ETL 533 Assessment 1: Introductory Post

Digital Literature presents many opportunities to transform  current knowledge and understanding of literacy and knowledge management throughout digital environments. In  ETL 533 I have encountered a range of concepts and practices, tools and uses for digital literature as a Teacher Librarian that have led me to formulate a basic understanding of how new technology and perspectives respond to changing relationships between readers and text today.

One uncertainty that garners substantial attention in the discourse of digital literature is its relationship to existing material history of the printed book as text. Consequentially, there has also been a great deal of focus given to the impact that technology has had on the forms of reading culture and the behaviours of readers who engage with text in a digital era.

Ontological questions regarding the nature of book and the increasing ambiguous  interpenetration between media further complicate the discourse of literacy and literature in digital environments. Sadokierski (2013) for example, explores  “enhanced eBooks” as one of the sites of such interpenetration of media and boundary spanning function of the book in the its digitised form.

Following the expansion of form, comes the the expansion of function. Likewise, digital literature presents  new functions of  the relationship between text and reader as opportunities for expanding the utility of literature in society. Rettenberg (2013) provides a useful overview of the evolution of electronic literature.  Clear in this evolutionary process is that, as N. Katherine Hayles has said;

” Electronic literature tests the boundaries of the literary and challenges us to re-think our assumptions of what literature can do and be” (Hayles, 2008)

Certainly with the changing of tools and their literary potentialities, comes a call for a change in the way we understand the craft of writing and reading. This entails innovation in the pedagogical practices with which teachers support learners negotiating and decoding text and information.

ACARA  prioritises  ICT capabilities, stating that learners ought to be “learning to make the most of the digital technologies available to them, adapting to new ways of doing things as technologies evolve and limiting the risks to themselves and others in a digital environment.” (ACARA, 2013).   Revealing a taxonomy of care with regard to digital literacies, the greatest concern seems to be utilitarianism by which learners are able to “maximise” technology. Secondly, there is the embrace of a progressivism that presents humans in a reactionary relationship to emergent technologies. Finally, there is acknowledgement of emerging dimensions of  harm presented by these technologies.  This reinforces  existing societal norms and concerns  interpreting the digital within the same paradoxical promethean bind with which humanity has always encountered new technologies.

However, rarely in history (with the exception of the rise of the technology of the printing press ) has technology so powerfully intervened between humans and their access and awareness of knowledge and information.  As a reflection of the shift to knowledge economies there is a tendency to commodify access to information as a resource across societies, deepening the “digital divide” debate.

Educators can contribute to bridging this gap through commitment to diversity. James (2020) suggests digital literacy can provide social, emotional, economic support to those frequently marginalised. Equity and justice become critical issues in a digital environment that has the potential to cultivate communicative skills which empower the efforts of organising community building and digital activism.

Sources

• • Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority. (n.d.). The Australian Curriculum v5.1 Information and Communication Technology (ICT) capability – ICT capability across the curriculum. Retrieved December 19, 2013,from http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/generalcapabilities/pdf/ICT
  • Hayles, N. Katherine. Electronic Literature New Horizons for the Literary. University of Notre Dame, 2008.
  • James, Jeffrey. “The Smart Feature Phone Revolution in Developing Countries: Bringing the Internet to the Bottom of the Pyramid.” The Information Society, vol. 36, no. 4, 2020, pp. 226–235.
  • Rettenberg, J. W. (2012). Electronic literature seen from a distance: The beginnings of a field. http://www.dichtung-digital.org/2012/41/walker-rettberg.htm
  • Sadokierski, Z. (2013, November 12). What is a book in the digital age? The Conversation. http://theconversation.com/what-is-a-book-in-the-digital-age-19071