Reflections

Wow, a really interesting podcast got me thinking, but there are a few points I’d like to examine:

• Suggesting that 20th century literacy involved memorising facts from a textbook is to some degree true, at least for the first 75% of the century, but things were already changing before the 21st century rolled in.
• Comparing a Mario Bros game to climate change is a bit of a stretch to me. I see the point of the connectedness of the events, and yet, Mario Bros involves immediate direct feedback to the user. The climate change example involves indirect “Butterfly Effect” style flow of connectedness to some event which is hard to conceptualise for a student in a classroom. Mario is always easy to relate to, he’s blinking in front of you, the polar bears aren’t.
• In 1830, the farmer’s idea of literacy was how to read, and that is understandable. Now the idea of literacy has extended beyond reading, into other text types, and visual literacy, which does include computer games surely. But to put all your eggs into the the gaming basket seems a little odd to me. I’m sure to some extent the concluding statement of the podcast was an oversimplification of the idea, and yet, at it’s core, that is pretty much what it boils down to.