Chapter 1: Introduction
I'm going to begin with a bit of a warning. This is the kind of book that still requires some work on the part of the reader to translate into practical action. In other words, this isn't a handbook. There's nothing resembling an off-the-shelf solution here. Parts of this book probably belong in other, even more philosophical works. As the fictional author Lemony Snicket says in A Series of Unfortunate Events, if you keep reading, then don't say I didn't warn you.
For those still with me, then I hope you find this a useful book. It's the kind of thing I wished someone had written for me to read several years ago. When I began writing this after completing my doctoral studies, my aim was to create a book of ~10,000 words to summarise my thesis. It was going to be a primer, a more accessible way for educators to get to grips with digital literacies. As so often happens with these kinds of things, it's taken longer to finish than I expected and the word count has doubled!
Along the way, I hope that this book has turned into something even more useful. I see it as the raw material from which you can start thinking about what digital literacies might mean in your context. That may be part of a personal journey. It may be that your organisation has staff needing to update their digital skills. It might be an educational institution looking to develop digital literacies in their students. Whatever you're looking to do, my aim is for this book to leave you asking the right questions. I can't provide the specific answers you're looking for as I don't know your context. However, I hope that, whenever you’re prompted by the following chapters, you'll jot down some of the ideas that come into your head.
The chapter that gives the book its title is Chapter 5, The Essential Elements of Digital Literacies. I developed an approach to digital literacies based on eight elements in response to the myriad frameworks I came across during my studies. I think you'll find it's a more productive way of approaching the area within your particular setting. Feel free to dive straight into that Chapter 5, but your understanding may increase if you start from the beginning of book.
Chapter 2 introduces the 'problem' of digital literacies. Part of the problem is that we don't really understand traditional 'literacy'. We'll look at literacy as a social phenomenon as well as what happens when you add a modifier like 'digital' in front of 'literacy'.
Chapter 3 is an odd beast; I debated back and forth whether to include it, but after discussing with some people who seemed to 'get it', decided that it was for the best. If you get lost in the discussion of ambiguity and Alice in Wonderland, feel free to skip the chapter. It helps some people understand what's coming next, but it's purely optional.
Chapter 4 provides some reasons why I believe some of the digital literacy frameworks you may have come across don't work. We'll discuss non-linearity, the work of Stephen Heppell, skill acquisition, and the SOLO Taxonomy. Most important, though, is realising that literacies are plural and context-dependent.
Chapter 5 is the pivotal chapter of the book. In it, I introduce the eight essential elements of digital literacies that I came up with in my thesis. I explain what each one means, also discussing in passing things like SAMR model and skeumorphism.
Chapter 6 introduces memes. These are a great way to understand how digital texts are different from their analogue counterparts. Along the way we'll deconstruct a couple of particularly successful memes.
Chapter 7 outlines my belief that at the heart of digital literacies is the concept of 'remix'. I discuss licensing issues as well as giving some practical examples of sample remixes you can do right now.
Chapter 8 focuses on my post-doctoral work at Mozilla where I've been focusing primarily on web literacy. We'll look at how 'coding' and web literacy differ. Also, why interest-based pathways to learning are important.
Chapter 9 is the conclusion, as much as there can be one. Be warned, you’re going to be encouraged to ‘rip and remix’ the ideas (and text) found in the next ~20,000 words!