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David Warlick asks on his blog; “what will we ask on our tests when students come in with Google in their pockets? Will they be better questions than we ask today?” Web-capable mobile phones allow users to both access and create the information which is shared on the Internet. My research explored the reality of making use of the mobile phone as a tool for accessing the Internet and the reaction of both teachers and their students to having ‘information on-demand’ or ‘Google in their pocket’.

Are students learning to cope with information overload and to become critical and discerning in their use of information? Hedley Beare (2002) has written extensively on the future of schooling. He states that it is ironic “that teachers currently give the information out to students that they have already deemed to be correct. There is not authentic context requiring students to critique information”. It is the ability to critique and use information that is such a crucial skill.

My research found that often students were being set internet based ‘research’ activities for homework with very little guidance as to how to go about finding the desired information, or more importantly what to do with it.

I would argue that postliteracy is a return to more natural forms of multisensory communication—speaking, storytelling, dialogue, debate, and dramatization. It is just now that these modes can be captured and stored digitally as easily as writing. Information, emotion, and persuasion may be even more powerfully conveyed in multimedia formats.

Libraries, especially those that serve children and young adults, need to acknowledge that society is becoming postliterate.

PL libraries budget, select, acquire, catalog, and circulate as many or more materials in nonprint formats as they do traditional print materials. The circulation policy for all materials, print and nonprint, is similar.2. PL libraries stock, without prejudice, age-appropriate graphic novels and audio books, both fiction and nonfiction, for informational and recreational use.3. PL libraries support gaming for instruction and recreation.4. PL libraries purchase high-value online information resources.5. PL libraries provide resources for patrons to create visual and auditory materials and promote the demonstration of learning and research through original video, audio, and graphics production. They also provide physical spaces for the presentation of these creations.6. PL libraries allow the use of personal communication devices (MP3 players, handhelds, laptops, etc.) and provide wireless network access for these devices.7. PL library programs teach the critical evaluation of nonprint information.8. PL library programs teach the skills necessary to produce effective communication in all formats.9. PL library programs accept and promote the use of nonprint resources as sources for research and problem-based assignments.10. PL librarians recognize the legitimacy of nonprint resources and promote their use without bias.

chools resist change, because they are designed to resist change. They are cultural organizations, and cultural organizations are not supposed to change. Cultures are designed to preserve existing solutions to problems—considerable social and economic capital goes into developing culturally valued solutions to problems and change is risky.   Stability reduces risk—“change is bad”—and our schools have been designed to focus on the knowledge transmission mode of learning.

This is just what many teachers and faculty members are saying, “We don’t have time for this. We are good teachers, and we can continue to serve our students well with the instructional strategies we have always used. Besides, with the time demands on us, we don’t have time to learn this new technology. As good teachers, we are doing well with our students and we don’t need to go through this transition.”

The learning revolution is about constructivist learning, and these new communication and information technologies allow us to facilitate constructive learning in ways that we could never do before. They are becoming cognitive amplifiers that will accelerate learning and the development of new knowledge in the same ways that machines accelerated production during the industrial revolution.

Text messaging has overtaken e-mail and IM as the main form of communication as 94 percent of students send and receive text messages. About 62 percent of students admitted to texting while in class. Students use cell phones to keep in touch with family and friends with 59 percent texting, 17 percent using voice, 9 percent sending IMs and 7 percent using e-mail. Cell phone camera usage has surged, with 72 percent of respondents reporting that they take and send photographs via their cell phone, up from 30 percent in 2005. About 39 percent take and send video using their cell phone, up from 4 percent in 2005.

Academia must divest from Intellectual Apartheid

I mean academia’s policy that enforces an unnecessary and counterproductive intellectual divide. What intellectual divide? It is that gaping chasm between two opposing models of disseminating knowledge: toll access and open access.

lack of access to technology (dubbed the "digital divide") seriously handicaps half the world's population. That is a giant problem but one being gradually ameliorated by mobile telephony and economic forces.