What is the most significant change in literacy education in the last twenty years?

Cairney, Trevor

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This is an intriguing question. In 1995 e-Books were only just beginning to emerge (mostly books on floppy disks), social media had not taken hold of communication, mobile phones were still like bricks and the most sophisticated technology in homes was generally the television and video recorder. Today, the shape of literacy is a much more complex and multimodal experience for all. Children still read books and listen to them, but now they can produce their own with story apps, create original animations in minutes on electronic tablets, communicate with children from around the world in seconds, do group work online, access instant text translation and produce stories that integrate sound, image, video and music.

Teachers have experienced the same dramatic changes and as well, they have found new pedagogical horizons to explore. Smart boards allow them to integrate image, sound, online resources and writing, as they create for and with their classes. Resources are available online in abundance and can be shared with colleagues in varied ways using social media (twitter, Facebook, blogs, Pinterest etcetera). Ideas can be shared by teachers on different sides of the planet with ease, seminars can be attended virtually, advice can be sought from experts in minutes, resources can be identified, paid for and received online in seconds (e-Books, teaching resources, units of work, advice and so on) or in a few days to their door in hard copy form.

Alongside these developments we have seen the loss of some things that are still valuable and need to be retained. The already crowded curriculum has become even more crowded, with the resultant rich content and resources making choices necessary and difficult. National testing has also tended to shape classroom decisions and shift priorities away from the spontaneous, creative, inventive and exploratory. In parallel with this has been the tendency for ambitious parents to become even more focussed on outcomes and on skills that they see as the secret to life and success. Sadly, some of these aspirations run counter to the very things that set individuals apart--creative innovators and leaders who generate ideas that might just change the world.

I see in the above a great conundrum. How can we capitalise on the most amazing developments in communication and technology without limiting our horizons to success on school assessment tasks? How might we use the libraries of the world available to us, the innovators and humanitarians, the tools that make communication easier and the challenges of our world to focus the minds of leaders, parents, teachers and children to use their skills and knowledge to experiment, create, innovate and challenge others. How might we harness the resources we now have and the minds of our children to expand rather than limit human possibilities?

If pushed to sum this up as one change, I'd suggest that it is the increasingly rich intertextuality of our world. Now how do we capitalise on this as teachers?

Trevor Cairney taught for ten years but has been a professor of education for over twenty years conducting research in the areas of comprehension, early literacy, family literacy and children's literature. He has written nine books and over 200 publications. He writes the blog 'Literacy, Families & Learning' http://trevorcairney.blogspot.com.au/, is a past President of ALEA and has been a member for thirty-five years. Email: [email protected]