Social networking in adult literacies learning contexts
Tara Furlong Tara has worked across private and public sectors inside and outside of education for twenty years in the UK and abroad. She has an ongoing interest in the relationship between multimodal and contextualised versus abstracted learning, and its mirror in social and literate practice and language across life spheres. Tara is engaged in postgraduate studies in education with the IoE. She can be contacted on
tara.furlong@designingfutures.co.uk
Introduction
The recently released results from the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies, PIAAC (OECD, 2013a), discussed on the
RaPAL blog , highlight the burgeoning importance of technology-rich
environments in the utilisation and development of literacy, numeracy and problem-solving skills in everyday lives. The international comparisons look at people's competencies in the context of the home, community involvement and economic activity.
RaPAL co-delivers with NIACE (National Institute of Adult Continuing Education) workshops via its conferences and a national training module , where we seek to understand the impact that technological
change is having on literacies, and how we can harness this to develop appropriate pedagogies. This article explores how society's fast evolving technologies and associated socio-cultural practices create a positive feedback loop for literacies. It discusses some recent evolutions in modern technology and social networking and how the sociocultural schools of thought argue that these might contribute to higher-order thought processes and literacy practices. It outlines practical teaching and learning applications from the workshops, including those limited to mobile access, and it expounds the relationship between multimodality and multimedia in the cross-over between the concrete and virtual worlds, and it examines in conclusion some of the challenges that lie before us in the education sector.
Where next?
Over the last decade, we have increasingly utilised mobile technology in our everyday lives. Smart mobile devices are progressing from comfortably portable phones and tablets to physical-activity supporting glasses and watches that communicate with us and keep us connected to a data-rich multimedia world. Increasingly sophisticated tablet designs are taking over from laptops and desktops, moving from the consumer into the enterprise and business sector, with a suggestion that sales volumes of 'tablets will outstrip computers within two years', according to The Economist (2013a). Data from market information, analysis and the intelligence
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