Functional and Critical Digital Literacies

I'm always a little skeptical when people talk about digital literacies. Of course, acquiring digital literacies is a matter of developing functional and critical skills as I say in the syllabus. They seem to talk about them as if one can teach (or learn) all aspects of digital literacies at the same time. For example, being functional and critical at the same time. I find this a little problematic because in my experience teaching web design, for example, students don't seem to get "design" until they know how to operate Dreamweaver. When trying to design a website, one has to learn the software. Once that functional skill is learned, students tend to be able to stand back and make critical statements.

Having said that, though, I do agree that we need to teach critical perspectives, which is why I ask students to read various theoretical viewpoints at the same time that they are learning the software. Part of that is the design of higher education. One semester (or in our case part of a semester) does not allow students the time it takes to develop all the skills needed to become a master designer. I don't think students expect to be become experts by the end of the semester, but they do want to feel comfortable with what they know. The thing about learning software, though, is that you must work with it every day until it feels natural.

I like how Lanshear & Knobel talk about digital literacies as a social practice. They say, "A way of reading a certain type of text is acquired only when it is acquired in a  'fluent' or 'native-like' way, by one's being embedded in (apprenticed as a member of) a social practice wherein people not only read texts of this type in these ways but also talk about such texts in certain ways" (p. 7). This is one of the reasons I ask students to engage with this reading. Everything happens within a context, nothing is outside something else. When learning software, for example, it'd be easy to think one could just sit down and learn the software. But it happens within a context--within the classroom, within the university, within the myriad other assignments students work on, and within the context of people who talk about digital literacies. No one can just learn the software; you have to also learn its use in practice. The software, from Lanshear & Knobel's perspective is read in a certain way (not just used). How does one understand InDesign, for example? It is a layout program that mimics old-time production of printed texts. In the last few years, more interactive features have been added such as the creation of e-books, but that skill is even beyond me at this point. I did make one once using a tutorial but I didn't (still haven't) gotten to the point of it feeling natural.

I expect that throughout the semester, we'll work together to learn what we need to learn. I'm looking forward to it.