Examining literate lives as students engage with multiple literacies

Our conception of the new literacies (those associated with digital technologies and multimodal representations) is grounded in an understanding of multiple literacies as social practices. Based on our observations of students in supportive classroom environments, individuals and groups afforded opportunity to engage as teams with digital literacies learn an array of new ways to explore and share ideas. These individuals are able to contribute together and separately to enhanced explorations of their worlds with new and dynamic genres that afford an image-enhanced, complex layering of concepts, as well as the means for rich explorations, exchanges of ideas, and problem-solving. Depending upon how these new literacies are introduced/situated, they can make a significant contribution to shifts in the lives of individuals and groups politically, economically, and socially. The paradox is that schools may not support the transition of these new literacies to school settings in ways consistent with their potential.