COMMUNICATION AND NEW LITERACIES

Professor Tapio Varis Unesco Chair in Global e-Learning University of Tampere, Finland www.uta.fi/~titava April 12, 2008 Varis 2008 1

Three Perspectives

• European perspective • UNESCO Chair in Global e-Learning • Communication and education Varis 2008 2

Trends of the 21st Century

• -Technology: digitalization (from analog to digital); digital literacy = way of thinking • -Globalisation: local to global and global to local: multicultural world • -Knowledge societies: the role of information Varis 2008 3

Ministerial Declaration 2006

(supported by the European digital technology industry) • Countries will put in place, by 2008, digital literacy and competence actions • Needs of groups at risk of exclusion • Actions through partnerships with the private sector • Media literacy, e-skills, life-long-learning • Digital literacy a right for all Varis 2008 4

UNEVOC International Conference ”Vocational Content in Mass Higher Education”, September 2005

• ”It is necessary to rethink the whole education system, from primary to higher, and understand the links to multiliteracies, multimodality and multimediality” • UNESCO (2005): there is a general agreement on the expression ”knowledge societies” but not of the content of it Varis 2008 5

Knowledge for What?

• Are we endorsing the hegemony of the techno-scientific model in defining legitimate and productive knowledge?

• Should the term “Digital Age” be replaced by multicultural world?

• The spirit of knowledge sharing and caring Varis 2008 6

Mr. Koichiro Matsuura

DG Unesco • “It is necessary to build up large movement to humanize globalization, based on solidarity, on the spirit of caring for and sharing with others” • Open Educational Resources (OER) initiative as a cooperation mechanism for the open, non-commercial use of educational resources Varis 2008 7

UNESCO IIEP Internet Discussion Forum 2005

• Technology • Cultural issues: reservations about publishing content produced by a foreign institution • Collaborative development rather than ”providers” and passive ”users” • Translation and adaptation • Original content production • Quality assurance and assessment Varis 2008 8

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Communication and Digital Literacy

• The most important skills of the future would be communication skills in a multicultural world • E-learning in a narrow sense seems to have passed its peak and is on the decline. We are now moving towards a more societal or communitarian activity with social web, blogs, and wikipedia • Digital literacy becomes a right to people Varis 2008 10

The Power of e-Learning

• Traditionally defined courseware is not an effective e-Learning strategy • eLearningware is more related to pedagogy than an actual product • It emphasizes computer mediated communication and is student-centred • Discussion goups, chat, blogs, wikis, webinars • Tools available through open source Varis 2008 11

Communication

• Communion, sharing (Debray) • Mediation (communicating between people) • Communication, education (Freire, Dewey) • Global network (ICT technology) • Local network (meanings) • ”Space has vanished and time ceased to exist (McLuhan) • Space-biased, time-biased communication (Innis) Varis 2008 12

Media

• ”…each of the so-called ”media” does far more than this (moving information): it makes possible thought processes inconceivable before” (Walter Ong 1977) • ”Orality and Literacy” (1982) • ”Secondary orality” = electronic media (generates a sense for groups immeasurably larger than those of primary oral culture – McLuhan´s ´global village´) Varis 2008 13

Mediation: The Oral-Literacy Theorems

• Primary oral culture (no literate modes of communication): additive, aggregative, redundant, conservative (memorized) • Writing/print brings with it much more than mere ways of recording oral speech – writing restructures consciousness • Electronic media: secondary orality • New literacies, skills, competences Varis 2008 14

What is needed in working life

• Master appropriate tools to gather information • Understand the context of that information • Actively shape and distribute information in ways that make it understandable and useful • Exchange ideas, opinions, questions and experiences Varis 2008 15

Workplace skills

• Challenges: to acquire the skills necessary to enter an increasingly digital job market, and to continually improve those skills, and learn new ones • Studies suggest that working people may not be keeping pace • Schools are failing? Motivational problems?

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Workplace training

• Large corporations provide the bulk of employer-managed and employer delivered technology training • Small and mediumsized enterprises rely on third-party organizations for such support, or establish partnerships with educational institutions etc Varis 2008 17

Educational revolutions

• The phonetic alphabet • Printing • Telematics (computers connected to networks) Varis 2008 18

Trends and Movements

• Media literacy movement • E-Learning movement • Convergence 2006? Media competence, digital literacy • Open on-line media environment Varis 2008 19

New concepts

• Multiple intelligences (Gardner) (emotional intelligence originates with Darwin ´s ”Origin of the Species” 1872) • Multiliteracies (digital literacy, technology literacy, information literacy, media literacy) • Multimediality (Aristotle´s Poetics c.335 BCE) • Multimodality • Multiculturalism (transcultural, intercultural) • Open, global learning environment Varis 2008 20

Elements of ML: UNESCO definition

Vienna Conference • Analyze, critically reflect upon and create media; • Interpret the messages and values offered by the media; • Gain, or demand access to media for both reception and

production

• Select appropriate media for communicating youngsters’ own messages or stories and for reaching their intended audience; Varis 2008 21

Media Literacy definition

ML European Charter “...every European citizen need to develop the skills and knowledge(...) (...) to use media technologies effectively to access, store, retrieve and share content (...) (...) access to, a wide range of media forms and content from different cultural and institutional sources; Understand how and why media content is produced; Analyse critically the techniques, languages and conventions used by the media, and the messages they convey; Use media creatively to express and communicate ideas, information and opinions; Identify, and avoid or challenge, media content (...) that may be unsolicited, offensive or harmful; Make effective use of media in the exercise of their democratic rights and civic responsibilities. (...) Varis 2008 22

Elements of ML: EC definition

European Commission "...the ability to access, analyze and evaluate the power of images, sounds and messages which we are now been confronted with a daily basis and are an important part of our contemporary culture as well as to communicate competently in media available on a personal basis..." … and • Ability to create and communicate messages • Critical thinking 23

Access Selecting

Key

concepts

All the media Production Creating Analyzing Critical thinking Interpreting Evaluating Communicating competently Active citizenship Participating Reception

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New Renaissance Education

• The study of complexity has brought science closer than ever to art • Knowledge has gone through a cycle from non-specialism to specialism, and now back to interdisciplinarity, even transdisciplinarity • Art deals with the sensual world (media as the extension of senses) and the holistic concept of human being Varis 2008 25

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