. This paper provides a repertoire of motivating speaking and listening tips to develop the meta-cognitive thinking of students in the elementary years.

On this Writing : An Autotheoretic Account

An invited chapter that provides an autobiographical account of 'critical incidents' in becoming an academic writer.

Case study of collaborative learning in two contexts : what do English language learners gain?

This chapter describes the use of collaborative learning as an approach to enhance English language learning by students from non-English speaking backgrounds. Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) principles were applied to two case studies, one comprising of undergraduate English as Foreign Language Learners in Turkey and the other involved English as Second Language learners in Australia. Social constructivism inspired communicative language teaching using collaborative learning activities such as team work, interactive peer-based learning, and iterative stages of learning matrix were incorporated to enhance students' learning outcomes. Data collected after the CLT intervention was made up of field notes, reflective logs and focus group interviews which revealed complementarities, as well as subtle differences between the two cases. The findings were summarized as learning dispositions; speaking fluency and confidence; learning diagnostics and completion deficiencies; task engagement, flow theory and higher order thinking skills; in addition to self efficacy and development of student identity. CLT has the potential to provide a more inclusive and dynamic education for diverse learners through vital outcomes and benefits which resonate with the real world.