Reading, writing, arithmetic and … something else

I’ve recently finished a paper on the use of email in organisational contexts and I keep coming to a point of dis-cognition, cognitive dissonance, if you will.  Most of what I do, read and research is the advanced application of literacy skills – how to read web-pages, how to negotiate email, how to function in an almost always online way.  And then I come across research which talks about functional literacy at a much lower level, particularly in developing countries and I have to wonder why I am so concerned about high levels of literacy – the kind needed for advanced use of computers.  It seems to be irrelevant in the face of so many obstacles elsewhere.

And then it seems like a bit of a wank to overly worry about the differences in development of various countries, because I’m located here.  This is my context.  The context of deeply embedded media in my life.  I watch a whole heap of things on youtube, gathering ideas for lectures.  I seek information from all over to add value to the lessons I give my students.

This week’s lecture uses Social Networks in Plain English, Who’s watching YOUR space?, The business of social networks, and Facebook killed the private life.  I was going to use Winds of Change, but I’ll save that for the new business models lecture.

I seem to have wandered off on a tangent.  It’s like following a whole heap of links and not really knowing how you got there. Which is kind of the point really.  Luke and I have been coming up with ideas of how we read online (following on from the paper I’m about to submit) and I think.  We flit from link to link.  And it’s that notion of literacy again.  I think I shall call it flitteracy – the literacy of flitting around the web.

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