Clearly, literacy has always been deictic, its meaning changing in each of these contexts, and many others, as new technologies appeared and people envisioned new ways of using these technologies for information and communication.  What is unique about the current period is the technologies and envisionments for literacy repeatedly change within such short periods of time, affecting so many individuals. Our era is defined largely by repeated, rapid, and revolutionary changes in the technologies of information and communication (Harrison & Stephen, 1996; Johnson, 1997; Negroponte, 1995). Within just 20 years, we have seen the wide-spread appearance of, among others: word processing technologies, electronic data base technologies, multimedia/hypermedia technologies, e-mail technologies, and Internet technologies.  Each has helped to redefine the nature of literacy and each has seen new envisionments for its use redefine the technology itself.

Moreover, the nature of literacy within each technology continuously changes as even newer technologies and newer envisionments regularly appear.  Most of us, for example, have changed or upgraded word processing and e-mail software several times as new technologies regularly require us to develop new literacy skills appropriate for the communication software we use and the new possibilities we envision for its use.  The same is also true for many other types of information and communication software including web-browser software, a technology that seems to change almost daily as upgraded browsers and new plug-ins appear with rapid regularity and as web pages are regularly redesigned to exploit newer technologies and envisionments for their effective use. While literacy and literacy learning have always been intimately related to technology, never before have so many new envisionments for literacy been developed within so many new technologies that regularly change within such short periods of time. Increasingly, it appears that literacy is defined largely by change itself; its meaning dependent upon rapidly changing technologies for information and communication and the envisionments for literacy they repeatedly inspire.

Thus, it is possible to view these rapid and continuous changes in literacy as the result of the competition between nations for creating economically and politically powerful societies. Alternatively one could view these changes as new potentials within which to create more "just" societies.  In truth, it is probably a bit of both, since historical realities clearly demonstrate the former cannot long survive without the later and the later will not long exist without the former.  In either case, however, information economies, global competition, and the changing nature of work are, perhaps, the most powerful forces driving the changing nature of literacy in school classrooms.  They prompt very real consequences for literacy education as we seek to prepare our students for the futures they deserve.

one must keep in mind that individuals often create different envisionments for literacy within each technology.  I may envision the use of current e-mail technologies for helping students acquire information from knowledgeable, unfamiliar others.  You may envision the use of current e-mail technologies to help students share literary responses with friends and colleagues. To what extent does research from my envisionment for using e-mail generalize to your envisionment when the pragmatic aspects of these communication tasks differ so substantially? Clearly the challenges are enormous as we consider the utility of literacy research from one technology to another, from one iteration of a technology to another, and from one envisionment of literacy to another. Issues of ecological validity caused by rapidly changing technologies for information and communication and the increasingly deictic nature of literacy are critically important as we explore the literacy potentials of digital environments.

In classroom studies such as these, however, it  is difficult to separate out effects due to the technology from the instructional strategies used with the technology. As Bush (1996) discovered, students who used hypermedia from an Integrated Learning System, while working within collaborative learning groups, reported significantly more positive attitudes about both math and computer math lessons than did students who worked alone using the same computer software.

s important as it is to evaluate the consequences of new digital literacies for interest and other motivational factors, clearly this work is in its early stages (Leu & Reinking, 1996). Richer theoretical constructs, more complex and sophisticated measures, more on-line assessment of motivational aspects, and more systematic attempts to distinguish between situational and individual interest will help us to develop richer, more comprehensive insights into the changing technologies for information and communication.

Generally, the work on individual differences and learning styles within the newer technologies for information and communication has not yet produced a consistent body of results, clearly demonstrating the primacy of a particular theoretical perspective or the clear-cut efficacy of hypermedia and newer technologies for accommodating varied individual differences or learning styles.

As technological change occurs more and more rapidly, redefining potentials for literacy and learning, how do we ensure that teachers fully exploit these potentials during classroom instruction?  Part of the challenge will require far more teacher education and staff development to continually support teachers as new technologies appear and as resources become available for its purchase.  Current levels of support appear inadequate if we expect the continuous progression of new technologies to become integrated into central locations of the curriculum

We have often focused more on the technology itself rather than how any technology is used in the classroom.  Bush (1996), for example, reminds us that important differences in outcomes arise for any technology, depending upon how it is used in the classroom. This is one of the few studies to vary instructional condition within the use of hypermedia, demonstrating clear differences due to instructional condition.  More work such as this needs to be attempted in an effort to discover the instructional conditions which maximally exploit the learning potentials within various forms of digital literacies. As Owston (1997) points out, the potential of new technologies for learning, such as the World Wide Web, is likely to be found in the way in which these new technologies are exploited, not in the technologies themselves.

Finally, we need to understand better how new envisionments for literacy develop and are disseminated as new technologies for information and communication continually appear.  It is clear that new envisionments appear with each new technology (Bruce, 1997b; Lemke, 1998) and it is clear that young children build these envisionments as they are engaged with digital literacy tasks with new technologies (Labbo, 1996; Labbo & Kuhn, 1998). Many new envisionments take place every day on the Internet as teachers construct new collaborative projects for classrooms and invite others to join (Garner & Gillingham, 1996; Leu & Leu, 1998). We know little about how this process develops and about the literacy and learning that develops from these encounters.  This information will be essential to assist new teachers entering these powerful contexts for collaboration, communication, and learning.

Fifteen years ago, students did not need to know word processing technologies. Ten years ago, students did not need to know how to navigate through the rich information environments possible in multimedia, CD-ROM technologies.  Five years ago, students did not need to know how to search for information on the Internet, set a bookmark, use a web browser, create an HTML document, participate in a mailing list, engage in a collaborative Internet project with another classroom, or communicate via e-mail. Today, however, each of these technologies and each of these envisionments is appearing within classrooms forcing teachers, students, and researchers to continually adapt to new definitions of literacy.

. It is likely that reading and writing ability will become even more important in the future than they are today. This is due to the increasing need for acquiring and communicating information rapidly in a world of global competition and information economies. In this context, success will often be defined by one's ability to quickly locate useful information to solve important problems and then communicate the solution to others. Proficient readers can acquire information faster by reading than they can by listening to speech or viewing a video. In an age when speed of information access is central to success, reading proficiency will be even more critical to our children's futures.

Writing will also become more important in our literacy futures. Meaning is more permanent in written form and, thus, it may be more easily stored and then accessed for later use. In addition, the greater planning time possible with written communication enables skilled authors to make meaning more explicit and precise; greater planning time also allows skilled authors to make meaning more deliberately ambiguous when that purpose might suit their needs.  Finally, the recipient of a message can acquire information faster by reading it than by listening to it.  Pragmatically, audiences will increasing find value in written texts over oral texts when time is essential to communicate information precisely.  For all of these reasons, reading and writing will become even more important in an information age as we access information rapidly and as we communicate new solutions to important problems

As reading and writing become more important, a deictic perspective on literacy predicts that each will also change in important ways. First, strategic knowledge will become even more important to successful literacy activities than it is today.  Navigating the increasingly complex information available within global information networks that continually change will require greater strategic knowledge than is required within more limited and static, traditional texts. It is likely, too, that new forms of strategic knowledge will be required (Gilster, 1997). Becoming literate will require our students to acquire new and increasingly sophisticated strategies for acquiring information within these complex and continually changing information contexts.

literacy will increasingly become a continuous learning task for each of us. Since new technologies and new envisionments for literacy will regularly appear, we will need to continually learn new ways to acquire information and communicate with one another. Increasingly, "becoming literate" will become a more precise term than "being literate," reflecting the continual need to update our abilities to communicate within new technologies that regularly appear.

hanges in reading and writing will bring to the forefront the issue of language and cultural dominance.  In the past, languages and cultures have been dominated by nations possessing superior military and economic power.  In our digital futures, languages and cultures will be dominated by nations possessing superior information resources on global information networks such as the Internet. Currently, the vast majority of Internet sites and Internet traffic takes place to and from locations in the United States.  One worries about the consequences of this for the rich heritage of diverse languages and cultures that characterize our world, permitting varied and unique interpretations of the reality we all inhabit.  Will the Internet mean that English will become the only language of international communication?  Will the Internet provide a vehicle for the dominance of U.S. culture?  One hopes not, but the signs are already becoming clear that we may quickly lose our linguistic and cultural diversity if we all inhabit the same information and communication space on the Internet

While reviewing the recent literature on newer technologies, I have suggested a deictic perspective makes it just as important to look forward into the consequences for our futures as it is to look backwards to the research base. Since we cannot accurately define the nature of literacy in the future, I have suggested it is critical to define the general principles at work in reshaping contemporary notions of literacy. A central challenge is how to plan for education when the very heart of the system, literacy, will be changing regularly as new information and communication technologies continually appear and as teachers and students envision new ways to exploit these resources. To assist in this task, I identified a number of principles that might be drawn from a deictic perspective in several areas: the nature of literacy, literacy research, classroom learning contexts, teacher education, and public policy. These principles may be useful to help frame the exploration of issues in our literacy futures.

As students spend more time with visual media and less time with print, evaluation methods that include visual media will give a better picture of what they actually know,

By using more visual media, students will process information better," she said. "However, most visual media are real-time media that do not allow time for reflection, analysis or imagination — those do not get developed by real-time media such as television or video games. Technology is not a panacea in education, because of the skills that are being lost.

Studies show that reading develops imagination, induction, reflection and critical thinking, as well as vocabulary," Greenfield said. "Reading for pleasure is the key to developing these skills. Students today have more visual literacy and less print literacy. Many students do not read for pleasure and have not for decades."

Among the studies Greenfield analyzed was a classroom study showing that students who were given access to the Internet during class and were encouraged to use it during lectures did not process what the speaker said as well as students who did not have Internet access. When students were tested after class lectures, those who did not have Internet access performed better than those who did.

These and other studies show that multi-tasking "prevents people from getting a deeper understanding of information," Greenfield said.

One of the tasks is to educate young people about the various forms of writing and teach them when it is appropriate to use one over another, Wise said.

As an example, students today can more freely revise their work, not bound by pen and paper that makes revising a tedious and clumsy process.

"Computers enable people to be more reflective about their writing," Wise said. "When a student is writing an essay and is not sure it is structured right to make a good argument, the text can be moved around and the different versions can be compared.

Using a computer can help support higher literacy skills."

The ability to publish work also adds an incentive that wasn't there when the essay you handed in on a piece of paper didn't go beyond the teacher's desk. Today's students can blog and tweet; class projects create online content that can be viewed by people around the globe. That ability to reach a wider audience imposes its own incentives to create good work and not just a few throwaway paragraphs to pass a course.

He points out that children before the age of seven or eight need to be supervised in using technology, and while advances have been made in the use of technology in education, he says, "We still have a long ways to go."

Most school districts within B.C. don't really have a technology plan that is associated with the curriculum,

Technology as used for "edutainment" is gaining more ground in homes than in schools, with parents often the ones who will outfit their homes with computing devices or equip their children with iPods or smartphones.

Today's toddlers can read books on an iPad that bring the touch features of a traditional print book: they can flip pages and read it sitting on their laps in the back seat of the car, not only at a desktop or laptop computer. The digital version also brings enhancements, from Alice literally tumbling down the rabbit hole on the screen in Alice in Wonderland to books that read aloud and let children take part in the story creation and other features.