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DIGITAL LITERACY AND THE DEATH OF COMMUNITY
implications for education
John Carter McKnightAdjunct Professor of Law
Sandra Day O’Connor College of LawArizona State University
VWBPE 2011
who and why
adjunct professor of law PhD student, Human & Social
Dimensions of Science & Technology former officer/director, science
education nonprofits Marketing/Communications in SL
communities
what’s digital literacy?
literacy: the ability to receive and transmit meaning using a particular technology
(an STS spin on socio-linguistics)
print literacy: the ability to read and write texts
digital literacy: the ability to receive and transmit meaning using a range of computer tools
that’s probably important
it’s a world of screens – people probably should be able to use them
but all tool use involves power
“any view of literacy is inherently political, in the sense of involving relations of power among people” – James Paul Gee
“artifacts have politics” – Langdon Winner
“technology is neither good nor bad, nor is it neutral” – Melvin Kranzberg
so what are the power relations?
communities associations networks
communities
you don’t choose your neighbors “socially integrative” bad side – they can brutally enforce
conformity good side – belonging, clarity
associations
de Toqueville and on – American democracy is built on associations
where people gain “democratic literacy” by making political meaning
“bowling alone” for 3 generations now
networks
“the first fax machine was worthless” what would the politics of the
network become?
networks
a democratic renaissance online? “declaration of independence of
cyberspace” 1996
the california ideology
the electronic frontier foundation mitch kapor linden lab burning man
the view from harvard
guess what? the hippies lost
artifacts have politics
community: politics of all of us association: politics of kinds of us network: politics of me and
mine
sherry turkle says -
- kids these days are feeling themselves victims of technological determinism
- their parents are more interested in their BlackBerries
- digital literacy = vast social pressure- high school social media, the worst
of community and network?
who has power in the network? me!
I can make my echo chamber the network owner
why is facebook free? the data miners
big brother was a punk kid
good for community?
probably not everything from transit and housing
choices to high school socializing to gaming suggests,
we want to choose our ties
so we get this -
ok, but what about digital creativity?
we’ve put a movie studio, a recording studio and a printing press on every desk
what about the politics of that?
the biggest revolution ever?
the empire strikes back
secret copyright treaties “enclosure acts” for the information
commons criminalizing the creative process
digital literacy – who gets the power? what’s our responsibility as
teachers? “nothing could be more crucial to
democracy than the education of itscitizens” - Martha Nussbaum
citizenship and civilization – “playing well with others”
we don’t, we don’t want to, and digital literacy empowers us not to
being here is a political statement
"May have been the losing side. Still not convinced it was the wrong one." - Malcolm Reynolds
what do we do?
ask the network, of course!