New Literacies By: Brandon Creswell, Charles Zhang LRC 320

What is Literacy? Literacy is defined as the ability to read and write. With the increasing amount of technology that has been incorporated into education, literacy has evolved significantly. The definition of literacy can now go beyond reading and writing. Literacy has expanded to where there are many different literacies presented in schools.

Old literacies In the past, literacies had been presented in books, encyclopedias, and text books. Essays had been hand written and submitted in person. Looking up topics were through the library.

New literacies Nowadays, everything can be found ONLINE. Assignments can now be submitted to the teacher through online drop boxes. Doing any type of research can be done through the world wide web.

Google has become the most used search engine for researching, looking up data, and communicating. “Google docs” is a feature that allows communication between teachers and students to complete assignments more efficiently. “Google plus” is another feature that can be used when communicating with a professor in two different places virtually. There are many useful links that provide almost everything; images, maps, videos, news, mail, and a calendar. Google has also been known for helping translate different languages.

D2L has become a comprehensive site for learning at the University of Arizona. It provides professors at the University of Arizona the ability to place information for students without any limitations. Homework assignments, quizzes, exams, and lecture notes are included on this website. There are similar websites for different Universities that contain similar features. D2l.arizona.edu

Turnitin.com This allows professors to collect assignments through the web. Turnitin.com is a online submission website that checks for plagiarism, grading rubrics as well provides students the opportunity to engage in the writing process.

As technology expands, so will the literacies around the world. With these new literacies, it gives teachers the opportunity to present information in a way that it is easy to comprehend. Technology helps simplify the way teachers are teaching their students making it more accessible and readily available.