Web literaciesRichard Beach

Belshaw book, The Essential

Elements of Digital Literacies Skills are not learned in isolation but

rather developed within a context. Literacies are plural and not neutral

when it comes to power, social identity and political ideology.

There is a continuum of skills, through competencies up to literacies.

Literacies are best taught when the learner can see the whole picture of what they are learning and where they are going (‘progressive encoding’).

Belshaw: 8 Essential Digital

Literacies1. Cultural

2. Cognitive

3. Constructive

4. Communicative

5. Confident

6. Creative

7. Critical

8. Civic

Strengths: Web Literacy

Framework Codifies a range of different practices

People lack ability to employ practices

Need to provide online support for use

of these practices

Effective online searches (Leu et al.,

2012)

Limitations: Web Literacy

Framework: Pedagogical

translation? Literacy practices are social

Literary practices are cultural

Use of practices depends on contexts

Example: Collaboration

Example: Digital video

production/remix

Problem: Lack of

collaboration 79% of teachers: digital tools

“encourage greater collaboration

among students”(Purcell, Buchanan, & Freidrich,

2013, p. 3).

But, only one-third of students

engaged in collaborative work in the

classroom

3% reported using video conferencing,

discussion boards, Skype (2013

Gallup survey)

Mozilla: “Teaching Kits”: Remix:

Gendered ads

boyd (2014): “context

collapse”Contextualizing different

invisible potential audiences

Competing audience agendas

Comments/responses: by

whom?

Critical: Digital identities:

Facebook encourages an identity that is

extroverted, outgoing and even

sometimes narcissistic; most

importantly, one that would be

approved by their peer group. The

pursuit of such an identity made it

difficult for the participants to critically

engage with the site, as they become

immersed in the social reality of

Facebook (Pangrazio, 2013, p. 39).

Web Apps

Apps: Affordances

• Affordances not “in” app

• App Activity

• Affordances created by teachers

• Activity App

Transaction: Experiential

learning and tool use (McLain,

2014) “Replicant” apps

◦ replicate or reify ways of learning made

possible by other tools such as flash-

cards or calculators.

“Extender” apps “

◦ “extend the learning experience in ways

not otherwise possible except through

app technology” (p. 196), fostering

alternative learning experiences made

possible through app affordances.

Recontextualization (Van

Leeuwen, 2008) Learning “memes”: Connectivism

(Stephen Downes):

“Knowledge is a network

phenomenon, to “know” something is

to be organized in a certain way, to

exhibit patterns of connectivity. To

“learn” is to acquire certain patterns.

This is as true for a community as it is

for an individual.”

Steps in recontextualizing (Blommaert,

2005)

● Decontextualizing: removed from

context

● Recontextualizing:

● place in new context

● Entextualizing:

● analyze as new text

Nexus analysis: Meaning of

memes

VoiceThread: Multiple audiences

share responses to images

“Instructional Chain”

Mapping: contrasting concepts

Diigo: analyzing formulated arguments

VoiceThread: building arguments using

images based on carbon chains

Google Docs: drawing on all of what

they have learned

Voyant: www.voyeurtools.org Analysis

of Moby Dick

Use of data to inform

interpretation

whale

Ahab

Readers’ connections

Reviewers’ connections on Amazon:

Infinite Jest

Web 2.0 (Aghaei, Nematbakhsh.

& Farsani, IJWesTn, 2012)

Web 3.0 (Aghaei, Nematbakhsh.

& Farsani, IJWesTn, 2012)