Literacy, information literacy and needs...

I have been thinking a lot about the information literacy needs of the diverse group of students that are on the campus this year. I consider the script approach taken by my colleagues in the big city campus and wonder if it would even impinge on the minds of the teenagers in the High school or the Tafe.

I was reading Dorothy Porters "El Dorado" and in one verse she succinctly put something that spoke quite clearly to me what I have been watching in my own children and the larger population of students;

The child in this situation didn't leave a note about her whereabouts, didn't think pen and paper at all! (shock, horror)She had been texting her father, however his phone was switched off... and the protagonist was remembering that this,

"..generation
is gadget-savvy,
but otherwise totally-
unapologetically-
illiterate."
Porter, D. (2007. pg. 322)

There are many 'key' words in the verse, but I think 'unapologetically' really nailed it, they don't care (sorry, even think about) if we care about our way of doing things, and why can't 'we get it'.

"Illiterate" in my dictionary is:
1. Unable to read or write. and 2. not knowledgeable about a particular subject.

However they are knowledgable about their particular subjects.

Images of the past year at this point float through my mind;
my son struggling to read a novel for the subject we still so strangely call "english", chucking it aside and then,

-texting 3 friends, (reading and writing),

-searching for a particular YouTube video, (keywords in use here),

-updating his myspace and adding visuals to make his point, (photos, graphics etc. He has facebook as well but its not as visually manipulative as myspace),

-playing online with "randoms" in a game on xbox, (gaming and social networking
some of the time the game is UNO, which I find amusing)

I have been reading about getting beyond the bullet points in presentations and others are talking about the same thing, so I think if it can be visually stimulating and not too many words to blur their minds, I might just crack it...now to work out how to do that!

off to do some social networking and think ..FeralTB-) (aka kalgrl)