Evolution of the Internet

When the internet came into widespread use in the mid 1990’s, it was seen primarily as a tool for searching out and downloading information. Research was exciting, interesting and seemed unlimited.

More recent evolutions have seen a tremendous boom in social networking sites such as Myspace, Twitter and Facebook. With the increased popularity in blogging, the value and use of the world-wide-web has increased exponentially. Even individuals with minimal digital literacy skills have the opportunity to contribute to the literary world in much more than simple text format. Many young children know how to upload text, photos, and videos, along with downloading of information for work, school and entertainment purposes. Publishing your work is as easy as pressing the send button on your computer. Perhaps shocking to publishers, the largest encyclopedia in the world, Wikipedia, is entirely user generated and is continuously being vetted and added to by its users. The skills required to use and contribute to the web have become more and more commonplace and necessary to compete in the global workplace.

Another exciting advance has occurred in the last few years with the advent of software that trains information to find the user. In his book Redefining Literary 2.0, David Warlick describes a protocol called RSS. RSS stands for Rich Site Summary. This innovation works very cleverly in conjunction with small programs called Feed Aggregators. These two programs work in combination to scan web sites favored by the user. They are able to search out useful information and recent posts. If for example I hold a YouTube account. Based on previous videos I have searched for and watched the website’s software develops a list of videos I might be interested in. Every time I log on, I am informed of new information available in specific topics of my choosing. Facebook, eBay and many others have begun to implement this technology into their websites .The RSS button has become commonplace on major websites.

Traditional literacy referred to the ability to read and write. Sometimes numeracy (working with numbers) was included in that definition. Today, the skills required to be truly literate include not only reading, writing and arithmetic, but more importantly the ability to thoughtfully search out, manipulate and contribute to information in today’s ever-changing digital world.

ASCII Art

ASCII (as-kee) is the acronym for American Standard Code for Information Interchange. ASCII is one of the first digital representations of the English alphabet and incorporates letters, symbols and punctuation. Used on some of the first computers and communications equipment, it was invented by Bell and designed in the early ‘60s for teleprinters (electromechanical typewriters). While most modern “computerized alphabets” are still based on ASCII, they now support many more characters.

ASCII art has been around for decades. Some of the oldest examples from the ‘60s are the creations of Kenneth Knowlton who was working for Bell Labs. One of the main reasons why ASCII art came to be was that early printers lacked the ability to print pictures so characters were used in the place of graphics. ASCII art was born.

The first known example of characters used as an image in this same fashion was in 1867 when Flora Stacey used her typewriter to make a picture of a butterfly.

I couldn’t get examples directly on this blog due to the way this website text is formatted but I can post a link.

http://images.google.ca/images?hl=en&source=hp&q=ascii+art&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=2sJhS9nNGIqsNtC3pMcB&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=4&ved=0CCoQsAQwAw

The Myth of Digital Literacy

Is Digital literacy destroying or enhancing students’ ability to read and write? Andrea Lunsford, Alice Robinson, Nicole Pickard, and Mark Federman debated this issue on the television program “The Agenda” found on this website: http://www.tvo.org/cfmx/tvoorg/theagenda/index.cfm?page_id=7&bpn=779626&ts=2009-10-01%2020:00:00.0

E-mail, twitter, face book and blogs is changing today’s literary world. Students are writing more than ever. Many students are writing on a daily basis in an informal setting. College professors feel that because of digital literacy, students are coming to college less prepared to write formal essays. They feel that students’ literacy is suffering. Is this true? According to Andrea Lunsford, students are coming to college and university better prepared, with better reading and writing abilities. She points out that students’ literacy levels for the first time in 10 years is improving. She attributes these improvements to students using their computers to write daily.

Daft Hands

DAFT HANDS

A great representation of Non linear literacy is Fr. Eckle Studios; Daft hands. A recreation of Daft Punk's Harder, Faster, Stronger, which was make popular in 2007 - 2008.

Daft Punk is a music duo from France that has popularized electronic dance music in Europe and North America. Catchy, and repetitive tag lines have made their music simple, yet engaging. Their medium is not over saturated; they are able to convey their message through in a song that can appear so simple in the beginning, but has so much more within its undertones.

Daft Punk received two grammy awards; Best Dance recording Harder, Faster, Stronger (Alive, 2007) and Best Dance Album: Alive, 2007

In June, 2007 Fr. Eckle Studios released an adaptation of Harder, Faster, Stronger Called Daft Hands; the YouTube Video shows a non linear method of the songs lyrics, expressed on the hands of the video's creator. This video has received over 36 Million views to date.