Literacy today involves not only text, but also image and screen
literacy. The ability to "read" multimedia texts and to feel comfortable
with new, multiple-media genres is decidedly nontrivial.
how to navigate through confusing, complex information spaces
and feel comfortable doing so. "Navigation" may well be the main form
of literacy for the 21st century.
"new" kind
of learning assuming pre-eminence-learning that's discovery based. We are
constantly discovering new things as we browse through the emergent digital
"libraries." Indeed, Web surfing fuses learning and entertainment,
creating "infotainment."
reasoning has been concerned with
the deductive and abstract.
Today's kids get on the Web and link, lurk, and
watch how other people are doing things, then try it themselves. This tendency
toward "action" brings us back into the same loop in which navigation,
discovery, and judgment all come into play in situ. When, for example,
have we lurked enough to try something ourselves?
Learning becomes situated in action; it becomes as
much social as cognitive, it is concrete rather than abstract, and it becomes
intertwined with judgment and exploration. As such, the Web becomes not only an
informational and social resource but a learning medium where understandings
are socially constructed and shared. In that medium, learning becomes a part of
action and knowledge creation
It is also, for our purposes here, a
beautiful example of how the Web enables us to capture and support the social
mind and naturally occurring knowledge assets.