Month: February 2011

Speaking in Lolcats: What Literacy Means in teh Digital Era

Posted on February 25, 2011 by Doug Belshaw

Speaking in Lolcats, Take 2

View more presentations from Stephen Downes

In 2009, Stephen Downes gave several presentations entitled Speaking in Lolcats. He put forward three theses:

That New Media is a new vocabulary (and therefore people can literally speak in Lolcats)
That languages can be understood analytically through a semantic framework
That 21st century skills are languages (not just content + skills + tools)

Of particular interest are the six elements of ‘literacy in teh digital era’ identified by Downes:

Syntax
Semantics
Pragmatics
Cognition
Context
Change

The talk is just over an hour with another twenty minutes or so of Q&A. Well worth listening to with the slides in front of you. Doug’s mindmap notes are here.

Literaci.es: Reflecting on New Literacies

Posted on February 20, 2011 by Doug Belshaw

There’s not a lot to see there yet, and I’ve a whole thesis on the matter to complete, but I’ve started a new place to collate thinking and resources about New Literacies.

You can find it at http://literaci.es

I’d love for it to become a collaborative resource along the lines of Smart Mobs, so if you’ve got something to share, a post you’d like to write, or a desire to become a regular contributor, please do get in touch!

Futurelab’s Digital Literacy: professional development resource

Posted on February 20, 2011 by Doug Belshaw

Futurelab have an enviable track record of running top-notch events and producing high-quality resources. Their recent Digital Literacy: professional development resource certainly continues that trend.

What’s so impressive about it? Not only does it seek to encourage groups to come up with their own (informed) definition of Digital Literacy, but it provides activities to make the abstract practical.