My fourth column as Multiliteracies Department Editor for the Journal and Adolescent and Adult Literacy (JAAL) was published. The column, titled Guiding Students as They Explore, Build, and Connect Online discusses the Web Literacy Map I’ve been helping to develop over the last couple of years. In the column, I work with Greg McVerry and Doug Belshaw to give a topographical view of the web literacy map as it is currently constituted. We also include some guidance on how to get involved.

The World Wide Web has become this generation’s defining technology for literacy. This technology facilitates access to an unlimited amount of online information in a participatory learning space. Multiple theories and years of research have investigated the literacy practices in these online and hybrid spaces. Yet, as early adopters, history’s first generation of “always connected” individuals do not have the knowledge and skills to critically explore, build, and connect online. Simply stated, students are often not provided with opportunities in school to practice the web literacies necessary to read, write, and participate on the web. The Mozilla Foundation and community of volunteers have worked to address this paradox by creating a Web Literacy Map. These efforts seek not to simply understand the web but to empower adolescents to help build a better open web.

We uploaded a pre-publication draft of the column to allow for review, remix, and commentary. Please click here for the Google Doc, or review below.

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As a multimodal supplement to the column, I assembled a group of experts and asked them four questions each about the column. You can review the videos below, and click through to learn more about each of the interviews.

Four Questions for Garth Corbett

Garth is an adolescent male attending high school in the northeast of the United States. You can review his work on his YouTube channel.

Four Questions for Laura Hilliger

Laura is “a learner, teacher, designer, writer, collaborator, dev, gardener, philosopher, backhoe driver, & much more. Definitely read more of her work at her amazing website.

Four Questions for Doug Belshaw

Doug is an “open educational thinkerer.” You can review his work at his blog, orhis Literacies blog. Finally, check him out at Dynamic Skillset and hire him to bring you into the digital world.

Four Questions for Greg McVerry

Greg is an Assistant Professor of Education at Southern CT State University. You can read more of his blog by clicking here.

Four Questions for Paul Shaw and Blaine Smith

Paul is an International Business student at Belmont University. Blaine Smith is an Assistant Professor of Literacy Education in the Department of Teaching and Learning at the University of Miami.

Please feel free to leave comments below…and share widely.

 

 

Image CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 by Paco CT