The study of new literacies is quickly emerging as a major research field. This book «samples» work in the broad area of new literacies research along two dimensions. First, it samples some typical examples of new literacies - video gaming, fan fiction writing, weblogging, role play gaming, using websites to participate in affinity practices, memes, and other social activities involving mobile technologies. Second, the studies collectively sample from a wide range of approaches potentially available for researching and studying new literacies from a sociocultural perspective. Readers will come away with a rich sense of what new literacies are, and a generous appreciation of how they are being researched.

Schools remain notorious for co-opting digital technologies to «business as usual» approaches to teaching new literacies. DIY Media addresses this issue head-on, and describes expansive and creative practices of digital literacy that are increasingly influential and popular in contexts beyond the school, and whose educational potential is not yet being tapped to any significant degree in classrooms. This book is very much concerned with engaging students in do-it-yourself digitally mediated meaning-making practices. As such, it is organized around three broad areas of digital media: moving media, still media, and audio media. Specific DIY media practices addressed in the chapters include machinima, anime music videos, digital photography, podcasting, and music remixing. Each chapter opens with an overview of a specific DIY media practice, includes a practical how-to tutorial section, and closes with suggested applications for classroom settings. This collection will appeal not only to educators, but to anyone invested in better understanding - and perhaps participating in - the significant shift towards everyday people producing their own digital media.

This book brings together a group of internationally-reputed authors in the field of digital literacy. Their essays explore a diverse range of the concepts, policies and practices of digital literacy, and discuss how digital literacy is related to similar ideas: information literacy, computer literacy, media literacy, functional literacy and digital competence. It is argued that in light of this diversity and complexity, it is useful to think of digital literacies - the plural as well the singular. The first part of the book presents a rich mix of conceptual and policy perspectives; in the second part contributors explore social practices of digital remixing, blogging, online trading and social networking, and consider some legal issues associated with digital media.

A comprehensive approach to teacher research as systematic, methodical and informed practice. It identifies five generic features that must be present in all kinds of research, and provides guidelines for teachers to meet these in studies designed to enhance their vocation as educators.

Multiliteracies: Beyond Text and the Written Word emphasizes literacies which are, or have been, common in American culture, but which tend to be ignored in more traditional discussions of literacy—specifically textual literacy. By describing multiliteracies or alternative literacies, and how they function, we have tried to develop a broader understanding of what it means to be literate in American culture. The 39 topical essays/chapters included in this work represent a sampler of both old and new literacies that are clearly at work in American culture, and which go beyond more traditional textual forms and models. Multiliteracies: Beyond Text and the Written Word asks: How is the experience of students changing outside of traditional schools, and how do these changes potentially shape the work they do, how they learn, and the lives they lead in schools and less formal settings? This work assumes that our increasing diversity in a postmodern and increasingly global society brings with it demands for a broader understanding of what it means to be literate. Multiliteracy “literally” becomes a necessity. This work is a guidebook to the new reality, which is increasingly so important to schools and the more general culture.

This book presents sixteen essays in the new literacy studies tradition, written during the period 1985-2010. It covers a diverse range of themes with a particular emphasis on topics of cultural, political and historical interest. The collection includes both previously published and unpublished works, and is organized in four sections. Topics addressed in Part 1 include functional literacy, the politics of literacy in Nicaragua during the Sandinista period (1979-1990), the rise of the working class press in Britain, and reader response and the teacher as meaning-maker. Part 2 discusses critical literacy and active citizenship, literacy and empowerment, language and the new capitalism, varying ways of using computers in and out of school, and the way a low achieving student challenges conventional notions of literacy failure. Part 3 addresses the new literacy studies and the study of new literacies, the theory and practice of attention economics, and early developments in the use of ratings within online communities and social practices. The final part of the book takes up the theme of researching new literacies, discusses practices of digital remix, and provides a case study of becoming research literate within a context of DIY media creation.

“Like a compass guiding you to what’s important and why in this rapidly evolving field, this new edition is utterly stimulating but also thoughtful and measured.” Daniel Cassany, Literacy Researcher and Teacher, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain "Essential reading for those interested in new and emerging literacy practices, New Literacies maps the contours of on- and off-line participation and how it is transforming learning and communication. This book provides the necessary theoretical background and illustration of practice for a radical re-appraisal of how we think about literacy and literacy education." Guy Merchant, Professor of Literacy in Education,Faculty of Development and Society, Sheffield Hallam University The new edition of this popular book takes a fresh look at what it means to think of literacies as social practices. The book explores what is distinctively 'new' within a range of currently popular everyday ways of generating, communicating and negotiating meanings. Revised, updated and significantly reconceptualised throughout, the book includes: Closer analysis of new literacies in terms of active collaboration A timely discussion of using wikis and other collaborative online writing resources Updated and expanded accounts of digital remix and blogging practices An explanation of social learning and collaborative platforms for social learning A fresh focus on online social networking A new batch of discussion questions and stimulus activities The importance of social learning for becoming proficient in many new literacy practices, and the significance of new media for expanding the reach and potential of social learning are discussed in the final part of the book. New Literacies 3/e concludes by describing empirical cases of social learning approaches mediated by collaborative learning platforms. This book is essential reading for students and academics within literacy studies, cultural or communication studies and education.