When it comes to an understanding of the term “literacy” most people understand it as the ability to read and write in an effort to communicate, understand and learn. That has been the accepted understanding of literacy for centuries. Of course with the advancement of technology in our world today that simple understanding of literacy has rapidly expanded. It has probably expanded so much, and so fast that most people have yet to grasp all of the new literacies that have come about in this technology-driven society in which we live. There is actually a growing list of new literacies.
The very tools that we used for centuries in support of literacy have disappeared under this wave of technology. The typewriter is no longer with us. Photographic cameras using film are becoming scarce. The print media itself no longer relies on huge printing presses. VCR’s, although state of the art at one time, are now DVR’s, even more state of the art. The world has been changed and continues to do so at a rate never before imagined. Technology continues to expand and catalogue all knowledge. The methods we use to access, curate, communicate, and analyze all of this information have undergone continuing change in the last few years.
We have come to recognize that technology has expanded our access to so much information, in so many different forms, that there is a need to recognize many other literacies beyond just reading and writing. In a technology-driven society being literate enough to only read and write may be enough for our kids to get by, but will they be able to compete, thrive, and succeed? Digital Literacy has blossomed with this digital age. It provides an understanding and ability to adapt and use digital tools to access, curate, communicate, and analyze information in this time of digital access. It also enables us to collaborate on a global scale. These are all necessary skills for success moving forward into the world that our kids will occupy.
Education has always taught literacy. Education’s function is to create a literate citizenry. In order to accomplish that, we have always used educators with credentials of proven literacy to educate our children.
That may not be the case today when one considers additional and necessary literacies that may or may not be being addressed in Higher Education, or in the professional development of existing educators. That is certainly true of digital literacy.
Does the hiring process of teachers and administrators call for a proven demonstration of digital literacy? Are schools directing and supporting professional development to address digital literacy for all of their educators. Are Administrators digitally literate enough to recognize a digitally literate educator during the hiring process? Does a school have a model of what skills a digitally literate educator should possess if not master? Hopefully, those skills exceed the ability to do a Google search, or a Power Point demonstration. Even the CCSS recognizes the need for digital literacy and requires that it be demonstrated within the curriculum. Are all of our teachers prepared for that component?
A literate educator in the 20th Century is not the same as a literate educator in the 21st Century. Our education system is loaded with many 20th Century holdovers. Most are great people, and good teachers, but they are illiterate in 21st Century terms. We need not cast them aside. They are valuable and revered sources and educators. We need to support them with methods to upgrade their literacies. It must be a priority.
Additionally, we need to update our hiring procedures. We need to better define the educators we want. They need to be literate in every sense of the word. They need to possess multiple literacies in order to accommodate the needs of today’s learners, our kids. If we continue to support illiterate educators to teach our children, we can only expect our children to be illiterate as well. That is not properly preparing our kids for the world in which they will live.
My Island View 
Reblogged this on limfablog and commented:
thanks for posting
Tom, this is a great culmination of today’s #edchat. I think it’s important that you point out the value of teachers who are not yet digitally literate. If tech savvy/digitally literate teachers and administrators can team up with teachers who are less comfortable with the online world, and those teachers who are not digitally literate are willing to accept help from those who are, schools will be on the right track!
Thanks for your ideas!
[…] When it comes to an understanding of the term “literacy” most people understand it as the ability to read and write in an effort to communicate, understand and learn. That has been the accepted und… A literate educator in the 20th Century is not the same as a literate educator in the 21st Century. Our education system is loaded with many 20th Century holdovers. Most are great people, and good teachers, but they are illiterate in 21st Century terms. We need not cast them aside. They are valuable and revered sources and educators. We need to support them with methods to upgrade their literacies. It must be a priority. […]
[…] When it comes to an understanding of the term “literacy” most people understand it as the ability to read and write in an effort to communicate, understand and learn. That has been the accepted und… A literate educator in the 20th Century is not the same as a literate educator in the 21st Century. Our education system is loaded with many 20th Century holdovers. Most are great people, and good teachers, but they are illiterate in 21st Century terms. We need not cast them aside. They are valuable and revered sources and educators. We need to support them with methods to upgrade their literacies. It must be a priority. […]
Reblogged this on LE.TE. Le Educazioni Tecnologiche and commented:
E se gli insegnanti non sanno usare i nuovi tools delle tecnologie?
[…] When it comes to an understanding of the term “literacy” most people understand it as the ability to read and write in an effort to communicate, understand and learn. That has been the accepted und… A literate educator in the 20th Century is not the same as a literate educator in the 21st Century. Our education system is loaded with many 20th Century holdovers. Most are great people, and good teachers, but they are illiterate in 21st Century terms. We need not cast them aside. They are valuable and revered sources and educators. We need to support them with methods to upgrade their literacies. It must be a priority. […]
[…] “ When it comes to an understanding of the term “literacy” most people understand it as the ability to read and write in an effort to communicate, understand and learn. That has been the accepted und…” A literate educator in the 20th Century is not the same as a literate educator in the 21st Century. Our education system is loaded with many 20th Century holdovers. Most are great people, and good teachers, but they are illiterate in 21st Century terms. We need not cast them aside. They are valuable and revered sources and educators. We need to support them with methods to upgrade their literacies. It must be a priority. […]
[…] When it comes to an understanding of the term “literacy” most people understand it as the ability to read and write in an effort to communicate, understand and learn. That has been the accepted und… A literate educator in the 20th Century is not the same as a literate educator in the 21st Century. Our education system is loaded with many 20th Century holdovers. Most are great people, and good teachers, but they are illiterate in 21st Century terms. We need not cast them aside. They are valuable and revered sources and educators. We need to support them with methods to upgrade their literacies. It must be a priority. […]
[…] When it comes to an understanding of the term “literacy” most people understand it as the ability to read and write in an effort to communicate, understand and learn. That has been the accepted und… A literate educator in the 20th Century is not the same as a literate educator in the 21st Century. Our education system is loaded with many 20th Century holdovers. Most are great people, and good teachers, but they are illiterate in 21st Century terms. We need not cast them aside. They are valuable and revered sources and educators. We need to support them with methods to upgrade their literacies. It must be a priority. […]
[…] When it comes to an understanding of the term “literacy” most people understand it as the ability to read and write in an effort to communicate, understand and learn. That has been the accepted und… A literate educator in the 20th Century is not the same as a literate educator in the 21st Century. Our education system is loaded with many 20th Century holdovers. Most are great people, and good teachers, but they are illiterate in 21st Century terms. We need not cast them aside. They are valuable and revered sources and educators. We need to support them with methods to upgrade their literacies. It must be a priority. […]
Reblogged this on What I learned at school today and commented:
A great challenge for Alberta administrators and teachers as we move toward am era influenced by ‘Inspiring Education’
Intriguing observation Tom… Thoughtful.. I enjoyed it. Isn’t there supposed to be a button around here somewhere that allows me to Tweet this? Or is my digital illiteracy showing?
[…] When it comes to an understanding of the term “literacy” most people understand it as the ability to read and write in an effort to communicate, understand and learn. That has been the accepted und… […]
[…] Why Illiterate Educators? @tomwhitby tomwhitby.wordpress.com/2013/12/10/why… […]
It’s true most of our educators in our society are illiterate in 21st century and there is an argent need for stack holders globally to redesign curriculum or we risk our kids to an illiterate society.
Thanks for that interesting article.
Thanks for this post. As always interesting read.
But, actually, I have to disagree a little in the way in which you use the term ‘literacy’. When you define literacy as “the ability to read and write in an effort to communicate, understand and learn”, I agree. But I also think that is still the case although the means by which we achieve these abilities and express them have changed. I don’t find it meaningful to make a distinction of reading abilities is reading handwritten notes, printed text or letters on a back lit screen. Communication and learning has always been dependent on the media available whatever technological in society.
Maybe the disagreement in your and mine understanding stems from the different understanding of literacy in the US (or English) and Europe (continental Europe?). The latter stress literacy as ‘Bildung’ which is a perpetual process of ‘becoming man (or woman)’ in relation to one self, the others (community) and the world at large. In that understanding you have to ‘know yourself’, relate to societal issues and be informed about whats going on in order to relate to it. It is of course an understanding close related to the Enlightenment and the movement of making man the center of the universe.
For me literacy is still best expressed by I. Kant in his ‘Beantwortung der Frage: Was is Aufklärung’ (Answering the question: what is Enlightenment’ from 1791: “Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-incurred immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one’s own understanding without the guidance of another. This immaturity is self-incurred if its cause is not lack of understanding, but lack of resolution and courage to use it without the
guidance of another. The motto of enlightenment is therefore: Sapere aude!
Have courage to use your own understanding!”
The way in which you use the concept ‘literacy’ is more closely related to ‘competencies’ than to ‘Bildung’.
Still, I totally agree in you call to action in order to prepare our kids for the time they are living in. We as teachers have to be able to facilitate the kids learning which include the ability to read and write in order to communicate and learn in a meaningful way in the current and near future society – with the means available for this.
Reblogged this on Primary Blogging.
Technology advances at breakneck speed, so the difference isn’t merely between the two centuries: an educator is literate, in the new sense of the term, for about five years. Then s/he begins to lag behind the students, who tend to take to every new advance like fish to water. Unfortunately, educators don’t have the time – I think we all know how many hours a day that profession demands – to familiarize themselves with said advances. Therefore, they’re not really given an opportunity to communicate on an even keel with successive generations, and young people instinctively mistrust teachers who cannot “identify” with what is an essential part of life for them.
Anziano you have laid out the case for educators to be connected through technology to maintain their relevance. Through continued connectedness with other educators, relatively little time needs to be expended to maintain digital literacy even at its lightening-fast paced rate of change. Personalized Learning Networks are essential for educators to maintain professional development in a profession undergoing constant change. Thanks!
[…] “ When it comes to an understanding of the term “literacy” most people understand it as the ability to read and write in an effort to communicate, understand and learn. That has been the accepted und…” A literate educator in the 20th Century is not the same as a literate educator in the 21st Century. Our education system is loaded with many 20th Century holdovers. Most are great people, and good teachers, but they are illiterate in 21st Century terms. We need not cast them aside. They are valuable and revered sources and educators. We need to support them with methods to upgrade their literacies. It must be a priority. […]
[…] Why Illiterate Educators? | My Island View […]
[…] When it comes to an understanding of the term “literacy” most people understand it as the ability to read and write in an effort to communicate, understand and learn. That has been the accepted und… A literate educator in the 20th Century is not the same as a literate educator in the 21st Century. Our education system is loaded with many 20th Century holdovers. Most are great people, and good teachers, but they are illiterate in 21st Century terms. We need not cast them aside. They are valuable and revered sources and educators. We need to support them with methods to upgrade their literacies. It must be a priority. […]
[…] When it comes to an understanding of the term “literacy” most people understand it as the ability to read and write in an effort to communicate, understand and learn. That has been the accepted und… […]
I agree, access and learning habits are changing rapidly. Recently, I noticed that my niece, 2.5 years old, was swiping on my MacBook screen thinking it is like all the touch screen devices (her iPad, her parents’ cell phones) she plays with 🙂
Now to education: It is true that public school system can not upgrade technology (for budgeting, training issues) as rapidly as individual students experience at home. But, we somehow need to keep up with the pace of digital learning interests and habits, otherwise, we are at the risk of not maintain students’ motivation and optimizing students’ potential.
[…] When it comes to an understanding of the term “literacy” most people understand it as the ability to read and write in an effort to communicate, understand and learn. That has been the accepted und… […]
Tom, thanks very much for this post. You touch on many critical points which I’ve struggled to articulate to my faculty colleagues (I recently posted something similar on my blog, http://legendofzella.blogspot.com/2013/11/my-first-rant-on-higher-ed-tech-literacy.html). I work at a small public liberal arts college where digital literacies are barely on the radar, and given the various pressures being brought to bear on higher education, I fear I see my colleagues – and institution – losing ground, losing relevance, all unwitting.
[…] “ When it comes to an understanding of the term “literacy” most people understand it as the ability to read and write in an effort to communicate, understand and learn. That has been the accepted und…” A literate educator in the 20th Century is not the same as a literate educator in the 21st Century. Our education system is loaded with many 20th Century holdovers. Most are great people, and good teachers, but they are illiterate in 21st Century terms. We need not cast them aside. They are valuable and revered sources and educators. We need to support them with methods to upgrade their literacies. It must be a priority. […]
[…] When it comes to an understanding of the term “literacy” most people understand it as the ability to read and write in an effort to communicate, understand and learn. That has been the accepted und… A literate educator in the 20th Century is not the same as a literate educator in the 21st Century. Our education system is loaded with many 20th Century holdovers. Most are great people, and good teachers, but they are illiterate in 21st Century terms. We need not cast them aside. They are valuable and revered sources and educators. We need to support them with methods to upgrade their literacies. It must be a priority. […]
I also think admin should be modelling uses of tech. Years ago, I wrote a post on admin holding a paperless meeting. I was then able to replicate the process with a lesson.
Unfortunately, faculty meetings are examples of what NOT to do (PD-wise and tech-wise).