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Jill began by talking about the "new literacies" of technology, including blogs, instant messaging, sharing videos online, and many other kinds of literacy that go well beyond "print on paper." One of the most interesting and potentially alarming things Jill told us was the fact that eight- to ten-year-olds are the fastest-growing group of users on the internet.

According to research done by media-awareness.ca, a non-profit organization that develops media literacy programs, kids can be exposed to inappropriate content and risky situations online, including bullying and sexual harassment. On the other hand, the same survey makes it clear that most young people have positive experiences online, and they use the Internet to foster existing social relationships and create new ones. How can we help keep kids' online literacy experiences positive?

Jill gave us some examples that made us realize that, regardless of the fears (and often, regardless of the rules) of parents and educators, kids are using the web and joining online communities; they are sharing their writing and secrets, reading those of others, and creating relationships. The Internet is not going away; in fact, access to the web is nearly universal in Canada, either at home, at school, or at public libraries and Internet cafes.

Debunking Stereotypes. In this project, students collect information about the cultural stereotypes of their countries and and debunk them. Facilitated by Saeed Al Abdulsalam in Oman. Poster at right by Macedonia team. Read more and connect to the forum.

Students who become fluent in reading, do so because they read, not because they were taught the basic reading skills.  Of course, it wouldn’t have happened without having been taught the basic reading skills.  But they become fluent because they are required to read for the rest of their formal education and beyond.

If we expect students to become fluent in the broader and equally critical information and technology skills of being literate in a networked, digital, and abundant (contemporary) information environment, then they should be required to use those skills in all of their formal education, just like reading.  Reading, for education, is a learning literacy.  Reading, processing, and expressing knowledge in a networked, digital, and abundant information landscape are equally important learning skills — learning literacies.

it’s now standard practice, for example, to require students in a first-year-composition class to know how to use a word processor and to learn how to make good use of a database: those are not considered “computing skills” anymore. They’re just skills.

we’ve long assumed that students become better writers by reading a great deal; and we assume that experience at writing makes them better readers. For many generations, these 2 sides of the textual coin have been taught hand-in-hand: we don’t teach students to be consumers of words and then maybe later teach them (or teach only some of them, depending on their major or their future career) how to create words. Instead, they learn those skills simultaneously.