The New Media Literacies

Becoming part of the participatory culture….
Skills that connect people together with something larger than the individual levels….
The social skills…the things they need to know to become citizens, creative artists, workers in the future…
Skills of groups….social skills that allow people to talk and share….

6 thoughts on “The New Media Literacies

  1. I’ve enjoyed your journey so far in your reflection, especially the discussion about student connections to literature you will create through the design of your curriculum, and this video I had not seen before. Love this:
    New Media Literacies: “Becoming part of the participatory culture….Skills that connect people together with something larger than the individual levels….” I see the logo for New Media Skills is “create, circulate, connect, collaborate.” I would add consider — consider the ideas; to consider reflects contemplation and compassion, and is a supportive skill for “group citizenship. Thanks for sharing this video to help me clarify the New Literacies and my goals for my classroom.

  2. Hi Sheri,
    Thanks for visiting. Reflection IS huge part of this, so I agree with adding “consider” to the list. Sorry the comment here was moderated. I’ve just switched to a new wordpress blog, and I’m still having some issues, which should be resolved shortly!

  3. I have a hard time with the term ‘media literacies’. These aren’t literacies. They are tools and networks. So often literacy is confused with context and tools. Why does this matter? Because when people start to talk about tools and context as literacy they shift their focus to the tools rather than keeping their eyes on the big picture skills – knowing, understanding, doing, thinking critically, analyzing, participating…

  4. Not sure I agree with you Tracey. The basic definition of literacy is the ability to read, speak and write. The landscape that we are using to do this has and continues to change. Therefore, a redefining of what it means as well as what it takes to thoughtfully and critically read, speak and write is where I believe this research is going. The full report put out by Project New Media Literacies, formerly at MIT and now at USC lists these critical skills as:

    Play— the capacity to experiment with one’s surroundings as a form of problem-solving
    Performance— the ability to adopt alternative identities for the purpose of improvisation and discovery
    Simulation— the ability to interpret and construct dynamic models of real-world processes
    Appropriation— the ability to meaningfully sample and remix media content
    Multitasking— the ability to scan one’s environment and shift focus as needed to salient details.
    Distributed Cognition— the ability to interact meaningfully with tools that expand
    mental capacities
    Collective Intelligence— the ability to pool knowledge and compare notes with
    others toward a common goal
    Judgment— the ability to evaluate the reliability and credibility of different information
    sources
    Transmedia Navigation— the ability to follow the flow of stories and information
    across multiple modalities
    Networking— the ability to search for,synthesize,and disseminate information
    Negotiation— the ability to travel across diverse communities,discerning and respecting
    multiple perspectives,and grasping and following alternative norms.

    I am not sure that any of these qualify as tools or networks as Project NML is currently defining them.

    See http://www.newmedialiteracies.org/files/working/NMLWhitePaper.pdf

  5. Antonio, you’ve captured what I was thinking, thanks. And Tracy, I responded again on your blog! One other thought, what do you think of NCTE and the International Reading Association also redefining these new literacies?

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