EDUC 5304G - Digital Literacy: Theory, Practice and Research

Postmodern literacies have proliferated in response to the rapid expansion of digital technologies and network interconnectivity in the 21st century. The kinds of texts produced for and by the current knowledge economy are artifacts of digital rather than industrial technologies; these technologies have had considerable impact on how people read and write. This course examines what we have learned about the impact of digital technologies to this point with a view to understanding what it means to be literate in a digital age. We consider the continuing overlap of pre-print, print and post-print forms within the larger history of literacy artifacts. We consider the effect of word processors, hypermedia, and the Web 2.0 on writing and reading practices, and we experiment with emerging web-based social software such as wikis and weblogs. From legal boundaries of who owns what words in cyberspace to recognizing new orthographies, new identities, new contexts for learning and new poetics in digital contexts, we explore the various socio-political and educational aspects of digital communications technologies.
Credit hours: 3