Txts, blogs and Facebook – the new literacy

Published on Wednesday 20 February 2008 21:17

TEXT messaging, social networking websites and blogs will be studied alongside books, plays and poetry in schools in future.

Under new curriculum guidelines for literacy published today, children will be taught in the new media in an effort to bring English lessons into the 21st century.

The idea is to use modern methods of communication to engage children and prepare them with skills necessary for the workplace.

Business leaders and education experts have welcomed the move.

New emphasis will be placed on teaching how and when to use a particular method of communication. For example, pupils will be taught not to use abbreviated text language in an e-mail where more formal language is necessary.

Business leaders have long been critical of school leavers who are unable to communicate effectively.

Iain Ferguson, CBI Scotland policy executive, said improved literacy standards were exactly what business wanted to see.

He said: "For too long Scottish businesses have had to invest an unacceptably high proportion of their training budgets to what is effectively remedial training, including improving workers' literacy."

He said it was important not to live in the past and children should learn how to use modern communication methods.

"Using the wrong method at the wrong time can create a negative image for individuals and businesses, so learning the most appropriate method in different situations will benefit Scots pupils."

Under the new guidelines, pupils will also be taught to examine critically information on websites, television and radio.

That is likely to be welcomed by universities, which have expressed concerns that too many students cut and paste information from websites without checking the facts are accurate.

Dr Ross Deuchar, a senior lecturer in education at Strathclyde University, said it was a good idea to engage children in communication methods they were already familiar with.

He said: "Let's face it, it is much more relevant for today's kids to learn about e-mails and blogs than about Shakespeare or study English in a more traditional sense.

"If you ask kids how they communicate with each other it is by text and e-mail.

"They are much more adept than adults at writing blogs, so it is good to be able to draw on that knowledge."

Literacy is the latest subject on which the Scottish Government has published guidance as part of the Curriculum for Excellence, which is due to land on teachers' desks in August.

The new curriculum has been described by educationalists as the biggest change to Scottish school education they will ever have experienced.

It will replace the existing guidelines for five-to-14-year-olds and cover a wider range of ages – from three to 18.

Guidelines on history that will give greater prominence to Scotland's past were published last month.

The latest outcomes say: "The literacy and English framework reflects the increased use of multi-modal texts, digital communication, social networking and the other forms of electronic communication encountered by children and young people in their daily lives.

"It recognises that the skills which children and young people need, to learn to read these texts, differ from the skills they need for reading continuous prose."

Teachers gave the move a cautious welcome but repeated the message that mobile phones should remain switched off in school to counter cyber-bullying.

David Eaglesham, the general secretary of the Scottish Secondary Teachers' Association, said: "Even if they had to have their phones on in a class they should have to switch them off before the next class.

"I have always said there was no need to have a mobile on in the classroom."

However, he accepted there was room for modern technology in literacy lessons.

Mr Eaglesham said: "Language moves on and there is no point teaching Chaucerian English – we need to move on to the way language is used today.

"But a pupil should never be allowed to make the excuse for having his phone on in class that he is practising his language."

A spokesman for the Educational Institute of Scotland union said new technology would help make learning more relevant, as many pupils were extremely comfortable with communicating in this way.

He said: "However, it will remain very important to emphasise to pupils where and when it is appropriate to use both informal and more formal forms of language and communication."

Negative views of technology need to be overcome

PUPILS using mobile phones in her class doesn't worry Sharon Tonner, a teacher at Dundee High Junior School.

She believes they can be a powerful educational tool, despite concern over their use by some pupils to film playground fights or to post illicit pictures of staff on the internet.

Where some schools have banned pupils from switching phones on or even bringing them in at all, Ms Tonner is trying to turn round this anti-mobile culture.

As the school's first information and communication technology specialist, she teaches primary sevens to use Bluetooth and the camera, video and voice recorder functions, and says other teachers could use these too.

She said: "They can use the voice recorders for French, for example. Normally when children have to learn words when they get home they can't remember how to say them.

"But the teacher could Bluetooth recordings of how to pronounce words. They would be able to look at the words and hear them at the same time so they should learn them more quickly."

She accepted many teachers would rather not see mobiles in school at all.

She said: "They still do see mobile phones and computers negatively because of cyber-bullying, but teachers have to embrace what the children are using. Five years ago when they put computers in classrooms many teachers wouldn't touch them."

And she predicted: "Within ten years we will be using mobile phones and hand-held computers to help pupils with their school work."

The EIS teaching union last year advised phones should be either banned or switched off during the school day.