A 21st Century Perspective on Literacy
Preparing for an information-driven, technology-rich future requires us to redefine literacy as well as rethink how and what we teach.
Today’s eductors were taught to read what someone handed to us—to read the textbook the teacher handed to us, the reference books the librarian handed to us, or the magazines and newspapers that the publishers handed to us. We were taught to read in order to access and understand what publishers and networks produced and distributed.
Today’s students encounter information through a global electronic nexus on which just about anyone can publish just about anything for just about any reason. Largely without guidance, students sift through billions of pages of text and terabytes of images, sounds, animations, and video. Merely being able to read and understand the text in front of you is no longer sufficient. People must be able to:
- Find information within a global digital library that is relevant to what they are trying to accomplish;
- Decode the information regardless of its format (e.g., text, images, audio, animation, video);
- Evaluate the information in order to determine its value as applied to the task at hand; and
- Organize the information into personal digital information libraries.
Nationally recognized educational leader David Warlick, a keynote speaker at last summer’s TIE (Technology in Education) Conference, characterizes this new literacy as "The Four E’s”:
- Exposing knowledge;
- Employing information;
- Expressing ideas compellingly; and
- Ethical uses of information.
On January 12, 2005, DPS sponsored a presentation by Warlick in which he expanded on these concepts of literacy. Administrators and teachers who attended obtained concrete tools for implementing a vision of 21st century learning.
For more information on 21st Century learning and literacy, go to the ILT Readings and Resources page.