Metadiscourses in technology and literacy education

• Dimitrios Koutsogiannis & Scott Bulfin
  After almost four decades of research and theorizing in the area of ‘new’ and digital literacies, and after many initiatives in educational policy and curricula designed at implementing digital technologies into everyday teaching in L1 classrooms, the field seems to be stagnating and researchers have begun to examine alternative ways forward for the study of digital literacies. Over its history, this research tradition has concentrated mainly on the idea that a ‘new literate reality’, related to the widespread use of digital technologies in everyday life, has led to dramatic changes in how L1 is used and understood. This argument has become commonplace and relatively uncontentious. Within this frame the notion of giving a strong emphasis to digital literacies, both in and outside of L1 classrooms has become a dominant argument (e.g. Kalantzis & Cope 2012). In this presentation we discuss and develop a critical reading of the dominant aspects of these arguments. This critical reading aims to develop a more multidimensional and complicated picture of the contemporary communicative reality. We focus on the fact that the notion of literacy and also the content of L1 teaching is interrelated strongly with history (Collins & Blot 2003, Koutsogiannis 2011). Within this context we also discuss several other aspects of the past and the present historical conjecture that help to make the notion of digital literacy and literacy education more multivariate and complex.
• Andrew Burn
  While literacy continues to work as a convenient umbrella term for semiosis across and between many modes and media, it always requires some qualification. I offer two such qualifications here in respect of the relationship between literacy and the technologies of inscription.
  Many instances of digital inscription are writing-like, so that the print-oriented term 'literacy' functions well enough. Examples might be the strings of signs on the timeline of a digital video editing software; or (differently-arranged spatially) in a Photoshop composition. However, other processes seem more like oral events: improvisatory, performed in real time, spontaneous. Examples might be Drama or spoken roleplay for film; or avatar-based interaction in games and virtual worlds. For these reasons I prefer the compound 'lit-oracy'.
  We have become accustomed to the multimodal nature of digital literacies - in the media arts, the integration of audio, visual and other modes such as the grammars of film and game. Video games however incorporate a new mode - code as mode - requiring a further extension of our notion of literacy, and interdisciplinary work both in research and in the curriculum.
• Katarina Cederlund & Anna-Lena Godhe & Sylvana Sofkova Hashemi
  In this paper we examine competing discourses of established and emerging practices in literacy education in relation to technology. Our intention is to highlight contextual and relational aspects, which are largely absent in discussion concerning education when the aim is to find effective, best practice solutions. Grounded on empirical research findings, we strive to expand the current discussion by problematizing the relation between technology and literacy in a subject culture in motion.
  
  As classroom practices are made up of many different and often competing discourses this paper attends to the historical development of L1 and discusses tensions at classroom and system levels (Bernstein, 2000; Engeström, 2009). We demonstrate how the conditions and role of technology in the classroom tends to move from a focus on the effective use of technology, which separates the digital from L1-education, towards discourses including social practices and socio-political aspects (Ivanic, 2004). Moreover, the need for a meta-awareness addressing the multiplicity and diversity of communication channels and media will be problematized in regard to teachers’ professional development, changes in curricula and the boundary between the L1-subject and aesthetics.
• Boris Vazquez-Calvo & Daniel Cassany i Comas
  Online language resources are a set of technologies—dictionaries, automated translation software, spell and grammar checkers, and others—, serving as “scaffolding tools” in reading and writing online (Warschauer, 2010). When observing such technologies in literacy education in schools, particular metadiscourses emerge, with perceivable differences between teacher and student practices. From previous studies (Cassany, 2016; Vazquez-Calvo, 2016), we identify 4 categories of analysis: a) L1 versus L2 perceived applicability; b) type of resource and perceived potential, c) perceptions on translation, d) perceptions on learning through and on the screen. Concerning (a), L1 teachers consider these resources as more of a disruptive item than a tool for learning, as opposed to L2 counterparts. This has implications for the type of resources (b) they choose: while L1 teachers are inclined toward official dictionaries and spell checkers for the sake of language ‘correctness’, L2 teachers accept multilingual and collaborative dictionaries, as they offer more practical usage of language items. Teachers prohibit the use of translation software –seen as a source for lexical calques, rather than valid (or ideal) structures (Pym, Malmkjaer, & Gutiérrez-Colón Plana, 2013). The instruction is ‘Do not translate’. This leads us to reflect on teachers’ misconception of translation (c), ignoring its pragmatic nature (Nord, 2009), valuable for intercultural mediation in schools (Canagarajah, 2013), online and offline. These aspects surface language teachers’ limited discourses regarding teaching with technologies: (a) teachers’ potential loss of power vis-à-vis language technologies, (b) the naïve and widespread idea that technologies improve teachers’ methodology (Marquès & Prats, 2013), or (c) the fact that they accept less disruptive technologies (e.g. interactive whiteboards) and PDF-like textbooks (Merino & Cassany, 2016). Such a discourse underpins traditional teacher-centered practices and disregards technologies (translation software) and practices (online critical reading) representing a student-centered approach. Also, translation software and others questions the very notion of how teachers see and implement a communicative approach –with the goal of the “native (monolingual) speaker” in mind (Davies, 2003). Instead, students apply more resources, including translation software, with multiple affordances, showing a divide between learners who can handle language technologies to foster literacy skills and those who cannot.