Twentieth International Conference on Diversity in Organizations, Communities & Nations

Abstract

Many practitioners and stakeholders in our field continue to think of literacy as primarily being composed of the learning of reading, writing, listening, speaking, and viewing even though the concept of literacy had expanded to include critical thinking and new literacies. Kist (2003, 2005, 2007a) has proposed that some characteristics of new literacies classrooms include using multiple forms of representation, individual and collaborative activities, students who think critically in a multimodal environment, and student engagement. In addition, students use the technology available on-demand in a hypertext environment that includes pronunciations, definitions, and explanations of keywords and terms, audio versions of the text, video recordings, video files, photographs, graphics, interactive exercises, and student-centered projects. Classroom activities that reflect these characteristics include new literacies activities or skills such as critical thinking skills, collaboration skills, communication skills, global connection skills, local connection skills, and technology skills (Ravitz, Hixson, English & Mergendoller, 2010). This research study supports teacher and preservice teacher education that will help practitioners to realize the new literacies they are currently using in their classroom even though they do not recognize these activities as new literacies. Above all, it will help teachers to inform teachers about contemporary concepts of “text”, “knowledge”, and “literacy”.