Tuesday, April 7, 2009

How does literacy shape technology? & How does technology shape literacy?

I’d like to answer the easier one–“How does technology shape literacy” first. Baron gave lot examples on how the computer changes literacy, such as adding animation, video, and sound to texts, students’ dependence on spell-check program, and the World Wide Web. I think technology is making more texts more easily available to more and more people; so with the development of technology, people should have literacy much more easily. And literacy has also changed to fit technology. It is obvious that we read, write and speak in almost a different language to what people use several hundred years ago. Even people living in the same time sometimes fail to understand each other’s texts because of change in literacy caused by technology, for example, a parent may find his daughter text messaging in “the language of Mars”.
About the next question, how does literacy shape technology, I think the point is that literacy may change the original usage of technology. Just like pencils were first made for woodworkers and computers were intended to perform numerical calculations, people most of the time do not intend to invent a technology to change the literacy, actually, some people are afraid of changes in literacy. However, sometimes, when the new technology gets connected to literacy, literacy is so attractive that technology deviates from its original track.

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