Comments on: Ed.D. thesis Literature Review: a start has been made!

By: Doug Belshaw

Doug Belshaw — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 07:35:00 +0000

Thanks, Chris. Lankshear and Knobel certainly seem to be the main players – I’m currently reading the volume they’ve edited called ‘Digital Literacies’ (2008)

By: Doug Belshaw

Doug Belshaw — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 07:34:00 +0000

Thanks for the reference, Tom. I’ve only been able to get access to the introduction so far, but it’s excellent. :-)

By: Chris Shamburg

Chris Shamburg — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 18:30:00 +0000

You should check out Lankshear and Knobel’s New Literacies (2nd Ed). The first chapter “What’s new with new literacies” is worth the price of the book–though the rest of it is good too.

By: Tom Liam Lynch

Tom Liam Lynch — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 14:44:00 +0000

What do you think of the tension between “teaching students for the 21st century”–an idea that administrators love to use–and the reality of most national and state assessments, which are still pencil and paper? Not a byte in sight.

Also, I think you’d find this work below interesting:
Coiro, J., Knobel, M., Lankshear, C., & Leu, D. J. (Eds.). (2008). Handbook of research on new literacies. New York: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

On a last point, I’ve become interested in how English teachers seem to be tapped to teach into these”new literacies”. Yet, what has defined English as a discipline seems to have been the teaching of literature. Literature, I predict, will continue to be squashed as both new and old literacies gain more emphasis.

Thanks for sharing your EdD work. I’m in the English Ed program at Teachers College doing some related work and would welcome further dialogue. You can learn more about me at http://www.tomliamlynch.org.

By: Doug Belshaw

Doug Belshaw — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 07:06:00 +0000

Great stuff – thanks for sharing, James! :-)

By: James Greenwood

James Greenwood — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 01:17:00 +0000

Really enjoyed reading this, Doug – made me realise I ought to get on with my own PhD work! In my undergrad dissertation I looked at the impact of ICT on literacy & critical thought, and although it’s a (very!) undergrad piece of work, it might provide a little food for thought if you hit one of those inevitable walls when you’re working.

Forgive the formatting, it’s the best Google Docs could manage: http://tr.im/iLle

Like the people above, I hope you’ll post updates – I look forward to being jealous of your progress!

By: Doug Belshaw

Doug Belshaw — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 08:17:00 +0000

Thanks for the comments – some great ideas and links to follow up there! :-)

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 17:39:00 +0000

Re the genre theorists, and a framework, the Australians are doing great things: perhaps look at David Rose’s READING TO LEARN pedagogy; the work of Jim Martin and Joan Rotherey (sp?); Len Unsworth. Michael Halliday: Riquaiya (sp) Hasan. Frances Christie is also good. Strength to you. I am busy developing my Theoretical and Conceptual Framework and trying to avoid Linguistic Determinism by grappling with conceptual semantics. We ‘think’ without words…. Steven Pinker a ‘new man in my [academic] life’ who is challenging my views on cultural, linguistic and any other kind of determinism!!

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 09:03:00 +0000

A further thought: I think it is really difficult to define ‘literacy” or ‘new literacies’ or ‘digital literacy’ until one decides what constitutes ‘a text’. Only then can one look at (social/technological) semiotic variation and affordances, and then decide what one needs to be ‘literate’ in order to decode ‘a text’.

You might want to, if you haven’t already, look at the International Reading Association’s collection of Journals. Loads of really useful articles online if one joins. Also perhaps look at the work of Elizabeth Moje and Donna Alvermann.

By: Frances Bell

Frances Bell — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 16:59:00 +0000

I really enjoyed reading this and it’s great that you are blogging it – ’twill keep a timeline of its development. I put my comments through Diigo CR2.0 Digi-Skills but I really don’t know who can see them ;)
In the first para, when you talk about the concept of literacy, I wonder if you mean application of the concept and I agree with what you say about difficulty of pinning it down.
When you said “We talk of individuals being ‘literate’, not communities. “, I wondered if it might be useful to look at genres of communication (I don’t know what theoretical framework you will use for analysis.
This might be useful http://delicious.com/francesbell/digitalliteracy