Jamie McKenzie - IT Summit Monday Morning Keynote on Reading across a Dozen Literacies

Monday morning kicked off with a keynote from Jamie McKenzie on Reading across a Dozen Literacies.

Websites mentioned include:

• questioning.org
• http://fno.org/mar09/dozen.html

Focus on student centered learning and questioning.

We need a broadened conception of reading. Movement from traditional comprehension of a text to comprehending a wide variety of objects and materials. "Students must be able to read a face as well as they can read a book."

Different kinds of information literacies:

• text
• ethical
• numerical
• technological
• mechanical
• social
• cultural
• environmental
• natural
• linguistic
• visual
• artistic
• emotional
• media

Is "digital" a literacy or is it a means of delivering or exposing people to the other literacies?

Media Literacy:
Dove commercial on "What is beauty" campaignforbeauty.ca "Dove Evolution"
Discussion questions after watching the commercial:

• What is real?
• What impact does the media have on our perceptions of beauty?
• Natural beauty vs. person created beauty?
• Can we trust Dove? What is in it for them? They make AXE too.
  

"Onslaught" commercial from Dove.
Student made parity. "Sloth made" Student synthesis which works in reverse of the Dove commercial to show a model becoming "ugly".

Students need more than just traditional literacy and numeracy. They need:

• information literacies: see above list
  
• curiosity
• pondering
• wondering
• comprehending
• wandering
• ruminating
• rsonance
• floundering
• considering processing
• dissonance
• questioning
• visualizing
• picturing
• guessing
• hypothesizing
• supposing
• wishing
• dreaming
• imagining
• worrying
• interpreting
• observing
• understanding
• considering
• inferring

Comprehending, Considering, Wandering, Wondering, Pondering all all forms of thinking that are woven together in the thought process when "Thinking"

Visual and Artisitic Literacy:
Thinkmap Visual Thesaurus
It is French, English but a paid site. I think it is worth the money.

Discussion about photos: Which one is more beautiful?

Natural Literacy
-being able to function in nature reading the signs of nature to survive in the wild (ex: "Beware of the Bears") Having the capacity to "read" the information in that forum and being able to understand it.

Link between natural literacy and scientific literacy: the capacity to learn from observation and interpretation of what we see.

Scientific literacy used to encompass: natural and environmental literacy and they didn't stand on their own as important forms of literacy.

Emotional Literacy: Link between social and cultural literacy
How are we working to understand our differences and to work past them and learn from each other?

Numerical Literacy: nochildleft.com
- the argument against standardized testing in the US.
-trouble with text literacy - being able to interpret what the question is asking for
-tied to financial crisis: being able to read a mortgage document
-curriculum: students need to know how to interpret the paper to know what it means

Organizational Literacy:
"Corporate Head" sculpture image.
"Wikkilobbying" Google search: Steven Colbert on Comedy Central