Schmar-Dobler Article. The link between literacy and Technology

This article talks about the importance of technology in the literacy world. They now include this statement in the definition of literacy as, "literacy skills necessary for individuals, groups, and societies to access the best information in the shortest time to identify and solve the most important problems and then communicate this information." In simpler terms, this means that students are expected to not only know how to read and write in the print world, but also in the digital world. With this technology expectation, students must know how to do a number of things. For example, students must be able to hand the volume of text that can be found when using the internet, because as we all know, their is endless amounts of information, and with that comes deciding on what is good information and what is bad. A student is also expected to know how to read and understand different formats that the internet produces; columns, graphs, charts, etc. A main part of this article was asking what can educators do to help students learn this process to be successful in the digital world. I was expecting a much more elaborate answer, but it is as simple as helping students take what the know in reading print text and apply it to the reading of internet text. Simple comprehension. Have students ask themselves questions, look for main ideas, draw inferences, etc. We as teachers need to guide students to help them reorganizing their experiences with text, and apply this knowledge to internet reading. This will help students become successful in the "digital world".