1

Chapter 1.2

New literacies for the knowledge society

David Mioduser, Rafi Nachmias, Alona Forkosh-Baruch

Tel-Aviv University

[Final version published in J. Voogt & G. Knezek (Eds.). International Handbook of

Information Technology in Education, (C) Springer, 2008]

Abstract

The notion of literacy evolved over time from being strictly focused on the realm of

reading/writing skills, to embracing the comprehensive set of skills needed by individuals to

learn, work, socially interact and cope with the needs of everyday life. Literacies are cultural

constructs, closely tied to the technologies both affording and demanding their evolvement.

In the "knowledge society", the widespread impact of advanced Information and

Communication technologies (ICT) on the lives of individuals and societies, arouses the need

to revise current perspectives on literacy and to identify and define new relevant literacies. In

this chapter, seven such literacies will be defined and discussed, concerning multimodal

information processing, navigating the infospace, interpersonal communication, visual-

literacy, hyper-literacy (hyperacy), personal information management (PIM), and coping with

complexity.

Keywords: IT literacy; multimodal information processing; information handling; communication literacy; visual literacy; hyperacy; personal information literacy management, knowledge society

1.2.1 Introduction

What does it mean to be literate? The answer to this question was formulated over

time in many different, often controversial ways. The notion of literacy evolved from being

strictly focused on the realm of reading/writing skills, to embracing the comprehensive set of

2

skills needed by individuals to learn, work, socially interact and cope with the needs of

everyday life (Lemke, 2005; Lonsdale & McCurry, 2004).

It is now commonly accepted that this change in perspective is closely related to

crucial changes in the life of individuals and societies resulting from recent developments in

information and communication technologies (ICT). This synergetic relationship between

technological developments and individual/social functioning has received ample treatment in

recent scholarly literature. However, the similarly symbiotic interaction between ICT and the

emergence of new literacies still needs further elaboration.

This is in fact the main purpose of this chapter. It will build on three main conceptual

assumptions. The first is that at all times - not only in the current digital era - literacy should

be perceived as a multifaceted construct, not constrained solely to knowledge and skills

related to the written or printed word (Olson, 1994). The second is that for any epoch,

specific prevalent literacies should not be considered as independent and isolated constructs

(a set of objectively defined skills), but as the result of the intricate interaction between

individuals' knowledge (inner or within-the-mind literacy) and the knowledge embodied in the

technology (outer or artifacts-embedded-literacy) (Mioduser, 2005; Olson, 1994). The third

assumption is that any given literacy is far more than a set of acquired skills - it is first and

foremost the person's stance towards knowledge-embedded objects of a wide range of types

(e.g., textual, visual, haptic), behaviors (e.g., static, dynamic, permanent, volatile), media

(print, digital, waves), and semiotic status. These premises, on which we will further

elaborate in the next sections, set the framework for our discussion on seven main literacies

for the knowledge society.

In the following we will briefly present background work on the topic of new literacies,

our rationale for defining and discussing the new literacies, a brief description and

elaboration of seven key literacies, and a closing discussion on these literacies and their

implications for education.

3

1.2.2 Background

The knowledge society

In 1976, only 30 years since the first large-scale electronic digital computer (the

ENIAC) was unveiled at the University of Pennsylvania, the sociologist Daniel Bell introduced

the notion of the "information society" (Bell, 1973). Bell predicted that theoretical knowledge

would become a main resource in society, affecting economy, labor, culture, and all venues

of life. Today, only 30 years since Bell's prospective analyses, the "knowledge society" is an

established fact, involving directly a considerable portion of the world's population, and

undoubtedly affecting the lives of populations and countries still not included in it. For a

detailed discussion on the characteristics of the knowledge society see Anderson (2008). A

key theme in the evolving identity of the knowledge society is the obvious but essential fact

that technologies, specifically information and communication technologies, are at the core of

the transformations taking place. One can claim that this is not new to history, and that all

important technological developments of the past triggered important social change (Olson,

1994). However, this claim should be revised when relating to the knowledge society. Unlike

previous processes in history, multiple cycles of change took place within a few decades,

with many defining parameters (e.g., technological developments, economical developments,

amount of information and knowledge) either arising or transforming in a very short span of

time. What may be considered only a quantitative - and merely a technical - change, is in fact

a profound qualitative transformation due to its implications for life

On the positive side, fascinating processes took place. To name only a few:

knowledge has become the key resource fueling the functioning and development of

societies, displacing more concrete resources such as land, capital or labor from their

privileged status; moreover, knowledge as resource is a shareable and portable commodity,

facilitating the creation of new economic and social configurations the synergetic interaction

4

between the human mind and knowledge technologies, has qualitatively accelerated the

generation of new knowledge and advanced our understanding of complex natural, artificial

and social processes; people's communication and interaction space has been boosted, with

the support of a wide range of synchronous and asynchronous means; computing and

communication power has become ubiquitous (although mainly for economically privileged

countries or population groups), allowing the creation of a virtually unlimited knowledge-

manipulation-and-sharing space, free of time and location constraints.

On the less positive side, the rapid immersion of large portions of the world in the

knowledge-technologies revolution generated a series of phenomena to which we still don't

have satisfactory answers. Among these: individuals and societies feel compelled to adjust to

rapid changes taking place several times in a lifetime and on a continuous basis - this

complex challenge finds most people unequipped with the appropriate means (knowledge

and skills), which still remain mostly unidentified and undefined; the rapid economical and

social transformations have added new knowledge-related gaps to the traditional divides

among peoples and nations on dimensions such as: level of mastery of up-to-date personal

and social literacy’s, extent of access to the core of knowledge-generation and policy making

agencies, prospects for social mobility, roles fulfilled in the knowledge society (e.g., the

digital divide between consumers and citizens) (David & Forey, 2002; ).

Even if we consider that we are only at the preliminary stages of consolidation of the

characteristics of the knowledge society, it is already clear that there is a demand for

substantial change in the quality and composition of the baggage of knowledge and skills

with which educational systems and training agencies furnish their students. In order to

function in the knowledge society the educated person is expected to be an independent and

lifelong learner, to master higher-order skills, to master information skills, to posses the

capabilities of a skilled worker in knowledge-rich environments (e.g., formal knowledge,

specialized skills), and to be able to learn and work in teams (Anderson, 2008; Leu, Kinzer,

Coiro, & Cammack, 2004).

5

This clearly represents a great challenge for the individual, but not less so for the

educational agents and agencies that are expected to supply opportunities and develop

appropriate pedagogies fostering the attainment of the above goals. Are current educational

systems (a) aware of the challenge; (b) capable to reformulate their goals according to it, and

(c) able to develop new pedagogies, learning configurations and formation processes to

meet the new goals? The debate on these questions, and the attempt to come up with sound

answers is being conducted today -in different ways- at the level of formal educational

systems and by the ”rest of us” (e.g., scholars, practitioners, corporations, worried parents,

concerned citizens).

Formal educational systems tend to be conservative and cautious. In facing new

realities, their modus operandi comprises mechanisms such as the establishment of

evaluation and planning committees, thorough revision of existing curricular goals and

materials, and planning of new ones; laborious attempts to balance between the

implementation of innovations and the preservation of existing structures, and ponderous

staff development processes. In trying to understand this state of affairs, two

contextualizations are of relevance. First, formal systems do what their proprietors -societies-

request them to do. Since the debate on the new challenges is still ongoing among the

various social agencies responsible of educational policy making, this has clear repercussion

on the conditions (e.g., goals stated, resources allocated) within which the systems have to

perform. Second, aware of their responsibility as the deliverers of the next generation of

educated citizens, formal systems can not afford to become large-scale experimental

settings for unproved ideas implying radical changes. They prefer to assimilate proven

innovations in evolutionary fashion.

On the other hand, other social agents have reacted (fairly rapidly) to the new reality

by engaging in the systematic examination of its nature and implications for individual and

social learning and functioning, and the devising of novel educational solutions. Researchers,

corporate trainers, developers of educational materials, and practitioners are intensely

6

working on a wide range of issues related to the educational implications of the knowledge

society. A partial list of these issues includes: the revision of the very notion of schooling and

the role of teachers and students in the educational process; the revision of individual and

group learning processes; the development of innovative organizational configurations for

learning; or the development of advanced learning tools and systems.

Although there is a widespread conviction that the school as a social institution still

has important roles to fulfill, and that in the foreseeable future it will still be the fundamental

building block of societies' educational apparatus, there is also strong awareness of the need

to adapt its goals, structure and functioning to the needs and requirements of the knowledge

society (Drucker, 1994; Kozma & Anderson, 2002).

The "new literacies"

To elaborate on new literacies necessarily requires first to clarify the definition of

literacy, and to depict its more recent evolution. The classic view of literacy refers to a

person's capability to read and write, serving to transform thought into printed records and

vice versa (Murray, 2000). Ample theoretical and practical work on literacy, far from

constraining its scope to the basic definition, has enriched it over the last decades with many

additional layers of meaning and perspectives.

Snow (2004) maps the varied perspectives for defining literacy into six main

dimensions, suggested as continuums: Componential vs. holistic [the view of literacy as an

array of necessary skills or as integrated capability centered in meaning-making]; solitary vs.

social [primarily an inside-of-the-head process or a collaborative activity with substantial

social -and political- implications]; instructed vs. natural [requiring the passage through

successive teaching/learning stages or natural product of living in a literate environment];

functional/technical vs. transformational/cultural [technical capabilities that facilitate functional

performance in all kinds of tasks or essential force in the building process of individuals'

identity and societies' culture]; singular/coherent vs. multiple/varied [confined to a given set of

7

skills -e.g., those required to pass a reading test- or the multiple literacies demanded by

different readable objects such as a contract, a poem, or a bus timetable]; school-focused vs.

home- and community-focused [focus on curriculum-based and standardized knowledge or

on everyday life and multiple social environments naturally constructed knowledge].

Integrating these dimensions, each extreme of the continuum leads to defining literacy as

either "an instructed skill, accomplished by the child operating individually, as a technical

achievement exercised primarily and most crucially in school settings, analyzable into

component skills, and unconnected to political or cultural commitments", or as "social,

community-based, culturally-defined, varied, and potentially transformational" (Snow, 2004,

pp. 276-277).

Social, cultural technological and political processes of the last 100 years gave rise to

a variety of disparate perspectives in defining literacy. For example: emphasis on a society's

view of the profile of its literate citizen is reflected in formal and legal formulations, as in the

USA's National Literacy Act: for purposes of this Act the term "literacy" means an individual's

ability to read, write, and speak in English, and compute and solve problems at levels of

proficiency necessary to function on the job and in society, to achieve one's goals, and

develop one's knowledge and potential (Public Law 102-73, the National Literacy Act of

1991); emphasis on social and political aspects, highly relevant to the social and economical

reality prevalent in many parts of the underdeveloped world, are at the basis of Freirean

views of literacy (Freire & Macedo, 1987); and emphasis on thinking and performing in

specific fields led to the definition of competencies such as scientific literacy, technological

literacy, computer literacy, media literacy or information literacy (Semali, 2001).

Along similar lines, emphasis on the defining characteristics of the emerging

knowledge society, have guided researchers' and policy-makers' efforts to identify the new

literacies of the digital era. Nadin (1997) proposes a challenging characterization of our

times, which he thought-provokingly calls "the civilization of illiteracy" to indicate that no one

particular literacy dominates, but many literacies coexist based on a wide range of notation

8

systems and representational modalities, involving all human senses, and supporting

experiences of thinking and working above and beyond language

Basic issues underlying our discussion of the "new literacies"

In this chapter, four basic issues underlie our discussion on, and definition of, the new

literacies. The first builds on the intimate relationship between technology and intelligence in

general and technology and literacy in particular. In any definition of literacy, and at any time

in history, it should be taken into account that: (a) artifacts (technology), being a creation of

the human mind, are first and foremost knowledge-embedded entities - or physically

embodied human knowledge; (b) the artifacts' object-worlds (Bucciarelli, 1996) afford and

demand particular thinking processes and performances - feeding back on the human minds

that have created and are using them (Mioduser, 2005; Sternberg & Preiss, 2005). In

consequence, literacies should be considered in light of this recursive interaction between

cognitive processes and [cognitive] technologies.

The second issue refers to the transformation pace of both the technology and its

related literacies. Unlike the tranquil pace of transformation of previous technological eras,

today we are immersed in a highly dense process in which stages succeed each other at

very short intervals. Skills only a few years ago believed crucial for living in the information

era (e.g., programming, or "computer literacy" skill-sets from the "microcomputer" era), are

no longer considered to be so, and were therefore rapidly dropped from the regular

curriculum and replaced by new ones (for how long?).

The third issue builds on the previous, but relates to the character of the transitions

between stages. It is accepted in the literature that paradigms borrowed from previous

technological/literacy stages have always mediated the passage to new ones (e.g., Mancini,

2000). The initial perception of the cinema as filmed theater, or of cars as carriages with

engines, are the most widely cited examples of this phenomenon. With time and laborious

processes, new perceptions (and corresponding literacies) emerge. The transition is not free

9

from controversies, uncertainty, and concerns as regards to the "endangered" previous

literacies. For example, the intense conflict generated by the revolutionary invention of print

is depicted in sensible and eloquent manner in Victor Hugo's Notre-Dame de Paris (excerpts

from book fifth, chapter I):

… opening the window of his cell he [i.e., the archdeacon] pointed out with his finger

the immense church of Notre-Dame … [he] gazed at the gigantic edifice for some

time in silence, then extending his right hand, with a sigh, towards the printed book

which lay open on the table, and his left towards Notre-Dame, and turning a sad

glance from the book to the church,--"Alas," he said, "this will kill that."

In chapter II an interpretation of the archdeacon's feelings is offered:

… architecture is the great book of humanity, the principal expression of man in his

different stages of development, either as a force or as an intelligence … the human

race has, in short, had no important thought which it has not written in stone. ... It was

a presentiment that human thought, in changing its form, was about to change its

mode of expression; that the dominant idea of each generation would no longer be

written with the same matter, and in the same manner; that the book of stone, so

solid and so durable, was about to make way for the book of paper, more solid and

still more durable.

The perspective of the five hundred years that have elapsed since Gutenberg's

invention, allows us to conduct a mindful examination of the fate of the at first anxious and

ambiguous emotions towards print, of the character and pace of the many transformations

(epistemological, cultural, political, economical) attributed to it, of the birth and evolution of

varied literacies related to the book's object-world. It also supplies us, by extrapolation, with

solid background for the examination of the questions arising from current technological

transformations, some of them already a commonplace: Will this -the use of electronic

calculators and mathematical software packages- kill that -arithmetic skills and other key

components of numeracy? Will this -the immersion in multimodal representational spaces -

10

kill that -the mastery of fundamental skills of classic literacy? Are we able to identify and

define the ways and directions in which human thought is changing its form and mode of

expression?

The fourth issue in our rationale relates to the obvious -but nevertheless substantial-

social (cultural, political, economical, ethical) aspects and implications of the dyad

technological-transformations/related-literacies. Relevant throughout human history, these

aspects have become even more so today because of the centrality of knowledge and

knowledge technologies in the 21st century. The discussion centers on various foci, and

reflects conflicting perspectives. Among the issues under discussion are: the politics and

economics of knowledge (e.g., Apple, 2003); parallel forces acting in the knowledge society

(e.g., grass roots initiatives and emergent distributed processes vs. corporate imposition of

methods and tools); tension between situational and culture-dependent knowledge-

processes and globalization-oriented ones; newly emerging divides within and between

societies; conflicting perspectives on the role of literacy for the empowerment of individuals

and societies: is it a means required for functional adaptation to the traits of the knowledge

society (e.g., Drucker, 1994), or for mindfully coping with these demands in defiant fashion

(e.g., critical approaches, Frechette, 2002).

Although brief and partial, the above survey of both the characterization of the

knowledge society and the evolving definitions of literacy, unveils the current intense

intellectual endeavor to define the new literacies for the knowledge society. In the following

section we will survey seven of these, which we consider as representative components of a

person's new literacies baggage.

1.2.3 Seven literacies for the knowledge society

The literacies to be defined and discussed in this section relate to multimodal

information processing, navigating the infospace, interpersonal communication, visual-

11

literacy, hyper-literacy (hyperacy), personal information management (PIM), and coping with

complexity.

Multimodal information processing

Definition: Multimodal information processing literacy encompasses the skills and

knowledge required to understand, produce and negotiate meanings in a culture made up of

words, images and sounds. The multimodality of this culture derives from (a) the need to

deal with multiple representational means and forms (e.g., printed words, static and moving

images, sound, haptic information, texts, charts, or programming code); (b) the fact that it is

accessed from, and/or addressed to, multiple information agents (e.g., peers, experts,

scientific publications, blogs or Websites), and (c) its use of multiple processing tools, within

(d) multicultural contexts.

Discussion: Multimodality characterizes our immersion in the (natural, social, artificial)

world - all our senses are compromised, and many different processing functions are

exercised on inputted and stored information of various kinds (e.g., texts, images, gestures,

haptic information). Throughout the history of humankind, multimodal perception and

processing were assisted by knowledge technologies of various kinds; however, current ICT

has given a qualitative boost to the ways people gather, store and process information

(Drucker, 1994; Lemke, 2005).

The ability to process information by using ICT generic applications -namely to create

and edit texts with word processors, to do complex numerical calculations using a

spreadsheet application, or to process image or audio files- is claimed to be one of the most

essential skills in the knowledge society. The wide availability (in the relevant parts of today’s

world) of these basic tools and the rich processes that they afford make products such as

handwritten documents or hand-calculated budgets a rarity. Their usage is currently so

common and widespread that it is sometimes hard to realize that only a few decades have

elapsed since the early days of personal computing, when the first widely used word

12

processing and spreadsheet applications were introduced. It is now obvious that the ability to

manipulate and process multimodal information using ICT is quintessential for learning and

working in the post-industrial society. The list of the required skills is lengthy, and the vast

majority of the youngsters, belonging to the net generation, acquire these mostly in an

unorganized and unsystematic manner, in both formal and informal settings.

However, the required and actually occurring transformation is not merely technical.

It does not relate to just replacing paper and pencil with digits on a screen. It is also not just a

matter of replacing previous technologies with new ones. Rather, it implies a critical change

in the way people perceive, consume, create and interact-with information in everyday life.

Our understanding of the nature and impact of these transformations is still limited.

Moreover, when ICT skills and knowledge are formally taught, the learning takes place

mostly at the technical or tool-mastery levels. Learners are usually not introduced to the deep

meanings and implications of technology-assisted processes of digital representations of

world phenomena. The work on these additional layers of understanding and consequent

reshaping of thinking and performance still represents a real challenge to educational

systems.

Navigating the Infospace

Definition: This literacy relates to the ability to know when and why there is a need for

information; how and where to find it in, and retrieve it from the vast infospace; and how to

decode, evaluate, use and communicate it in both an efficient and ethical manner.

Discussion: Humankind’s transition from nomadic to sedentary life brought about

substantial changes, including the demarcation and appropriation of physical territories and

the development of systemic production and storage of goods -including knowledge- within

or nearby the demarcated space. Concerning knowledge, the technological developments of

the last decades have implied a sort of reversal of the process: we are becoming nomadic

gatherers of information (McLuhan, 1994).

13

The first phase of this process took place in the virtual realm - without leaving the

workstation at work, school or home, we were able to wander through the infinite paths of the

infospace and gather information from disparate yet interconnected information geographies.

But the next phase -already here- affords once again physically nomadic behavior:

ubiquitous computing, mobile technologies, cellular networks and large wireless bubbles

(e.g., campuses, shopping malls, planes, even neighborhoods allow unconfined information

gathering, processing and transmission. The ability to navigate the infospace, thus, has

become a critical skill.

A comprehensive definition of the required skills is still a matter of controversy -

although different proposals can be found in policy documents and published academic work.

Overall, the literate navigator of the infospace is expected to master skills such as: to

recognize the critical role of information for mindful decision-making and problem-solving; to

identify potential sources of information; to know how to access these; to develop efficient

search strategies; to evaluate found information and organize it for practical application; to

integrate new information into an existing body of knowledge; to be aware of ethical (e.g.,

plagiarism, copyrights) and moral issues in the use and manipulation of information

(Lampert, 2004; Muir & Oppenheim,2001). Besides all these, the mastery of skills related to

the use of various information-manipulation tools and technologies is obviously required.

Educational systems, aware of the importance of the above skills, have devised ways

to include them in the formal curricula. However, in most cases, these are still taught as a

separate subject (e.g., information literacy courses). Given the major trends currently

affecting the world of information and knowledge, these skills should be integrally embedded

within and across the school curricula, as basic components of literacy for the 21st century.

Communication literacy

Definition: This literacy relates to the skills required for mindful, knowledgeable and

ethical use of a wide range of communication means, using multiple communication

14

channels (e.g., verbal, written, visual), in various interaction configurations (e.g., one-to-one,

one-to-many, many-to-many), for different purposes (e.g., social interaction, team work,

collaborative creation, media consumption and/or production).

Discussion: The constituent traits of communication behavior (e.g., generation and

use of symbol-systems, of communication technologies) are shared by humans of all times

since the "symbolic explosion" of the Upper Paleolithic period (Conkey, 1999). However, due

to the sophisticated and complex affordances of today's technologies and tools, interpersonal

and mass communication performance have entered a qualitatively new phase, implying the

demand for a radical transformation in our stance towards communication, and for the

acquisition of new skills.

Our communication landscape is saturated with technologies and tools which are

caught in multidimensional characterization, for example: synchronous and asynchronous;

based on the use of a wide range of representational media (e.g., text, image, sound);

serving many different social configurations (e.g., one-to-one, or many-to many - from small

groups to large communities); for various purposes (e.g., interpersonal messaging, team

work, special-interest-groups knowledge building or collaborative problem solving,

broadcasting of textual, visual or auditory information).

Relevant perceptions and skills relate to different levels. The technical level is

obvious, and implies acquisition of the necessary skills for using different tools (e.g., for e-

mailing, chatting, or contributing to a collaborative project). The psychological and affective

levels are less obvious, and demand the evolvement of dispositions and attitudes unique to

the novel communication situations with. Examples of these situations are (Blake & Tucker,

2006; Huwe, 2003): groups of people who use ICT to interact while working or learning -

though they may never meet face-to-face; children or adolescents with special needs or

concerns participating anonymously in support networks; broadcasting (e.g., web logs,

podcasting, posting of textual or visual information in public and interactive repositories); or

virtual participatory spaces (e.g., for working, gaming, e-commerce transactions). All these

15

require a reconsideration and redefinition of our perception of interaction and interaction

modalities, partnership, distributed and collaborative work and learning, affiliation with

communities of interest and reference, dissemination of personal and public information

(including issues such as ownership or reliability) and a number of ethical and moral issues

as well.

In the educational field, innovative collaborative learning environments have been

developed using the new technologies, some of which have proved to be sustainable. For

example, CSILE: Computer-Supported Intentional Learning Environments, which enable

knowledge-building and development of thinking skills (Bereiter & Scardamalia, 2004); WISE:

the Web-based Inquiry Science Environment, which promotes inquiry-based science (Linn,

2006); or online networks designed to support collaborative knowledge-building within

schools, between schools and beyond schools using wirelessly connected handheld

computers (Zurita & Nussbaum, 2004).

In spite of these and many other thoughtful and proven endeavors, as the

technologies are still evolving so is the conceptualization and definition of the required

transformations in perception and the to-be-acquired skills. This intertwined development -

since the early attempts to design "electronic agoras" (Mitchell, 1995) and multi-user

environments (Mioduser & Oren, 1998) to the current intense intellectual and practical work

focusing on people's involvement with tools grouped under the amorphous umbrella of the

"Web 2.0" (O'Reilly, 2005) - represents a serious contribution to the apparatus of knowledge

and skills comprising the new literacies. And the teaching of these constitutes a challenge for

education as well.

1.2.4 Visual Literacy

Definition: Visual literacy is the ability to decode, evaluate, use or create images of

various kinds (e.g., still, moving, representational, directly recorded) using both conventional

16

and 21st century media in ways that advance thinking, reasoning, decision making,

communication, and learning.

Discussion: Before the word was the image. Humans have been generating and

“reading” images for all kinds of purposes from times immemorial - as a means for

dominating, enhancing, or venerating reality or aspects of it; for representing existing or

invented realities; for conveying thought and communicating with other humans; for

visualizing natural, social and artificial phenomena and processes under study; for

performing formal manipulations with symbol systems that are alternative to word and

number systems (Hauser, 1951; McLuhan, 1994; West, 1995). Since the very beginnings of

human history, images have been acting as powerful conveyors of meaning, either as

building blocks of notational systems or as self-contained representational objects. Moreover,

many have attained the status of icons of a period or a culture - for example, the human

imprints depicted in (a) the tapestry of hand stencils on the walls of the Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc

cave, and (b) Neil Armstrong's footprints on the moon. These images were generated more

than 30,000 years apart. They are the product of drastically different contexts, cultural

systems, belief systems, and technological knowledge and capabilities, which both served as

background and supplied the means for their creation. Even so they share an essential

feature: they are "readable". They are meaningful representational chunks enticing the

literate observer to "read" the fascinating stories of each particular stage in the history of

humankind - the settings, the state of knowledge, the existential stance of each specific

human community. With the passing of time, the original intentions behind the images may

have been lost - but the action of a visually literate reader, aiming to distillate meaning out of

the otherwise mere configuration of matter on a surface, allows the reformulation of a story,

conjectures, and significance.

There were times in which visual literacy held a superior role - most obviously in pre-

linguistic and later on pre-literate epochs (Olson, 1994). In an epistle to Serenus, Bishop of

Marseille, Pope Gregorius the Great reprimands him for destroying the images of saints,

17

stating that For what writing presents to readers, this a picture presents to the unlearned who

behold, since in it even the ignorant see what they ought to follow; in it the illiterate read ...

with regard to the pictorial representations … though ignorant of letters, they might by turning

their eyes to the story itself learn what had been done (Epist. 11 in Shaff, P.). In Medieval

Europe art was not an independent and self-contained aesthetic mode of expression but

rather subservient to a pervasively religious culture, thus developing a visual language with

an abstract and spiritual character which then became a powerful educational resource

(Hauser, 1951).

More recently, following the 19th century move towards machine-based mass

production of goods, a new kind of visual literacy became imperative, the one required to

understand the grammar of the machine (Stevens, 1995). Technical drawing, formal

representational notations, continuous transitions between 2D spatial representations and

the corresponding 3D represented realities, were part of the new requirements - for

engineers to express what they saw in their mind's eye (Ferguson, 2001), for workers to

interpret the represented worlds and produce the physical ones.

Today's massive re-irruption of the visual into our lives, appears to be, on the face of

it, a move forward into the past, fostering a revival of visual talents and skills once highly

valued, but long considered of lesser value in a modern culture long dominated by words

(West, 1995, pp. 14). However, the current rebirth of the visual is substantially different from

previous cycles in terms of cultural status, epistemological functions, materials in which it is

embodied, processing processes afforded, and tools involved in its creation and consumption

(Leu et al., 2004; West, 1995). A widely cited definition of “visual literacy” was formulated by

Debes (1968) several decades ago, concerning the competencies allowing a visually literate

person to discriminate and interpret the visible actions, objects and/or symbols, natural or

man made, that he encounters in his environment … to comprehend and enjoy the

masterworks of visual communication (p. 14). Since this definition was formulated, a

comprehensive visual culture has evolved.

18

Our visual culture has been defined as comprising the material artifacts, buildings and

images, plus time-based media and performances, produced by human labor and

imagination, which serve aesthetic, ritualistic or ideological-political ends, and/or practical

functions, and which address the sense of sight to a significant extent (Walker & Chaplin,

1997, p 2). Its current essential features are of a very special kind: the raw material is the

digit, the means are digital processing tools, the products populate the digital world (Mitchell,

1995). Processes not so long ago unimaginable are today's routine features in on-the-shelf

tools, e.g., software packages supporting graphic design, Graphic User Interface design,

scientific visualization, digital video editing, computer-based design and manufacturing,

animation, creation of virtual worlds. Each and every option afforded by a process or a tool,

has profound epistemological implications, for both creators and consumers immersed in the

ever evolving visual world.

And where is formal education in the current phase of the story? Quoting Yenawine

(1997): there is virtually no instruction in visual literacy either in schools or out, nor even

recognition that learning to look is, like reading, a process of stages. There is no accepted

system by which to teach it either—that is, strategies sequenced to address the needs and

abilities of an individual at a given moment, strategies that eventually allow one to come to

terms with complex images. (p.p. 846) Yet another challenge for education in the knowledge

society.

1.2.5 Hyperacy

Definition: This literacy refers to people’s ability to deal, either as consumers or

producers, with non-linear knowledge representations. The visible layer of this literacy relates

to skills involved in either creating or using features such as links among knowledge units,

or navigation aids. The more profound layers comprise abilities such as envisioning a

consistent epistemic structure out of the various possible paths within a knowledge-web, the

19

evaluation of the relevance of each unit to the evolving meaning, or the ability to move back

and forth from the link level to the whole knowledge-structure level.

Discussion: Our first encounter with Julio Cortazar's "anti-novel" Rayuela (Hopscotch)

in 1966 was an exciting challenge to our traditional reading habits: it comprises sets of

seriated chapters and "expandable chapters" linked by suggested interconnections, in fact

pieces that might be arranged in manifold ways; it supports the recurrent composition of

stories within stories by the reader while moving back and forth in the book. The book does

not present one definite narrative, and instead dedicates itself "to showing the possible paths

one can take to knock down the wall, to see what's on the other side." (Garfield, 1978).

"Rayuela" , clearly, does not merely present a different type of writing, but undoubtedly also

and correspondingly demands a different kind of reading.

It has been claimed that composite information units which include "semantic bridges"

allowing, and indeed requiring us, to commute between different parts of a text, and even

between different texts, have been with us for centuries, e.g., in reference texts that include

detour tools (e.g., foot- and end-notes, cross-references in dictionaries and encyclopedias);

in literary creations - e.g., Laurence Sterne's comic meta-novel "The Life and Opinions of

Tristram Shandy, Gentleman" published between 1759 and 1756 or 66 [check with reference

list], a non-linear narrative including intertwined stories, authorial self-reflection on the very

nature of the book and the process of writing it, among other elements, which resemble

today's hypertext writing; or foundational Jewish texts like the Talmud, in which a typical

page is a complex interlinked structure comprising the main texts as well as a dense array of

marginal commentaries, interpretations, and expansions (Segal, 1996)).

However, all the above precedents functioned under the constraints of the print

technology - in contrast, their instantiation in electronic digital technology gave birth to a

qualitatively different representational space, that of hypertext and hypermedia. Within this

space, links are "alive", the "bridges" have assorted semantic and/or functional attributes, the

paths have become bi- and even multidirectional. Indeed, the book is a now an interactive

20

'machine' in which the producer as well as the consumer act as definers of the (ever

changing) scope and boundaries of the representational chunks, and their semantic and

functional identities (Logan, 2000).

It has become clear that most knowledge manipulation functions we perform (e.g,

storage, search, retrieval, exchange) for all kinds of purposes (e.g., learn, work, leisure time)

take place within the huge interlinked repository of information on the Internet. The

dissonance between the intellectual tools required for appropriate functioning in this new

representational space (hyperacy) and the ones supplied by formal education (traditional

literacy) is striking. Students are given tasks devised in terms of print technology (e.g.,

textbooks), but are sent to look for resources (search, read, synthesize) in hyperspace -

without being equipped with the necessary literacy. If we replace "students" by "workers" or

by "people", it is easy to understand the significance of the above dissonance between

formally-acquired and actually-required skills for everyday life in the knowledge society. The

actual challenge is to resolve this dissonance and supply the learners with the intellectual

tools comprising the cognitive toolbox of hyperacy.

1.2.6 Personal Information Management Literacy

Definition: Personal Information Management (PIM) is the process by which an

individual stores his\her information items (e.g., documents, email, Web favorites, tasks,

contacts) in order to retrieve them later on.

Discussion: PIM is a fundamental aspect of people's interaction with computers -

millions of computer users manage information items on a daily basis. Though people

certainly managed physical information items before the age of the computer, PIM literacy

developed in recent years as the amount of personal information that computer users need

to handle increased dramatically. For example, users often create their own personal subset

of the gigantic information world of the Internet (e.g. by using Web Favorites) in their own

computers in order to “keep found things found” (Bruce, 2005); they also receive large

21

amounts of email messages that typically pile up in their Inboxes, frequently with files

attached (Whittaker & Sidner, 1996); and the ease of saving different versions of the same

information item also added to the increase in the information to be handled. This vast

increase of information items along with the inception of PIM systems that support its

management (such as features in the operating system, the mailbox or the browser) requires

that users develop new PIM literacies.

The primary PIM skill is the ability to store information items in a way that facilitates

its efficient retrieval. Components of this ability are, for instance: (a) giving meaningful names

to information items and folders (meaningful to the user, as he\she will need to retrieve it

later on); (b) avoiding creating folders with too little information items (as this increases the

number of folders) or too many of them (as the user might find it hard to locate relevant

information); (c) avoiding creating folders of ample hierarchal depth (as this hides information

items and complicates their retrieval); (d) putting shortcuts to information items of high

relevancy to the user on the desktop, in order to shorten their retrieval time and remind the

user of their existence (Malone, 1983); and (e) avoiding clustering folders with irrelevant

information items, which may compete for the user's attention (Bergman, Beyth-Marom, &

Nachmias, 2003). Research has shown that in most cases users remember where they put

their information and so they navigate to the folder where it is stored in order to retrieve it

(Boardman & Sasse, 2004 ). However, when they fail to remember the item’s location,

another PIM skill is required – the ability to search for an information item by using partial

memory of past interactions with it as a cue.

Another important example of a PIM skill is ”task management”. This is not a novel

form of literacy, but its importance has dramatically grown in the recent decade. Not only do

'information workers' need to attend to more tasks, they are also constantly being interrupted.

When working on a task (e.g., writing a document), users also receive phone calls, email

messages, and instant messages (Czerwinski, Horvitz, & Wilhite, 2004). These may distract

users’ attention and could result in neglecting the original task. However, the user cannot

22

completely ignore the interruptions as some of them can be important or urgent. Learning to

prioritize tasks is an essential PIM ability as it allows the users to stay in control of the order

of tasks they are doing instead of drifting with the flood of information items and tasks that

comes their way.

As with any literacy, PIM literacy can be taught. However, when teaching PIM literacy

one needs to remember that PIM is a field which involves particularly extensive individual

differences and even idiosyncrasies - depending on users’ personalities and the nature of

their work. A great deal of research is still needed to identify strategies that account for

individual differences and context variability, and for devising appropriate pedagogical

solutions to teaching these strategies.

1.2.7 Coping with complexity

Definition: This literacy encompasses the skills and methods required to perceive

phenomena as complex (e.g., recognizing multiple actors or multiple layers, or emergent

behavioral patterns), to study and understand these phenomena (e.g., devising multiple and

alternative strategies, building and activating models) and to implement the gained

understanding for coping with them.

Discussion: An enlightening passage in Bertold Brecht's (1982) play on Galileo's life,

presents the tremendous dissonance created in people's minds and lives as a result of

critical shifts in perspective. Little monk, arguing with Galileo about his decision to give up

science, says: My parents … are simple people. They know all about olive trees, but not

much else. As I study the phases of Venus I can visualize my parents sitting round the fire

with my sister, eating their curded cheese … they are badly off, but even their misfortunes

imply a certain order. There are so many cycles, ranging from washing the floor, through the

seasons of the olive crop to the paying of taxes …They have been assured … that the whole

drama of the world is constructed around them… What would my people say if I told them

that they happen to be on a small knob of stone twisting endlessly through the void round a

23

second-rate star, just one among myriads? (pp. 65-66). The knowledge revolution that

marked the beginnings of modern science, required that people shifted from a world in which,

in principle, all answers are known, to a world in which not even all questions are clear, to

adopt a different cognitive and emotional stance, and to acquire a novel set of conceptual

tools and skills. The world became less simple, less obvious, far more open to inquiry.

The current knowledge revolution, at the early stages of another paradigm shift in

scientific thinking as embodied in complexity science (Phelan, 2001), once again poses the

demand for new conceptual tools and skills. Herbert Simon (1996) claimed that the last

century "has seen recurrent bursts of interest in complexity and complex systems", from the

early interest in ”holism” “Gestalts”, ”creative evolution”, or ”general systems” to the current

work on ”chaos”, “adaptive systems”, ”genetic algorithms” and ”cellular automata” A few

centuries since becoming less simple, the world (natural, social and artificial) has become

definitely complex. And so have the questions about its workings (e.g., How is it that a group

of cells can come together and organize themselves to be a brain? How do independent

members of an economy each working chiefly for their own gain produce efficient global

markets? (Mitchell,1995). In the context of our discussion on new literacies, coping with

complexity implies a challenge at three main levels: content, methods, and learning

processes.

At the content level, the challenge derives from the conceptual reshuffling of the

known world into novel configurations and entities (e.g., systems, networks), for which novel

structural and functional traits are introduced (e.g., multiple levels, self-organization, chaotic

behavior). The world as object of study and learning, escapes the compartmentalized

knowledge grids built over centuries, and re-represents itself in hyperlinked knowledge

configurations. Concepts such as emergence, self-organization, interdependence, cellular

automata, deterministic chaos, information flows and constraints, system–environment

interaction, are becoming key conceptual tools for qualitative reasoning and quantitative

24

modeling and simulation (across disciplines) of real as well as synthetic complex systems

(Jacobson & Wilensky, 2006).

At the methods level, it is fairly obvious that the above conceptual change is closely

related to the knowledge technologies that allowed scientists to explore and redefine

explanations about world phenomena as complex entities. Jackson (1996) claims that

science is undergoing a metamorphosis as a result of the possibilities generated by the

digital computer, which adds to the use of physical experiments and mathematical models

(characteristic of the first metamorphosis which began about four centuries ago), the use of

computer experiments as a powerful resource for scientific inquiry. New theoretical

approaches have been generated, and new methodologies and tools as well (e.g., calculus-

based differential equations, random-walk or stochastic models, multi-agent modeling tools).

Adapting these methods and tools (from the scientific) to the educational milieu is not trivial,

though some successful experience is already showing possible ways (e.g., Jacobson &

Wilensky, 2006; Wilensky & Resnick, 1999).

1.2.8 Epilogue

What does it mean to be literate? The question with which we opened the chapter,

apparently simple and straightforward, led us into the need to discuss an intricate body of

definitions, changing perspectives, and clusters of skills and knowledge, in our search for a

mindful answer to it.

From the first sections, which focused on the evolving definitions of literacy and the

characteristics of the knowledge society, we have learned about the complex nature of what

is conceived today to be “a literate person”. From the third section, focusing on specific

packages of knowledge and skills, we have learned about the scope, content and foci of

today’s required literacies. It is obvious that the above-presented typology is neither

exhaustive nor conclusive. Notwithstanding, it represents an effort to map the most salient

sets of knowledge and skills both afforded and demanded by the new knowledge

25

technologies – which paradoxically, are mostly absent from the formal curricula in most

educational systems.

In this concluding section we will briefly elaborate on the implications of the ideas and

issues presented in this chapter for policy making and planning, and for assessment.

Concerning policy, the fundamental question to be answered relates to the way

educational systems define their goals and plan their actions vis-à-vis the transformations

undergoing outside school, in the knowledge society. The gap between the system’s inner

and outer worlds is evident, even though there is great variation among and within countries.

The practical manifestations of this gap can be recognized at different levels, for example:

- accessibility – while increasing number of youngsters gain access to computational and

communication power on an individual basis educational systems still struggle to pursue

goals based on the optimization of computer: student ratios or school-computer-labs

usage;

- teaching/learning processes – while people in today’s world learn about topics of their

interest within digital repositories of information and networked communities of interest,

not tied to time or space constraints, school systems’ predominant processes are still

textbook- and formal-instruction-based, mostly also a-digital, constrained to spatial and

temporal fixed configurations;

- fostering literacy – while the above survey in this chapter unveiled the complexity and

multifaceted character of the skills and knowledge required for functioning as a literate

person in the knowledge society, school systems’ actually enacted curricula (regardless of

declaratory rhetoric), still concentrates on a basic set of skills (e.g., “basics”, 3R’s) clearly

attached to the tradition of the printed word technology. These are only a few examples of

the contrasting visions, which policy and decision makers, and educational planners, will

have to face while devising the future of educational systems.

Concerning the new literacies, the crucial policy questions relate to (a) the feasibility,

and (b) the ways and procedures - for bridging between the above and numerous other

26

conflicting perceptions. The feasibility of the change depends primarily on policy and decision

makers’ openness and readiness to consider the defining characteristics of the knowledge

society, among the factors that might assist in shaping the educational systems of the near

future. Once this awareness is reached, the how should be defined, as answers to questions

such as: How should essential literacies (e.g., visual, multimodal, hyper-, coping with

complexities) be integrated across the curriculum in all subjects? How to advance the

transition from textbook-based instruction to digital-hyperspaces-based construction of

knowledge? How to foster sound syntheses between current and alternative spatial and

temporal schooling configurations, for supporting individualized control over learning

processes and information-spaces management? And finally, there is the key question

related to the proclaimed goal of “preparing the students for living in the future world”. Future

worlds are difficult to foresee, and in any case great portions of the current world are still

“future” for many educational systems. A more appropriate phrasing of the question might be:

How to prepare students first for functioning in the current changing world (the outer

environment), and then how to prepare them to be able to analyze the features of, and

devise ways to adapt to, upcoming (and still unknown) worlds?

Concerning assessment, the new literacies repertoire poses serious challenges at

different levels. One aspect relates to the complexity of the ability to be measured: in most

cases it is a functional chunk comprising a number of interrelated skills and procedures.

Measuring isolated components may result in a distorted depiction of the students’ ability.

Another aspect concerns the fact that most abilities are actually processes – proceeding in

stages and involving different levels of cognitive activity. The assessment of processes –as

opposed to outcomes- will demand a great deal of conceptual as well as methodological

research and development work. An additional aspect refers to the meta-level perspective:

new literacies encompass not only knowledge about how to use a tool or perform a

procedure, but the gradual construction of a digital-world stance. This may include abilities

such as the understanding of what new possibilities are afforded by a tool besides those

27

technically indicated by its manual; how new features and processing processes may

emerge from the combinations of tools and procedures; or how to approach a newly

developed technology

The quantitative aspect is not less important than the previous: learning and working

with ICT implies the use of numerous tools and the activation of endless abilities, sometimes

in simultaneous fashion – thus, the space of candidates for the assessment is immense.

Finally, the scalability challenge: supposing that all the previous aspects were faced and

solved for the individual student, the question remains of if and how these solutions can be

scaled to assess schools’ or whole systems’ populations.

In face of this complex reality, Anderson suggests that for practical purposes “A

project to systematically assess new literacies, particularly large scale studies, must narrow

or delimit the scope of the assessment in various ways. If one is interested in a very new and

novel media, the choices are likely to be very limited. But if one is interested in a broad scope

of ICTs, then it is necessary to prioritize components and dimensions of the full range of

potential content, knowledge, and skills that could be assessed” (Anderson, in press).

Summarizing our above brief elaboration on the challenges for assessment, there is a need

for considerable research and development work aiming to devise conceptual models and

methodologies for measuring complex abilities, processes, performance, and overall stance,

with large populations.

As a manner of concluding remark: the issues discussed along the chapter reflect the

actual concerns of the educational community about the evolving new literacies. Many of

these concerns are actually open questions still awaiting for examination and for the devise

of wise answers. However, we might close the chapter with a claim we believe is consensus:

Literacies are cultural constructs, closely tied to the technologies affording and demanding

them; societies, via their educational systems, should foster their young members’ natural

integration into the evolving cultural/technological landscapes by supporting the mastering of

skillful functioning in the knowledge society as part of the formal education cycle.

28

29

References

Anderson, R. (2008). Implications of the information and knowledge society for education. In

J. Voogt and G. Knezek (Eds.), International handbook of information technology in

primary and secondary education (pp xxx-xxx). New York: Springer.

Anderson, R. (in press). Large-scale quantitative research on new technology in teaching

and learning. In J. Coiro, M. Knobel, C. Lankshear, & D. Leu (Eds.), The Handbook of

Research on New Literacies. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Apple, M. W. (2003). The state and the politics of knowledge. UK: Routledge.

Bell, D. (1973). The coming of post-industrial society. New York: Basic Books.

Bereiter, C., & Scardamalia, M. (2004). Technology and Literacies: From Print Literacy to

Dialogic Literacy. Retrieved April 10, 2007 from

http://tamago.oise.utoronto.ca/projects/impactonpolicy/pdfs/bereiter_edited_Feb_20_

04.pdf

Bergman, O., Beyth-Marom, R., & Nachmias, R. (2003). The user-subjective approach to

personal information management systems. Journal of the American Society for

Information Science and Technology, 54, 872-878.

Blake, E.H. and Tucker, W.D. (2006). User interfaces for communication bridges across the

digital divide. AI & Society, 20, 232–242.

Boardman, R., & Sasse, M. A. (2004 ). "Stuff goes into the computer and doesn't come out":

a cross-tool study of personal information management. In Proceedings of the

SIGCHI conference on human factors in computing systems (pp. 583-590 ). Vienna,

Austria: ACM Press.

Brecht, Bertold. (1982). Life of Galileo. London: Methuen.

Bruce, H. (2005). Personal anticipated information need. Information Research, 10(3), paper

232. Retrieved on April 10, 2007 from http://InformationR.net/ir/10-3/paper232.html

Bucciarelli, L. (1996). Designing engineers. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

30

Conkey, M. (1999). A history of the interpretation of European 'paleolithic art': magic,

mythogram, and metaphors for modernity. In A. Lock & Ch. Peters (Eds.), Handbook

of human symbolic evolution, (pp. 288-350). Malden, MA: Blackwell.

Czerwinski, M., Horvitz, E., & Wilhite, S. (2004 ). A diary study of task switching and

interruptions. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on human factors in

computing systems (pp. 175-182 ). Vienna, Austria: ACM Press.

David, P., & Foray, D. (2002). An introduction to the economy of the knowledge society.

International Social Science Journal, 54(171), 9–23.

Debes. (1968). Some foundations for visual literacy. Audiovisual Instruction, 13, 961-964.

Drucker, P. F. (1994). The age of social transformation. Atlantic Monthly, 274(5), p 53-80.

Frechette, J. D. (2002). Developing media literacy in cyberspace: Pedagogy and critical

learning for the twenty-first century classroom. Westport, CT: Praeger.

Freire, P., & Macedo, D. (1987). Literacy: Reading the word and the world. London:

Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Garfield, E. P. (1978). Cortázar por Cortázar (Entrevista). Cuadernos de Texto Crítico.

México: Universidad Veracruzana. Retrieved on April 10, 2007 from

http://www.juliocortazar.com.ar/cuentos/corpor.htm

Hauser, A. (1951). The social history of art. London, UK: Routlege & Kegan Paul.

Hoadly, C.M and Kinler, P.G. (2005). Using technology to transform communities of practice

into knowledge-building communities. SIGGROUP Bulletin, 25(1), 31-40. Retrieved

on April 10, 2007 from

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf213.ii.vii.iii.html

Hugo, V. (2001). Notre-Dame de Paris. Retrieved from

http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext01/hback10.txt

Huwe, T.K. (2003). Born to blog. Computers in Libraries, 23(10), 44-45.

Jackson, E. (1996). The second metamorphosis of science: A second view. SFI Working

Paper No. 96-05-059. Santa Fe Institute.

31

Jacobson, M., & Wilensky, U. (2006). Complex systems in education: Scientific and

educational importance and implications for the learning sciences. The Journal of the

Learning Sciences, 15, 11-34.

Kozma, R., & Anderson, R. (2002). Qualitative case studies of innovative pedagogical

practices using ICT. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 18, 387–394.

Lampert, L.D. (2004). Integrating discipline-based anti-plagiarism instruction into the

information literacy curriculum. Reference Services Review, 32,, 347-355.

Lemke, J.L. (2005). Towards critical multimedia literacy: Technology, research, and politics.

In M. McKenna, D. Reinking, L. Labbo & R. Kieffer (Eds.), Handbook of literacy &

technology, v2.0. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Leu, D. Jr., Kinzer, Ch., Coiro, J. & Cammack, D. (2004). Toward a theory of new literacies

emerging from the Internet and other information and communication technologies. In

R. Ruddell & N. Unrau (Eds.), Theoretical models and processes of reading (5th ed.)

(pp. 1570-1613). Newark, DE: International Reading Association.

Linn, M.C. (2006). WISE teachers: Using technology and inquiry for science instruction. In

E.A. Ashburn & R.E. Floden (Eds.), Meaningful learning using technology: What

educators need to know (pp. 45-69). New York: Teachers College Press.

Lock, A., & Peters, Ch. (1999). Handbook of symbolic human evolution. Malden, MA:

Blackwell.

Logan, R. (2000). The sixth language - learning a living in the internet age. Toronto, Canada:

Stoddart.

Lonsdale, M., & McCurry, D. (2004). Literacy in the new millennium. Adelaide, Australia:

National Centre for Vocational Education Research.

Malone, T. W. (1983). How do people organize their desks? Implications for the design of

office information systems. ACM Transactions on Office Information Systems, 1, 99-

112.

32

Mancini, C. (2000). From cinematographic to hypertext narrative. Paper presented at the

Hypertext Writer Workshop, ACM Hypertext 00 Conference, San Antonio, TX.

Retrieved on April 10, 2007 from http://www.wordcircuits.com/htww/clara1.htm

McLuhan, M. (1994). Understanding media. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Mitchell, W. (1995). City of bits - space, place and the Infobahn. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Mioduser, D. (2005). From real virtuality in Lascaux to virtual reality today: cognitive

processes with cognitive technologies. In T. Trabasso, J. Sabatini, D. Massaro, &

Robert C. Calfee (Eds.), From orthography to pedagogy: Essays in honor of Richard

L. Venezky. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Mioduser, D. & Oren, A. (1998). "Knowmagine"- a virtual knowledge park for cooperative

learning in Cyberspace. International Journal of Educational Telecommunications, 4,

75-95.

Muir, A. and Oppenheim, C. (2001). Report on developments world-wide on national

information policy. London: Library Association. Retrieved Oct 9, 2006 from

http://www.la-hq.org.uk/directory/prof_issues/nip

Murray, D. E. (2000). Changing technologies, changing literacy communities? Language

Learning & Technology, 4, 43-58.

Nadin, M. (1997). The civilization of illiteracy. Dresden, Germany: Dresden University Press.

National Literacy Act of 1991, Pub. L. No. 102-73, 105 Stat. 333. (1991). Retrieved April 10,

2007 from: http://novel.nifl.gov/public-law.html

Olson, D. (1994). The world on paper. UK: Cambridge University Press.

O'Reilly, T. (2005). What is Web 2.0: Design patterns and business models for the next

generation of software. Retrieved April 10, 2007 from

http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html

Phelan, S. (2001). What is complexity science, really? Emergence 3(1), 120-136.

Schaff, Philip (1819-1893). Selected epistles of Gregory the great bishop of Rome, (BOOKS

IX-XIV): Epistle XIII To Serenus, Bishop of Massilia (Marseilles). Translated, with

33

notes and indices, by the late rev. James Barmby, A select library of the nicene and

post-nicene fathers of the christian church. Second series. Volume XIII. Grand

Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans Publishing Company.

Segal, E. (1996). A page from the Babilonian Talmud. Retrieved April 10, 2007 from

http://www.ucalgary.ca/~elsegal/TalmudPage.html#Page

Semali, L. (2001). Defining new literacies in curricular practice. Reading Online, 5(4).

Retrieved April 10, 2007 from

http://www.readingonline.org/newliteracies/lit_index.asp?HREF=semali1/index.html

Simon, H. (1996). The sciences of the artificial. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Snow, K. (2006). What counts as literacy in early childhood? In K. McCartney, & D. Phillips

(Eds.), Blackwell handbook of early childhood development (pp. 274-294). Malden,

MA: Blackwell Publishing.

Sternberg, R., & Preiss, D. (2005). Intelligence and technology. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Sterne, L. (1759-1766). The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy, gentleman. Retrieved April

10, 2007 from http://www1.gifu-u.ac.jp/~masaru/TS/contents.html#start

Stevens, E. (1995). The grammar of the machine - technical literacy and early industrial

expansion in the United States. New Haven, CO: Yale University Press.

Walker, J., & Chaplin, S. (1997). Visual culture: an introduction. Manchester, UK:

Manchester University Press.

West, T. (1995). Forward into the past: a revival of old visual talents with computer

visualization. ACM SIGGRAPH Computer Graphics, 29(4), 14-19.

Whittaker, S., & Sidner, C. (1996). Email overload: exploring personal information

management of email. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on human factors in

computing systems: Common ground (pp. 276-283 ). Vancouver, British Columbia:

Canada ACM Press.

Wilensky, U., & Resnick, M. (1999). Thinking in levels: A dynamic systems perspective to

making sense of the world. Journal of Science Education and Technology, 8, 3-19.

34

Yenawine, P. (1997). Thoughts on visual literacy. In J. Flood, S. Brice Heat, & D. Lapp

(Eds.), Handbook of research on teaching literacy through the communicative and

visual arts, (pp. 845-847). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Zurita, G. & Nussbaum, M. (2004). Computer supported collaborative learning using

wirelessly interconnected handheld computers. Computers & Education, 42, 289–

314.