The Future of Literacy
Technology today is progressing rapidly to help make our lives simple. Every household now requires some kind of computer or tablet for your school and office work. Your English class may instruct you to turn in all assignments online. The professor may allow you to type the notes in class with a laptop or even use a smart phone to take a snapshot of the notes on the board. Is technology advancing too quickly? Will we forget how to pick up a pen and write or spell correctly? Whether you are ready or not, literacy is evolving and it is within our norm to keep up.
As a young child, we all remember going through grade school and playing with our friends without a care in the world. In Kindergarten we traced every letter ten times each, and if the letter did not stay within the giant lines that were given to us, the teacher would mark off a point. In third grade, our binder paper was place down in front of us diagonally so we could learn to write in cursive. From then on, essays and some homework were required to be written in cursive. In fifth grade, cardboard box cut outs were used to cover our computer keyboards so we could learn to type correctly without searching for the right keys to prod using only our index fingers. Essays were typed during computer class since many households were not able to afford a computer until the late 1990s. In Junior High, we spoke to our friends using our household phone, while our parents listened in through their bedroom phone as if our phones were bugged. Or we chatted on our first computer using AOL Instant Messenger since most of us did not receive a cell phone until High School. According to our parents, we were lucky to grow up in simple times like this, but was it really that simple?
Children's education nowadays moves a lot quicker than what we remember. Everyone is metaphorically born with a cell phone and computer in their hands. Toddlers can educate themselves at home using learning software on their desktop computers to get ahead of their class. Gunther Kress mentions in Literacy in the New Media Age, "There is more writing than ever before." Everyone is constantly on his or her computers and cell phones chatting and texting everyday. They are learning to read more swiftly so they can chat with their friends, but spelling and grammar becomes a disaster with acronyms and the click of a button for spell check. Within the same textbook, in the article I Tweet, Therefore I Am by Andrew Lam, it states "Diaries, once hidden under mattresses, are now online in the form of blogs and vlogs." During children's free time, they like to stay home and chat with their friends on Facebook, post blogs online, and create videos for YouTube. It may seem like grammar, writing neatly, or writing in cursive is not even as important anymore. The only time we use cursive now would be for our signature, but some may be signing their names by simply printing messy rather than in cursive. From our decade to now, we already experience first hand so much change in literacy, and it could only evolve even further in the future.
Many of us today already adapted to our technology because it is required by our jobs and our education. It is very important to keep up with the future no matter what surprises we may encounter. Corporate jobs may not hire you without Microsoft Word or Excel experience. It no longer matters how fast or well you can write, instead it depends on how efficient you are in typing and your knowledge in technology. Many of us still drive to school, but mostly because there are not enough online courses to register for. Eventually, in our children's times, majority of students will take online courses and employees can work at home through webcam and emailing. The virtual world is our future.
Times may have changed and literacy may be drastically different from what is used to be, but it is a more efficient way of learning. Texting and chatting online may have altered our grammar, but education keeps everyone in check and guides us through the necessary steps to our career. No matter how many acronyms or how many grammatical errors we abuse on our cell phones, we already have a literacy sense to do well in school or else we don't pass. I do not believe technology has affected our learning negatively nor did teachers dumb down literacy to "LOL" and "OMG." It has only made our lives easier and allow education to progress quicker. With this in mind, we should accept the future of literacy and continue to learn and improve on ourselves while staying on our toes to prepare us for whatever technology throws in our path.
