I have not been the biggest fan of Eyman’s articles. Yes, I understand the message he is trying to push. I understand that these pieces challenge definitions. Eyman wants to change the way you think about “simple” concepts. However, I feel it is easy to get lost in the text.
That being said, I want to focus on one particular section in this section.
Eyman states, “As society and technology change, so does literacy. Because technology has increased the intensity and complexity of literate environments, the twenty-first century demands that a literate person possess a wide range of abilities and competencies, many literacies. These literacies—from reading online newspapers to participating in virtual classrooms—are multiple, dynamic, and malleable.”
To me, this small excerpt to be very intriguing. Allow me to break down my thoughts into two small sections.
A Constant Change
The constant change in technology really stood out to me. When I was a kid, my first phone was a piece of garbage. It was small, and plastic. Three clicks to get to the letter “C”. After that, I had a few slide phones. Eventually, I got a new iPhone 4.
Figuring out this change regarding the device in my pocket was challenging. It would get frustrated not knowing how to do certain tasks on this new smart phone. It wasn’t like my MP3 player or my old phone. Young Aidan was constantly ask my dad to help me figure out the iPhone.
Fast forward to present day. Now, my dad asks me how to work things on his phone or computer. iPhones and laptops have drastically evolved even in my twenty one years of life. The constant change with every update and release is hard to keep up with.
These days, I have a lot more digital literacy than my dad. Eyman refers to the literacies as dynamic and malleable. For example, I have kept up with the constant change. My dad has not. He possesses less digital literacy than I do, when at one point he had a lot more than I did.
Classrooms
Eyman also mentioned virtual classrooms. In past blog posts, I have mentioned my struggle in the change to online learning.
I graduated high school in 2020, right in the middle of COVID. At that time, 17 year old Aidan would have bee fully confident in his digital literacy.
Until he had to deal with Google Classroom and Blackboard.
The pandemic caused a shift (referring back to Eyman calling literacy malleable and dynamic) that changed my ability to complete tasks online. I had to learn how to use these platforms to complete my schoolwork, which I found very frustrating.
All in all, digital literacy is complex and constantly evolving. It is important to keep up with any change in technology, because it can happen fast.
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