Welcome to 3Ts conference 2013 – 3Ts stands for Transliteracy, Technology and Teaching
… and this year’s theme is “Transliteracy
from Cradle to Career” where educators at the K-12 and college levels, including faculty,
librarians, and instructional designers come together to discuss 21st SEN-TUR-EE literacies.
We will consider the rich and changing landscape of the modern classroom, and what today’s
learner will need to know to engage and master these multi-layered competencies
What is transliteracy?
For those new to the phrase – and even for those for whom it is familiar – it might
be a difficult concept to define.
Is it merely information literacy that includes digital media and social media?
Not quite.
Transliteracy.com, a group founded by our keynote speaker Sue Thomas, defines transliteracy
as “ the ability to read, write and interact across a
range of platforms, tools and media from signing and Orality through handwriting, print, TV,
radio and film, to digital social networks.”
Sue Thomas notes “Because it offers a wider analysis of reading, writing and interacting
across a range of platforms, tools, media and cultures,
transliteracy does not replace, but rather contains, “media literacy” and also “digital
literacy.”
This is a working definition, and so by extension is as fluid and changing as the many digital
and social media.
Sometimes, students are more familiar with these new digital tools than
their teachers.
But does that mean they are poised to critically engage these tools …. ?
Again from Transliteracy.com: “We are now using video or audio equipment
to capture content that could only have been witnessed live.
We are using computers and other technology to share information that we would
have previously shared over the phone or face to face.
Getting information from people you know rather than from a reference book or librarian
is traditionally information seeking behavior.”
“What we are witnessing today is thus the acceleration of a trend that has been building
for thousands of years.
When technologies like alphabets and Internets amplify the right cognitive
or social capabilities, old trends take new twists and people build things that never
could be built before” (Transliteracy.com)
How we see the world is different than even 10 years ago.
Our perspective is larger – what was once at a distance is now literally and metaphorically
closer.
We use various tools to create focal points on a rapidly changing horizon.
The boundaries of teaching and learning are interrogated.
We are at once consumers of information, learners, and teachers – often all in the same context.
Immersion .. We immerse ourselves in virtual worlds and actual spaces, blurring the lines
with augmented virtual reality and social media.
Learning is immersion.
Our conversations are changing.
Rather than wondering who starred in that old movie, we can quickly settle the debate
by looking the information up on the Internet.
Instantaneous sharing of information – from the score of the big game to the latest update
on the hurricane to the viral video clip - creates new communities of sharers and viewers.
We don’t have to hold the information, we have to know how to access it.
We are increasingly mobile, and have information grouped via apps.
We have immediate access to social media, and 24-hour connectivity.
But the implications go beyond immediate connectivity.
Users are situated as managers of short cuts, managing everything from personal goals, to
money, to avoiding that uncomfortable social situation by texting or playing a game.
So, users can remove themselves from the present without ever leaving.
Our relationship to time, place, and space has shifted.
We are beyond the clicker on the coffee table.
The remote is on the mobile phone, as an app.
The prime time slot is whenever we want it to be.
What was once an invention intended to invite leisure, is now informing and creating an
expectation of connectivity.
Google is the new virtual, global classroom, playground and commons.
The definitions of open – itself a widely debated word - accessible and emerging education
are pushing our own understanding of what it means to be holistic, organic learners
– the points at which we can intersect complex goals, and objectives with a sense of reflective,
creative, play.
The global village is literally always under construction.
The rapidity with which definitions of cutting edge design, interconnected media, and emerging
texts and subtexts arise means the learner cannot get entrenched in
a specific paradigm.
The paradigm is change.
Multi-player board games – games of commodity, trade, and negotiation – can be played in
the face to face setting or online.
While board games are not new, the connectivity they can represent is.
They represent the negotiation of collaboration versus individual play.
Massive online multi-player games can join and support thousands of players at once,
creating the wide scale, global version of a face-to-face Dungeons and Dragons game of
even 15 years ago.
Translation …. Translation of code, sound to text, word and image.
Translation is ongoing in a global virtual environment.
Emerging …. Emerging technologies; emerging
literacies, emerging thought and practice.
We hope this conference ignites new questions, creates new possibilities for collaboration,
and encourages thoughtful engagement of emerging and multifaceted literacies.
Join us on March 15, 2013 at SUNY Empire State College, Center for Distance Learning.
http://threetees.weebly.com/