Applying novel theoretical perspectives to key current topics, this book aims to rethink and redefine our understanding of digital literacy. Guy Merchant underscores the pressing need to look critically at the impacts and complexities of new aspects of digital communication as it has become increasingly significant in modern life.In this cutting-edge book, Merchant explores how digital literacy has become an integral part of everyday work and leisure, used for official, unofficial,...

Writing surrounds us, it informs us, it guides us, and it controls us. The power and complexity of this exceptional human invention is a story of change. However, in today's digital world, technology has drastically altered how and where we write, what we write about, and what writing looks like. This fascinating book presents a compelling argument for the vital importance of writing, and considers where its future may lie. Richly illustrated with examples of writing practices old and new,...

First Published in 2000. Over the last 30 years, growth in the popularity and provision of books for children has been remarkable. The quality and inventiveness of children's authors and illustrators have led some to think of the picture book as a new art form. This book is a celebration of some of this work and it concentrates on the potential that picture books have for the teaching and learning of literacy. The aim of this book is to encourage colleagues to take a closer look at some of...

Undoing the Digital challenges common ways of understanding digital technology and its relationships to literacy and literacy education. The book explores how a sociomaterial perspective can provide an alternative analysis of literacy in the context of digital communication.Introducing a series of conceptual tools and examples,the book examines digital communication as an emergent interweaving of social, material and semiotic resources. The perspective invites literacy research to ...

‘This an exciting publication that offers authentic approaches for educators to meet challenges of the literacy that students need in our evolving digital landscape.’Maureen Walsh, Adjunct Professor, Australian Catholic University and Honorary Professor, The University of Sydney‘In this significant new text, Cathy Burnett and Guy Merchant foreground the affective, embodied and emergent nature of making meaning with new media.’Teresa Cremin, The Open University

The growth of interest in virtual worlds and other online spaces for children and young people raises important issues for literacy educators and researchers. This book is a timely and much-needed collection of current research in the area. It provides a synthesis of knowledge and understanding and will be a key resource for scholars, students and teachers, particularly those interested in digital literacies. The work presents a coherent vision of current knowledge, and some of the most en...

This book brings together an international group of literacy studies scholars who have investigated mobile literacies in a variety of educational settings. Approaching mobility from diverse theoretical perspectives, the book makes a significant contribution to how mobile literacies, and tablets in particular, are being conceptualised in literacy research. The book focuses on tablets, and particularly the iPad, as a prime example of mobile literacies, setting this within the broader context...

Social Networking: Redefining Communication in the Digital Age fulfills a pressing demand in social network literature by bringing together international experts from the fields of communication, new media technologies, marketing and advertising, public relations and journalism, business, and education.In this volume contributors traces online social networking practices across national borders, cultural confines, and geographic limits. The book delves into the socioeconomic, polit...

This book offers practical guidance for teachers using the National Literacy Strategy at Key Stages 1 and 2, based on the six categories of non-fiction outlined in the Strategy. It gives an accessible introduction to the features of each of these text types.Many teachers now feel confident in working with fiction and poetry, whereas the non-fiction objectives have been more challenging. The book includes new subject knowledge, such as understanding the linguistic features of differ...

What happens when a small group of educators get together? What could they do, what could they make, what could they become? Not necessarily what you might think. This book describes an alternate journey, one that departs from the busy traffic of goal-oriented projects, over-determined aims, and the doorstep delivery of interventions in order to wander reflectively across a more expansive landscape. We came together to record the successes and failures of a small research project, witnessi...

This book puts forward an authenticity-centred approach to the design of materials for language learning. The premise of the approach is that language learning should be based on authentic materials drawn from a variety of genres found in the target language culture, and that the learning tasks involving these materials should be correspondingly authentic, by entailing interactions that are consistent with the original communicative purpose of the authentic text. It provides both a theoret...

Lessons from Nothing is an invaluable resource for busy teachers everywhere who are looking for easy-to-use activities that do not require extensive facilities or preparation. It is a practical source of around 70 language teaching activities that encourage interaction and co-operation in the classroom. Special features: * activities for immediate use * activities for all ages and levels * clear presentation * no photocopying required.