Quote"The distinctive contribution of the approach to literacy as social practice lies in the ways in which it involves careful and sensitive attention to what people do with texts, how they make sense of them and use them to further their own purposes in their own learning lives" (Gillen and Barton, 2010, p. 9).

When trying to teach my mother how to convert a document file format for publication or to explain to her what "the cloud" is, it becomes quite clear that the landscape of literacy required for us to function well at work, school and even in our personal lives has grown so vastly, and continues to grow rapidly, leaving many feeling technologically illiterate and left in the dust. 

In fact, merely trying to talk about "new literacy" brings into question “which new literacy”, and as mentioned in the article Beyond ‘new’ literacies, the meaning of the words “new literacy” are ever changing and require that we know the contexts and the audience we are talking about. “new literacy” for my mother is certainly different than that of my son, and their ability to acquire and master the necessary skills in order to participate with and utilize any new technologies are vastly different.

            “Today, technological change happens so rapidly that the changes to literacy are limited not to technology, but rather by our ability to adapt and acquire the new literacies that emerge”. (Wilber 2010) 

My mother, having published novels in the days when the publishing industry had strictly defined roles of writer, editor, publisher, etc., can be totally baffled by the industry today with its collaborative and participatory model of self-publishing, e-publishing, print on demand and the like.

New models of storytelling, like “Participatory cultures” including “fan fiction” and interactive virtual worlds where multiple contributors participate and collaborate to weave “stories”, utilize technology to create a new, and more dynamic, collaborative and interactive space for expression.

We also see a moving away from text as the prime method of imparting information and an increased use of design to consolidate thematic ideas. As mentioned in Digital Literacies, (Barton, Gillen, 2010) 

            “image is ever-increasingly appearing with writing, and, in many domains of            communication, displacing writing where it had previously been dominant”.

This can be seen with the ever-increasing frequency of the use of “infographics” to inpart statistics, data, and other facts traditionally transmitted via text.

The move towards screens and away from the page as with the interactive virtual worlds, fosters exploration. The hypertextuality possibly with a screen vs. a static page, allows for multi-leveled exploration of a text, and for new avenues of exploration at your fingertips, including social and inter-disciplinary with ever branching connections fostering a more wholistic approach to learning.

Clearly the thrust in new and emerging technologies is the focus on connections to further learning and tools for collaboration, interaction, reflection enhancing and deepening ones  learning experience.  

References: 

Wilber, Dana. "Beyond ‘new’ literacies." Digital Cultures & Education. Digital Culture & Education, 31 May 2010. Web. 23 Jan 2014. <http://www.digitalcultureandeducation.com/uncategorized/dce_editorial_vol2_iss1_2010/>.

Barton, David, and Julia Gillen. "Digital Literacies."Technology Enhanced Learning. London Knowledge Lab Institute of Education University of London, n.d. Web. 23 Jan 2014. <http://www.tlrp.org/docs/DigitalLiteracies.pdf>.