Internet literacy in modern education

The Internet is definitely more of a literacy issue than a technology issue. “The Internet [should be seen] not as a technology but rather as a context in which to read, write, and communicate. The Internet is no more a technology than is a book” (Leu, O’Byrne, Zawilinski, McVerry & Everett-Cacopardo, 2009. p.265). The Internet is an access point to a 21st Century way of communication, reading, and information consumption. To view the Internet as a technology, or a tool, is to vastly underestimate its modern capabilities, ignore the functioning and connectivity of the modern world, and deprive students of valuable resources that will help them to assimilate into their careers and into modern society.

Leu et al. touched on the economic differences and test scores briefly when they wrote, “Children in the poorest school districts in the United States have the least amount of Internet access at home [and] the greatest pressure to raise scores on tests…and schools do not always prepare them for the new literacies of online reading comprehension at school” (p. 267). I think that moving forward, personal biases, such as the older generation of teachers and instructors who are technology averts, will begin to thin out as 21st Century students, like myself, being to make their way into the field. I hear about it now in public schools and even some colleges, where teachers don’t want to change they way they teach because they are tenured, have been doing it the same way for 15+ years, and just want to continue using the same method because it worked in the past. While it may have worked in the past, the world is ever changing and education should be as fluid as the real world. The second component that I find limiting the adoption of technology tools in the classroom is budgeting. Districts don’t allow enough funding to go toward technology integration, which is a difficult balance between tax dollars, population, and number of schools. I think that it will be difficult for the public school system to enable teachers to utilize technologies in the classroom until there is enough proven success from local private schools that perform as well or better on standardized testing. While standardized testing is another discussion, I believe it is what is holding back many schools from raising their technology standards because they don’t see the correlation of a partnered learning experience like Prensky (2010) suggests and a measurement of success statewide. I think from an Instructional Designer’s and future instructor’s standpoint, we can begin suggesting alternative ways to approach lessons that will begin to explore and showcase the benefits of technology and internet literacy so that others will be more willing to realize its place in the modern world.

This was a discussion post copied from my graduate school work in Learning Design & Technology at Purdue University.

References

Leu, D. J., O’Bryne, W. I., Zawilinski, L., McVerry, G., & Everett-Cacopardo, H. (2009). Expanding the new literacies conversation. Educational Researcher, 38(4), 264-269.

Prensky, M. (2010). Teaching Digital Natives - Partnering for Real Learning. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin, A SAGE Company.