As we enter a new millennium, the technology that we use to communicate with each other is proceeding at a fantastic pace.  The key questions for us as educators is how is this technology best used to benefit our students, and how will this new technology affect them and their futures?

According to Neil Postman, the means by which we communicate as a society have profound effects on the society.  The changes to the political process wrought by the ascension of television as the primary means of communication is but one example.  As McLuhan said, "the medium is the message", in many different ways.

A communications technology cannot help but affect not only how messages are sent, but what messages are sent as well.  Would decontextualised images and pictures really guide world events and commerce as they do now if not for television?

Information technology in general and the Internet in particular are playing a more and more important role in the educational field.  What are the effects of this role going to be and how do we avoid possible negative effects of the new technology?  The problem facing educators, beyond merely keeping up with the technology, is to figure out what the machines are good for and how can our students make the best use of the opportunities that technology may offer them.

To narrow down our search for solutions, we have decided to focus on the issue of literacy and information technology.  The areas that we explored involved word processing and basic reading and writing skills, to the fundamental qualities of hypertext as an information exchange medium.

Keeping in the theme of hypertext, this site is cross-linked to as many resources and ideas as we have found to date.  Please do not hesitate to send email to suggest further readings and ideas.

Literacy Discussion Group                                    Literacy Survey
 

Raja Bhattacharyya

Last updated April 13, 1998