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In language education, digital multimodal composing (DMC) pertains to a new literacy practice in which students use digital tools to produce texts incorporating multiple semiotic modes. Despite that many scholars advocate for implementing DMC in language classrooms, it remains marginal in mainstream classrooms, with scant attention being paid to teachers' perceptions concerning the use of DMC. Situated in Chinese universities, this research probes into the perspectives of five English teachers on implementing DMC as a pedagogical innovation. The analysis of data collected from multiple sources reveals that the teachers perceived DMC positively due to its affordances for students, namely, cultivating digital and multimodal literacies, improving speaking and writing abilities, fostering collaboration and communication skills, and enhancing learning interest and motivation. Teachers themselves harvested benefits regarding deeper insights into students' learning potentials, enhanced digital literacies, a novel avenue for academic research, and an innovative teaching method. Nonetheless, the teachers expressed concerns about time constraints, students' engagement in group work, potential plagiarism, assessment of students' videos, and the long‐term effect of DMC on students' writing performance. Based on the findings, this research provides implications for integrating curriculum innovations like DMC into conventional curricula. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Problem statement. The authors deal with the components of universal competences in terms of applying technological innovations in the learning process. A fragment of the model for shaping universal competencies of students based on the concept of Smart University is described. The study is aimed at substantiating the approaches to designing a model for the formation of universal competencies, presenting their theoretical analysis based on the concept of Smart University and considering their features, structure, and classification. Methodology. The approach to designing a model of universal competence formation is based on the analysis of acronym SMART decoding and the structure of the concept Smart University. The matrix of overview of the concept of universal competence in a modern context is proposed. Results. The universal competences are understood as smart competences united by five types of competences: professional, motivational, adaptive, key, and digital. The formation of six groups of universal competences is justified: system and critical thinking; project development and implementation; teamwork and leadership; civic-patriotic behavior; self-organization and self-education; technological solution. The created model defines the structure of universal competences and serves as a criterion for assessing students' abilities. Conclusion. Smart competences are a response to the current economic situation. The approach is structured for educational organizations that share a development policy in combination with technology. The results may be of some interest to scholars in the field of education informatization, teachers and university managers on innovation and education policy.

This article introduced a teaching innovation practice, i.e., digital multimodal composing, in College English course in mainland China. The purpose of this practice is to respond to the developing L2 student writers' difficulty of lacking linguistic resources to express their creative ideas, and empower them to leverage multiple modes other than the language mode to make their meaning, and meanwhile to raise their interest, motivation, and enjoyment in L2 writing. Data were collected from student interviews in conjunction with DMC samples. It was reported that a majority of the developing L2 student writers positively perceived the affordances of DMC, that is, having access to multiple modes to fully express creative ideas, feeling more enjoyable and less anxious in L2 writing, being more motivated to interact with authentic audiences, and forming the habit of constantly revising scripts. This points to important pedagogical implications for the future implementation of digital multimodal composing projects by launching individual digital multimodal composing tasks, constructing and validating DMC rubrics, and enhancing collaboration between teachers and researchers to bring innovative DMC pedagogy into L2 writing instruction practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Learning should be able to develop the students' literacy skills in the industrial revolution 4.0. However, the literacy of students related to this era was still low. The solution to solve the problem is to develop STEM-integrated physics digital teaching material (PDTM). The research objective was to investigate the effect of using PDTM on students' conceptual understanding and new literacy. The research method was quasi-experimental with a nonequivalent control group design. Instruments for collecting data consist of written tests and performance assessments. Data analysis used a comparison test of two independent groups: t-test and Mann-Whitney U test. The results of the data analysis state that the use of STEM-integrated PDTM has a positive effect on students' conceptual understanding and new literacy. The students' new literacy skills include data, technology, and human literacy. These results indicate that using STEM-integrated PDTM in physics learning effectively develops students' conceptual understanding and new literacy skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Digital competence (DC) is one of the key aspects in citizen development in the digital age. The DC is particularly important in forming university students and future teachers. This article presents the main results of a study to evaluate DC and its relationship with the socioeconomic level of first-year students of pedagogy in three Chilean public universities, located in the north, center, and south of the country. A quantitative research methodology was used, with a sample of 817 students, the data were collected through the DIGCOMP-PED evaluation instrument, which evaluates DC development using the DIGCOMP framework. The results were analyzed at the general and socioeconomic level on the variables of the educational establishment where they attended high school and the territorial area of the university they attended. The main results indicate that the level of DC achievement is intermediate, the areas with the highest levels of achievement were “network security” and “online communication and collaboration.” On the other hand, the lowest levels of achievement were reached in the areas “information and digital literacy,” “digital content creation,” and “problem solving.” The level of DC is higher among students of private establishments and those who attend universities located in the central area.

Digital competence (DC) is one of the key aspects in citizen development in the digital age. The DC is particularly important in forming university students and future teachers. This article presents the main results of a study to evaluate DC and its relationship with the socioeconomic level of first-year students of pedagogy in three Chilean public universities, located in the north, center, and south of the country. A quantitative research methodology was used, with a sample of 817 students, the data were collected through the DIGCOMP-PED evaluation instrument, which evaluates DC development using the DIGCOMP framework. The results were analyzed at the general and socioeconomic level on the variables of the educational establishment where they attended high school and the territorial area of the university they attended. The main results indicate that the level of DC achievement is intermediate, the areas with the highest levels of achievement were "network security" and "online communication and collaboration." On the other hand, the lowest levels of achievement were reached in the areas "information and digital literacy," "digital content creation," and "problem solving." The level of DC is higher among students of private establishments and those who attend universities located in the central area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research studies the cognitive processes implemented during the production of explanatory text in L2 language in the Algerian plurilingual context. The apprentice writer of explanatory texts has difficulty producing written material in a language that is not his mother tongue (L1). The use of verbal interactions between pairs is an aid that facilitates the planning activity, the activation of linguistic and thematic knowledge and the activity of putting into words. The verbal exchanges between peers allow in fact, an optimal activation of the previous knowledge of the participants, of the students of the CEIL of the ENS of Bouzaréah. These exchanges reduce the cognitive burden associated with the activation of this knowledge, facilitate the provision of resources memoranda needed to manage the process of putting into words that present particular difficulties for the text writers in L2 language. Analysis of the results obtained in this research indicates that verbal interactions between pairs play a decisive role in the activation of planning and word-writing processes and help writers to activate two types of knowledge the writing activity: knowledge of the language and knowledge of the world domain referred to in the text. These interactions allow learners to produce better quality explanatory texts at the textual surface and semantic content level. Results that highlight the important role of interactions in the construction of written production skills in the L2 language in a plurilingual context open up new perspectives in the development of new literacies in plurilingual and pluricultural contexts.

Copyright of Hacettepe University Journal of Education is the property of Hacettepe University Journal of Education and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

While previous studies have examined the impact of digital multimodal composing (DMC) as a new literacy activity on second language (L2) learners' language development, L2 teachers' engagement with DMC is under-conceptualized and underexplored. Based on a qualitative analysis of five teachers of English as a foreign language (EFL) who implemented in their curriculum a year-long DMC program within which students produced multimodal videos, this study presents three forms of teacher engagement with DMC. In the first form, the teachers used DMC as an instrument for traditional exercises of speaking and writing with incidental attention to the multimodal aspects of DMC, while in the second, the teachers manifested ambivalence about the means and the ends of using DMC. The teacher in the third form used DMC as integral to pedagogy with attention to not only students' language use, but also strategic use of multiple resources. These results suggest that teacher engagement with DMC can be conceptualized as a multifaceted continuum. The findings also reveal that these individualized engagements were directed by teachers' conceptions of themselves, students, and language and mediated by contextual factors associated with the prescribed curriculum and high-stakes testing regimes. The paper concludes with implications regarding ways to promote teacher engagement with DMC in digitalized instructional landscapes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using screencasting videos as think-alouds, this case study explores the process three high school seniors used when tasked with evaluating digital sources. Drawing from dual level theory of literacy, the study explores the complexities involved when students are asked to conduct informal research of their source (a strategy called lateral reading) in order to improve their ability to uncover potential bias in digital sources. Results indicate that lateral reading encouraged healthy reader skepticism and slowed readers down in the review, but students lacked sophisticated online reading and research strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Studies in Contrastive Grammar / Studii de Gramatica Contrastiva is the property of Universitatea din Pitesti and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The Fourth Industrial Revolution brought the greatest expansion of information and concepts, which increased the need for skills in interpretation the new language and communication codes. Language has received a broader definition, because modern human communication refers to all new systems that have their own rules and ways of behaving. Stories are the most important aesthetic, psychological, emotional, educational and upbringing tool for understanding the world and its phenomena in children. Developing society, information systems and media, the multiplication of languages and discourses from which children learn new languages on a daily basis to understand and communicate with the world, open up challenges for the language and the meanings of words. Macedonian students are below the OECD countries average in the reading literacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The emergent cyber-violence along with the omnipresence of digital media has made the development of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners' digital empathy a shared concern among contemporary language educators. Yet how this could be done in EFL/ second language (L2) pedagogies remains underexplored. Informed by a conceptualization of digital empathy as 'cognitive and emotional ability to be reflective and socially responsible while strategically using digital media', this study reports on a study that explores whether and how digital empathy can be fostered through a pedagogic innovation that engages students with digital multimodal composing (DMC) of videos in their conventional English curriculum. Aligning with a DMC approach to literacy through which learners were encouraged to construct meanings by drawing on multiple modes from their everyday media experiences, this study took place in a secondary English classroom at a vocational school in China. Data from interviews, observations and student-authored videos and documents showed that the DMC process enhanced students' awareness of having more empathy when engaging with online activities. The findings also show that with such enhanced awareness, students learned to use digital technologies for resolving important social issues and then became more active and responsible participants online. Implications about using DMC as an approach to develop students' digital empathy in the mainstream English curriculum are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper explores a new research direction unfolding at the junction of modern textual criticism and modernization challenges in education. It outlines the theoretical basis for constructing a model of the «new literacy» representative of the 21st century. The paper contains an attempt to describe the main trends in the changes of text: rejection of linearity, shrinkage of text volume, orientation to «small text structures», duplicative character of different sign systems in the content reflection, increase of interactivity, feedback forms development, emergence of «new forms of authorship» and a number of other trends. Examples are given of new literature, created in the form of comics, presentations, infographics, drawn notes. The author reveals the scope of «the texts of the new nature» through the provision of its characteristics; describes two main technologies of formation of such texts; provides experimental data that characterize the process of perception of this kind of texts; and, finally, formulates priority research issues.

This paper renders a preposition to integrate Digital Literacy into Pre-service teacher education programs in universities and various teacher trainings. The current emergence of high dependence toward digital technology demands teacher education programs to make contribution in order to educate and prepare pre-service teachers to overcome issues related to negative impacts of digital technology. 21st century skills are amongst the core requirement for advanced human resources living in this era. Teacher education curriculum must be able to accommodate sufficient knowledge and resources to enable students becoming digital literate society. As what depicted today among our society, very little attention given toward the way using internet technology securely and politely. Beginner adopters of technology are now spoon fed with very user friendly gadgets and apps that often neglect to learn about effects and impacts the technology caused. In addition, although it still can be argued, often most of the marvels do not really foster productivity for these groups of technology users. Therefore, proposition to raise awareness among pre-service teacher in is emphatically needed.

New media and new literacy are essential in our contemporary paradigms of education and communication research. Though truth-seeking is one of the primary objectives inherent in higher education, the process for students may be less clear than it may be for trained academics or professors. The current study sought to explore how professors recommend that students seek truth in the information age. Relying on an assignment from a communication course, this study examined responses from student-led interviews with professors from across the U.S. and categorized trends in their recommendations for students. Overall twelve themes taken from advice on student truth-seeking emerged from the professors' responses. We couch these findings in the current internet era that is faced with overwhelming amounts of information, channels, problems of misinformation, and the spreading of false stories via social media. Conclusions center around the need for new literacy and new media awareness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inimesed suhtlevad tekstide vahendusel ja nii on tekstikesksel emakeeleõpe tusel oluline roll kirjaoskuse saavutamises. Kirjaoskuse kui üldpädevuse peab aga tagama kool tervikuna. Uurimuse probleemina selgitatakse, kuidas eesti keele ja kirjanduse õpetaja teksti vastuvõttu õpetab ning tekste süsteemse keeleõpetusega seob, et sedamööda leida võimalusi kirjaoskuse koostöiseks õpetamiseks aine- ja keeleõppe lõimingus. Eesmärk on õpetajate kogemuse alusel osutada eesti keele ja kirjanduse didaktika arenguvõimalustele ning kirjeldada eesti keele rolli suhtlus pädevuse õpetamisel. Põhistatud uurimusest järeldub, et tekstikeskne keeleõpetus jääb kirja oskuse arendamisel pigem kõrvale, uut kirjaoskust arendatakse tagasihoidlikult. Samas ilmneb tekstivalikute kaudu emakeeleõpetuse interdistsiplinaarsus. Et arendada kirjaoskuse koostöise õpetamise metoodikat ja tekstikeskset keeleõpetust, pakutakse artiklis ideid nii ülikooli eesti keele ainedidaktika arendamiseks kui ka kirjaoskusõpetuse lõimimiseks õpetajakoolitusse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The skills and strategies of effective communication are at the heart of literacy teaching and learning; engaging with digital technologies to communicate puts new demands on teachers and students. The communication tools of the 21st century require a rethinking of our 19th century educational approach to fully integrate digital tools into the classroom. We must help pre-service teachers learn how to leverage technology to build students’ communication skills across the curriculum. The authors describe two different Digital Strategy Backpacks that were integrated into a pre-service teacher education instructional technology class. The backpacks illustrate how learners apply communication skills and strategies with a range of technologies. The authors acknowledge that the Digital Strategy Backpacks are just a taste of this technique, however, we contend that they demonstrate how teachers and teacher educators can put communication goals at the front and center of teaching with technology.

Since the very end of the 20th century one can notice the rapid change of the reading paradigm. What meaning can one find in the question “do you read?” This change was influenced by development of ICT, information flood in the electronic space, growing popularity of WWW and possibility to receive information in different ways at the same time. The first mentioned factor affected even the physiology of reading, and children today read in slightly different way in comparison to adults who were introduced to computers in their adulthood. Availability of texts published on the internet raises a question, what kind of relation is between process of reading on the internet and browsing the internet. Could we say that reading a vook is the same thing as reading a book? The third factor – offering information in a few different ways – changes the speed of reading and perception of information. How all those factors can affect not only publishing and reading of books, but also the change of reading paradigm in the nearest future? This paper discusses some of these questions.

With an unchanged orientation, objectives, meaning and use, the word Literacy has stayed alive for centuries. Its explanation mainly aims for the teaching and learning of two basic skills: reading and writing and a brief knowledge of arithmetic. The overwhelming emergence and rife existence of digital tools, screen literature and digital media has significantly reshaped the concept of learning and the definition of literacy, the academicians all over the world are attempting to examine and if need be, redefine the term literacy in view of digital technology. This study was undertaken to evaluate the scope, role and influence of technology in the context of Sindh, Pakistan. The data was collected from the students of English Literature studying at four major general public sector universities in Sindh applying random sampling technique. The data was processed through descriptive and inferential statistics, and the results were drawn on the basis of achieved statistics. The results reveal that students at higher education institutes in Pakistan are fast adopting digital technology mode/form of literacy. The findings show that more than 90% students use digital media. 80% students use digital tools for research and information. Only 10% students use technology for editing and proofreading. It was also learnt from the findings that despite overwhelming use of digital form of literacy by the individual youth population in Sindh, Pakistan, there is however; a significant need for the academic and other professional institutions also to adopt this innovative, current and popularly proliferating form of literacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With advancing technology, "literacy" evolves to include new forms of literacy made possible by digital technologies. "New literacy" refers to using technology to research, locate, evaluate, synthesize and communication information. The purpose of the study is to develop a framework to guide science teachers' new literacy practices, and examine the impact of new literacy approach on students' science learning and new literacy skills. The authors worked with 25 middle school science teachers through a two-year professional development (PD), and followed their implementation to investigate the PD impact on their classroom practices and students' learning outcomes. The authors adopted mixed-methods to examine change in teachers' new literacy practices, students' science learning outcomes, and students' confidence in new literacy skills. The study results showed increases in teachers' frequency and types of new literacy practices, positive impact on students' science learning and confidence in new literacy skills. Factors affecting teachers' new literacy practice are also reported. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers copyright knowledge and skills as a new literacy that can be developed through the application of digital media literacy pedagogies. Digital media literacy is emerging from more established forms of media literacy that have existed in schools for several decades and have continued to change as the social and cultural practices around media technologies have changed. Changing requirements of copyright law present specific new challenges for media literacy education because the digitisation of media materials provides individuals with opportunities to appropriate and circulate culture in ways that were previously impossible. This article discusses a project in which a group of preservice media literacy educators were introduced to knowledge and skills required for the productive and informed use of different copyrights frameworks. The students’ written reflections and video production responses to a series of workshops about copyright are discussed, as are the opportunities and challenges provided by copyright education in preservice teacher education.

The article outlines the basic contours of the current debate on literacy. Since the start of the millennium, the determining and dynamising factor in this debate has been information and communication technologies. The aim is to observe whether, and how, reading literacy, an important target category in education, is changing in this new reality. In the first part, the paper shows how the above questions are perceived and discussed in the field of relevant scientific disciplines from different points of view. In the second part, the research findings showing the risks and negative impacts of technologies are interpreted through the lenses of contemporary research on "new" literacy. Empirical research on specific aspects of online reading strategies and traditional print media reading are analysed and discussed in light of their contribution to reading literacy theory and education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study focuses on the issue of media education of children as a part of media literacy, offering an overview of the current theoretical framework related to the given topic and an analysis of various research findings presented by renowned scholars in Slovakia and abroad. The author also offers results of her own research which aimed to obtain necessary information on the topic, to analyse and evaluate media, traditional as well as the new media, as a part of free time activities of primary school children in Slovakia. This research, supported by findings of other researches, shows that television and the Internet are dominant within media which are used by primary school children for gathering information. From the point of view of personal communication with friends and family, it can be said that the face to face communication is in many situations replaced by telephone calls or text messages. Further on, the study aims to find out about how pupils identify with different types of media and its contents. The last part of the text deals with different approaches to media education of the countries in the European Union, which served as a basis for developing the idea of media education in Slovakia. In the last part of the study, the author deals with media education as such and as an essential part of school curriculum, further on, analysing approaches of media education in other EU countries and describing the actual situation in Slovakia. The article thus shows how the media education contents in primary education could be updated so they fit recent trends and the current 'media' age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – This paper aims to delve deeply into the sometimes clashing interplays in English classrooms to explore the ways in which new media makes visible long-existing discourses and assumptions about the purpose of schools and the roles of teachers and students. Design/methodology/approach – This piece draws upon discourse analysis and utilizes the frame of strategies versus tactics (de Certeau, 1984) to trace the complex classroom interplays between a high school English teacher, a partnering researcher and a high school junior during the process of a month-long digital photography project. Findings – Data reveal that, at times, both teachers and students made moves to preserve the status quo of the school space (through strategies), and at other times, worked to reshape the space for more relevant purposes (through tactics.) Strategies that emerge from teacher moves include the formalization of requirements and the controlling of bodies; the student strategy described is the perpetuation of stereotypes. Teacher tactics reported include repositioning identities, reframing “the work” and opening up space for inquiry. Student tactics include resistance, shifting to the personal, subverting a given task and self-positioning. The author argues that generative potential exists at the intersection of teacher tactics and student tactics, and calls for furthering the co-construction of classroom spaces. Originality/value – By zooming in on the process, rather than the product, that ensued as the focal student created and defended her photographs representing school as jail, this paper emphasizes the agency that both teachers and students can enact in sometimes limiting classroom spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – This paper aims to interrogate the place of literature in the digital world and the way a narrative is represented in digital spaces. In the changing landscape of digital, mobile and virtual texts, the authors aimed to examine how multimodal and animated elements in digital narratives engage young readers and encourage affective and aesthetic reader response? Design/methodology/approach – The study was an exploratory, interpretive qualitative research study undertaken in a classroom of 28 10-year-old boys in grade 5. The investigators analysed data recorded during a lesson where students responded to the textual conventions and literary features of a traditional story read in print and multimodal digital format. Two coding systems were used to identify students’ understanding of textual conventions along with the nature of their responses. Findings – The results suggested that when students are prompted to attend to the impact of multimodal layering in digital literature, affective, aesthetic and critical responses, they are encouraged in their interpretations. The responses emphasised the importance of teacher scaffolding and development of meta-language in teaching literature in both print and digital form. Research limitations/implications – Because of the small sample and limited data set, the research results lack generalisability. Therefore, researchers are encouraged to test the proposed implications further. Practical implications – The paper includes implications for teacher pedagogy, while teaching reading with multimodal narratives in digital form. Originality/value – This paper offers insight into the differences between print and multimodal literary texts; it codes students’ responses to multimodal texts and offers a method for analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the very end of the 20th century one can notice the rapid change of the reading paradigm. What meaning can one find in the question "do you read?" This change was influenced by development of ICT, information flood in the electronic space, growing popularity of WWW and possibility to receive information in different ways at the same time. The first mentioned factor affected even the physiology of reading, and children today read in slightly different way in comparison to adults who were introduced to computers in their adulthood. Availability of texts published on the internet raises a question, what kind of relation is between process of reading on the internet and browsing the internet. Could we say that reading a vook is the same thing as reading a book? The third factor - offering information in a few different way s - changes the speed of reading and perception of information. How all those factors can affect not only publishing and reading of books, but also the change of reading paradigm in the nearest future? This paper discusses some of these questions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the recently emerged multimodal artefacts commonly known as Internet memes in the light of the new literacies that are rapidly emerging in the digital age. Attention is paid particularly to the most popular type of Internet meme – image macros – with Joseph Ducreux as a model meme, analyzing and demonstrating their features as well as their correlation with the theoretical framework of new literacies. The paper includes a brief introduction to the theory of new literacies in relation to Internet memes followed by a description of memetic selectivity, distribution, classification and the linguistic and nonlinguistic peculiarities of this phenomenon that expand the traditional notion of literacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper begins by exploring the chasm that exists between intent and practice within the common English Language Arts Curriculum in Atlantic Canada. As a means to close that gap, it considers how an everyday literacy practice might combine the academic rigor of creating an autobiography with multimodal forms of representation that the curriculum claims to embrace. More specifically, this paper examines how youth might read and represent themselves in the world by combining autobiography, new literacies and technology. Embracing such everyday literacy practices provides another opportunity for educators to fulfill the stated goals for the foundation for the Atlantic Provinces English Language Arts.

This qualitative study examined how a multicultural group of experienced teachers (nine Arabs, ten Jews) used Wiki as an alternative platform for the construction of a shared interpretive knowledge base. None of the participants had had any prior experience with Wiki as a learning environment. Data were derived from the Wiki platform, teachers’ oral and written feedback, and the lecturer’s log. Generally, teachers expressed positive attitude towards learning in a Wiki environment. However, cultural differences relating to language, habitual ways of studying and evaluating, and perceptions of teacher–student roles in classrooms affected participation. Different ways of using Wiki were observed along a continuum from teachers’ adaptation of Wiki to learners’ characteristics to learners’ adaptation of selves to Wiki characteristics. The findings may alert teacher educators to ways of integrating Wiki pedagogy into teachers’ curricular thinking: an explicit discussion of Wiki pedagogy attributes; more than one experience with long-term Wiki projects; supportive and sharing environment; attention to language barriers; a constant presence of the lecturer in the ‘discussion boards’ to guide and share concerns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In schools where curricular constraints and testing pressures narrow the ways in which students can take up identities as writers, longterm enrichment programs offer opportunities for the meaningful design of compositions. This paper, which presents the work of four elementary student participants in a writing workshop, shows how qualitative inquiry--in particular critical multimodal analysis--can enable a teacher researcher to see, interpret, and explain what might be going on in the writings and drawings of students, and how these illuminations help establish and expand the identities of students as writers. I focus especially on the work of one student over three years, and share the methodological procedures I drew upon in order to generate claims about his writing identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to discuss the importance of connecting collaborative action research to critical literacy in teacher education. In order to do so, the theoretical background is based on the studies of critical applied linguistics and critical literacy. The data analyzed here come from two different studies. Study 1 was carried out in a context of continuing education with public school English teachers who were engaged in the EDUCONLE Project (UFMG). Study 2 was developed with undergraduate language students who took part in a program entitled "Teaching Practice at UFSJ". The results point to the fact that the discussion on new literacy, combined with the concepts of collaborative action-research, can positively impact teacher education, both in-service and pre-service, considering the demands of the contemporary society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Students are making an increased use of the Web as a source for solving information problems for academic assignments. To extend current research about search behavior during navigation on the Web, this study examined whether students are able to spontaneously reflect, from an epistemic perspective, on the information accessed, and whether their epistemic metacognition is related to individual characteristics, such as prior knowledge of the topic and the need for cognition. In addition, we investigated whether Internet-based learning is influenced by the activation of spontaneous epistemic metacognition in the search context. Forty-six psychology and engineering university students were asked to research information about a controversial subject in order to write an essay. They were also asked to think aloud during their research. Both qualitative and quantitative analyses were performed. As revealed by their spontaneous reflections, all participants were epistemically active, although to different extents and levels. As expected, there was evidence that students activated beliefs about the four epistemic dimensions identified in the literature, especially about the credibility of an electronic source and the criteria for justification of knowledge. Prior knowledge was not related to activation of epistemic beliefs in the search context, while the need for cognition significantly associated with aspects of source and its content evaluation. Two patterns of epistemic metacognition were identified and they significantly influenced Internet-based learning. Students who spontaneously generated more sophisticated reflections about the sources as well as the information provided, outperformed students who were active only at the first epistemic level. Educational implications are drawn. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As more and more of our lives move to the internet every day, research has adjusted to keep up with examining what we learn and do online. We go online for a multitude of reasons: entertainment, research, shopping, etc. A significant portion of the internet experience relies on the visual. It is therefore a necessity to be able to effectively read the internet's visual cues and to recognize the specific conventions and "grammars" of online spaces. This paper examines one community site on the internet, Fark.com, to determine what role, if any, visual literacy plays in creating a community of practice online. Additionally, this paper seeks to outline the ways in which online communities function as learning communities. While the aim of many sites like Fark is entertainment, there exists specific sets of skills and behaviors which the mastery of determines whether or not a participant is successful in apprenticing into the community. One such set of skills is associated with PhotoShop contests on Fark. This paper explores the connection between these contests and visual literacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public libraries in the United States have a radical opportunity to incorporate information literacy into their service missions. This article explores the reasons why public libraries are not addressing information literacy and engages the educational theories of John Dewey, Paolo Freire, and New Literacy studies to argue that critical information literacy in public libraries is essential to the vitality of democratic societies. In order to deliver these services to their communities, public libraries must provide not only the technologies and instruction for information literacy, but also the impetus for action—what Freire called “praxis.” [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We discuss issues that require attention by (macro)marketing scholars in view of how people use new technologies of communication, specifically the Internet. Despite roadblocks because of lack of new literacy, lack of access to technologies, and modern marketing orientations, major transformations are foreseen. We discuss how trendsetters with access engage in constructing selves (e.g., iconic and (dis)embodied selves) that invigorate and that are fueled by technological as well as cultural transformations. We highlight the pivotal role that macromarketing must play in directing these transformations by (1) providing avenues for the development of a new literacy required today, (2) reconfiguring the markets and marketing systems to permit people's engagement in participatory practices, and (3) embracing and encouraging multiple orders and navigation among them. Following observations regarding trends in people's orientations toward life and construction of selves, we propose avenues for (macro)marketing scholarship and research to guide the above-stated directions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]