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Microcomputers Support New Forms of Literacy

Kenneth Levine
IN a century of almost continuous technological innovation affecting all the major media of human communication, the last decade has been particularly marked by rapid and striking developments in
telecommunications and the power and cost-effectiveness of computers. Until recently, the inculcation of reading and writing skills has been the pre-eminent and unchallenged objective of almost all programmes of basic education the world over, but it is natural that sophisticated technical developments should prompt some reflection about the future significance of literacy, for both Individuals and societies.
Among the many Issues that arise, we can usefully concentrate our attention, in turn, on three. Do "traditional" literacy and the medium of print retain their importance in the face of competition from new modes of transmitting information, and if so, how will they be altered? What degree of change is likely to take place in the level and spread of skills constituting literacy? Should the new media be seen as benign and potentially democratizing forces, or as sinister additions to the armouries of already powerful elites and bureaucracies? We can simplify our task some-what by selecting the impact of the personal computer on literacy as the main example under scrutiny.
Before tackling these specific questions, there are two preliminary considerations of a general kind. The first is an obstacle to sound reasoning that must be removed. Many of the forecasts and scenarios that are being dispensed by contemporary commentators contain a debilitating flaw in their analysis. They assume that the new technologies usher in a set of predetermined social and economic consequences that are universal and Irresistible— and assumption often referred to as "technological determinism."
Many of the scenarios, whether optimistic or. pessimistic in tone, consist of the extrapolation and generalization of trends from a particular technical development in a particular society. In predicting what will happen when that technology emerges in. or is transferred to, other societies, little or no allowance Is made for the mediation of local economic, political and social processes.
The second consideration relates to literacy itself. Literacy is not a unified skill but a plurality of different capacities. A pedant would insist that we speak always of "literacies" in an effort to accommodate the fact, for example, that people "literate" by all of the conventional benchmarks may nevertheless not be able to read or write in "foreign" languages, or even use many of the specialist applications of writing and print available in their own natural language (for example, notations for music or chemical compounds, phonetic alphabets. proof-reading marks, maps, timetables, engineering plans, meta-languages for logical. mathematical or computing purposes).
One of the indirect Impacts of new technologies is that they alter prevailing social definitions of the skills (and the level of the skills) that constitute literacy. It is important clearly to distinguish improving of declining rates of literacy from shifts in the way in which it is being conceived and defined.
Let us now take up the question of the durability of traditional literacy. One reliable measure of its continued Importance is the level of consumption of printed paper, which has shown steady increases in both developed and developing societies over the past decade. Partly through its close connection with techniques of bureaucratic organization and project management, the incorporation of reading and writing into all spheres of life and into a vast assortment of mundane transactions is at work on a global scale. The situation is broadly similar for "serious" writing and publication. Despite the forecasts that have been repeatedly made over the last fifty years concerning the Imminent eclipse of "book cultures". the statistics show that the market for conventionally published works has held up in the face of the expansion of ostensibly "rival" media such as recorded music, television and video.
Drudgery of writing to go
There are several reasons for viewing the advent of micro-computers as an important support for the literacy/print combination. The potential of this kind of equipment as a literacy aid. mainly within the framework of conventional schooling, has been recognized for some years. Unfortunately, the first generations of computer software for use tn literacy training were, in general, pedestrian In conception, offering little more than drill exercises on a display screen rather than on paper. The greatest contribution to literacy studies so far has come from word processing software which has eliminated much of the drudgery associated In the past with the creation of finely-tuned and error-free texts, allowing the novice and the experienced author alike to concentrate on the creative process and to experiment freely.
Spelling checkers, now often Integrated with word processing software, represent a useful half-way house on the road to high-level literacy: they allow the learner to eliminate errors (and mistypes) that would, If uncorrected, detract from the polish and authority of the resulting text. In future, grammar and style checkers will extend this kind of facility, although at present they are generally crude and unreliable. As significantly more powerful hardware and software become available, the quality of such aids will Improve drastically. Many creative possibilities arc also opened up by the way in which the micro-computer can be used as the heart of a "hypermedia" system— that is to say. as the device that controls the generation of a "performance" involving text, graphics and sound that is structured interactively ac cording to the responses of the learner to the programme.
New ways of learning
The linking of micro-computers to telecomunlcatlons networks is another area of immense potential, particularly for the study of foreign languages. Pupils can send messages to their peers across continents quickly and relatively cheaply, adding spice and interest to language stud ies and frequently providing the contacts that lead to collaboration on projects and exchanges of personnel. This kind of "electronic mail'. which involves and amalgam of the characteristics of face to face interaction, telephone contact and letter writing, has the hallmarks of a distinctive medium of communication with a unique blend of intimacy. informality and distance.
One of the most important characteristics of these latter developments is that they promote a participative form of learning; they permit (and frequently require) the learner to have a pro-active role in decisions about how the pedagogic project Is to be approached, and they arc generally congruent with a philosophy of releasing the teaming process, as far as possible, from the physical lx>undar1es of any specific educational institution
The next Issue concerning possible changes In the con stituent skills of literacy is an important one with two principal aspects. The first is that change In the print-bearing medium does directly alter the character of reading and writing skills, but in most cases, only at the margins. Thus, to the extent that micro-computers become standard class-room teaching aids, some elements of "computer literacy" such as familiarity with keyboards and baste knowledge of the capacities of word processing systems and their associated equipment will increasingly be incorporated into popular expectations of what literacy signifies, tn much the same way as use of the electronic calculator Is being assimilated Into notions of numeracy.
The second aspect concerns the probability that, in many societies, "inflation" will lead to a rise in the threshold of the minimum acceptable standard of reading and writing (a standard often referred to as "functional literacy"). This Inflation occurs because literacy is never a purely instru mental skill: possession or lack of ft universally carries implications for the Individual's social standing, so there is a tendency to seek the highest level of attainment posst ble, irrespective of the difficulty of the materials that will be written or read.
Literacy is also the means to gaining educational qualifications that can secure entry to remunerative and prestigious forms of employment. In the face of competition, some candidates for such posts will choose to Invest in higher levels of literacy In order to acquire the advanced qualifications that give them an advantage ovet their rivals. Over time, others will copy their example, until everyone fin Ishes up in their original relative positions. To achieve any advantage, an Individual must now make a further investment in literacy and qualifications, fuelling an Inflationary spiral of standards. The general implication of this spiral Is that there will be a need to enhance the attainment targets in many programmes of basic education and also to offer more comprehensive provision for intermediate and advanced liuiguagc studies.
Finally, are the new technologies essentially democratic and egalitarian, or threats to civil liberties and personal freedoms? Il has been argued, for example, that tools such as desk-top publishing, which can greatly facilitate the pro duction of low-cost documentation such as newsletters and teaching materials, will empower many marginal and scattered minority groups, giving them for the first lime a collective voice and identity, ft has equally been argued that the capacity of national gov eminent* to acquire the most powerful available means of in formation storage and processing leads to ever greater dangers of centralized control and cultural uniformity.
Courtesy : Uncsco