February 9, 2012
TECHNOS QUARTERLY Summer 2001 Vol. 10 No. 2
Colloquium:
Future Courses: Literacy in the Digital Age
by Mary-Claire Tarlow and Katherine L. Spangler
Historically,
literacy has made the greatest impact on the way people think. As the links
between other times and places solidified on the printed page, people's thinking
moved from what Marshall McLuhan termed “circular” to “linear.”
Information was probably first stored in the mind only, and passed on and
around by telling, singing, or dancing. Later, visual representations of information
evolved in forms such as pictographs, maps, and totem poles, allowing information
to be stored and interpreted through temporal and geographic distance. In
our last millennium, in becoming literate, we have developed technology that
has allowed us to store the cumulative knowledge of the species in books and
other print forms. As readers and writers, we think, speak, and write linearly.
We have access, theoretically, to all knowledge through our literacy.
While our thinking through literacy has developed, we find that as human beings we naturally think through many more channels than the literate and numeric ones our culture has developed. Harvard's Howard Gardner, through his theories of multiple intelligences, has established numerous ways that human thinking may be fashioned or processed. Teachers are finding Gardner's theories valuable in application to the classroom, recognizing that some students who are not actively engaged are more inclined to use other ways of thinking than those our culture has traditionally emphasized.
Now, with modern technology, we add rapid, easy access to that information. We can do things with the computer that are beyond imagining. The two-dimensional quality of linear thinking we are used to is being replaced by what McLuhan might have called multidimensional thinking.
The Challenge
And here is our problem and our challenge. Because we grew up literate, our
worldview is based on our linear ways—our books, our timelines, our two-way
communications. We can read with interest about primitive pre-literate cultures
and the amazing memories these people have for landforms or for stories and
songs. Therefore, as teachers, we want to be sure to include oral tradition
as part of our literacy program. On the other hand, we look with horror at
children who can play computer games and set up Web sites but who cannot read
connected text. The attitude adjustment we must make is to accept and respect
this multidimensional thinking that is not a part of our psyche. We must learn
what we can from the children. But we must also redouble our efforts to be
sure that they still get the benefits of our oral and literate traditions
through plenty of physical activity, singing, making things with the hands,
listening to and reading literature, drawing pictures with crayons and paints,
sending and receiving letters, and pretending.
One might go further in examining literacy, technology, and thinking. One might question whether literacy has changed our thinking in a good way. We propose that people stop and consider whether the changes that have naturally occurred because of our available technologies are the direction in which we would want our society to drift. Since we are human beings, capable in our thinking to make value judgments, shouldn't we use that capability to examine where our technologies have taken us and where they might take us in the future—and whether this is a direction that is good for us?
Creating a Meaning
We think it would be of value to look at the nature of thinking in literacy
activities, and how those activities contrast with technology activities.
While literacy may have created a more linear cognitive activity, at least
the reading half of literacy is often assumed to be a passive activity, while
current research has shown this not to be true. When we read, we must connect
what we know to the words we encounter; and we actually create a meaning that
we think might match the author's intention. Sometimes our “interpretation”
of those words matches the author's meaning better than other interpretations
do. We don't “receive” meaning from the words, however. We create
a meaning; and the more experience we have with the content, and the more
knowledge we have of the text's author, the closer we can come to creating
the original, intended meaning. Because of this active element of literate
communication, as we construct meaning, we can consider that message at many
levels, drawing connections to other knowledge or comparing to other experiences.
Literacy gives us the time to do this type of consideration. In reading, we
create meaning to match the author's intended message. In writing, we create
the message in such a way as to communicate our own intended meaning.
An outgrowth of the character of literacy is the time required to process the literate meaning. Critical thinking requires this time element—and the inclination to consider perspectives, question conclusions, or build relationships to other concepts or related events. One does not necessarily always think deeply when one writes or reads, but the opportunities naturally exist.
Wen we look at the technologies that “replace” literacy, we may consider the possibility of movies, audio, and video replacing books. People will have a choice of hearing, watching, or reading the old-fashioned way. With voice-to-text technology, we may eliminate the need to form the words as we think. For instance, one might envision the elimination of keyboarding entirely. Let us consider for a moment the advantages and disadvantages of these changes in terms of thinking and the ultimate values to our society.
No Pain, No Gain
There is no doubt that watching movies or listening to books or information,
and dictating directly to a computer, would make life easier and increase
the rate of communication so that thoughts could be captured and communicated
more quickly. But, what is the cost of making life easier? Is an easier life
good for our cognitive souls? There is nothing sacred about literate modes
of thinking. McLuhan understood this and argued that literacy mediates our
experience and separates us from our surroundings. Are the aspects of time,
reflection, consideration of perspectives, and building relationships between
ideas beneficial to us? Are they achieved as naturally through more modern
technologies?
We could argue that easier is no better for us. We say that one who struggles to achieve a goal or combat adversity builds his or her character. That person becomes a more thoughtful, mature human being. Working hard at a goal gives us a sense of satisfaction and often benefits others. Have the conveniences that come with technology, that have made life easier, been beneficial to our sense of well-being, our commitment to our fellow souls, and our tendency to reflect and think critically? With the new technologies, the time element that promotes such cognitive activity is definitely missing. One is more likely to focus on the plot (the action) rather than consider relationships of events, the thoughts of characters, the impact of the setting, or the implications of actions. One is much less likely to consider the possible choices and decisions made as they buzz by quickly. Reflection after a movie or audiotape is certainly available and likely, but the depth of that reflection, when left to only retrospectiveness, may be wanting.
The New Literacy
There is also a pedagogical consideration in the substitution of technology,
which we think people are already experiencing. Children learn to read and
write after being immersed in written form—mostly by being read to and
falling in love with children's literature. These experiences are followed
up with learning about the code through which the written message is expressed
and developing strategies through attempting to recreate and/or interpret
it.
In today's schools, when students have not been exposed to literature at home, the teacher must immerse the child in literature at school to develop the needed models and purpose for learning to read and write. If books are replaced by movies and audiotapes, children will not have the written model to promote their understanding of the systems they are required to learn in order to write for themselves. While some might argue that in the future, we will no longer need to write, we must consider how we will develop the skills needed for reading without knowing the written system thoroughly. The action of writing is an essential piece of that knowledge.
We must ask ourselves how best to utilize all kinds of thinking that human beings have available to them and how best to coordinate that expansion of thinking modes with ever-changing technology. With present technology already, children are much more action oriented and less likely to stop in the midst of a computer activity and reflect on its implications to their own experience, as they might do with a book. Teachers and parents consider them “lazy thinkers.” Is this the direction we wish to proceed as a society?
Before we flood schools with technology, we should use our own critical thinking skills to consider how we will be affecting the way we think and the modes we need for learning. If we use technological tools well, we will be enhancing our modes of thinking and our capacity for critical thinking. We will be creating a new literacy that will incorporate all the types that came before it: circular, linear, and multidimensional. If not, we may be hastening the deterioration of our civilization.
If we are to maintain the reflective advantages of present, non-technological literacy, we must consider how to do so. Rather than floating on the excitement of new technologies, we should consider thoughtfully what is lost in gaining different tools, or what is necessary to developing a new literacy that incorporates circular, linear, and multidimensional modes of thinking. We must also give serious consideration to the pedagogical realities that paper books and human readers currently provide. Is it possible that teacher education programs in today's universities should begin to prepare for such inevitabilities? It is a daunting challenge.
Future Courses cover art by John Fehringer of Windsong Editions.
This essay appears in Future Courses: A Compendium of Thought about Education, Technology, and The Future, Jason Ohler, Editor (TECHNOS Press, 2001).