Are we teaching critical digital literacy? Grade 9 learners’ practices of digital communication

Reading & Writing

 
 
Field Value
 
Title Are we teaching critical digital literacy? Grade 9 learners’ practices of digital communication
 
Creator Mnyanda, Lutho Mbelani, Madeyandile
 
Subject education digital literacy; social media; cultural historical activity theory; multimodal social semiotics
Description South Africa’s communication landscape has changed and is still changing because many previously disadvantaged areas have benefitted from the construction of roads, provision of electricity and installation of satellites. As a result, many previously disadvantaged learners have access to digital media in their homes. In this article, we argue that the immersion of many learners in digital media at home advances literacy achievement. Drawing on insights from cultural historical activity theory and multimodal social semiotics, we discuss the nature of learners’ digital resources at home and how these resources could be meaningfully and critically used to advance literacy. Data were collected from Grade 9 learners in two King Williams Town schools in the form of questionnaires, focus group discussions, informal Facebook-Messenger conversations, one-on-one interviews with teachers and lesson observations. The analysis of data shows that many learners in this study are becoming digitally literate, irrespective of their socio-economic status or rural–urban location. However, digital literacy does not seem to be used as a base to advance literacy as advocated in the new curriculum and assessment policy statements.
 
Publisher AOSIS Publishing
 
Contributor
Date 2018-09-13
 
Type info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion — exploratory qualitative case study
Format text/html application/epub+zip application/xml application/pdf
Identifier 10.4102/rw.v9i1.188
 
Source Reading & Writing; Vol 9, No 1 (2018); 9 pages 2308-1422 2079-8245
 
Language eng
 
Relation
The following web links (URLs) may trigger a file download or direct you to an alternative webpage to gain access to a publication file format of the published article:

https://rw.org.za/index.php/rw/article/view/188/450 https://rw.org.za/index.php/rw/article/view/188/449 https://rw.org.za/index.php/rw/article/view/188/451 https://rw.org.za/index.php/rw/article/view/188/448
 
Coverage — — grade 9 Learners and two teachers
Rights Copyright (c) 2018 Madeyandile M.Mbelani@ru.ac.za https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
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