Chapter I: An Overview of Technology in Society: An Introduction to Technoliteracy

Amanda Walker, University of Tasmania, Australia
Bridgette Huddleston, University of Tasmania, Australia
Darren Pullen, University of Tasmania, Australia

This chapter examines how being literate is vital for learning and working, with a focus on the digital age. The reliance on technology however has created problems and opportunities particularly in regards to who has access to technology and how it is used. The authors propose that the interconnectedness of digital technologies ultimately transforms how and when we communicate resulting in another form of literacy known as technoliteracy. This chapter provides a brief overview of technoliteracy in addition to its more theoretical and practical applications.

Donna Mahar, Empire State College, State University of New York, USA

This chapter focuses on Colleen, who took part in a two year qualitative study designed to explore young adolescents’ use of information communication technology and popular media texts to make sense of themselves and their world. Through a framework based on the concept of multiliteracies and activity theory, the study looks at the overlaps and schisms between adolescents’ use of ICT and popular media texts in their everyday lives (home, community, peer group) and how adolescents’ engagement with ICT and popular media texts affects established social institutions, while at the same time it illustrates the non-linear, non-hierarchical complexity of the pedagogy of multiliteracies.

Candance Doerr-Stevens, University of Minnesota, USA

This chapter explores the hybrid identity design online, i.e. how native English speakers intermix local and global resources in strategic ways in a process the author has termed glocal appropriation. The chapter presents a case study of one native English speaker’s use of local and global resources to design an online identity and how through this hybrid identity practice of glocal appropriation, he is able to design new imaginaries of self, which promotes continued participation and, in turn, allows for literacy learning and spaces of civic pluralism.

Laurie A. Henry, University of Kentucky, USA

This chapter presents a comparative, qualitative study that explored social equity issues related to technology integration among middle schools located in the United States of America in order to determine if inequalities related to technology integration generally, and the development of multiliteracies specifically, exist. The author identifies several contextual factors that may impede the development of the new literacies including the use of the Internet as an information resource.

Thao Lê, University of Tasmania, Australia
Quynh Lê, University of Tasmania, Australia

This chapter explores, using a Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) perspective, how Information Technology (IT) has permeated many fields and aspects of modern society particularly through the use of the Internet. The introduction of the Internet has brought in a range of new areas such as e-commerce, e-health and e-learning. The authors argue IT is socially situated and its role and impacts cannot be divorced from its socio-cultural context as evidenced when using a CDA approach. The authors challenge experts in IT, educators and users to consider the instrumental power of IT and how to use it responsibly to enhance humanity.

Chapter VI: CALL Course Design for Second Language Learning: A Case Study of Arab EFL Learners

Abbad Albbad, University of Queensland, Australia
Christina Gitsaki, University of Queensland, Australia
Peter White, University of Queensland, Australia

This chapter investigates the impact of computers and the Internet on both the achievement of learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) and their attitudes toward learning EFL. The findings of the study indicate a strong positive shift in the subjects’ attitude and motivation toward learning EFL after using the new technology-based approach. These findings provide strong support for the effectiveness of a technology-enhanced learning environment for second language teaching and learning.

Adbuyah Yaakub, University of Queensland, Australia
Christina Gitsaki, University of Queensland, Australia
Eileen Honan, University of Queensland, Australia

With digital communications and technological media becoming an integral part of the new professional workplace and everyday lives of the younger generation (especially in post-industrial societies), comes the clarion call for educators to develop a more complex understanding of language and literacy and how to go about designing pedagogies that equip students with 21st Century skills. This chapter presents two case studies that examine the complex interaction of teachers, students, writing pedagogies, language curriculum and Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). The study explored students’ experiences of using ICT in second language writing and the impact of ICT on writing pedagogy and the curriculum, producing in-depth descriptions and interpretations to answer a set of focused research questions.

Martin Kerby, St Joseph’s Nudgee College Queensland, Australia
Margaret Baguley, University of Southern Queensland, Australia

This chapter explores how senior visual arts students engage with and utilise technology in the creation of art works during their program of study. Interpreted through a social constructivist perspective, the findings revealed that the senior visual arts students regularly used technology as part of their process, but often reverted to using traditional media with some technological aspects in the creation of their final work.

Anita Jetnikoff, Queensland University of Technology, Australia

This chapter describes a research project, which explores the challenges and concerns preservice teachers face when teaching complex literature such as Shakespeare. The main question this chapter attempts to answer is: is there room for technology in the study of the bard? Through a repertoire of literacy practices and interactions with a set of digital vodcasts featuring an ‘expert teacher’ teaching Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the preservice teachers in this study effectively engaged in a ‘cognitive apprenticeship’ on their way to becoming reflective practitioners.

Mike Brown, University of Ballarat, Australia

This chapter looks at the significance of literacy development across the school curriculum, analysing explicitly what the development of literate practices actually looks like in the field of Design and Technology. Mike Brown reports on research that details the emerging literacy demands faced by both the teachers, and the students who are participating in Design and Technology education within secondary schools across Victoria, Australia. The curriculum and pedagogical practices associated with the Year 12 Design and Technology program are analysed to illustrate the development and use of texts, particularly multimodal texts, within new, emerging and multi-literacies.

Jennifer Schneider, University of South Florida, USA
James R. King, University of South Florida, USA
Deborah Kozdras, University of South Florida, USA
James Welsh, University of South Florida, USA
Vanessa Minick, University of South Florida, USA

This chapter describes a study that took place at a Catholic PreK-8 school/parish where pre-service teachers worked with elementary students to create a range of multi-media projects. These projects showcased the oral histories of the people, places, and events of the school and church community and allowed the pre-service teachers to integrate technology into their teaching. The pre-service teachers’ attempts at learning through and teaching with technology revealed a multiplicity of enactments of fast literacies and reflected the notion of the “intersection” between school, community, and technology.

Chapter XII: The Hidden Literacies of Massively Multiplayer Online Games

P.G. Schrader, University of Nevada, USA

This chapter examines the multiliteracies associated with Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs). Specifically, it describes the nature and affordances of the associated technologies as they pertain to the multiliteracies of consumption and production in an effort to provide an understanding of the nature of skills necessary to function in a multiliterate and multimodal world.

Pam Wright, Latrobe University, Australia
David Skidmore, Latrobe University, Australia

This chapter explores the way in which educators in a multi-literate society must find opportunities for students to interact and interpret the multitude of new literacies. This chapter discusses how multi-literacies are bound up in computer games and how educators can employ these games through play, study and creation to shift students from consumers to creators of interactive narratives. The chapter also raises questions about computer game use in the primary classroom, and calls for an integrated approach to teacher and trainee teacher professional development in the area of computer gaming.

Robyn Henderson, University of Southern Queensland, Australia

This chapter explores the author’s journey of literacy learning from a player’s perspective. The author created an avatar and joined the online community of the Massively Multiplayer Online Game, the World of WarcraftTM produced by Blizzard Entertainment®. An autoethnographic approach was undertaken to explore the game’s linguistic, visual, audio, spatial and gestural elements of design to provide an insider’s perspective of the meaning-making resources that were on offer. The chapter concludes with a tentative consideration of how understandings about the literacies used within a virtual world might inform the learning of literacies in schools and other educational institutions.