Redefining Literacy in the Digital Age

• 01/10/17

So what does current or new literacy look like? What does it involve and how can we bridge some of these growing gaps in processing and understanding information?

New Literacy

I do not pretend to provide exhaustive answers in this short article, but I would suggest that we accept the realities before us and create and develop new ways to validate information and to adequately communicate and debate. We must value ways of thinking over linear text and provide ways to evaluate understanding in terms of its innovation and flexibility – even for conventionally "highly regulated" professions. Additionally, as conventional jobs are diminishing and new jobs are emerging, we cannot and should not continue to evaluate literacy and learning as before. New emerging jobs will require new skills, and education should be pushing forward rather than trying to regain something that existed previously.

For example, it is likely that new jobs will not require task-based skills, but rather critical thinking and problem-solving skills — not to solve problems of the past, but to solve new problems emerging from new uses of technology and new realities. Therefore, new literacy should also include innovation and flexible and adaptable solutions. If we continue to validate literacy and understanding using only standardized evaluation based upon current and past knowledge and practices, we will continue to fall short in terms of preparation and actually in literacy skills. Alec Ross (2016) suggests:

Today's youth who will enter tomorrow's workforce will need to be more nimble and more familiar with the broader workings of the world…. Tomorrow's labor market will be increasingly characterized by competition between humans and robots. In tomorrow's workplace, either the human is telling the robot what to do or the robot is telling the human what to do. (p. 247)

Of course, "today" and "tomorrow" are highly generic terms. The gist, however, is that change is happening quickly and we are all trying to make sense of it. While it is a given that technology has completely changed much of society and it is increasingly changing practices and norms, it is not a given that educational content, processes, assessments, applications etc. are changing anywhere near quickly enough to meet societal changes or, as Ross points out, global markets and employment changes.

Rather than focus on illiteracy only, we must evaluate education itself and its view of the kind of world students will have to address. Issues of global poverty, global communication and markets continue to require our attention as well as socio-economic marginalization of communities here in the U.S. I would suggest, however, that if we can rethink the impact of new technology and future technology, we have the potential to include more people in the dialogue if we realize in time that the dialogue has changed: It is not about illiteracy as much now as it is about regression. I encourage all educators everywhere to become learners again and to be willing to redefine and value the skills we all need for the future.