Recently, I have gone back into the classroom as a supplemental first grade teacher. My main responsibilities are to support the literacy instruction  of our youngest learners. As a component of this responsibility, I've been required to reacquaint myself with the techniques of teaching reading and to learn new approaches and ideologies researched and adopted during the past 20 years (while I have had a professional lapse). "Guided Reading" is the "bible" currently. The philosophy and guidelines focus youngsters  to learn the "behavior" of reading (eye flow from left to right, page turning, telling a story to accompany text whether or not the child can actually read the words) in conjunction with word attack skills (using context, illustrations, phonics, etc.). Young children are encouraged to mimic reading behavior even before they master letter-sound correspondence and to connect personal experience to literary content. In addition, children spend a lot of time mastering paper and pencil technique. These particular behaviors do not directly support those necessary for technological literacy. Mastering keyboarding, word processing, reading and writing hypertext and web surfing aren't high priority goals of primary classrooms. I  feel that it makes sense to incorporate technology literacies as a multidisciplinary theme into our children's earliest educational experiences.

Educators can more realistically equalize access to the very literacies that can cause a class hierarchy to emerge (that separate the haves from the have nots)  by presenting them as early and as often as possible. Historically, schools have been delegated the responsibility to provide "equal access" to a myriad of educationally related inequities (physical exams, breakfast, etc.). Whatever specific new literacies emerge, schools must be at the forefront providing exposure and instruction to all children so they are able to exploit those literacies as adults.

I think it can be a positive thing for technology to become invisible. The more a new gadget or skill becomes internalized as a part of society, the less the gadget controls us and the more we control it. I feel much less at the mercy of the computer than I did a couple of months ago. Currently email is a mixed blessing. As an inexpensive communication device, it allows instantaneous contact-- but you must sort through the mounds of unwanted "junk mail" or messages that are inappropriate for a particular environment (i.e. social interactions at the workplace). I think the furor will eventually subside as the novelty of email wears out and as methods for filtering unwanted correspondence are refined. Thus, as email becomes an integrated part of our lives, it will also be more manageable. Granted, we must not lose sight of those particular skills we need to teach our students so they can take full advantage of the power of technology.

New literacy skills that emerge do so at a rapid pace but generally in a sequential manner that makes sense if you've mastered the previous skill. For example, once you learn to save a file to a disk, it is easy to learn the more progressive technology of saving a file to a CD-ROM. If you stay current, the new stuff is much more simple to grasp. It's the absence or lapses in learning that will cause the great divide. This is another reason to include technology as an integral part of the primary curriculum.

There are fundamental skills that schools will always need to address. Regardless of the current technology, children must learn to express themselves and communicate those thoughts to others. The means  to communicate may be forever changing but the ability to process and share thoughts must be cultivated. From handwriting to keyboarding, from manipulating paper pages to navigating a computer screen, from using an encylcopedia to surfing the web, from typing a paper to hyperlinking references, the particulars of reading are constant. Grammar, punctuation, and reading  comprehension link the old literacy to the new.  The pencil or the computer are worthless to anyone unprepared to use them.

The following resources provide commentary and references regarding technology literacy. Of particular interest are the English: Information Literacy Guidelines published by the Oregon Education Association.

The 21st Century Teachers Network "is a nationwide, non-profit initiative of the McGuffey Project, dedicated to assisting k-12 teachers learn, use and effectively integrate technology in the curriculum for improved student learning."

The Literacy and Technology site was created to  to assist teachers, students, parents and others, with the integration of curriculum and the Internet to promote student literacy.

Education Planet is a comprehensive education web guide.

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