Multiliteracies

8 Pages 1977 Words

ation.
A HISTORICAL VIEW
Once upon a time schooling meant learning "the three Rs": reading, writing and arithmetic. Basic literacy and numeracy still form the cornerstone of fundamental education. However, literacy and numeracy competencies have changed dramatically over the tenure of compulsory schooling.
Literacy as we have known it over the past century has been a world principally on paper; a world most often serving culturally defined communities of readers; a world of socially sanctioned knowledge in static, hierarchically organized texts. But, as we move into the global society of the 3rd millennium, much of the social and political ground of literacy is shifting: the relationships between readers, writers and texts are being repositioned; paper is becoming increasingly an electronic abstract; language norms and standards are being rewritten; textuality is evolving dimensionally. The gatekeepers of knowledge in academia and the publishing industry are being challenged by the web, which provides instant mass access to texts no longer subject to tedious decisions about quality through peer review processes. Enter the era of multiple, post-modern literacies. The information revolution is but one in a series of technological revolutions that have impacted on education. “These!
must include: the scientific revolution, which certified knowledge over belief, such as in evolutionism vs creationism; the industrial revolution, which allowed mass distribution of print; and the electronic revolution which gave us transistors and microchips, so that we could communicate more easily across our shrinking world” (Lotherington, 1999, p. 125).
Education is regulated through access to literacy. Previous to the 20th century, education was the domain of the privileged and ...