Ashley Pence
October 30, 2007
To begin this research into branching literacy skills I would first like to say that it is my least favorite. Branching literacy skills are my least favorite because it seems as though the information I have found is not as informative, the information I have found does not make sense to me and it is the least interesting. With that said I will tell you what I do know about branching literacy skills.
According to Eshet-Alkali and Amichai-Hamburger in their article, Experiments in Digital Literacy, there are 5 types of digital literacy. Branching literacy skills is one skill that is believed to be a part of what makes digital literacy a whole. The same article explains a study that was performed to indicate what literacy skills were performed more adequately by certain groups of people. Those people were high school students, college students and adult college graduates. To focus in on the topic at hand, for the branching literacy skills the study required the participants to plan a detailed trip that included a map and an itinerary for visits every day as well as information about the places that they would visit. By doing this task the participant had to use branching literacy skills to develop the tour plan from non-linear, hypertextual navigation through a knowledge domain, in other words, an internet site. This task was graded on completeness, richness and complexity of the task’s outcomes. (2004) Each group of participants were graded on the same scale and the end result was that there were no huge differences between the high school students and college students, but compared to the adult college graduates, they had a much higher score. This meant that the younger the participants, the higher their ability to perform the task With all of that said, I still cannot understand branching literacy and all that it entails, but I do know that it is something that has evolved in the last 15-20 years and this is why the younger participants have a better grasp on it over the adult participants. This is not to say that the adults could not attain a better understanding of it, but it does tell us that the younger groups have had more hands on experience in working with the internet in order to obtain information to compile a larger sum of knowledge. When I read about how branching literacy skills were tested in this study I thought back on the types of research and projects that I had done that were similar. This helped me realize that I should not be surprised about this type of literacy because it is something I have been doing for a large part of my schooling and without it I would not have succeded in many of my classes.
As I mentioned above I am no surprised at the increase in neccessity of this skill. I can see that in the school system things are being done to enhance our skills and have been since my elementary days. Schools are now using computers on a daily basis multiple times in a day even and this is building the basic information that children in schools today will need for their future. Some may argue that this “new” literacy is not useful in teaching children and that we should stick to the old ways because it worked for them, it should work for the children today. However, in todays society we can’t expect students to be satisfied with pre-determined content material and subject matter. It is now imperative that we branch out by using our branching literacy skills. To gain the interest of today’s generation we must move away from the concepts of learning that many current educators grew up with. Everything we knew as a child is undergoing major shifts and we must embrace that. (2005) Although I grew up with an introduction to the “new” literacy I can still see major changes and should prepare myself for even more.
Resources:
Eshet-Alkai, Y., & Amichai-Hamburger, Y. (2004, August). Experiments in digital literacy. Cyberpsychology and Behavior, 7(4), 421-429.
Eshet-Alkai, Y. (2004). Digital literacy: A conceptual framework for survival skills in the digital era. JI. of Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia, 13(1), 93-106.
Aphek, E. (2005) Digital, “highly connected” children: Implications for education. Retrieved October 19, 2007 from www.phil-inst.hu/mobil/2005/Aphek.pdf
