This timely new edition explores new literacies, knowledge and classroom practices in light of growing electronic information and communication techniques.

The study of new literacies is quickly emerging as a major research field. This book «samples» work in the broad area of new literacies research along two dimensions. First, it samples some typical examples of new literacies - video gaming, fan fiction writing, weblogging, role play gaming, using websites to participate in affinity practices, memes, and other social activities involving mobile technologies. Second, the studies collectively sample from a wide range of approaches potentially available for researching and studying new literacies from a sociocultural perspective. Readers will come away with a rich sense of what new literacies are, and a generous appreciation of how they are being researched.

This book brings together a group of internationally-reputed authors in the field of digital literacy. Their essays explore a diverse range of the concepts, policies and practices of digital literacy, and discuss how digital literacy is related to similar ideas: information literacy, computer literacy, media literacy, functional literacy and digital competence. It is argued that in light of this diversity and complexity, it is useful to think of digital literacies - the plural as well the singular. The first part of the book presents a rich mix of conceptual and policy perspectives; in the second part contributors explore social practices of digital remixing, blogging, online trading and social networking, and consider some legal issues associated with digital media.

New Literacies and Teacher Learning examines the complexities of teacher professional development today in relation to new literacies and digital technologies, set within the wider context of strong demands for teachers to be innovative and to improve students’ learning outcomes. Contributors hail from Argentina, Australia, Canada, Finland, Mexico, Norway, and the U.S., and work in a broad range of situations, grade levels, activities, scales, and even national contexts. Projects include early year education through to adult literacy education and university contexts, describing a range of approaches to taking up new literacies and digital technologies within diverse learning practices. While the authors present detailed descriptions of using various digital resources like movie editing software, wikis, video conferencing, Twitter, and YouTube, they all agree that digital «stuff» – while important – is not the central concern. Instead, what they foreground in their discussions are theory-informed pedagogical orientations, collaborative learning theories, the complexities of teachers’ workplaces, and young people’s interests. Thus, a key premise in this collection is that teaching and learning are about deep engagement, representing meanings in a range of ways. These include acknowledging relationships and knowledge; thinking critically about events, phenomena, and processes; and participating in valued social and cultural activities. The book shows how this kind of learning doesn’t simply occur in a one-off session, but takes time, commitment, and multiple opportunities to interact with others, to explore, play, make mistakes, and get it right.

Schools remain notorious for co-opting digital technologies to «business as usual» approaches to teaching new literacies. DIY Media addresses this issue head-on, and describes expansive and creative practices of digital literacy that are increasingly influential and popular in contexts beyond the school, and whose educational potential is not yet being tapped to any significant degree in classrooms. This book is very much concerned with engaging students in do-it-yourself digitally mediated meaning-making practices. As such, it is organized around three broad areas of digital media: moving media, still media, and audio media. Specific DIY media practices addressed in the chapters include machinima, anime music videos, digital photography, podcasting, and music remixing. Each chapter opens with an overview of a specific DIY media practice, includes a practical how-to tutorial section, and closes with suggested applications for classroom settings. This collection will appeal not only to educators, but to anyone invested in better understanding - and perhaps participating in - the significant shift towards everyday people producing their own digital media.

This book presents sixteen essays in the new literacy studies tradition, written during the period 1985-2010. It covers a diverse range of themes with a particular emphasis on topics of cultural, political and historical interest. The collection includes both previously published and unpublished works, and is organized in four sections. Topics addressed in Part 1 include functional literacy, the politics of literacy in Nicaragua during the Sandinista period (1979-1990), the rise of the working class press in Britain, and reader response and the teacher as meaning-maker. Part 2 discusses critical literacy and active citizenship, literacy and empowerment, language and the new capitalism, varying ways of using computers in and out of school, and the way a low achieving student challenges conventional notions of literacy failure. Part 3 addresses the new literacy studies and the study of new literacies, the theory and practice of attention economics, and early developments in the use of ratings within online communities and social practices. The final part of the book takes up the theme of researching new literacies, discusses practices of digital remix, and provides a case study of becoming research literate within a context of DIY media creation.