The increasing popularity of digitally-mediated communication is prompting us to radically rethink literacy and its role in education; at the same time, national policies have promulgated a view of literacy focused on the skills and classroom routines associated with print, bolstered by regimes of accountability and assessments. As a result, teachers are caught between two competing discourses: one upholding a traditional conception of literacy re-iterated by politicians and policy-makers, and the other encouraging a more radical take on 21st century literacies driven by leading edge thinkers and researchers. There is a pressing need for a book which engages researchers in international dialogue around new literacies, their implications for policy and practice, and how they might articulate across national boundaries. Drawing on cutting edge research from the USA, Canada, UK, Australia and South Africa, this book is a pedagogical and policy-driven call for change. It explores studies of literacy practices in varied contexts through a refreshingly dialogic style, interspersed with commentaries which comment on the significance of the work described for education. The book concludes on the ‘conversation’ developed to identify key recommendations for policy-makers through a Charter for Literacy Education. .

With contributions from leading scholars, this compelling volume offers fresh insights into literacy teaching and learning—and the changing nature of literacy itself—in today's K–12 classrooms. The focus is on varied technologies and literacies such as social networking sites, text messaging, and online communities. Cutting-edge approaches to integrating technology into traditional, print-centered reading and writing instruction are described. Also discussed are ways to teach the new skills and strategies that students need to engage effectively with digital texts. The book is unique in examining new literacies through multiple theoretical lenses, including behavioral, semiotic, cognitive, sociocultural, critical, and feminist perspectives.

Digital literacies are essential for managing information and communication in our rapidly changing world - but the old scattered approaches to introducing technology have left many teachers playing catch-up with their students. With this authentic, job-embedded professional development program, you'll help K-12 teachers incorporate digital literacies into their classrooms once and for all.

The World Wide Web is transforming the way that information is distributed, received and acted upon. Global Literacies and the World Wide Web provides a critical examination of the new on line literacy practices and values, and how these are determined by national, cultural and educational contexts. Gail Hawisher and Cynthia L. Selfe have brought together scholars from around the world, including: Mexico, Hungary, Australia, Palau, Cuba, Scotland, Greece, Japan, Africa and the United States. Each represents and examines on line literacy practices in their specific culture. Global Literacies and the World Wide Web resists a romanticised and inaccurate vision of global oneness. Instead, this book celebrates the dynamic capacity of these new self defined literacy communities to challenge the global village myth with robust, hybrid redefintions of identity that honour ethnic, cultural, economic, historical, and ideological differences. This is a lively and original challenge to conventional notions of the relationship between literacy and technology.

This book illuminates results from a wide-ranging, landmark study of global leaders and their world-class companies that proves that managers must understand, respect, and learn from a variety of national cultures to be successful--at home and abroad. 10 photos.

Taking the pulse of current efforts to do—and, in some cases, undo—critical literacy, this volume explores and critiques its implementation in learning contexts around the globe. An impressive set of international authors offer examples of productive critical literacy practices in and out of schools, address the tensions and gaps between these practices and educational policies, and attempt to forecast the future for critical literacy as a movement in the changing global educational policy landscape. This collection is unique in presenting the recent work of luminaries such as Allan Luke and Hilary Janks alongside relative newcomers who use innovative approaches and arguments to reinvigorate and redefine critical practice. It is time for this cutting-edge inquiry into the state of critical literacy—not only because is it a complex and ever-evolving field, but perhaps more important, because it offers a reaction to, and powerful reworking of, standardization and high-stakes accountability measures in educational contexts around the globe.

Literacy, Media, Technology considers the continued significance of popular culture forms such as postcards, film, television, games, virtual worlds and social media for educators. Following multiple pathways through technological innovation, the contributors reflect on the way in which digital and portable devices lead to new and emerging forms of reading, participating and creating. Rejecting linear conceptualisations of progression, they explore how time is not linear as technological advances are experienced in multiple ways linked to different personal, social, political and economic trajectories. The contributors describe a range of practices from formal and informal education spaces and interrogate some of the continuities and discontinuities associated with literacy, media and technology at a time when rapidly evolving communicative practices often meet intransigence in educational systems. The chapters adopt diverse forms: historical perspectives, personal story and reflection, project reports, document analysis, critical reviews of resources, ethnographic accounts, and analyses of meaning-making within and beyond educational institutions. Together, they provide multiple insights into the diverse and fluid relationships between literacy, media, technology, and everyday life, and the many ways in which these relationships are significant to educational research and practice.