Week One - What is literacy in the 21st Century?

‘Literacy is the ability to identify, understand, interpret, create, communicate and compute, using printed and written materials associated with varying contexts.  Literacy involves a continuum of learning in enabling individuals to achieve his or her goals, develop his or her knowledge and potential and participate fully in community and wider society’(UNESCO 2005).

It has only recently been apparent to me at how frequent I am a user of literacy.  I previously believed that literacy was reading and writing, English class and punctuation.  However, “there is not a single notion of literacy as a skill which people possess or not, but multiple literacies” (Richmond, 2008).  Phillips (2014), challenged me to think of that spatial, audio, visual, gestural, tactile and oral means are types of literacies and to engage with them as much as written.  This wide array of literacies made me think of the literacies I engage with regularly and practice on a frequent basis.  Bruns (2008) provided the concept of us as prod-users of literacies, being participatory more than ever through literacy codes.  This got me thinking of how much of a user I am, and a producer.  It was astonishing at the depth of literacy I delve into when incorporating spatial, audio, visual, gestural, tactile and oral as well as written. 

Two familiar literacy codes that I am an enthusiastic user of and previously wasn't aware that they were literacy codes are audio and visual. 

Here are three of my top played songs!!!

Beyonce – Run The World

Ed Sheeran – Photograph

Boyce Avenue – One Life

·        

This is a collage of photos of me with the ones that mean the most to me!

Bruns (2008) invites us to reflect on participation and interaction with literacies.  In the 21^st century it has become second nature to participate and interact with literacies through media, significantly the World Wide Web! The internet provides us with codes of literacies that I never thought were categorised as literacies.  Throughout the years technology and the internet have advance thoroughly and transformed the way in which prod-users utilise literacies and engage with all codes.  ‘Literacy is about making and exchanging meaning’ (Ashton, Arthur and Beecher, 2014), thus personal connections and reflections of family and schooling contexts are imperative for the meaning to resonate with the user.