Literacy and Technology

What does Clark mean by the dynamic relationship between literacy and technology? Yes reading and writing can take place now without the involvement of either pen or paper, but that does not explain a dynamic relationship. So then how is literacy shaped by technology, and how is technology shaped by literacy? I am not going to write a dissertation here but I am interested to at least begin to give an answer with the hope of later revisiting this subject, maybe in a paper and further elaborating on the topic. For now I will focus on the reading component of literacy and its interchange with technology.

As active readers we can make notes and refer to sections of a text just as easily using technology as we can using a physical copy. But unlike a book, access to the internet gives us the opportunity to go in a myriad of directions when posing a question in response to a text, when meeting new facts and vocabulary, or when forming our own ideas about a text. We are not limited to merely jotting down a question or comment, which often is revisited after the fact, when our mindset is no longer the same and our opinions no longer directly aligned with the train of thought that we were on. With internet at our finger tips, we turn our reading experience on its head. No longer is the work our only text, but with a click, information flows from various channels, and the linear path of reading begins to branch out and connect with the incoming information, which is contextualized by the primary text and becomes more than a data with no connective tissue, but rather data connected to a larger system; data transformed into knowledge (565).

At the same time, the lack of understanding of information ownership, or rather the current understanding of such ownership can impact interpretation and critical analysis in a way that was less likely before. (to be continued...)